Social Capital and Corporate Politics

Joe,

One of the challenges I face frequently in my role as an HR leader is rallying support and organizational buy-in for big HR change initiatives. At the beginning of this year, my company made a major change in our employee health benefits plan. The process of getting the buy-in to make that move was much more complex than simply creating a proposal and presenting it for approval. As anyone will tell you who's gone through this kind of process, it's always more complicated to get approvals for a change initiative than it would seem because people make decisions for a lot of different reasons and not all of those reasons are rational. To navigate through these processes successfully, the social capital you have available to you in the form of key relationships and trust is critical.

I'm going to propose the following categories of people who are key players in the politics of decision making within organizations. To be successful in driving change organizationally, it's important to know who these people are in your organizations and establish a relationship with them. So, here are the players:

The Don. As in the mafia, there is generally one (maybe more) person who all decisions ultimately go through. They may not dictate any projects get approved, but they generally have no qualms about squashing one. In most cases, it's the CEO but I can also be a CFO or another powerful executive. The challenge with the Don is that they may not overtly make decisions but generally everyone knows that nothing moves forward without their blessing. This relationship can be a tough one to establish, but once you have it, running concepts by this person early in the process can save you a lot of time and anguish.

The Inner Circle. These people are generally those who have positions of great power organizationally due to the nature of the business and the preferences of the CEO. If you are in an operationally driven organization, the senior person or people in Operations likely yield a lot of influence on what gets done because no one wants to upset the machine that produces all the revenue. Likewise, in a sales driven organization, it's the sales leaders, etc. In many organizations, the CFO is of the inner circle because they are deemed to be the person in charge of pursestrings. They often wield a lot of power relative to what projects get resources and what projects don't. In my experience, these people are fairly easy to identify because they are typically pretty visible and their departments get talked about a lot. Don't make the mistake of assuming that because an individual is a member of senior leadership that they are in the inner circle, because that is not always the case. As an HR leader, it is critical that you establish relationships with these people because nothing gets done without their support.

The Influencers. There are people throughout the organization who are very smart, capable leaders who get called on to provide opinions and insights by senior leaders. These people may not be around the executive table when a decision is being formally rendered, but they have likely played a key role in influencing what decision is being made. In my experience, these people have been the Director of Finance, VP Marketing, the sales person who manages the largest customers, etc. Pay attention in corporate meetings, these folks will be called upon for opinions and thoughts. Also, ask your peers who has the most influence on decisions and quickly a list emerge of the people you need to know.

The Loose Cannons. In every organization, there are also people who may not be established as influencers, but who have big enough leadership roles in the organization to have a voice with senior leadership. The Loose Canons among that group are those who want to have their voice heard in every situation, whether they have anything of value to say or not. While they are not likely to help you get approval for your project, if they don't like the idea, they can get really noisy and defiant against it which might hurt your chances for approval. The key with the Loose Canon is to have a relationship so that you can keep them in the loop in the decision making process. If they feel like you are honoring them in your process, they are much less likely to stand in the way of your project.

This isn't an exhaustive list of all the players in the internal politics of corporate decision making, but I think that if you identify these people and work to establish relationships with them, you will amass some powerful social capital to assist in making things happen as an HR leader.

-Jason

Still More on Politics and Culture

Joe,

Are you trying to tell me that my ideas aren't all solid gold? :-)

I wish that I could fervently disagree with your points regarding politics and that an organization free of politics should be the goal. I'm afraid that I may be getting jaded by too many years in corporate HR and have adopted a pragmatic perspective of embracing politics as a way to facilitate change rather than railing against their existence.

On a daily basis, I think many of us are faced with the prospect of how to be less political and bring more transparency and authenticity to our work while balancing the risks that accompany that choice. Fortunately, I find myself in a situation to influence corporate culture in a significant way due to my role, but that doesn't make this balancing act any less complicated.

Good debate. I'm glad that we found a topic that we could dig our teeth into.

