
How to Minimize Politics in Your Company (2010) - not_paul_graham
http://www.bhorowitz.com/how_to_minimize_politics_in_your_company
======
lifeisstillgood
Summary seems to be :

\- Hire people who want the company to succeed and trust that they will be
rewarded when it does \- Keep the upper management "political pain points"
under clear transparent and fair rules. never ever deviate.

Sensible but it misses one utterly vital thing - the iron clad trust that must
must exist from the employees to the CEO - that they will only and ever be
evaluated on clear criteria, that the company has their back and will not fire
them because it just needed to. I do not remember trusting any employer except
one to that level.

Look at Facebook " You can either be good at hiring of good at firing. I'm
good at firing"

We glibly talk about the death of the job for life, even in Japan. But without
that contract everything Ben talks about here is words written on the wind.

When you hire someone be sure that you will keep them through Hell, reward
them with your daughters hand in marriage and half your kingdom. Then you can
believe they might trust you back.

~~~
wisty
It's a lot more tactical than that. That's just his first step (which is
fluff, as you say).

He suggests some methods for sorting out problems which seem really counter-
intuitive; but political problems are not most problems.

A political problem (to him) is one that gets worse as you discuss it with
other people. Either because it's zero sum, confrontational, or because it
encourages squeaky wheels.

Let's factor his tactics out:

1\. If you can make political stuff formal, it shuts down squabbling.

2\. If something comes up outside the formal process, don't talk to the person
who brought it up. Just shut them down, and figure out what to do about it
without them.

~~~
gte910h
Eh, these formal review processes with 0 outside discussion can REALLY hose
you though if you have the pay scale at some tier off. You'll basically force
that tier to leave to get the compensation they deserve. And when the economy
in that area opens up, it will not necessarily just be one person who leaves
at that time.

~~~
wisty
Zero outside discussion doesn't mean zero awareness. There's bound to be
someone who brings it up. But he's saying that you don't have a debate over
it, and certainly don't pay off the people who complain - you fix it quietly.

If the manager doesn't realise that they are paying too little ... honestly
they are so dim I don't think any good advice will help. A manager should know
more about the business side than the people they are managing.

~~~
gte910h
> certainly don't pay off the people who complain - you fix it quietly.

But that's exactly what the person i'm responding to said: No raises if you
mention you are (all) underpaid (or you personally are underpaid).

It leads to those games where promotion gets linked to compensation, so people
are promoted because otherwise you'll lose them, not because they're best for
that role.

Companies pay low 5 figures to many databases to figure out how much to pay
role X or Y or Z. I don't think managers and the people make budgets for
departments are always aware of the salaries of different roles. And I don't
think HR people are always aware of the differences between different people
who make them worth X over worth 1.5X

This is advocating for paying the way governments do. Is that really the
solution? Because govt: that's the definition of apolitical.

This is a solution that doesn't lead to the objective of the policy.

------
onuryavuz
Buffer is doing a really good job on this. I believe complete transparency is
the only way to minimize politics in your company.

[1] - [http://open.bufferapp.com/introducing-open-salaries-at-
buffe...](http://open.bufferapp.com/introducing-open-salaries-at-buffer-
including-our-transparent-formula-and-all-individual-salaries/) [2] -
[http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/13/radical-transparency-and-
ho...](http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/13/radical-transparency-and-how-buffer-
is-changing-the-game-on-startup-culture/)

~~~
coolsunglasses
They do not pay competitively, especially for people that live in California.

There's a ~5-10x cost of housing difference between where I live now (Texas)
and where I lived in California. $22k would not make up that difference.

They're denying themselves access to better people because they can't avoid
politics without using blunt instruments. That gives me less rather than more
faith in the management.

Their base salaries aren't even competitive for a middle-of-the-road remote
expat programmer working out of Thailand.

That having been said, I'm all for more experimentation. Good on them for
being willing to take a risk and be open about it.

------
patrickmay
This reminds me of Ray Dalio's principles by which he runs Bridgewater:
[http://www.bwater.com/home/culture--
principles.aspx](http://www.bwater.com/home/culture--principles.aspx)

"Radical openness" should reduce the amount of politics, in theory. I'd be
interested in hearing how it works in practice.

~~~
mendicantB
I interviewed there (didn't get an offer, but agreed with the decision, felt
too limiting technically).

In practice, it's a company wide pissing match that seeks to incubate and
accelerate growth for hyper-achievers with hard heads that can openly give and
receive criticism. This actually works extremely well for a certain type of
personality (think Type A), especially if you are early on in your career. The
growth potential was why I interviewed in the first place. I'd say the most
accurate summary is:

[http://www.businessinsider.com/inside-bridgewater-what-
emplo...](http://www.businessinsider.com/inside-bridgewater-what-employees-
say-its-like-working-there-2011-11?op=1)

Inherently, this type of culture results in one major drawback; lack of
diversity. If you need a specific type of personality in order to join a
company of others who have very similar personalities, what happens to
innovation? Where do new ideas come from? How do you evolve? How do you
understand different markets and audiences? etc etc. The best teams I've seen
have had very diverse sets of backgrounds, level of experience, and
personality.

