I'm not in a place where I can leave my current job, and I realize that this is prevalent basically everywhere.
The issue is, I find myself essentially constantly walking on eggshells, unsure of when the situation calls for directness vs. being agreeable at all costs. This constantly delays projects and saps my energy, which negatively impacts the company, my career, and my happiness.
Are there any books HN can recommend that discuss this at high level? I'm not expecting a solution — but I'm hoping there is reading material out there that will help me understand and navigate this better.
* Management: A political activity by Ted Stephenson. For some reason, most people are not aware of this book. Deals with Power, Conflict, Bargaining, Compromise, Participation and Change. The opening line of the preface states "This book presents the view that management is substantially a political activity, based on power and characterized by conflict". Since we are dealing with Human organisms this is absolutely the right approach to take.
* The Empowered Manager: Positive Political Skills at Work by Peter Block is also good but more idealistic. But be aware that trying to be/do good does not guarantee reciprocation.
* The Complete Upmanship: Including Gamesmanship, Lifemanship, One-upmanship and Supermanship by Stephen Potter. Humourous, but a great deal of life advice in it. Basically, how to put down other people and show yourself in the best light using "genteel" psychological means.
* Behavior Modification: Principles and Procedures by Raymond Miltenberger. ABA psychology course textbook which is a must read.
* Brainwashing: The science of thought control by Kathleen Taylor. The title is bit sensationalist, but the content is very relevant.
Some workplaces value consensus and some workplaces value correctness.
Sound about right?
Unfortunately there's nothing you can do to change the culture.
Instead of trying to change or deal with or adapt to culture, ask pointed questions about correctness vs consensus culture during the interview.
EDIT: One book to suggest is Survival of the Savvy: High-Integrity Political Tactics for Career and Company Success
I’m struggling to see when this wouldn’t be the case in any form of modern conflict management.
As far as to how you deal with weak leadership leading to design by committee? You probably don’t, unless it’s your job to do so.
There isn’t really a lot of literature on this subject aimed at employees trying to lead up-wards, but any sort of team-management literature will cover it.
There is a big difference between conflict management, and leading a team in a design process though. They really don’t relate on any level. If “you’re” entering design by committee, then “you’re” not using “your” resources correctly, “you’re” not defining the direction or goal and “you’re” not making decisions. Note that “you” is the person in charge and this persons manager, but there is typically very little people, who are not in charge can do, to successfully change that. Conflict by contrast is how you resolve disagreements, and in interpersonal conflict you’ll always want to seek compromise and figuring out how to get along. In design processes, you’ll want a team leader to take charge and pick whatever input is most likely to achieve the projects goals.
I wouldn’t worry about conflict though. It’s a natural part of life. Be honest and be assertive but be polite and pick your battles wisely. If whatever it is that is being mismanaged isn’t actually your responsibility, then you don’t actually have to care. Even if you can’t change your job right now, it’ll be healthier for you, if you stay true to yourself and don’t carry any weight they don’t pay you to carry.
Really good read, and has Jim Collins and Robert Cialdini singing its praises (check the back flap on amazon) if you need bona fides
But the general gist of all this is essentially to "fight fire with fire", as awful it may sound. But do note that there are some cultural aspects to this as well, companies with a strongly American culture are way more subject to that "dishonest harmony" phenomena compared to companies with a German or Dutch culture for example (other countries with a more honest and direct culture apply as well).
This book seems to deal with just about anything worthwhile, and while it does not go deep into specific workplace situations, it touches a lot on the subject of motivation and behaviors that affect the subjects, so you might yet find it interesting, if you're willing to take wild ride.
Of the books I've read in 2020, this is the one I must recommend anytime I get a chance: Where Is My Flying Car?: A Memoir of Future Past by J Storrs Hall
I'll second the suggestion to speak with a professional therapist or coach if it's an option. These situations are difficult to navigate and a neutral perspective can be helpful.
by Franz Metcalf (Author), Bj Gallagher (Author)
Someone recommended "Moral Mazes" and I heartily second it. Though mostly because it was so profoundly cynical that it pushed me to defend the systems I was so annoyed by.
If you want to learn the language of design by committee, "Nonviolent Communication" by Marshall Rosenberg is the book that the rest of the committee is playing from. It has genuinely useful pieces. But I also find it fundamentally dishonest in that it frames all other forms of communication as "violent" in a rank misuse of the word. Additionally, the techniques it recommends require that you put in all the effort of framing a situation as no-blame or shared-blame when it very much is not. You do not need to agree with your opponents' tactics manual to find value in its study.
"Radical Candor" by Kim Scott is an attempt to bring directness in to otherwise passive aggressive situations. It's a valiant attempt but it's unclear to me how viable its recommendations are.
However it's not clear to me that any amount of high or low level reading is going to help with your feelings of dissatisfaction here. It sounds like you're looking for a "win" instead of an "out". And despite the deeply cynical feelings it can generate, you cannot succeed at office politics through cynicism. Or irony. Or cynical, ironic, distance. The successful are either completely earnest, or sociopathic enough to fake complete earnestness. And from the outside those are indistinguishable.
Or, just quit. I've taken conflict all the way through being fired multiple times and there really isn't a way to win if you are not part of the mafia. At a very huge ecommerce company they had SDE career training, and you are told bluntly all the people deciding things are cigar smoking mobsters so basically, you are a peon and you're fucked for a career if you are not in management. You need to enter a company through personal connections not skills, or it just isn't going to work no matter how much politics you try.
There are tactics I call socialist tactics. Many people for instance being on the losing end of an argument having a dumb idea or no clue, will use their position as a management to call a large meeting, confuse all the people in it with bullshit, then get them to agree on something they don't understand. Another tactic is when challenged in a meeting, call for a instant vote (its a democracy) while pressuring people to vote for them. Third tactic is to meet for a few hours, decide everything you want, then try to force teammates into the meeting two hours later, then claim the whole team is on board with what they decided because everyone was in the meeting. Fourth tactic, is to lie continuously and whoever is around upper management the most/most face time wins with the most lies.
I don't condone any of these, but shitty managers will use all of them and they seem to be learning them somewhere because I see them repeatedly.
Perhaps the best advice for your situation is to praise publicly, criticize privately which is also what a lot of office bastards do all the time.
I’ve found what works for me is being honest while keeping perspective of what I can and cannot control.
In a recent situation, I was set up in an uncomfortable position, having to work around my manager to get the right outcome for our clients or just agreeing with my manager and watching things slowly, painfully fail.
I wrote a document explaining the situation, the key decisions that need to be made, and their trade offs. I asked my manager if he had concerns if we reviewed this document together with other stakeholders.
Generally, people may be doing the wrong thing because they lack the right information or because they’re afraid something might put them in a bad light, and that defensiveness leads to undesirable behaviors and outcomes.
We all reviewed the document together in a meeting. 20 minutes of reading time followed by another 15 minutes of discussion and another 15 minutes to agree on next steps.
Next steps can be - here’s a rough plan of action, tracer4201 you go work out the details. Or it can be, we don’t have enough information, let’s get the data and meet again. Or it can be — we are not able to agree, let’s escalate.