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> If you’ve ever wondered why in a certain discussion someone “came around” or magically the entire room was in support, either that person or their boss worked
by toyg 4y ago
> If you’ve ever wondered why in a certain discussion someone “came around” or magically the entire room was in support, either that person or their boss worked it out prior to the meeting.
This is old-school political practice: when it comes to taking decisions, you should go into meetings only if you know in advance what their outcomes will be. Going blind is a defeat in itself.
> Hey, remember when I helped you with the thing? I need you to help me with
Trading favours is an invaluable skill. A lot of people do favours for free and feel petty if they remind others at later date; figuring out a way to do it in a pretty neutral way, will help you a lot. Typically it's just about figuring out that it's not personal. For a great intro to the practice, the character of Rawls in The Wire is a decent model.
- mikehollinger 4y agoLove the Wire : Rawls I think is a great character because he twists the premise. There’s a corollary (I edited my post to make it explicit): all actions should be in the organizations interest. He doesn’t subscribe to that.
- treis 4y agoI'd argue that Rawls more than anyone understands the true purpose of his unit and later the BPD. Ultimately, the BPD works for the mayor and its job is to make the mayor look good. You can see that in how he handles the bodies in the vacants or Hamsterdam. Same thing when he was in homicide. He fights to keep murders off the city's books and clear the ones he can't avoid. Anyways, great show with IMHO some great lessons about dysfunctional organizations.
- chasd00 4y ago> ..you should go into meetings only if you know in advance what their outcomes will be. Going blind is a defeat in itself. yep. If you find yourself in a fair fight it's time to re-think your strategy.
- jdbernard 4y agoI don't know. While I'm not completely against the points the OP is making, something about this statement "you should go into meetings only if you know in advance what their outcomes will be," really rubs me wrong. In my view, in a healthy organization, the meeting itself should be a point of collaboration. Otherwise it's a waste of time. This culture of behind-the-scenes-go-betweens also creates a lot of opportunity for opacity and malicious miscommunication (deceit). Meetings are not the only collaboration point, probably not even the most effective. OP's advice is good advice for increasing communication and building consensus leading up to a meeting, especially if done with an eye towards transparency, as I assume they intend. Ideally you're able to get everyone aligned beforehand and can cancel the meeting. But if someone walks into a meeting blindsided by a predetermined outcome, that's a red flag that you've created an adversarial environment rather than a collaborative one. If a colleague is important enough to be in the meeting then their opinion is an important enough to affect the meeting.
- qsort 4y agoI don't think many would say it's how the world ought to work, but it definitely is how the world does work. The coordination problem just gets intractable at a certain scale.
- jdbernard 4y agoWell, it's a choice that we get to make by shaping our own work environments. The more senior we get, the more impact we have to shape the culture of our workplaces. In my experience technical contributors underestimate the amount of leverage they have to impact these kinds of cultural matters. We often think about the power we have to leave, but we don't use that power to change, or we assume that the organization wouldn't value our input without any attempt to validate that assumption. I have found it valuable in my own career to be more vocal about the kind of organization I want to be in, the kind of team dynamics and politics we choose to enable, etc. I wish I had done so sooner. The intractability of the coordination problem at scale is the reason the original article is valuable. At scale, you do need management that focuses the majority of their time on the overall coordination of the work in order to protect the time of those doing the work. Because of that scale you can't involve everyone in every conversation. So you start needing to have conversations that abstract to a higher level, and which cross levels of leadership. Hence "How to present to executives" But even as a company grows, it can choose to maintain a culture of collaboration and transparency, even if the practices that enable them have to change to adapt to the larger scale.
- jimmySixDOF 4y agoIn Japan, there is a concept of Nemawashi, which is the building of consensus privately in advance of any public conversations to avoid the appearance of disagreement or uncertainty. Not condoning the practice but there are some settings where you should only ask questions if you are already sure of the answer you will get.
- letitbeirie 4y ago> some settings where you should only ask questions if you are already sure of the answer you will get "In open court" is one of those settings that springs to mind
- antognini 4y agoBy contrast in California this is explicitly forbidden under the Brown Act. State and local political officials are not allowed to communicate privately with enough members of a legislative body to form a quorum.
- Terretta 4y agoDoes anyone think that law is respected?
- metadat 4y agoThis sounds wonderful in theory. How often does this get exposed and enforced in real life?
- antognini 4y agoBrown Act violations do get exposed every so often and usually result in the action that was being discussed getting reversed. Its most commonly violated by city council members because city councils are usually small, so it's very easy to violate accidentally. Say you have a five member city council. Council member A emails council member B to get their thoughts on an upcoming item. Then a few days later council member B emails council member C to ask a question about that item. That's a Brown Act violation.
- matheusmoreira 4y ago> the character of Rawls in The Wire is a decent model But everyone hates that guy... I think Vito Corleone is a better example of a person who understands the nature of trading favors.
- bsedlm 4y agoI had this idea that now with all them blockchains, eventually favors will be tracked and traded like any commodity using a blockchain. in essence, this is just tracking all that is exchanged using technologies. on one hand, a lot of corruption happens over personal favors between powerful individuals. which makes me think this kind of thing will never take off. this is part of a larger half-baked idea I had about anybody anywhere being able to 'emit credit'. doing a favor being a way to cash in on their emited credit.. or something like that.
- outworlder 4y agoFavors not being 'visible' or 'tracked' is the _whole point_ If everyone knew who owned favors to whom, they would be able to maneuver around.