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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?"
I'm a IT contractor who does a lot of work for one of the world's largest banks, and the level of bureaucracy at this particular organisation is larger than any other organisation I've ever worked for - generally reasonably intentioned (they have the philosophy that more hoops & red tape makes abuse of the system harder), but in practice they end up shooting themselves in the foot.
Most work that actually goes on in the bank ends up being a function of who you know and what you know rather than successful use of the system; many projects are delayed for months and years as a result of this (simply acquiring IP addresses for servers can take weeks - weeks where a project may have half a dozen contractors all sitting around at $lots a day!). There are very basic organisational changes that could be made which would solve this - such as the fact that every day, dozens of identical 2U servers from a large vendor are purchased for projects and support; in spite of this, every project is expected to organise this themself, and wait months whilst parts and machines are delivered (again, with contractors sitting around). And yet there's no central purchaser who buys servers (gets a volume discount!!) and then sells these on to the projects with a 2-3 day wait (instead of months).
The same applies to parts; memory, disks, or even patch cables - there's no centralisation and everyone's expected to buy their own.
One project I recently worked on ordered some (very common) equipment required to install their servers in a datacenter last year, and only had it delivered a few weeks ago - if it weren't for the favour the project manager called in with another department (giving him leftover equipment last year), the entire project team would've been sitting waiting the whole time.
This is representative of what truly makes the organisation tick - favours; virtually nothing gets done without it being as a personal favour (in an organisation where having IP addresses assigned or having a server racked can take weeks) from one party to another.
The Career Programmer should have been called "The Guerilla Programmer". It explains vital topics like how to get a spec from people who don't want to give you one.
I've found the people at the very top are either very good people (stay there if they are) or *very* bad people (brush up your CV if you find that). Find some way to connect with them. Any way. Get a channel open. Then use it as little as possible for business. But make sure everyone know you have it. People will get out of your way and bend more easily to your will if they simply believe you can turn to the top and expose them at any moment.
Once you have that, follow the doctor/google idea: do no harm. That will make you people love you. Reasonable people will always understand you making business decisions if you show you're out to do them no harm and that you have some power to lend them (from the first point) and, finally, if you tell them what you're doing.
In Germany, at the start of major industrial thinking, they did an experiment. They called in all the workers, and told them that some scientists would be playing with things at the factory and that there would be changes. Then they called them in and said that they would be raising the temperature at work - then productivity went up. To be sure, they called everyone in and told them they would be lowering the temp. They lowered it, and productivity went up. "Odd," they thought. This went on and on with them calling meetings, making changes and having productivity go up. Finally they started interviewing the workers at length about why they were working harder and why they felt they were being more effective. They all said they liked how they felt the company kept them informed of all the plans...
we speak the way we breathe --Fugazi
Holy cow, this is a hot button for me. Re-orgs are a way of life where I work. The directive of an effective manager to his/her developers is "Speed and course." Don't allow the developers to be distracted by upper management churn.
Don't think you can take the high road and have your career survive. If someone's playing dirty, don't try to overlook it, deal with it.
When dealing with a boss with a case of NIH, try to make your ideas sound like they were your boss's ideas. Until you replace your boss.
Perceptions count for a lot. Manage perceptions.
When dealing with management, be insincere. Tell them what they want to hear. If you have to 'fudge' numbers or gloss over messy details, do it. Don't get sentimental about facts and truth and honesty. If your project is virtually done, don't say it's virtually done, tell them it's done. If a sudden problem arises, don't lose your cool. Gather the facts until you know what the true nature of the problem is before reporting about it. Your job is to deliver results, make sure you don't bring bad news unless you really, really have to.
If another group is reducing your effectiveness for reasons of overlapping turf, jealousy, history, whatever, try make an accomodation with them, even if it's temporary. (Keep your friends close, your enemies closer). Watch out for the agendas of underlings. If you have a politically motivated person working for you, get them gone.
Maintain the avenues of communications. Don't allow someone to bypass you in either direction. If someone bypassed you with their idea, either take charge of the project, or end the project.
Use dog psychology when dealing with people; reward good behavior, punish bad behavior, be consistent.
Dog psychology; there is an Alpha, be the alpha or chaos will follow.
Maintain perspective. You may love the work and the project, but to the CEO and his direct reports, you're a liability. Be prepared to move on and leave the work and project behind.
Life is an adventure.
Best regards.
I usually ignore the politics, but that caused trouble at one company. My best luck has been with small companies where politics in less of an issue.
The largest company I ever worked for was right out of college. I didn't understand the politics and just concentrated on doing my job. Oddly enough, politics was never much of a problem there.
The one thing that most helped me there was when I was walking down the hall one day, happy after fixing a problem that had been bugging me for a couple of days. I ran into the two hatchetmen for the company, one of whom was my boss.
