> The only way to be not involved in politics is to totally accept the current situation and to align your goals and interests with those in power.
At a small, young, growing company, that's what the company needs - if your goals aren't aligned with the company's, you are going to be spending scarce resources on the wrong things.
If there's a way, in a larger company, to prevent "necessary alignment" from turning into "political gamesmanship," I've never seen it. If the people in control of your fate have goals that aren't perfectly aligned with "overall health of company" then now it's games and bullshit and it gets real hard on the individuals. And that can happen very easily: Director X wants to be promoted to VP, needs to show results in their domain, maybe doesn't care if this has knock-on effects on other orgs; the company is 99% likely to be fine anyway, and it'll help them move up... do you get on board, or do you push back because it's a bad overall strategy? Good luck... :|
>At a small, young, growing company, that's what the company needs - if your goals aren't aligned with the company's, you are going to be spending scarce resources on the wrong things.
At a small, young, growing company, that's what the company needs - if your goals aren't aligned with the company's, you are going to be spending scarce resources on the wrong things.
If there's a way, in a larger company, to prevent "necessary alignment" from turning into "political gamesmanship," I've never seen it. If the people in control of your fate have goals that aren't perfectly aligned with "overall health of company" then now it's games and bullshit and it gets real hard on the individuals. And that can happen very easily: Director X wants to be promoted to VP, needs to show results in their domain, maybe doesn't care if this has knock-on effects on other orgs; the company is 99% likely to be fine anyway, and it'll help them move up... do you get on board, or do you push back because it's a bad overall strategy? Good luck... :|