The young executive

A young executive is working late one evening. As he comes out of his office about 8 PM he sees the Big Boss standing by the shredder in the hallway, a piece of paper in his hand. "Do you know how to work this thing?" the older man asks. "My secretary's gone home and I don't know how to run it." "Yes, sir," says the young executive, who turns on the machine, takes the paper from the other man, and feeds it in. "Now," says his boss, "I just need the one copy ."

Should you advertise your success or not?

Early to bed, early to rise. Work like hell and advertise.
-- Ted Turner

I don't think Mr. Turner was being narcissistic when he urged people to advertise their hard work. I think he was being realistic. Let me put it in perspective. To advertise is to communicate, perhaps with some higher motive. That may vary from person to person but as a former boss myself, I'll tell you why you shouldn't keep quiet about your accomplishments.

1. Your boss's success depends on you. You don't want to deny him the opportunity to brag about success with his boss. In the same way you don't want to be denied of the right to brag about your child's success at school to your own parents.
2. Bosses are busy people. They need to be reminded that you're actually on the ball and earning your salary. You never know when his boss might be checking up on him up on these things.
3. If you have nothing worthwhile to report, then it could be said that what you're doing is not worthwhile. The latter can be detrimental to your career and keeping silent might just be the final nail in your coffin.
4. All things being equal, the person at the top of your boss's mind will get the cherry on the cake - be it promotions or whatever. Top of mind is influenced by advertising which I suspect is what Turner was trying to say. The same rules apply when you choose brand X detergent over brand Y in the supermarket.

If the thought of advertising your success is distasteful to you, then you've probably equated it to flaunting - the shameless self-promotion of some people at work. I don't deny it happens. However to suggest that all communication of success and failure at work be completely extinguished is unrealistic. Is there a middle ground?

I believe so. You'll notice that in my four points, I didn't mention anything about advertising your successes to your colleagues. That's because when you do your pitch, there should only be one person in the audience - your boss. If you conduct these update sessions in private, no one can say you bragged or boasted. If your boss likes it so much he mentions it in public, that's him blowing your trumpet, not you. But the moment you go to town with your own successes, banners and all, that's when the knives come out and your detractors try to cut you down a notch or two.

I always believe reality is what we make it to be and sincerity is our best companion in that journey. If your intention is just to give your boss a personal status update, then declaring your success is nothing to be ashamed about. Bosses understand that. They do it with their bosses. But if you use it to play a game of one-upmanship with your colleagues, then you will become a political target at work. When that happens even your boss might not be able to help you.

20 ways to say no

If you've worked in the kind of companies I have, you've probably had your share of projects thrown to you without your knowledge. If you want to tai chi away these unwelcome intrusions, here's 20 ways to say TAK NAK (no) from OnlineOrganizing.com. A short sampler:

1. I am in the middle of several projects
2. I am not comfortable with that
3. I am not taking on any new responsibilities
4. I am not the most qualified person on the job
5. I do not enjoy that kind of work
6. .....

See the full list here.

I don't know about you but I have a slight problem with this list. Can you imagine knocking on your boss's door to say I do not enjoy that kind of work (tip #5), I need to focus more on my personal life (tip #11) or I need to leave some free time for myself (tip #13).

However some points on the list do seem reasonable and might just be persuasive enough, if you work for a boss that listens that is.

Should you lend money to a colleague?

Someone once told me that lending money to a colleague is like putting money in the stock market. You never know if you'll get your money back.

I must admit I'm pretty biased when it comes to this. I know few things are more irritating than seeing someone at work everyday who has all but forgotten the debt he owes you. I know its unfair to suggest that everyone will break a promise to pay back a loan because many people do value trust and they do pay back. They are not the focus here.

My focus is on the few who would habitually borrow a 10 or 20 from you every now and then because they 'don't have small change' or 'didn't have time to go to the ATM'. The fact that these people can't even manage their own wallets should ring an alarm bell about the state of their short term memory. It shouldn't surprise you when you ask them for your $20 back a few days later that they would raise their eyebrows and mumble incoherences like "Did I...?"

Ok so maybe they've been borrowing from so many people that they lost track. Naturally, since you never asked them to sign a 'Buku 555' (that iconic Malaysian IOU notebook), you have no evidence they took your money. Soundbite: toilet flush. But then again, you'd think that knowing their shortcomings, these people would be responsible enough to carry their own 'Buku 555' right? Fat hopes. If they can't remember what's in their wallets, what makes you think they'd remember where they kept their 'Buku 555'?

