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

That's Simple

[Knight Thrasher]

Want your employees to get more work done? Filter out Slashdot on your network proxy. :P

(Totally kidding!!)

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

don't even bother -- there is no solution

[yagu]

I worked 21 years for my company. I was good at what I did. I was also unconventional. I worked my way to the highest position in the technical ranks. My salary was out of band (never asked for that, btw) because of my accomplishments. I received the highest technical achievement award possible from my company. I wrote an application that saved (hard dollars) my company 10's of millions of dollars, and kept them out of legal hot water. That program is still being used today and is a core technology there.

A year ago I was told in an effort to "cut costs", it was time for me to go. Done. Finito.

Whatever you do, take care of yourself. My (admittedly anecdotal) experience says there are no friends out there. There is no reason to strive for excellence based on your company's desires. Turns out that doesn't matter.

Make yourself happy. Set your own standards.

The business world is a fucked place, and if you ever try to make sense of it, you're pumping oxygen needlessly to those brain cells.

I think for me the crime in all of this was I used to want to do as much for my company as possible. There was hardly an evening on my way home at night I wasn't thinking of ways to make my company a better company. And, I was pretty good at contributing to that. I'm still good at what I do, but I don't think I'll ever have an ounce of good will for a company. Bottom line, companies evolve to where people who like and want power become the ones running the show, and generally speaking they are fucktards whose acumen is inversely proportional to their salary.

Ash Nazg Durbatuluk...

[USSJoin]

No, honestly though. Knowledge is power, in many different ways. And there is a correct way to implement this in an office (or school, for those of you still embroiled in it) environment.

1) Volunteer.
Yes, yes. We all know that nobody likes extra work. However, you'd be surprised how many simple little things one can get through this-- like, for instance, one can acquire extra passwords and keys, because they were needed for whatever job, and the person giving them out figures that you might be needed again. Useful.

2) Subvert.
It is often hard (it sure is for me) to remember that power structures need not be crashed *through*. If you can afford the time-- and it usually isn't much, even when you're working under deadline-- you might try simply wedging underneath whatever structure it is. For instance, instead of simply stating that you're the boss, they have to do your will (even though it may well be true), come up with the most roundabout way of doing something, that doesn't involve them. Next time, you can use a less roundabout way... shortly, those higher up, and those lower down, from you will know you so well, you can implement solutions (of whatever nature) more effectively than anyone, and the people who you didn't like dealing with, are shoved off to the margins. Helps to shed a crocodile tear as they are pink slipped (if you're in the workplace) or merely go smoke pot, discontent with their newfound uselessness.

3) Bash.
Of course, once in a while, things that have to be done, have to be done *now*. And that is the appropriate time to simply tell people to get the heck out of your way. But the most important thing is to keep track of how *often* you're doing this. Apply the first two provisions generously, and you can *maybe* get away with this once a month. Not as generously, and it might have to be once a year, if you don't want people to hate you. What's important here is not the *actual* proportion of times you use this technique, but the *perceived* frequency. And the latter is nearly always higher than the former.

Of course, if all these techniques are too complex, well, then, I wish you luck, as you'll need it. But careful application of these ideas can lead to... great rewards.

Always get it in writing!

[Oh the Huge Manatee]

Never rely on undocumented verbal agreements. If you are in a meeting where a verbal agreement is reached, ALWAYS send an e-mail (or paper memo) documenting what was agreed upon. Keeping an unassailable 'paper trail' regarding projects, policies and decisions can protect you against the all-too-common managers who like to lie in order to shift blame when something goes wrong.

There is no spoon (er gold watch)

[meadandale]

The days of working for a company to retirement are long gone, as you've found out.

Everyone is disposable and in the revolving door of upper managment at most companies, noone with any power is going to recognize YOUR accomplishments past the next board meeting.

Having loyalty to your employer is laudible but generally misplaced. Your primary loyalty should be to yourself. Generally that means working hard and looking out for the company in that this generally results in raises and promotions for you in the long run. However, you can never forget that at the end of the day, you are just a cog in the company wheel and in terms of upper managment, one cog is as good as another.

As long as you don't lose sight of this perspective, you'll do fine. But, as soon as you start seeing yourself as the 'guy that saved the company millions of dollars' you are heading down the wrong road. Corporate memories are very short these days--they have absolutely NO loyalty to you, even if you single handedly have kept the company afloat for the last 21 years.

Re:There is no spoon (er gold watch)

[Courageous]

You're generally correct, but it's also important to keep in mind that looking out for the company isn't always the same as looking out for your managment and the latter is much more important to keeping your job than the former.

Neither one is imporant. What's important is being perceived to be looking out for the company and management. No matter how effective you are, if you are not seen or heard, you do not exist. While this observation of mine may appear to be a bit sardonic, one should pay keen attention to it -- and the larger the company, the keener the need for the attention...

C//

connect to the top

[jptxs]

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...

The Art of War

[mollog]

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.

Re:The Art of War

[Anonymous Coward]

Dog psychology; there is an Alpha, be the alpha or chaos will follow.

A lot of great suggestions, though I disagree with this one. I came into mid-level management at a company a few years, mentoring under a COO/CTO who had learned how to play the Fortune 500 political game rather well. My first six months were consistent with my normal alpha-male approach to things, and nearly got my ass fired.

