Implementing the Bureaucratic Black Arts?

bildungsroman_yorick asks: "Many unlucky workers in their careers have encountered the bureaucracy, the careerism, the project death march and the office politics that hold people back from performing to high standards of work. In some office environments that I've encountered half a supervisors workload involves giving your workers room to operate and protecting them from the bureaucracy and politics. I have come to realise that it's the natural way of business culture to behave this way and the only way I can let my workers be productive is to be one step ahead of the politics, even if that means breaking the rules. So what I'd like to ask some of the more savvier Slashdot denizen: What are some of the bureaucratic black arts that you've performed in your workplace to work around the office politics and get your work done on time and to a high standard?"

Comments

It takes some practice

[b0r1s]

A few things that have helped me:

1) Honesty works better with technical folks; sugarcoating works better with business folks.

2) Reverse (1) for those concerned about financials or with titles beginning with 'C' - CFOs and COOs like honesty.

3) If your organization has more than 3 divisions, make sure that no employee is less than 5 levels away from the top - too many levels makes communication impossible

shitblocker

[Anthony Boyd]

One of my employees called me a "shitblocker" because I was so good at keeping the crap away from the team. However, I had another employee who just saw too much of the bad stuff, and it got to him. So I'm not posting as someone who has done a universally good job at this. Having made my disclaimer, here are few things I've done.

• Don't tell your employees when you've had a row with your boss. At least some employees have not just empathy, but a susceptibility to transferrence. In other words, you tell the employees you got into it with your boss, and a handful of them will get all worked up, even though they weren't involved.
• Don't use the previous point as handcuffs. You are not obligated to portray yourself as completely buying into the company line. Just don't rant to your employees about it. If they are frustrated that upper management had made a poor decision, it's reasonable to let the employees know that you think there are better ways, and that you'll keep trying to get upper management on board. But you don't want to start complaining, "I just had a shouting match with my boss, and that idiot wouldn't see sanity if it came up and punched him in the face!"
• This is hard, but, you have to keep the chain of command in line. There are many bosses who think it's good to get to know everyone underneath them, no matter how many levels removed. And to a degree, it is. Friendliness is always welcome. However, many execs will take it too far, and start stepping on toes (because they can) and undermining the managers beneath them. If you tell your employee "I'll evaluate you for 6 months, and we'll discuss a raise then" and your boss tells the employee "all salaries are frozen" or "I'll get you a raise" then your authority is screwed. Or, if you tell your employee something is a priority, and your boss tells them otherwise (especially if they don't clue you in), then you've just become ineffective. So, even as a lower manager, you have to tell your superiors that you are in charge of your team, and they need to go through you. And then you need to keep on top of that, so nobody feels the need to go around you.
• Get your employees into the limelight when things are good. Get them out of the limelight when things are bad. More than that, you do NOT want to blame your employees for anything. That doesn't mean you assume blame for everything, and get fired. But it does mean that the blame game is lose-lose, and you say so to any upper manager who insists on playing. Your employees are either protected (because they deserve more chances), or fired (because they don't). There is no in between, unless you're documenting things for HR.
• Building on the previous point, while you don't ever want to leave your employees twisting in the wind with the execs, you also don't want them to let you take all their blame. I had one employee sit quietly by while the CEO chewed me out for something the employee had done (I warned him not to do it -- I knew the CEO would hate it). What was my mistake? I kept the employee for 2 more years, and had that same scenario play out again and again. You block crap for your employees, but you do so because they are worthy employees. Don't be a martyr, especially for any employee who is simply using you as a meat sheild.