Regarding your comment... "I've been told by a man who received all his promotions from his uncle that political harmony is frequently more important than security ideals."
I hate to sound like "the bad guy" here but there may be truth to this in many organizations. I am not an expert on managment (never even been a manager myself) but I have an older relative (now retired) that was a human resources consultant. He was very good at this and charged close to a thousand dollars an hour for consulting on human resources at the management level only. What he would do is go into a company, or divison for a company, and interview all the upper and sometimes mid-upper level managers, and more or less write a report on who to fire and how the company should restructure management. He had a great track record and typically could reduce the management payroll by 1/3 for his clients while keeping the same production level at the company.
What was the key to doing this? He never told his clients this directly but his primary technique was to use techniques from psychology to judge the personalities of the various managers and come up with units that would work really well together. The first person he would interview was the the head of the company or divison and he would then aline himslef with this person and make all his judgements based on who would work well with him, who would work well with those people and so on. His reasoning was "if the president is the problem than the company is screwed anyway, if he is good then getting people that will work the way he wants them to work will create the most well oiled machine possible."
I can honestly say that at my current job I do see some truth to this. I work at an IT consulting/research institute and feel that it is the best run workplace I have ever worked at. Granted it is not a very large company since there is just over 100 of us working here but I have never worked anywhere where the moral was so high and where the harmony was so good. Some of the people I work with that have been here a long time have stayed at their job instead of taking higher paying jobs somewhere else because the work moral is so good here. This really does help with day to day stress and for myself it is a key to me saying "this is the best job I have ever had". Its nice to come into work at a place where people dont hate on eachother and where there is just a general feeling of everyone getting along.
The irony in all this is that the president openly says "I like people that say yes" and even puts this on slides when he gives speechs at "information days" for the employees about what is going on. Also, everyone of my bosses above me seems to think very similar to the president. Not just in how things should be run but in general.
Whats the point of this? The point is that maybe things are working well because the president is good at his job and because there is very little political fighting etc. in the workplace since most of the management thinks the same way, and probably does a good job of hireing people that are similar to them as well. The places I have worked at before that I thought were run poorly all seemed to have the opposite in common, where there was an environment with lots of fighting and personality conflicts and all that.
So, back to the origional post. Maybe there is somewhat of a Dilbert environment in the workplace because politics IS really important to making companies run well. Perhaps it is important at least at the management level that everyone works really well together. And as for finding a job you like, also try to make a judgement of the potential employer during the interview and see if you can find a place where people are sort of similar to you. I noticed from some other posts that there were some places that had horrible experiences with ex-military and others that preferred them. Maybe a workplace with lots of ex-military there already (or people that are similar to you in so
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Regarding your comment ... "I've been told by a man who received all his promotions from his uncle that political harmony is frequently more important than security ideals."
I hate to sound like "the bad guy" here but there may be truth to this in many organizations. I am not an expert on managment (never even been a manager myself) but I have an older relative (now retired) that was a human resources consultant. He was very good at this and charged close to a thousand dollars an hour for consulting on human resources at the management level only. What he would do is go into a company, or divison for a company, and interview all the upper and sometimes mid-upper level managers, and more or less write a report on who to fire and how the company should restructure management. He had a great track record and typically could reduce the management payroll by 1/3 for his clients while keeping the same production level at the company.
What was the key to doing this? He never told his clients this directly but his primary technique was to use techniques from psychology to judge the personalities of the various managers and come up with units that would work really well together. The first person he would interview was the the head of the company or divison and he would then aline himslef with this person and make all his judgements based on who would work well with him, who would work well with those people and so on. His reasoning was "if the president is the problem than the company is screwed anyway, if he is good then getting people that will work the way he wants them to work will create the most well oiled machine possible."
I can honestly say that at my current job I do see some truth to this. I work at an IT consulting/research institute and feel that it is the best run workplace I have ever worked at. Granted it is not a very large company since there is just over 100 of us working here but I have never worked anywhere where the moral was so high and where the harmony was so good. Some of the people I work with that have been here a long time have stayed at their job instead of taking higher paying jobs somewhere else because the work moral is so good here. This really does help with day to day stress and for myself it is a key to me saying "this is the best job I have ever had". Its nice to come into work at a place where people dont hate on eachother and where there is just a general feeling of everyone getting along.
The irony in all this is that the president openly says "I like people that say yes" and even puts this on slides when he gives speechs at "information days" for the employees about what is going on. Also, everyone of my bosses above me seems to think very similar to the president. Not just in how things should be run but in general.
Whats the point of this? The point is that maybe things are working well because the president is good at his job and because there is very little political fighting etc. in the workplace since most of the management thinks the same way, and probably does a good job of hireing people that are similar to them as well. The places I have worked at before that I thought were run poorly all seemed to have the opposite in common, where there was an environment with lots of fighting and personality conflicts and all that.
So, back to the origional post. Maybe there is somewhat of a Dilbert environment in the workplace because politics IS really important to making companies run well. Perhaps it is important at least at the management level that everyone works really well together. And as for finding a job you like, also try to make a judgement of the potential employer during the interview and see if you can find a place where people are sort of similar to you. I noticed from some other posts that there were some places that had horrible experiences with ex-military and others that preferred them. Maybe a workplace with lots of ex-military there already (or people that are similar to you in so