When you're responsible for a task in the critical path of an effort, you can be subject to scrutiny and pressure that others are not. Preparing yourself for this environment helps in two ways. First, you'll perform better. More important though, political operators are more likely to leave you alone if they believe that you're prepared and able to deal with political tactics. So let's get prepared.
There are different ways to be in the critical path. Your task can be waiting, unable to begin or suspended, because it depends on other tasks not yet complete, or is waiting for something else not yet available. Or it can be already completed, having delivered something essential to another task that is in the critical path. These different states give rise to different politics.
In this issue, we examine what happens when a task is waiting for a resource, information, or a critical piece of infrastructure. In three weeks, we'll look at what can happen to completed tasks.
A task might be in a wait state for a variety of reasons. Some examples:
- It depends on a deliverable from a previous task, and that task isn't yet complete
- It needs the assistance of someone who isn't yet available
- It needs some other unavailable resource
- It needs information from a previous task, or a vendor, and that information isn't available.
Even if the task is unable to begin work, it's susceptible to pressure tactics.
- Waiting for a deliverable or for information
- If the task needs a deliverable from another task, or information not yet available, you might hear, "Assuming that they will give you result X, can't you start building from there? Then if they give you something different, you can always change it."
- Cooperating is risky unless the item in question is absolutely predictable. Usually it's not predictable — it might be very different from what was expected. If that happens, "you can always change it" could become a very expensive and time-consuming strategy.
- Waiting for people or access to resources
- If lack of access Even if a task is
unable to begin work,
it's susceptible to
pressure tacticsto specific resources is the issue, political pressure usually takes the form of insistence on the equivalence of some alternate resource: "Use this/him/her instead." Rarely are the substitutes actually sufficient. - Accepting the substitute is usually unwise. If the substitute is a less experienced or less skilled person, the result can actually be negative progress.
To respond to these pressures effectively, demonstrate with plausible projections the real risks of using the suggested tactics. Then request appropriate contingency reserves to cover those risks. The size of those reserves might not persuade those exerting pressure to relent, but you will have achieved some level of political protection by making a solid case for a more prudent course.
In three weeks, we'll examine the fate of tasks that are already complete. Top Next Issue
Is every other day a tense, anxious, angry misery as you watch people around you, who couldn't even think their way through a game of Jacks, win at workplace politics and steal the credit and glory for just about everyone's best work including yours? Read 303 Secrets of Workplace Politics, filled with tips and techniques for succeeding in workplace politics. More info
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Related articles
More articles on Workplace Politics:
- Devious Political Tactics: Divide and Conquer, Part I
- While most leaders try to achieve organizational unity, some do use divisive tactics to maintain control,
or to elevate performance by fostering competition. Understanding the risks of these tactics can motivate
you to find another way.
- How to Undermine Your Boss
- Ever since I wrote "How to Undermine Your Subordinates," I've received scads of requests for
"How to Undermine Your Boss." Must be a lot of unhappy subordinates out there. Well, this
one's for you.
- Pariah Professions: II
- In some organizations entire professions are regarded as pariahs — outsiders. They're expected
to perform functions that the organization does need, but their relationships with others in the organization
are strained at best. When pariahdom is tolerated, organizational performance suffers.
- Bottlenecks: II
- When some people take on so much work that they become "bottlenecks," they expose the organization
to risks. Managing those risks is a first step to ending the bottlenecking pattern.
- Bad Trouble: Coping strategies
- When Bad Trouble develops at work people make choices about coping. If they cope constructively, they
have choices about how to do that. Even those who don't cope constructively have choices. Here's a survey
of the wide range of choices people make.
See also Workplace Politics and Project Management for more related articles.
Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout
- Coming May 15: Should I Write or Should I Call?
- After we recognize the need to contact a colleague or colleagues to work out a way to move forward, we next must decide how to make contact. Phone? Videoconference? Text message? There are some simple criteria that can help with such decisions. Available here and by RSS on May 15.
- And on May 22: Rescheduling Collaborative Work
- Rescheduling is what we do when the schedule we have now is so desperately unachievable that we must let go of it because when we look at it we can no longer decide whether to laugh or cry. The fear is that the new schedule might come to the same end. Available here and by RSS on May 22.
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Beware any resource that speaks of "winning" at workplace politics or "defeating" it. You can benefit or not, but there is no score-keeping, and it isn't a game.
- Wikipedia has a nice article with a list of additional resources
- Some public libraries offer collections. Here's an example from Saskatoon.
- Check my own links collection
- LinkedIn's Office Politics discussion group