I learned there is a great deal of co-opting, passive strategy that needs to be played, and often the foolish alpha male is the one who ends up giving Project Tar Baby a big hug. Instead, show you're an excellent listener to the other department heads (nod, take diligent notes, and then behind the scenes you can slaughter their absurd ideas with carefully constructed, politically correct rejections, if need be) and you'll prevail. Let other departments come to you in this respect and you end up being the decision maker. Instead of coming across as obstinant, you can employ a wealth of "objective feasibility issues" to bury absurd requests.

One of my favorite methods for handling worthless busy-work requests from service departments was what we called the YES* approach. The technique relied on the "cost center funding" challenge some departments will encounter (a cost center is a part of a company, like the human resources department, that does not generate revenue but instead generates costs. It is there in a service role to support those that produce the revenue and usually has much less political clout because it doesn't pay the bills, but rather helps spend the money).

For instance, when I'd get some unfunded mandate from HR like a new training requirement, or employee review process where HR wanted my managers to fill out weekly management reports on each employee to be used by HR for some unexplained reason (probably to put in their file cabinet and demonstrate they were actually doing something more than surf websites all day - we had our own review system that worked fine), I'd evaluate the time required of a manager, multiply it times the costing rate and the total number of affected managers, and come up with an annual financial impact. Then I'd send a financing memo back to the HR lackey who sent the mandate telling them we were excited about the program and would only need the CFO's authorization to transfer the referenced amount of money into our budget to cover the costs of administering it. I buried a pathetic revised employment contract that demanded my guys assign all their off-work inventions (including open source work) to the company for a dollar consideration in the same manner. "Great idea guys. It'll take $20,000 for legal to assist is in evaluating the impact of this contract. Please go get the budget transfer authorization from the CFO for me and we'll get right on it."

In case you're not familiar with what happens next, the poor HR staffer (who works for a cost center, mind you), has to decide whether to go piss off the chief financial officer to spend even more money chasing unproductive ends. The CFO is usually a tight-assed person and doesn't throw money around without good justification, At a minimum, he's going to have a pile of busy work the HR lackey will have to complete just so he'll spend the time to review the proposal. Since these cost center people almost never actually plan their mandates out, they don't have the documentation necessary to cover the funding and the "mandate" dies an anonymous death.

Here you're not seen as opposing anybody's efforts - if anything, you play up the enthusiasm for their proposal. I should also note that this doesn't work very well when the requesting party is a profit center you're supposed to be supporting and can demonstrate direct linkage to revenue generation and their request. Opposing these kind of requests is dangerous - the CFO (and other top management) will regard you as an obstacle to that revenue dollar they expect.

The other major recommendation I'd have for young alphas up there who're moving

Revenge

[Ed Almos]

Gentlemen

They say that revenge is a dish best served cold.

Yours in jest

Ed

For the Attention of the Accounts Department

As an aid to workflow the following procedure will become effective as of Monday morning (20th March 2001).

From now on all requests for I.T. work in the accounts department have to be in submitted in triplicate on a new form, RFW1 (Request For Work V1) and signed by:

1) The person requiring the work
2) The Head of Accounts
3) The I.T. Director
4) The Financial or Managing Director

Work CANNOT take place until paperwork has been received in the I.T. department with all signatures in place.

One copy of the job sheet will be retained by the accounts department, one by the I.T. department and the third copy will be held in storage, just in case we need it. All applications for work done should be written clearly in copperplate handwriting (NOT typed) using a quill pen and black ink. Job sheets submitted in any other style of handwriting will not be accepted.

Requests for work should include the reason for the work, the cost centre(s) involved, serial numbers of all equipment requiring attention, colour of equipment, the exact location of the equipment in latitude and longtitude, any unusual smells that may be present and include a full estimate of time (rounded off to the nearest tenth of a second) and materials (estimates to the nearest penny will be acceptable). Where a desktop PC requires attention a full list of all files held on the hard disk should be printed out before the machine is touched.

If any parts are required then the accounts department are responsible for ordering them once I.T. give a specification. Any incorrect parts ordered or received will result in the job going to the back of the queue until other work has been dealt with.

Jobs will be dealt with on a strictly 'first come first served' basis between the hours of 0900 to 1200 & 1300 to 1700. Members of staff who require repair work should be present at all times whilst work is carried out.

Protective Personal Equipment (PPE) should be provided by the accounts department before work is carried out including overalls, hard hat and goggles. A clear working area of six feet six inches (two metres) should be available around any equipment requiring attention.

If any further materials are required to return the equipment to operation then work will cease until the entire paperwork has been submitted again, this time with the correct figures. If time other than that authorised is required then a TAA1 (Time Authorisation Authority V1) form should be filled out (using the usual copperplate handwriting but this time in green ink). Both items of paperwork MUST be signed by the members of Roberts Group management above.

On completion of the work the I.T. department will require the equipment to be soak tested for a minimum of 48 (forty eight) hours. As this represents a security risk the person requesting the work should be present throughout. Costs of sleeping bags and flasks of hot tea should be claimed on expenses through the usual channels.

The equipment will then be flash tested to four hundred volts to ensure safety.

Once soak testing has been completed to the satisfaction of I.T. department staff a Certificate of Conformity (in triplicate) will be issued. This should be signed by the following people before the equipment is brought back into service:

1) The person requiring the work
2) The Head of Accounts
3) The I.T. Director
4) The Financial or Managing Director
5) The member of I.T. staff carrying out the work

The users copy of the certificate should be displayed in a prominent position on the desk of the person using the equipment, with one copy returned to file (just in case) and the third copy collated with the original order requiring the work. If we are unable to collate a certificate of conformity with a properly formatted work order then the equipment that has been worke

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.

48 Laws of Power by Robert Green

[Bodhammer]

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