Jason

More on Politics and Culture

Jason-

Hmmm. I am still not sure if this is primarily a difference rooted in how we define politics or if there is something larger here. I agree that politics are a component or an element of an organizations culture, but I do not think that politics are a necessary component and I do not think that politics is a positive component. I totally agree that you can use politics to accomplish positive things, but that does not make politics a positive thing or even a necessary evil. We make choices that allow politics to flourish and drive behavior in our organizations,or we make choices to keep politics in check.

In my opinion, the more politics exist in an organization the less honesty there is. I see organizational politics existing (in the place of honesty) in order to protect the distribution of power in an organization. In most organizations the top-down organizational structure concentrates all power at the top and creates a false ideal of perfection rooted in proximity to the top of the heap. People are right based on who they are (title), rather than on the value of their ideas or decisions or their competency...the degree to which this is true can vary greatly from organization to another. Never a good thing.

For example, there are employees today in your organization that will not question or challenge your decisions because of your title. That may not have anything to do with you or your behaviors, but is likely about the amount and nature of politics that exist in your organization. So, rather than question or challenge you on a decision or an idea that might be really misinformed, employees with better ideas have to find political ways to maneuver you toward the right line of thinking. You may eventually end up with the best outcome, but there has been a real waste of energy and effort...because of politics. Everyone involved (and the organization) would have been better off with honesty and transparency, rather than the political approach.

I think that politics are a naturally occurring phenomenon that emerge from culture, but that does not mean that politics are good or that we should just accept them. The more politics we accept the less we are comfortable with honesty...that is why this issue is so strongly correlated with the leadership in an organization because it is the leaders that decide how much honesty is acceptable. The gaps are filled in with politics.

Organizations that understand and value shared and distributed power, that understand and value innovation and engagement, that are inclusive and truly in partnership with their workforce and the customers also treasure honesty. It is in those organizations that you will find the least amount of politics.

-joe

Politics and Culture

Joe,

Your post hit on one of the things I find most interesting about the concept of politics. It was very clear to me, if I read your comments correctly, that you consider all corporate politics to be a negative aspect of company culture. And moreso, that our goal should be to drive politics out of our organizations. In my definition, I don't think of politics as a uniquely good or bad thing, but rather as something that exists within organizations. Much like culture, politics can be positive or negative depending on the organization and the people involved.

As to the difference between politics and culture, I would suggest that politics is an element of culture. By my definition, corporate politics is the strategic and tactical understanding of the power and decision strucuture of the organization and the application of that understanding towards accomplishing a change agenda. You can apply politics towards something positive like getting approval for a new succession planning process. But, it can also be applied towards selfish agendas of personal gain or power grabs. Similar to what I would say about Washington politics, it's not the politics itself that's bad but instead the people and their motives that give it a bad name.

I do agree with you that politics today probalby does more harm than good within organizations because too many people apply politics to blatant self-promotion. But, I will also argue that if you are are to be successful within any organization, you must understand the politics of that organization and how to navigate that political realm if you hope to be successful in driving any significant change. The irony is that one would have to know how to "play" politics in order to change how the politics work.

Jason

Politics vs. Culture

Jason-

I have been struggling with this issue a bit and I think that it is a difference of language. You define politics as the unspoken way things get done at work, and I think that is how I would define organizational culture, with politics being one component of culture. I believe that it is a very common component, but I also believe that it is an optional component.

It may not be easy to do away with politics, because we have bought into the idea that it is just part of business, but I do believe it can be done and I think that there are organizations doing some really good work in this direction, with relentless focus on transparency, authenticity, and other characteristics that make less room for politics.

The truth is that politics, as I understand politics, makes already complex dynamics increasingly and unnecessarily complicated. Politics as I understand them are a waste of valuable resources (such as time, attention, trust, etc.).

I think that your five rules can help people be successful, but I do not necessarily think that means or requires that they playing politics. We might be viewing / defining politics differently… could you share a few comments on how you would define politics vs. organizational culture?

-joe