Political Considerations
People in technology careers sometimes have great difficulty in dealing with the politics present within their organization. Most technical people pride themselves in having logical thought processes and often view politically motivated decision making as
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Political Considerations People in technology careers sometimes have great difficulty in dealing with the politics present within their organization. Most technical people pride themselves in having logical thought processes and often view politically motivated decision making as anything but logical. However, there is often a great deal of logic applied to political decisions, though the motivation behind the logic is foreign to the way in which many technical people are motivated. For example, I have encountered many technical people who believe that promotions and compensation rewards should only be based on demonstrable skills and on their performance in delivering projects that meet or exceed design requirements. There can be other factors underlying how such promotion and compensation decisions are made. Where political motivations are behind decisions, the selection of individuals for recognition and promotions can be viewed by managers as an opportunity to enhance their own reputation in the eyes of their management. The manager making this decision might be more concerned about the risk of looking incompetent if they make what could be viewed by their management as a “bad” promotion. The manager might believe that they can improve their chances of personal advancement by making a promotion that a consensus will view as “good” and might © Robert Stackowiak 2019 R. Stackowiak, Remaining Relevant in Your Tech Career, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-3703-8_3
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Chapter 3
Political Considerations
lean toward a safer choice. Promotions and appointments are sometimes decided in favor of employees who fit into senior management views of the “right” employee profile and whom they want to groom for advancement. Our goal in this chapter is to help you understand and navigate the politics in your working environment. While this subject might be distasteful to you, we hope that in reading this chapter you will come to better understand your situation and some of the techniques that you might use to advance your career. We’ll discuss the following topics in this chapter: •
Identifying an insider network
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Expanding your networks
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Other steps you can take
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Signs you should move on
Understanding the political footprint of an organization is something you need to do, whether in your current organization or when moving to a new job. We’ll begin our discussion by providing guidance regarding how to identify insider networks present in organizations and companies.
Identifying an Insider Network Insider networks exist at every large company where I have worked. Companies where employees tend to stay for many years (or even decades) often have the most widely established insider networks. Large groups of people in such organizations adopted the company culture present when they were hired and grew up in it together. Family relationships can also play a role in who is politically connected at some companies. Management will sometimes bring into an organization people who reliably delivered solutions to th
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