While BW has worked out much of this (being in finance helps), that was my
burning thought throughout the process. My conclusion was that such a culture
would be an excellent place to be for some time, but staying too long would
only serve to pigeonhole you.

------
AgathaTheWitch
Pretty sensible article. I think political problems in a company become more
likely as companies grow and add more people. A dozen close-knit people who
trust each other will have less trouble than a 200+ person company with layers
of management and numerous colliding ambitions.

If possibly perhaps the best thing is to keep your company small? We don't all
have to try to be Facebook. I like to dream about starting a small company
that offers a simple product that just does one thing well so that me a
handful of others can just run the thing.

~~~
vladimirralev
Small companies can also be affected very severely. In many 2nd-3rd world
countries it's almost guaranteed that small companies and startups will be
infested with politics and in fact large corporations are seen as better
places to work in terms of politics (and pay actually). Depends on the culture
and mindset of the founders.

~~~
AgathaTheWitch
In 1st world countries too most likely. Small companies bring their own
political challenges certainly, and for some people a large company where they
can just blend into the noise might be better. I just think I'd have an easier
time navigating political issues with a small group where everyone knows each
other well.

------
bane
Caustic internal politics in my experience seem to come from two things:

1 - lack of a clear direction and focus

2 - lack of good clear and transparent communication

No matter what, you are going to have politics in an organization, a good
leader needs to direct the tone and shape of those politics.

With #1 - you end up with multiple people jockeying for ad hoc positions of
leadership in an organization. A clear organizational structure (it doesn't
have to be a complex hierarchy) with clear and transparent methods for moving
up down and across it, prevents this. I see this mistake being made often with
"flat organizations" where that's a code word for "no organizational
structure" and you end up with powerful personalities in charge of little
fiefdoms they've carved out in the company each with their own set of rules
and politics. Nothing sucks more or wastes more company time and resources
than playing Game of Thrones with all the assertive personalities in your
company.

Some "code words" that might mean a place suffers or will eventually suffer
from this: "flat organization", "no manager titles", "hands-off leadership",
"management that gets out of the way" etc.

I'm not saying these are always indicative of a cultural problems, a flat
organization can still be well structured and have strong focus, or a manager
may have gifted the mantle of leadership onto somebody else for the duration
of a project and taken a "hands off approach". But in my experience this is
pretty rare.

This doesn't eliminate politics, but it makes it take the shape of people who
want to align with the focus and people who want to go a different direction.
This becomes a high level metric you can use to evaluate reports. If they
aren't with the program then perhaps they should go work elsewhere?

With #2 - information vacuums breed rumors and rumor trading/gossiping becomes
information control, another kind of leadership metric. The kind of
backstabbery and reputation ruining gossip only breeds in organizations where
intentions and direction and expectations of the company are not clearly
communicated.

I remember one place I worked at, over a 6 month period, a bunch of senior
managers all left. There was zero communication about this and rumors started
running around "the CEO has lost his mind!" "I heard this guy was having an
affair with the receptionist" "this group is going to be next!" "I be we're
running out of money!" etc. etc. turns out two things were actually happening,
the technology platform was changing and many of the senior managers weren't
comfortable with this and wanted out. The CEO thanked them for their years of
hard work and gave them a few weeks to find something else as a token of
thanks. The other was that he wanted to grow the company and needed a
different team to get him there -- his previous team was excellent for early
stage growth, but the kind of loner term growth just needed a different set of
skills. These two events coincided, were easily explainable and would have
squashed most of the rumor trading. But the company had a culture of secrecy,
starting at the top, and rumor trading became the cultural norm in the
company. People probably spent as much time gossiping as they did getting work
done, and it wasn't an effective organization at the time.

In other cases, I've seen this used specifically as a proxy for keeping the
employees well managed. Spread disinformation from the top and watch the
employees fight with each other over conflicting stories. They won't be
fighting for actual positional authority and you, as the CxO, can be free to
do what you want. It's called "Machiavellianism" and they make probably with
worst places on the planet to work outside of a traditional leather factory.

~~~
allochthon
_Nothing sucks more or wastes more company time and resources than playing
Game of Thrones with all the assertive personalities in your company._

The answer is not to put a rigid organizational structure. It's to avoid
hiring people you wouldn't trust to have your back, or, if one has been hired,
to avoid promoting him or her into a position of leadership.

~~~
pron
Do you think power games are more common or more toxic in schools among
teachers, who are part of a rigid organizational structure, than among
students, who are not? All evidence suggests that alliances, betrayals and
bullying are far more rampant in less rigid organizations, because that's
where they matter more.

Saying you should hire people who will have your back is as practical as
saying buy low and sell high. Nobody intentionally hires people that are
clearly disloyal or disruptive.

