Treacherously-Moved Cheese

 

As 2013 heads to a close, so, too, (mercifully) does my over-use of the metaphor behind my last few blogs, springboarding off of the title of Spencer Johnson’s best-seller, Who Moved My Cheese? In this book, miniature humans dwelling in a maze attempt to obtain caches of cheese, representing the attaining of goals and success. Since these caches move, the miniature humans deal with issues surrounding changing circumstances and the best way to deal with them.

And yet it must be pointed out that one of the primary causes of moved cheese …er, detrimentally-changed circumstances, is the presence of bad players within the project team. In Michael Maccoby’s book The Gamesman, the New Corporate Leaders, he outlines four basic worker archetypes:

·         The Craftsman doesn’t really care too much about the organization for which he works, but does care about the quality of his work and output.

·         The Company Man tends to adopt the persona of the macro organization around him.

·         The Gamesman (after whom, obviously, the book is named) sees his profession not as a means of putting food on the table or a roof over his head, but as a big, complex game, one that he intends to master.

·         And, finally, the Jungle Fighter, who gets ahead through calumny and other office-politic treacheries.

It’s this last I want to analyze, because they can be so damaging to the project and project team, and yet largely go unrecognized, much less properly handled.

For this discussion to move forward, we’ll need a precise definition of the term “office politics.” I think office politics should be defined as members of the organization pursuing goals that benefit them personally, but are either incompatible with, or even contrary to, the goals of that organization. These actions can be as mild as the decision of a salesperson to not smile as much to customers, or as major as a principal project team member seeking to ruin the standing of a perceived rival.

While the following two assertions should go without saying, especially among experienced managers, I will state them anyway: (1) Jungle Fighters are political animals, and those times they advance within the organization, they almost always do so via political tactics, and (2) Jungle Fighters are present in your project team, whether you know it or not. As a manager, you can significantly improve your projects’ odds of success if you can both identify the Jungle Fighters within your project team, and render ineffective their tactics.

How to Identify a Jungle Fighter.  This is actually easier than you might think, even if your brain isn’t wired like one of them. Jungle Fighters’ main (exclusive?) strategy is to change the perception of those above them in the organization, rather than actually accomplish anything tangible. They do this through two primary tactics: ex parte conversations, and accomplishment/error inflation/deflation.  Much like The Godfather’s Michael Corleone knew that the first one of his father’s lieutenants who came to him offering to arrange a meeting with Barzini was a traitor, you will know when any member of your project team seeks a private audience with you in order to criticize another member of the team that you have a Jungle Fighter on your hands.

Their other tactic, which I’m calling accomplishment/error inflation/deflation, is also aimed at altering perceptions. The Jungle Fighters will inflate and trumpet their contributions excessively, while playing down any errors they may have committed. While this is somewhat attributable to human nature, its inverse is not: they will make it a point to amplify the impact of the errors made by other members of the team, while minimizing their accomplishments. These are two sure-fire reveals of Jungle Fighters in your organization.

How to Render Ineffective Their Tactics. Thwarting these tactics can be simple, even deceptively (get it?) so. Refuse the ex parte conversation requests. Announce at your next project team meeting that, in the future, should any member of the team wish to talk about the performance of any other member, that all such reviews – including the relative value of team members’ accomplishments – will involve the team member being discussed. Stripped of the ability to tear down their organizational competitors unopposed, they will quickly realize the game has changed, and will either alter their behaviors to become genuine contributors, or else find another project team where they can persist in their Jungle Fighter ways.

Ultimately, the cheese still gets moved, just not due to treachery.