But the real scumbags to me are the ones that actually blame you for "mistaking them for someone else" when you come to collect. At least the first type is decent enough to admit they weren't sure. And finally how about the rich forgetful brat who won't hesitate to berate you as a calculative cheapskate for demanding back your hard-earned moolah.

Like most things in life, when it comes to lending money to friends, relatives and colleagues, I have no hard and fast rule, only principles. I believe many compulsive 'micro-borrowers' don't actually mean to forget their deeds so I'm willing to go with the possibility that they may genuinely be suffering from a condition, you know, some hereditary thing that messes up their short term memory. Life is fair and they will pay for it in some other ways. I only find it hard to accept people who feign short term memory just to leech off you. These people basically have no qualms about selling trust for a few dollars.

Either way, my principle is that if you have to do it, only dish out the amount you're willing to lose. And by the way, that is what I always tell myself when I put money in the stock market.

Promotion denied? Read this.

I received an e-mail from reader Hooi San (not her real name) over the weekend. She holds a post as an analyst-programmer. She's apparently very hard working, habitually stays late to finish work, sacrifices her weekends to meet deadlines and does all she can to meet her work objectives. For the last 3 years she has not been promoted but had received nominal salary increments and, in her words, pathetic bonuses. A relative junior whom I'll call Eugene came in at Hooi San's level and got promoted after 2 years. Eugene's work I'm told is not as good as hers but he is a socialite and occasionally lunches with the boss. Hooi San doesn't get along well with him and feels that his promotion was political. She wants to know where she went wrong.

If you've been in, or are currently in, a similar situation, do check to see if any of these apply to you.

1. Your boss gave you no written performance targets and you did not insist on one.
2. Your job targets had changed but you didn't realize it or didn't bother to get them formally recorded by HR.
3. You insist on delivering work on your terms and not on your boss's terms. You do not ask if your work was satisfactory. You just assume it is.
4. You show no positive reaction to efforts to expand your job scope. Instead you've established yourself as a boundary watcher, often complaining about being asked to do things outside your job scope.
5. You have an attitude and habitually make exceptions for yourself, perhaps evoking co-worker complaints.
6. You have a consistently mediocre track record from your boss's point of view or been tainted with an office scandal.
7. You are by nature a timid mouse, perpetually hiding in your corner and offering no cheese to anyone. Any enthusiasm on your part is shortlived. You do not join company social gatherings.
8. You are unable to rally a group of people into achieving something useful (leadership) or if you did, you failed to have your boss acknowledge it.
9. You've become irreplaceable (and hence unpromoteable) because no one else has the skill and knowledge to replace you in your current job.
10. You've never asked you boss what it takes to get a promotion.
11. You have a tendency for insubordination like dragging your disagreements with your boss out into the open, going over his head for decisions or even disobeying direct orders.

Let me highlight a few unpleasant realities about this list.

Firstly, working hard does not necessarily mean you deserve to be promoted. Its the results that count. Results mean getting it right from the boss's point of view, not yours. And as you know, results can be obtained in many ways, one of them hard work.

Secondly, results don't mean an automatic promotion. It is faulty thinking to think one can rise in rank simply by doing more of the same thing, by shooting 5 birds instead of 3. Promotions are about role expansion, doing bigger things at different levels. By constantly harping about being asked to do things outside your job scope, you actually shoot yourself in the foot.

Thirdly, like it or not, your future in the company depends on your relationship with your immediate boss. Yes, the one who signs your appraisal. While having different opinions is normal, if you decide to wage an outright war with your boss, you pretty much know how the story will end.

Fourthly, while bosses are fond of saying that everything depends on your performance, they seldom say that the ability to resolve people conflicts and take charge is also key to your promotability. Why this happens is another story which I'll write about later but when it comes to assessing the suitability to promote, there's more to your typical performance appraisal than meets the eye. Much more and its not all necessarily political.

By the way I use the word techie here as a general name for the 'craftsmen' of the corporation, people whose day-to-day work involves special tools like programmers, tech support, folks in accounting and so on. I'm also not saying that the employee is always to be blamed for not being promoted because there are many jerk bosses around. I'll write about that later.