------
Flemlord
This is great. Where can I find other practical "manage the managers" advice
like this?

~~~
eru
For a start, you can read the archive of that blog.

------
blueskin_
>You might even give the employee a raise. This may sound innocent, but you
have just created a strong incentive for political behavior.

...and if you don't, you just created an even stronger incentive for all your
talent to quit so you're left with the people who coast, knowing they are paid
their actual value at most or who feel they would get less in another job.
People who are good at what they do always, ALWAYS keep an eye on their value
vs pay. Not to mention word of mouth - if you pick up a reputation as
underpaying or unwilling to give deserved raises, it will affect who applies,
reducing the quality pool by limiting applicants to people in an even more
underpaid job, unemployed, or otherwise desperate, while anyone better will be
seeking to use it as a stepping stone to somewhere that pays them fairly for
their skill.

I've worked at a company that followed that 'advice' before and as a result,
everyone was grossly underpaid and there was a high employee churn rate,
despite themselves advertising in their job listings (which they still do) as
having good career opportunities.

------
analog31
>>> By conducting well-structured, regular performance and compensation
reviews, you will ensure that pay and stock increases are as fair as possible.

Simply installing formal processes won't solve the problem if it's widely
known that those processes have to be bypassed in order to get anywhere. It
doesn't take long to figure out that all real career advancement activity
occurs out-of-cycle.

------
deepakbenny
looks like GitHub is in need of this article!!

~~~
infinitebattery
Ironic, because the blog is from a founder of A16Z, and Github was funded by
A16Z.

------
saosebastiao
Reject MBA culture.

------
noir_lord
Replace people with robots.

I'm only partially joking.

~~~
sillysaurus3
Robots will have their own agendas though, so you'll still have politics.

~~~
namenotrequired
At least the agendas can be manipulated. :)

------
peterbotond
office politics is a shelter for incompetence.

------
michaelochurch
There's good politics and bad politics. Good politics seems to emerge when
people really care about the greater mission, but disagree on how to go about
it. It's still frustrating, because there are disagreements to be resolved,
but usually you can get everything out in the open if there's good management.
Bad politics is when people are out for self-advancement and will continue
with disruptive behaviors until terminated. Bad politics tends to be personal,
as decisions about unrelated matters become referenda on the people the topics
are associated with.

If you don't have the good politics or bad, it means that people don't really
care. However, the stakes in white-collar America are usually high enough that
the bad kind of politics will typically emerge no matter what.

What I think is important is keeping enough transparency that the good kind of
political activity doesn't devolve into the bad kind. That's a fairly common
scenario. Usually, people get tunnel vision about the specific victories they
need (or think they need) and start lashing out at the people they think are
blocking them (often, without telling anyone why they're doing it) when it
would be better to figure what the actual conflicts are and how to make
everyone win, as much as is possible.

------
nirnira
What's the best way to translate a meeting with one executive complaining
about the behaviour of another executive into a meeting with both executives?
Even if you schedule the meeting, aren't you admitting that you can be swayed
by the influence of the first executive whispering in your ear?

~~~
shin_lao
If B were to come to me to complain about A. I would ask the following:

\- Did you talk to A about the problem? (generally the answer is no)

In whatever case, you set up a meeting. And you LISTEN.

What comes out of the meeting depends on the situation. It might be a real
problem, or just a misunderstanding. You might be surprised how much A and B
will be grateful for the meeting.

By doing this you send a clear message to potentials As and Bs.

"If you come to me and talk about someone, I will make you say that to his/her
face." "If someone comes to me and complains about your behavior, I will
include you in the problem solving, nothing will happen in your back."

~~~
YZF
This reminds me of what someone smart told me a while ago: If you're supposed
to be the leader and no one comes to you with their problems you're not really
the leader any more. This may cause people not to come to you with their
problems any more.

I'm not saying your approach is _always_ wrong but I would guess it would
backfire around 50% of the time. Sometimes, B comes to you because he doesn't
trust A. Getting A in the loop isn't going to restore that trust. If A and B
could work it out together most likely they already would have. You need to do
more in this case than simply getting them to talk. You need to understand why
the trust was broken and work to repair it. Or, split them up.

~~~
shin_lao
_If you 're supposed to be the leader and no one comes to you with their
problems you're not really the leader any more._

A lot of ego and politics in that definition of a leader.

What about this: the purpose of a leader is to become useless?

A leader is there to empower his team, and yes, there are always problems to
solve, but you're job isn't solving your problems, it's to teach them to solve
problems.

How is your company going to grow otherwise?

 _Sometimes, B comes to you because he doesn 't trust A._

When two people in your team no longer trust each other, it means you had a
problem running for a long while and you haven't been doing your job
correctly.

It also falls in Ben's category two and must be treated differently.

 _You need to do more in this case than simply getting them to talk. You need
to understand why the trust was broken and work to repair it._

When trust is broken, this is what I call a "broken arrow" situation and this
isn't something you just "fix". This generally ends up with someone leaving.

~~~
YZF
I see where you're coming from but I think it's not as black and white. There
are going to be situations and problems the individual or the team feel like
they can't solve themselves. The definition isn't about ego, it's something
observed externally, it has to do with the official structure vs. the un-
official social order.

I think trust builds and breaks over time (breaks more easily) and external
intervention can help to prevent this from getting to the point where someone
has to leave. My point though is why is B coming to you about A in the first
place and why is forcing them to talk in front of you a good solution to that?

