Office politics Archives - Soft Skills

First 90 Days at Work – Focus on These 4Cs to Ramp Up Quickly

by Lei Han

Last week, I wrote that we should achieve these 5 goals in the first 90 days at work. Today, I want to provide you tips on how to best achieve the first of the five goal – Ramp up quickly. I came up with this 4Cs framework since I am currently 2 weeks into my new job as well. It is helping me keep in mind all the aspects I need to understand in a new organization and new job. I hope this can help you as well. ... read more

How to Deal with Office Politics – 5 Tips

by Lei Han

“Office Politics” is often thought as a nasty phrase – something to avoid, but the fact of the matter is as long as you work with other people in a company, office politics exist. See my article on “Should I leverage Office Politics to Further My Career” to understand more.

How you deal with office politics can have a great impact on your job success at a company. Early in my career, I was burnt by office politics. In my first job at McKinsey I was blamed for something I didn’t do, and ended up with a bad project review. The Manager who blamed me was up for promotion and had great relationships with key partners in the office. He needed a scapegoat for a major client complaint. I was an easy target as I was junior, and no one knew enough about my work. I protested; but without concrete evidence, his words meant more than mine. ... read more

Working with an Incompetent Colleague – When and How to Escalate

by Lei Han

I was agonizing about what to do for weeks. I have dealt with incompetent co-workers before. Most of the time, I can make up for their incompetence fairly easily or at least work around it and not be affected. Not this time. This time, this colleague is a key partner to my work. If she or her team is not doing their job to the highest quality, neither I nor my team nor my program can be successful. ... read more

How to Handle Office Gossip

by Lei Han

Question: I joined this software company before a year and was put on a live project immediately. I had to undergo training from one of the team members before i could start working. I looked at this as an opportunity to know more about project. So as i got to know about technology, the team mate started expressing his views about other team members i.e. developers, in how they would pressurize you to work and some other negative aspects. I was sort of concerned now and formed a negative impression about the people on this project. So i made a decision to keep distance with them. Soon it was shocking to see that the team member who told me all these was himself mingling with rest of the team as if all were in good sync. I could not get out of the negative impression i formed initially and so i always felt a bit wary when relating to others.

Same thing happened with another team member who kept complaining to me that developers(other team members) were mean to us and that they were to blame for the faults. However, he became a loyal dog to them (developers) when they asked him to do something. It was as if they were friends and had good understanding with each other. And i was the one left out. I was clearly shocked at this double faced behavior of my co-workers. I would like to know if this type of behavior is common. Also is it me who is stupid in not being able to understand these office behavior?

Thanks for reaching out. I can’t say if this behavior is common or not, but in business I know for a fact there are always people that like to gossip about other people and be double-faced for their own interests. It doesn’t seem to me that you knew well either team members who have been complaining to you. My suggestion are as follows

Steer clear of people who like complain and gossip. You may feel important because they seem to be telling you a secret but by wasting time listening to gossip, you get emotional entangled in what they think about others. As you found out yourself, their biased views can lead you to pre-judge others. This will not help your teamwork skills. Also those who like to gossip to you are also likely to gossip about you. You cannot change who they are, but you can choose to not partake in their gossiping by even listening.

Interact with all your project mates directly with an open mind, and make your own conclusions about their work style and how you feel about working with them. This is always the best solution. Everyone has a different perspective about their work and the people they work with. Form your own opinion based on direct interaction. It is the only way you can learn how to work well with others.

Realize gossip is not the same as the truth. They are just expressing their opinions. Whether they are being double faced or not is less important. You should never have someone else’s opinion completely sway your own. Even when all other’s opinion say the same thing, you should always have direct interactions to make your own conclusions. Otherwise, you can always fall victim to double faced behavior.

Someone Took Credit for Your Work – What to Do

by Lei Han

In the work-place, is it better to ensure you individually are given credit for your work, or that the team benefits from your work?

My team recently submitted a proposal of which I prepared more than 75%. In fact, of the 25% my analyst (who is junior to me) prepared, I had to revise significantly. The final paper was jointly signed by both of us. Our Chief Risk Officer reached out to my analyst commending his great paper, cc:ing my boss. My boss then congratulated the analyst on his great work as well.

I am not sure if I should raise this issue with my boss or just keep the peace. I am up for promotion, and really want to make sure that my work is recognized. I also don’t want to throw the analyst under the bus, despite being annoyed that he didn’t even acknowledge my work. (Yes, I’m a little bitter right now.)

To answer your general question, I would say you need both – ensure you get credit for your work, and that the team benefits from your work; I don’t think it’s mutually exclusive. Often, many of us do great work and hope that people recognize it. Well, it often does not work like that in corporate America. Unfortunately, hard work alone does not guarantee success.

People are busy and may not know your level of contribution unless you figure out a way to tell them tactfully. We all need to learn how to self-promote subtly in order to get the credit we deserve.

To answer your detailed question of whether you should raise this issue with your boss, I wouldn’t recommend doing it directly. Doing so would be awkward, and you will come across as self-serving and as competitive with the Junior staff – neither are good images for you. However, I do believe you have other options to subtly claim credit while “keeping the peace.” Here are some ideas, but you need to decide what works for this situation, as I don’t know all the details.

