It's easy to understand how resources become available to projects that are pet projects of people who answer to no one. But most pet projects are nurtured by people who do have supervisors — if not a supervising manager, then at least a Board of Directors. How do these people secure resources for their pets? How can we detect this activity when people we supervise keep pets?
Most nurturers secure resources in one or more of seven basic ways. Here are three methods involving abuse of authority. For methods involving cleverness, see "How Pet Projects Get Resources: Cleverness," Point Lookout for February 9, 2011.
- Flagrant violation of policy
- It seems almost suicidal, but some nurturers simply violate organizational policy or the expectations of superiors. One wonders how they get away with it, but sometimes they do, at least for a time.
- Detecting this tactic requires monitoring resource use, but we sometimes forget that monitoring anything at all takes resources. If you establish a policy about resource use, ensure that there are enough resources to monitor compliance.
- Political coercion
- Nurturers sometimes use coercion to extract resources for their pets. For instance, they might exact retribution when a subordinate objects to the allocation of resources to the pet. Others observing the price paid by the objector then learn not to object. More insidiously, nurturers might coerce silence or cooperation from those responsible for monitoring compliance with organizational policy.
- This tactic becomes clear when it's repeated often enough for the observing supervisor to notice a pattern. It is therefore most effective in environments with significant turnover in supervisory positions, because no one is in place long enough to notice a pattern. The tactic is also effective in environments in which contractors comprise a significant fraction of subordinates, or when most work is carried out virtually, because contractors or people at remote sites are generally less aware of the goings-on.
- Abuse of power
- Nurturers might Political coercion is most effective
in environments with significant
turnover in supervisory positionsuse their legitimate authority to supply resources to their pets, claiming that the action is in the interest of the organization. Even if that is so, the decision might still be an abuse of power if the nurturer knows that another choice would likely have been even more helpful to the organization. - Detecting this tactic requires a level of understanding of the nurturer's responsibilities sufficient to support independent evaluation of the nurturer's decisions. In relatively flat organizations, the supervisor of the nurturer might lack the knowledge required for such judgments, or lack time to make them even if he or she has the requisite knowledge. This tactic is therefore of greatest use in flat organizations, or when the nurturer's supervisor is relatively unfamiliar with the nurturer's area of specialization.
Allocating resources to pet projects might not entail abuse of authority. Other methods can be consistent with organizational policy, or at least, benign. They are the topic for next time. First in this series Next in this series Top Next Issue
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Related articles
More articles on Workplace Politics:
- Scopemonging: When Scope Creep Is Intentional
- Scope creep is the tendency of some projects to expand their goals. Usually, we think of scope creep
as an unintended consequence of a series of well-intentioned choices. But sometimes, it's much more than that.
- Political Framing: Communications
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by offering interpretations of their actions to knowingly and falsely make them seem responsible for
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- Preventing Spontaneous Collapse of Agreements
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Sometimes agreements collapse spontaneously. When they do, the consequences can be costly. An understanding
of the mechanisms of spontaneous collapse of agreements can help us craft more stable agreements.
- Passive Deceptions at Work
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and the most difficult to detect. Here's a look at how passive camouflage can play a role in workplace
deception.
- Virtual Interviews: II
- The pandemic has made face-to-face job interviews less important. And so we must now also master virtual
interviews, and that requires understanding the effects of the attendance list, video presence, and
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See also Workplace Politics and Managing Your Boss for more related articles.
Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout
- Coming April 3: Recapping Factioned Meetings
- A factioned meeting is one in which participants identify more closely with their factions, rather than with the meeting as a whole. Agreements reached in such meetings are at risk of instability as participants maneuver for advantage after the meeting. Available here and by RSS on April 3.
- And on April 10: Managing Dunning-Kruger Risk
- A cognitive bias called the Dunning-Kruger Effect can create risk for organizational missions that require expertise beyond the range of knowledge and experience of decision-makers. They might misjudge the organization's capacity to execute the mission successfully. They might even be unaware of the risk of so misjudging. Available here and by RSS on April 10.
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