Fear on-off switch in brain found

Columbia University Medical Center discovers an on-off switch in the brain that controls the emotional response to fear, according to this report.

At last, a fear pill for dealing with scary bosses and customers!

How to apply feng shui at work?

As Friday is a no corporate mumbo jumbo day for me, there'll no corporate mumbo jumbo from me today. Let me talk about something I've been wondering about for a while.

As Malaysians, some of you must have had colleagues who like to blame all the gossiping, backstabbing and politicking in the office on bad feng shui. Naturally our local feng shui heavyweights like Lilian Too and Joey Yap have got a lot to say about this.

I plead guilty to reading about feng shui. The stuff about seating location and facing direction is a no brainer for me. I mean you don't need to read a feng shui book to appreciate why you shouldn't sit outside a cranky boss's office or facing the toilet door right? I just haven't gotten around to appreciating the part about keeping ornaments to dispel politicking. I always thought gossip was determined more by your mouth not by what's on your desk.

One major gripe I have about feng shui books is the assumptions they make. Sit facing west, they say. Put your desk to the left of the door (which in my last office was a 23-floor plunge). Get away from that pillar. Don't sit under the aircon. Don't sit with your back facing the window. Your room's in your bad sector, go move to another room.

Hellooo, you guys on pot or what. In my last office, the only thing that wasn't nailed to the floor was my chair, my wastepaper basket and me. Moving the furniture meant ripping up my room's carpet and most probably replacing it too. And don't even start about moving rooms 'cause there just ain't any left.

Let's get real. We're talking about our office here, not our house. When office space cost a bomb, you pretty much take what's given to you. If you're at the bottom of the food chain, you'll be lucky that HR is not ordering you to change cubicles every now and then. You know, with downsizing and rightsizing and all. As we all know, most HR people have never heard of bad chi which is why office politics is so vicious in this part of the world. Otherwise they'd be giving away feng shui packs to every new employee and having feng shui departments coordinate staff movements according to their auspicious dates.

So what can you do if your feng shui options in the office are limited? Use tabletop waterfalls? Mountain paintings? Plants? Crystals? What?

Frankly speaking I find it a lot easier to work with karma. Do the right thing and the right thing will happen to you. That's not to say I've ruled out feng shui. I just want to hear one success story, just one, that doesn't involve shifting heavy furniture, cubicle walls and overhead beams around.

True tales: Head of security kicks out CEO as staff watch

Its all in the timing he says. And to think you're having a bad day at the office :)

Weasel bosses: The buck stops where?

Do you have weasel bosses at your office? Decisionmakers who like to use phrases like these:

- Maybe that's a good idea. Yes, maybe we should be doing that.
- Ok, since you say so.
- Yes I signed it but they screwed up so you can't say I signed it.
- I was misinformed into saying something I didn't mean.
- Well you put it on my desk so I just signed it. You should have checked it first, don't blame me.

Over the years, I have compiled a compendium of my favorite weasel words used by irresponsible decisionmakers from the CYA (cover-your-ass) school of management, the Asian variety.

Typically this type of boss, not having any good ideas of their own, will praise a staff's idea declaring "Yes, yes, maybe that's a good idea. Maybe we should do that." He nods to the idea of a project team. The project takes off but for some reason goes awry. All eyes are fixed on the decisionmaker. He snarls, "But I said maybe it was a good idea. M-A-Y-B-E. Read my lips. Look at the minutes. I never said definitely." And the responsibility for the failure is shoved to the poor sod who originally proposed the idea.

Believe it or not, when shit hits the fan, there are plenty of COOs, CEOs and board members out there who would do exactly that: run behind semantics to avoid being accused of making bad business decisions. Its like watching a real life version of Dilbert's pointy haired boss. This type of boss does not admit to lapses in judgement. They shrug off responsibility with remarks like, "Well it sounded like a good idea at the time but he didn't know how to execute it so its his fault."

So you tell me. If an army general orders an invasion, can he blame it on his infantrymen for failing to conquer the territory? Should corporate accountability have a different meaning? Should we adopt the Japanese culture's meaning of the word accountable?

It would be nice to but it won't happen because when it comes to work, our codes of honor are different. Other people believe in the buck stops here. We believe in kia si, Hokkien for afraid to die.

