Entering politics

Dear Bob …

Two months ago I took a job as CIO at a mid-sized company. This is my first CIO position. Before this, I was director of application development at a competing company, so while I have experience in IT leadership, I don’t have too much in the executive suite.

To make a long story short, this position is turning out to be much more political than I’d expected. Recently I was involved in an important decision. In the meeting we scheduled to make the decision I found it had already been made in hallway conversations before the meeting ever started. The decision we made wasn’t a very good one, and needless to say, nobody was very interested in my arguments against it.

I think I can adapt to this style of doing business, even though I don’t prefer it. What I’m going to have a harder time adapting to is the backstabbing. I’ve already been in several conversations I’ve found distinctly uncomfortable, in which one peer or another has “warned me” about another peer who is either incompetent, unreliable, or untrustworthy. I’ve managed to be noncommittal in these discussions but I can only imagine what the same peers are saying about me behind my back.

What do you think I should do? My instinct is to meet with the CEO to talk over my concerns, but I don’t want him to think of me as a whiner who can’t take the heat.

Any suggestions?

– Not a politician

Dear Not …

I’m glad you aren’t asking for my advice about the hallway decision-making. If you didn’t think you could deal with that I’d suggest you head back to the minors for more seasoning. Sure, it would be better to make decisions through a formally agreed-upon process. Lots of things might be better, at least in theory, but this is how executives reach consensus — by mapping out stakeholders and persuading each of them privately before asking them to commit publicly.

The backstabbing is another matter entirely.

First, let’s deal with your first instinct. It’s simple: Your instinct is wrong. Ignore it.

There’s an old saying that whoever discovered water, it probably wasn’t a fish. If you work in a highly political environment where backstabbing is tolerated (and to all appearances successful) then chances are strong the CEO got to his position by adroitly operating in this kind of environment and would be both annoyed and baffled by your expressing concern about it. The CEO won’t fix this problem. The CEO is almost certainly the embodiment of the problem.

Give that you’re new to the company, you probably aren’t ready to pack your bags just yet. And in any event, learning how to cope in a political tangle isn’t the worst skill a budding executive can acquire.

Here’s a case where your first instinct was the right one — being noncommittal is the best way to respond to a peer who’s busily backstabbing another peer. If you were to object in some noisily moralistic way, all you’d do is turn yourself into a target; if you respond in kind you’d be taking sides, which merely turns you into a target for someone else.

Be noncommittal as long as you can while you find out who the backstabbers are, who’s influential, who can be trusted, and who ends up being the scapegoat when things go wrong (there’s almost always a scapegoat or two). Once you’ve mapped things out, your primary goals are to:

* Avoid the backstabbers as much as possible. The more you work with these people, the more likely you are to be backstabbed yourself, to be perceived as a backstabber, or both.

* Avoid any appearance of being a threat to any of the backstabbers to the extent possible. If any of them think you’re perceived as being better than they are at their jobs, they’ll turn their considerable skills at assassination toward you without a second thought.

* Avoid taking risks. In some organizations, bold leadership is a valued character trait. In your environment, it’s suicide. By definition, not all risks pan out, and in a politically charged atmosphere, the players constantly look for opportunities to eliminate rivals. You do need to lead your IT organization, of course. Your best bet is to avoid high-profile initiatives altogether. Succeed as quietly as possible, always giving credit to your peers when something goes well.

* Ally yourself with those you can trust. Every one of these alliances is one less place you have to watch your back.

* Make yourself sufficiently useful to at least one of those with influence that they are likely to protect you and promote you. In a political situation you need a base of power. This is how you start to get one.

One last point: Learn to keep your own counsel. Even among the people you trust the most, understand trust will have its limits in an environment like this. The best you’re going to do is to avoid making enemies. If you have an emotional need to make friends among your peers, you’re unlikely to thrive in a highly political environment.

– Bob

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