Your Next Move: Corporate Politics

SIXTH Post: Review of Your Next Move (by Michael Watkins): Getting Promoted--The Corporate Diplomacy Challenge. When even insiders get promoted to a new level, especially an executive level, they face a new challenge: Internal Politics. “A new leader can get caught in a deeply debilitating cycle…” in which there’s too much reliance on authority and commensurate negative reaction, an over-reaction and hardening of the new leader –followed by polarization and eventually rejection. If the newly promoted take on the philosophy that “I don’t play politics,” then prepare for the worst. In fact, they must prepare for agendas, alliances and relationships and all the complexities that all three bring. In short, think like a politician: Who will support your ideas, and who will not. What will it take to get something new off the ground. An do not ever think that even if it’s good for the company or if you’re the smartest person in the room that it’s ever a slam dunk. It’s more about people’s emotional reaction to you and/or the idea than the objective good or bad involved. If you want no politics, go live in a monastery—opps—there’s politics there too!