Reply to the email the Chief Risk Officer sent – You didn’t mention how you knew that the Chief Risk officer sent an email to the Analyst to congratulate him. Assuming you were copied on it, and depending on the tone, you can choose to “reply all” and agree with the CRO that the Analyst did a great job. Mention that you couldn’t have done it without him. This may seem counter-intuitive, but it’s one way to inject yourself into a conversation – but only if you are copied on the email. Indirectly, you remind the CRO and your boss that you led the effort.

Send a thank you note copying your boss and other people’s bosses – Assuming you were not copied on the email from the CRO, you can choose to initiate your own email with a premise to thank all those that helped you and your team to do this work. I am assuming others in the company have helped in some way with this proposal. This is a way to acknowledge their help. Under the premise of sharing good news and thanking them you accomplish a few objectives. 1) Indirectly establish yourself as the lead on the work without saying so. 2) Acknowledge others to your boss and their bosses for their help. 3) Use “we” to include yourself and the analyst so it doesn’t appear like you are just talking about yourself. 4) Give those who helped you an update on how their help have resulted in a good proposal. You can copy your CRO as well, if it’s appropriate.

Include this work in your self-evaluation – for your promotion – Don’t assume that just because your boss said something great to the Analyst meant he thought you didn’t do the work. During a review, there is normally a self-evaluation portion. Include this as a major accomplishment. Leave out the part that you did most of it as that doesn’t help you. Instead, you can claim that you managed junior resources to get it done together. That makes you sound like you have management skills, and skills to get the work done – both are qualities of someone ready for promotion. If the boss asks you about this, then you can elaborate. If he/she doesn’t ask, then perhaps you were over-worried, and he/she already gave you the credit.

Back-stabbed at Work – How Sarah Responded

by Lei Han

Recently, I wrote about Sarah, who were back-stabbed at work and asked you what you would do if you were her. Thanks for all who voted! It was great to see many of you knew the best way to handle this unfortunate situation and protect yourself and your work reputation. Here is what Sarah actually did. All the quoted dialogue are paraphrased

Sarah did have a funny feeling about this piece of work. Usually when she delivers something that is critical to an executive presentation, she will at least get a few more questions and will hear how the presentation went. She heard neither, so before the surprised outburst from Steve, Margaret’s boss, Sarah did go back to her own team to inquire if anyone heard anything and go over with everyone again the sequence of events of how they worked together with Margaret.

Sarah was however shocked and appalled at Steve’s comment to her in front of her boss. Inside, she was very upset that Steve didn’t talk to her in private and didn’t ask for her side of the story before jumping to conclusions. On top of it all, she had to work with her team on the weekends for this work that was completely not appreciated. Outside, however, she knew showing any emotion would put her at a disadvantage. After all, she doesn’t even know what happened.

Sarah’s first response back to Steve was calm but direct “I am quite surprised by your comments. Can you let me know why the data was not usable?”

Steve proceeded to tell her “Margaret informed me that once she got the results from you, it was incomplete and there was really no time to do more analysis before the meeting. It was better to leave it out instead of presenting something we are not sure about… “

Sarah suspected that Margaret probably said much more to Steve than that, but Steve didn’t elaborate further. This may have all happened because Margaret didn’t get the raw data she initially wanted. Margaret has really been trying to show her worth to Steve given Margaret was only hired recently.

Inside, Sarah was furious, but on the outside, she pressed on and stayed logical She then proceeded to tell Steve the sequence of events from her point of view (from working weekends, to frequent communication during the analysis, to proactively following up after sharing the results with Margaret with no response.) There is much more detail than this, but you get my point.

Sarah didn’t share with me exactly how the meeting adjoined but she did tell me this: Two week later, Steve came into her office to apologize for jumping to conclusions and to tell her that he values her team’s contribution and should not have doubted her abilities. He and Sarah’s boss (Sheryl) also asked if she wants to file a formal complaint on Margaret with HR that may lead to Margaret being laid off. Sarah declined. While she was upset with Margaret. she was even more disappointed with Steve who jumped to conclusions without giving her any benefit of the doubt. Sarah rather be the “bigger man” and give Margaret the benefit of the doubt as they will still work together in the future.

Morale of the Story:

No matter how unpleasant and unexpected things get at work, stay calm and logical. It’s the best way to play the office politics and protect your reputation without sounding defensive or being unprofessional

The business world is not always fair. You should always be prepared to communicate your side of the story if something unfair like this happens. You cannot expect your boss or even people who worked with you long term to give you the benefit of the doubt.

Forgive and forget. Don’t dwell. The two weeks for Sarah was very rough emotionally but she kept her cool at work and she ended up coming out ahead in the end. Overall, she still like this job and the company. Steve still has a lot of influence, so Sarah needed to accept his apology. Now Steve and Margaret both “owe her one” and in Sheryl and Steve’s eyes, Sarah’s work reputation grew as she stayed professional and a team player.

Office Politics – Should I leverage it to further my career?

by Lei Han

Early in my career, I have been burnt by office politics but not in the way you think. I didn’t feel burnt because someone else sabotaged my job. On the contrary, I concluded, I burnt myself because I didn’t understand or appreciate office politics and the importance of using it fairly and skillfully to protect and build my career advantage. ... read more