SHORTS | Political Relationships in the Workplace with Michael Watkins

One thing I really wanted to ask you about was one of the later chapters in, in your new book which is around being politically savvy. I mean, this is particularly interesting because I know this is certainly the case in, in the uk, but when you talk about being, when we talk about being politically savvy straight away, that can trigger lots of emotions in people because it feels a little bit sort of, I don't know, self serving Machiavellian. We might negative connotations linked to it because of politics. Like what's, tell us a little bit more about that and specifically why you included that in the book.

So first of all, it is the one I think that surprised people the most, right. Because you kind of have this view of politics. It's either your emotional intelligence and ability to kind of understand what people want. It's not really viewed as being that strategic in some sense, you know, and again, I came out of a background originally, you know, decision theory, game theory, negotiation theory, strategic negotiation, alliance building, you know, looking at some big international conflicts. There is absolutely a strategic dimension to building coalitions, to building alliances. Right? So that's the origins of kind of my thinking about this. But the point you're making is a great one, right? And I think that I absolutely get people, even relatively senior people saying I hate politics. And my answer is always get over it, you know, or be a fatality, you know, because the reality is organizations are political by their nature, right? And by political I mean you've got powerful players pursuing agendas. Those agendas are partially about things in the organization, but there's almost always a personal agenda dimension to them of advancement, right. Or recognition or whatever. And as you get to more senior levels in organizations, somewhat, maybe paradoxically, right, things become more political, right? Why do they become more political? You've got strong, you know, ambitious people contending for influence. You've got problems that don't have answers that are easily, you know, attained through, you know, analysis. Right? So opinion, right, judgment, support become more and more important. And then you're dealing with external environments that are highly political, right? You're dealing with governments, you're dealing with other key stakeholders in the environment. So if as a senior leader you're not politically savvy, what does that mean? It means you're not able to build the alliances you need to build to get things done inside your organization. And it means you're not able to shape the external environment in support of your organization, that strategy. Right? So where people get hung up on this is the self serving part. Of it, you know, and it it's there, right? For sure it's there. But there's also a really critical part that is about building alliances to get important things done, right? And so if you want, if, if if you kind of want a positive frame on what you're doing, that's what you're doing. You're building alliances to get important things done. Oh, by the way because you have to, right? Because you're not going to get things done if you don't build those alliances. And as I sort of said earlier, political Savvy is one of the three chapters of the book that's about mobilizing your organization, right. The other is doing structured problem solving in teams. And the third is visioning but also enlisting people in the vision. But that political savvy piece, especially in large and complex organizations where leaders don't have the authority to mandate what's going to get done, it's absolutely essential.