In Malaysia, you can't do a Donald Trump (you're fired!) on the boss or anyone for that matter when their ass is on fire. The law makes it very, very difficult. With such immunity, weasels rule. They continue to reach into their bag of tricks and throw out magic words like "empowerment" to assign blame, hoping people won't notice.

This is why I believe that knowing one's boss is as critical to one's career as having the know-how. They checked up on you when you applied for the job. You can also check up on them. Don't be lazy. But for now, if you're always the fall guy and candid talks with the boss don't work (and many of them think they've eaten more salt than you've eaten rice anyway) it could be better to save your sanity and take your talents elsewhere.

Oh yes, while you're at it check out Scott Adam's Weasel Nominees for 2006.

Why shit happens (or how office politics comes to be)

The desire for control. That's my simple answer to the question.

I'll review other people's opinions later on but for now, this is my own opinion based on observations in the various companies I've worked for.

If you look carefully at disgruntled employee rants, you'll often find a few common themes - people's comfort zones being intruded, rewards not matching the efforts, egos assaulted. In almost every case, when you strip off the color and emotions from the argument, its all about stress from bursting bubbles of reality. A fear that one's control over his/her affairs is slipping.

Remember the time when you were a toddler and discovered that you didn't control the world? Do you remember how you reacted when they wouldn't give you all the toys, candy and stuff you wanted? Like all babies you probably threw tantrums and wouldn't quiet down until you got what you wanted. Unfortunately being a lot older doesn't necessarily mean things have changed.

From the day we developed a critical mind, I suspect we developed an innate desire to shape the world in our own image. It may be subconcious but its there in how we dress, how we renovate our houses, how we raise our children. I call it the god complex, one where we use every tool at our disposal - material, time and other people - to create and protect our own version of reality, our little bubble of beliefs. For every second we're awake, our subconscious mind scans and analyzes other poeple's realities and compares them against ours.

The thing is we are territorial creatures by nature. When other people's realities collide against or intrudes into ours, we can feel violated. Maybe someone snubbed our opinion or belittled our authority. We think our control over our little bubble is challenged and we react either by telling the person off or, if we're not influential enough, we plot the offender's downfall. If we don't believe in diplomacy that is. Many babies don't.

Some of you may be fortunate enough to work for companies that let diplomacy work. The rest of you may feel you have to resort to underhanded tactics to settle scores. Both scenarios are political in nature, the difference being the latter is inherently destructive.

So I've concluded that wherever there's people, there's a desire to control. Where there's a desire to control, there's politics. And in the office setting where reward, sanctions and limited resources are the order of the day, it only seems logical for politics to flourish. That my friends is how shit happens.

We don't play office politics here

I remember my ex-boss's words on my first day on the job as a Malaysian hired in Singapore. As we walked towards a Japanese restaurant for my first working lunch with the him (he was the CEO) I thought it was rather odd for office politics to be up there on the orientation agenda. I learnt later that it was a standard pitch he would give to all new staff.

It was a small outfit owned by some Singaporeans and Hong Kongers (the term Hongkies was upsetting they said and so we used it more often). We had about 30 staff at our Beach Road office and another 30 elsewhere in the region.

"Remember, we don't play politics here," my boss explained in between lunch bites as he related his rules of thumb on politic-busting corporate behaviour -

a) Practice an open door policy and an open mind to match.
b) Be candid but respectful
c) Be careful of favoritism or even the perception of creating it
d) Never lose your head when the staff is around
e) Never ever use the phrase "I don't know" in front of the staff

From the conversation, it was obvious to me that my boss had been carrying this chip on his shoulder for a whlie. Once bitten twice shy I thought? To be fair he tried hard to practice what he preached, pulling us aside for some point-blank candidness whenever he felt we were out of line.

That was then. In hindsight, did the boss's rules prevent office politics? Hell no. We still had to contend with the office ogre (a she) and her supporters. We still had our share of brown nosers and vile schemers. Managers still used different tones and language when addressing different staff. The techies never sat at the lunch table with the sales boys. The sales boys would not mingle with finance. And in company functions, the CEO would only invite the PR manager to sit with him at the main table, a guy whom everyone agreed was NATO (no action talk only) and an all-round snake.

