Smart Management: How to be a good corporate politician

“Many managers appear to hang onto the myth of corporate rationality, or else be frustrated by the mis-appropriation of power that they see around them”.

Imagine the impact of a corporate briefing that goes something like this:
"We, the Board, recognise that this company is a loose federation of competing interest groups through which we negotiate to move forward towards a common strategy. So if you see some good alternatives, feel free to challenge the prevailing viewpoint. Bear in mind that you may well get some opposition, so it will be important to lobby the right people and build some alliances to make your agenda count"
Unlikely? Yes, of course it is. Surely briefings from the Board are about corporate mission and vision.
Yet in the experience of many senior managers, coalitions of organisational opinion are the key influence on how strategy emerges. Indeed, given the inevitable differences in stakeholder interests at senior levels, how else could it happen? Somehow, however, despite all the talk in the past few years about the importance of recognising stakeholders in organisations, the urge for corporate unity can blind us to the value and inevitability of diverse interests. This is not surprising in so far as partisan interests are usually synonymous with politics - the enemy of a unified organisation. But that misses the big point about politics. For in its positive sense, political work, whether government or organisational, is all about reconciling different stakeholder interests. Senior managers who understand this see it as the essence of their job.

Politics and the Rational Mindset
Of course many managers appreciate the significance of politics. They encounter opposing agendas everyday. Yet this experience does not always translate into insight that can directly help them understand the centrality of politics to managing.
A major reason for this is that organisations often take for granted the motivations that truly drive managerial behaviour. Why do managers really do what they do, and how much are they driven by organisational goals rather than self-interest? These are inconvenient questions in a managerial culture still firmly adhering to rational values. For, in the rational mindset organisational goals are supposed to take priority, and managers work on objectives that support unity of purpose. But as all managers know, problems arise when faced with accountability for a collective outcome and colleagues motivated by different priorities. Unable to convince them otherwise, good intentions can disappear. Some withdraw, some engage in destructive political games, others simply sulk. But the alternative of adopting a constructive political mindset can transform their understanding of managing.

Motivation and the Political Mindset
Politically fluent managers are guided by a different set of assumptions about organisations. They understand how the rational mindset can saturate management attention and diminish the value of individual motivations in getting results. Above all, they recognise the need to shape their own goals for the organisation, and that achieving them requires the principled use of whatever power they possess. For when power is used for purely selfish ends, personal goals are justifiably perceived as divisive. The more transparent the abuse of that power, the greater the risk to those who mis-use it – own goals become just that – own goals.
Inevitably, in the cut and thrust of business, principles can be opaque; after all it is possible to produce an organisational justification for almost any kind of action. But able politicians create a meaningful justification for their actions built on a clear understanding of the agendas of others and how these relate to key business issues.
For example, they recognise the fallacy of pursuing corporate goals without acknowledging the prime importance of their self-interest. Thus they are quick to appraise projects and assignments that have little chance of success, avoiding them in favour of more realistic alternatives. They do not publicly eschew corporate goals, but in practice they are likely to feel greatest responsibility towards a small organisational sub-set – a select group of people who share a common cause. Sometimes these groups are entirely unofficial - self-styled pockets of good practice that stimulate change from lowly starting points, even if such initiatives run counter to formal policy.
Their attitude to change is especially notable. They see it as a ceaseless process. What politically inept managers describe as dead time, the politically smart ones regard as prime time. Conversations in corridors and around coffee machines are all opportunities to position ideas and understand others' points of view. Networking inside and outside the organisation becomes the motor of political fluency - a vehicle that provides access to power, identifies key issues, and locates resistance.

Smart Management
Making the transition to a constructive political mindset can seem daunting. It means ‘unlearning' the rational model of management (or more exactly, recognising its limits), and grasping very different capabilities. For example, it requires a sophisticated understanding about the nature of power, and the ability to evaluate influence and motives. It demands high levels of interpersonal skills such as productive challenge and lobbying, together with a sound knowledge of critical organisation issues (that is, what matters most and to who). Above all, it requires a high level of self-understanding to ensure that personal motives are not only selfish motives. Ultimately, that defines constructive politics.
Many managers appear to hang on to the myth of corporate rationality, or else be frustrated by the mis-appropriation of power they see around them. The relative few who discover political mastery usually seem to learn the hard way – by landing a senior role and finding it has little to do with management as they thought they knew it. But if they are genuinely to embrace the idea of the stakeholder organisation, then it is long overdue that political mastery be considered central to the role of management.

Dr David Butcher is Director of Open Executive Programmes at Cranfield School of Management and course director for The Business Leaders’ Programme and Martin Clarke is Programme Director for the Cranfield General Management Programme. The article is based on their book, Smart Management, using politics in organisations, published by Palgrave and provides a central theme for Cranfield's General Management Development Programmes and the new programme ‘Challenging the Managerial Mindset’. If you are interested in finding out more about the ideas discussed here please call Martin Clarke on 01234 751122.

Related Executive courses

Challenging the Managerial Mindset – the constructive use of organisational politics

The Business Leaders’ Programme

The Advanced Development Programme

Related Web Link

General Management Development Programmes