Projects Managers & Politics

Abid Mustafa is a seasoned professional with 18 years' experience in the IT and telecommunications industry, specializing in enhancing corporate performance through the establishment and operation of executive PMOs and delivering tangible benefits through the management of complex transformation programs and projects.

  Governance   Leadership   ProjectsAtWork  

In organizations stifled by politics and power plays, project managers often become resigned to solving problems that don’t threaten the status quo. Better to cope than challenge the corporate order and jeopardize your job, the thinking goes. But putting your head in the sand can be a bigger risk.

Many project managers avoid thinking about the political dimension of problems. For them, problem solving is apolitical and only requires issues to be understood and analyzed, root causes identified and validated, and initiatives developed and implemented that eventually result in workable solutions. The solutions — by and large — are delivered in the form of processes and governance models, roles and responsibilities, training and automation. Problem solving in this manner always conforms to the politics of the company — the “corporate order.”

Unfortunately, no matter how hard project managers try to fix problems, the corporate order always ensures that facets of the solution that threaten its interests are either lobbied away or sufficiently diluted before the green light is given for implementation. Even the implementation of the solution is not secure from the prying eyes and ears of the corporate order. If it discovers that red flags can expose incompetence or heap embarrassment upon it, project and operational reports are skilfully …

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