And that's my point. If there are more than 2 people in a company, there's bound to be people-associations and rules, written and otherwise. Where those exist, you have politics. Guaranteed. You can pretend its not there. You can adopt a life view and a bag of tricks to make it bearable. You might not even realize that you're the chief politician him/herself, the one that half the organization despises. But we all know it. Politics comes with the territory, period. The only question is how intense.

So while my ex-boss's plea to smite office politics was heroic, I admit there was a certain amount of naiveness in his message IF you take politics for what it really is - just a term to describe decision-making involving limited resources. But politics is a dirty word, no thanks to word association with the other kind of politics. Valid or not, that is the perception and perception is reality. On that score I agree, we don't want to play office politics here. I just happen to believe it requires a bit more than just telling people to straighten up and fly right.

So while you might think office politics is a topic of petty conversation, the damage it does to industry is anything but petty. It runs into the billions. Consider the effects of talent drain, project interruptions and cancellations, wastage of executive time and resources, bleeding of intellectual property, customer defection and the reduced productivity of a demoralized workforce. Sadly, these are issues of the dark side that few CEOs are willing to admit to, much less act upon.

I guess its safe to say that while everyone hates office politics, nobody seems to know how to eliminate it. Running off and joining another company doesn't quite cure the disease either but the utopia nevertheless exists. So if you've come across an organization that has no office politics, I'm sure may people would like to hear about it.

Secretary joke

A businessman was confused about a bill he had received so he asked his secretary for some mathematical help. “If I gave you $1,500 minus 3%, how much would you take off?”

The secretary replied, “Everything but my earrings.”

Top 10 things that sound dirty in the office

Top 10 Things That Sound Dirty at the Office, But Aren’t:

10. I need to whip it out by 5.
9. Mind if I use your laptop.
8. Put it in my box before I leave.
7. If I have to lick one more, I’ll gag!!.
6. I want it on my desk, NOW.
5. Hmmmmmmmmmm…..I think it’s out of fluid.
4. My equipment is so old it takes forever to finish.
3. It’s an entry-level position.
2. When do you think you’ll be getting off today?

AND #1…

1. It’s not fair…I do all the work while he just sits there.

Intro

If you’re Spongebob Squarepants who hurries to your Krusty Krab restaurant extra early every morning, happily singing “I’m ready, I’m ready,” then you’ll be wondering why you came to this blog.

Hello I’m Luke, Malaysian, a professional bummer after 20 years of gainful employment. Yeah work can be a bitch when your mind is anywhere but at work. Been there done that, as an employee and as a tight-fisted boss.

Well ain’t life a bitch. I bet given half the chance, most of us would rather sleep through the morning and party all night long 5 days a week. But we owe, we owe, so off to work we go. If we have to put up with this necessary evil, then I reckon we deserve a place to rant. I mean minus the alcohol.

So why Malaysia? (Actually Singapore, my other place of work, applies too.) Because where else in the world do you find yourself among truly diverse ethnic colleagues - Chinese, Malay, Indian, native Bornean and the occasional Kwai Loh (white man) under the same roof, all trying to out-jostle each other, all sharing the same fine curse words. We’re truly Asia, heh. But is that the only thing that makes us unique? Try this: kiasuism, saving face, office feng shui, labor laws that make it virtually impossible to fire anyone, and my favorite... the Chinaman company syndrome.

One thing. I agree with Marie McIntyre when she said office politics is like having sex. Everybody does it but nobody is comfortable describing exactly what they do, although we gleefully talk what other people might be doing. Typically for us, its they who are “playing politics”. They are sucking up, scheming, and manipulating, but we… why we are building relationships, developing strategies, establishing dialogue. Sound familiar?

So there we are. Why not call a spade a spade. Amidst all the blatant self-promotion and devious plotting, I try to look at the issue from both sides. Maybe there’s something there. Or maybe not. With a little bit of thought and role play, you just never know what you might find.

Luke

About this blog

This blog is rant space for office politics in the Asian, specifically Malaysian setting. Here we toss around the hilarious and not so hilarious goings on in the workplace. I’m trying to make this a place for people to come back to when they have a bad or even good day at the office.

If you want to share your own experiences about office politics in your workplace, e-mail me your articles. I’ll be more than happy to post it if its meaningful or funny. Your comments welcome. Enjoy.

Luke

mysgofficepolitics at gmail dot com