My boss asked me what I was up to and I told him how I had fixed the problem that had kept me busy the previous two or three days. His next question caught me by surprise when he asked "Who was at fault?"
I asked him what he meant and he restated the question as "Who created the problem in the first place?" So I answered that it was me and a bit of what caused the problem. (After 25 years, I really don't remember what it was about.)
A couple of years later, my boss reminded me of that and told me that accepting responsibility for the problem instead of trying to shift the blame raised their estimates of me more than anything else I could have done. According to him, 99% of the people in the company would have tried to shift the blame elsewhere and the two of them found it refreshing to get an honest answer.
The 48 Laws of Power
by Robert Greene and Joost Elffers
http://www.tech.purdue.edu/Cgt/Courses/cgt411/cove y/48_laws_of_power.htm
Law 1
Never Outshine the Master
Always make those above you feel comfortably superior. In your desire to please or impress them, do not go too far in displaying your talents or you might accomplish the opposite - inspire fear and insecurity. Make your masters appear more brilliant than they are and you will attain the heights of power.
Law 2
Never put too Much Trust in Friends, Learn how to use Enemies
Be wary of friends-they will betray you more quickly, for they are easily aroused to envy. They also become spoiled and tyrannical. But hire a former enemy and he will be more loyal than a friend, because he has more to prove. In fact, you have more to fear from friends than from enemies. If you have no enemies, find a way to make them.
Law 3
Conceal your Intentions
Keep people off-balance and in the dark by never revealing the purpose behind your actions. If they have no clue what you are up to, they cannot prepare a defense. Guide them far enough down the wrong path, envelope them in enough smoke, and by the time they realize your intentions, it will be too late.
Law 4
Always Say Less than Necessary
When you are trying to impress people with words, the more you say, the more common you appear, and the less in control. Even if you are saying something banal, it will seem original if you make it vague, open-ended, and sphinxlike. Powerful people impress and intimidate by saying less. The more you say, the more likely you are to say something foolish.
Law 5
So Much Depends on Reputation - Guard it with your Life
Reputation is the cornerstone of power. Through reputation alone you can intimidate and win; once you slip, however, you are vulnerable, and will be attacked on all sides. Make your reputation unassailable. Always be alert to potential attacks and thwart them before they happen. Meanwhile, learn to destroy your enemies by opening holes in their own reputations. Then stand aside and let public opinion hang them.
Law 6
Court Attention at all Cost
Everything is judged by its appearance; what is unseen counts for nothing. Never let yourself get lost in the crowd, then, or buried in oblivion. Stand out. Be conspicuous, at all cost. Make yourself a magnet of attention by appearing larger, more colorful, more mysterious, than the bland and timid masses.
Law 7
Get others to do the Work for you, but Always Take the Credit
Use the wisdom, knowledge, and legwork of other people to further your own cause. Not only will such assistance save you valuable time and energy, it will give you a godlike aura of efficiency and speed. In the end your helpers will be forgotten and you will be remembered. Never do yourself what others can do for you.
Law 8
Make other People come to you - use Bait if Necessary
When you force the other person to act, you are the one in control. It is always better to make your opponent come to you, abandoning his own plans in the process. Lure him with fabulous gains - then attack. You hold the cards.
Law 9
Win through your Actions, Never through Argument
Any momentary triumph you think gained through argument is really a Pyrrhic victory: The resentment and ill will you stir up is stronger and lasts longer than any momentary change of opinion. It is much more powerful to get others to agree with you through your actions, without saying a word. Demonstrate, do not explicate.
Law 10
Infection: Avoid the Unhappy and Unlucky
You can die from someone else's misery - emotional states are as infectious as disease. You may feel you are helping the drowning man but you are onl
"I say we take off, nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
I was lucky. When I was still pretty young (28ish) I worked myself sick helping a company convert to a new system (70+ hour weeks for a couple months). After that they gave me a half day off as a reward. Five years later, the corporate parent dissolved that unit (sold it to a competitor who just wanted the customer list).
The combination of the two events changed my attitudes about business. I want the cash now. I won't do anything for future promises. And I realize I can be laid off without notice at any time- even if the company is doing well until the second that happens.
The only way you can trust the president of the company is if you ARE the president of the company- and even then I'm not sure.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Is your experience and advice a cultural perspective that applies primarily to American companies? Do you know if people in similar positions have similar experiences in other cultures?
I'm amazed to read of the experiences of advanced technical people in Fortune 500 companies and how it parallels the experiences of technical people in the former Soviet Union. Especially some of the more extreme examples documented in The Gulag Archepello (no spell checker on this PC sorry).
It sometimes seems that after the Berlin Wall fell, the USA and USSR switched political administration systems. The American corporations all went Stalinist and the Soviet Appartchiks all went entrepenerial. If this is so then the corporations will start to become massively inefficient due massive distrust in the middle ranks and refusal to work in the trenches.
Anyway, thanks for posting the account of your experiences.