
An elephant family drinking, Samburu National Reserve Kenya. Elephants — the real ones, that is — live in family groups consisting of (usually related) females and their juvenile and adolescent offspring. When males reach the age of 12-17, they depart for a relatively solitary life, though some bachelors do hang together for periods of time.
Metaphorical elephants also travel in families. An organization that can tolerate one elephant will often find ways to tolerate several at once, and sometimes those elephants are related, in that they tend to group around related issues. This is actually a good thing, because it means that if a group can resolve one of its elephants, it might have just what it needs to resolve others. Photo courtesy Richard Muller.
The elephant in the room is the unstated, unaddressed issue that everyone tiptoes around. A healthy team or group doesn't let elephants wander around for long, because even a baby elephant takes up too much space, and consumes too much of the team's resources. And like real elephants, the older they get, the more expensive is their upkeep.
If we suspect the presence of elephants, we want to hunt them down, and either terminate them or shoo them away, but we must track them first. Here's Part I of a collection of indicators that elephants might be lurking about. This part emphasizes personal interactions and behavior.
- You're beyond careful — you're guarded
- You take care with what you say and how you say it, but sometimes the care required is so burdensome that entire subjects are off limits.
- Important topics are discussible with only a limited set of confidants
- You can discuss certain topics with trusted confidants, but with certain others, you can never discuss them — especially those with power.
- Keeping silent
- In meetings, real or virtual, you keep silent about some topics, or you see someone else keep silent about something you know they know about.
- You (or someone else) has asked a sympathetic leader for a private chat
- You or someone you know has confided in a sympathetic leader or manager about goings-on you can't discuss with the appropriate manager. The need to seek assistance elsewhere is evidence that something can't be discussed in the appropriate venue.
- You've been told directly to stop talking about something
- Your boss or a peer has advised you to stop raising a specific issue, "for your own good." Probably you aren't the first person to have received such advice. This advice can be a form of elephant-hiding thicket maintenance.
- Too-vigorous elephant denial
- You suspect the presence of an elepIf we suspect the presence of
elephants, we want to hunt
them down, but we must
track them firsthant, and you've tried to confirm your suspicion with peers. They vigorously denied the possibility — too vigorously. - Eye-locking
- A, B, C, and possibly others, are in conversation. A speaks, and the eyes of B and C lock together, without a word spoken. B and C dare not speak openly, but they feel the need to communicate, by eye, "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
- Sudden skidding stops or swerves
- You're engaged in conversation with another or others, talking quietly together about one elephant or another, when someone passes by or enters the room. Suddenly, halting possibly in mid-word, the speaker makes a quick shift to an innocent topic, giving the passerby the impression that the conversation was about that new topic. Your partners in conversation give no visible sign of recognizing the non sequitur.
In Part II, we'll examine some organizational indicators of elephants in the room. Next in this series Top
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For a discussion of the connection between "the elephant in the room" and confirmation bias, see "Confirmation Bias: Workplace Consequences Part I," Point Lookout for November 23, 2011.
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Related articles
More articles on Workplace Politics:
Responding to Threats: I
- Threats are one form of communication common to many organizational cultures, especially as pressure
mounts. Understanding the varieties of threats can be helpful in determining a response that fits for you.
Animosity Patterns
- Animosity between two people at work is often attributed to "personality clashes." While sometimes
people can't get along, animosity can also be a tool for accomplishing strictly political ends. Here's
a short catalog of some of its uses.
What Insubordinate Nonsubordinates Want: II
- When you're responsible for an organizational function, and someone not reporting to you won't recognize
your authority, or doesn't comply with policies you rightfully established, you have a hard time carrying
out your responsibilities. Why does this happen?
The Politics of the Critical Path: II
- The Critical Path of a project is the sequence of dependent tasks that determine the earliest completion
date of the effort. We don't usually consider tasks that are already complete, but they, too, can experience
the unique politics of the critical path.
When the Answer Isn't the Point: II
- Sometimes, when we ask questions, we're more interested in eliciting behavior from the person questioned,
rather than answers. Here's Part II of a set of techniques questioners use when the answer to the question
wasn't the point of asking.
See also Workplace Politics and Conflict Management for more related articles.
Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout
Coming March 29: Time Slot Recycling: The Risks
- When we can't begin a meeting because some people haven't arrived, we sometimes cancel the meeting and hold a different one, with the people who are in attendance. It might seem like a good way to avoid wasting time, but there are risks. Available here and by RSS on March 29.
And on April 5: The Fallacy of Division
- Errors of reasoning are pervasive in everyday thought in most organizations. One of the more common errors is called the Fallacy of Division, in which we assume that attributes of a class apply to all members of that class. It leads to ridiculous results. Available here and by RSS on April 5.
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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