CHAPTER 21
Politics: What Current and New Leaders Need to Know Organizationally and Personally
The fifth component of the organizational playbook is politics. Can we talk about politics? Do we have to talk about politics? Politics is inevitable in any organization of more than one person. Even if you'd like to pretend your organization is politics-free, it isn't. Even if you'd like to ignore the politics and get on with the real work, you can't. On the other hand, those who make playing politics their first priority often fail to get beyond it.
To be fair, some try to avoid the politics and the hard decisions.
Two companies merged in Japan. For all to save face, they agreed that the president of one of the companies would be the first president of the combined organization. When he retired, the president of the other company would take over. Then, each successive leader would alternate between the two companies.
And that's what they did.
For 30 years.
After 30 years, all the people who had previously worked for either one of the original companies had finally left or retired and they finally got to pick a president who thought he worked for the combined company.
And sometimes people don't even talk.
One combining company merged departments by putting them on the same floor—but kept all the old work groups together on opposite sides of the floor. You'd get off the elevator and go left to talk to someone who had previously worked for one of the merged companies and turn right to talk to someone from the other company.
They never mingled and never got to know each other. After 6 months, they were still using FedEx to send each other packages overnight—across the hall.
You read that right. Someone from FedEx would pick up a package and drive it to the local depot where it was put on a plane, flown to Memphis, sorted, put back on a plane, flown back to the originating city, put on a truck, driven back to the office building, and delivered to the recipient—50 feet from where it started.
A Different Approach
AMN Healthcare Services chief executive officer (CEO) Susan Salka said its acquisition of Medfinders was going “exceptionally well.” She believed the acquisition had strengthened its position as the country's largest health care staffing company, leading to a doubling of fill rates, keeping more services “in-house,” and helping win more business. She was pleased because AMN's customers, leadership, and team members saw the benefits of the merger for their businesses and for themselves.1
This success did not come without hard work and careful planning. The steps Salka and her team took provide insight into how to use the time before the deal closing to jump-start learning and relationships. Salka built success on a foundation of improved customer service and three priorities:
- Early conversations with all
- A well-resourced integration management office
- Staying close to the process
Early Conversations
Salka and her lieutenants had early conversations with AMN's investors and laid out the benefits to its clients and the company culture. Then she spent significant time aligning the combined leadership team, investing heavily in planning and communication between the announcement and the close, and then bringing the combined sales leadership together right after the close. As Salka explained to George,
Investing in planning and communication up front … so we could have as many decisions made and ready to communicate as possible…. That clarity and decisiveness created a lot of trust and reduced anxiety.
Integration Management Office
A merger is not business as usual. AMN established and resourced an integration management office to give it a real-time view of how things were going. As a result, they knew:
- What they were accomplishing and getting done
- How they were progressing toward their target of adding $10 million in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA)
- How well we were keeping team members motivated and inspired
Stay Close
Salka learned the importance of communicating with everyone at a personal level to get at their expectations, hopes, and fears. It's not good enough to keep tabs on what's going on; leaders must show up. As Salka put it, you need a management process:
But even more important than that is to be out in the field listening, listening, listening to the team members, to our customers. Because you can hear one thing in a meeting and see it on paper, but if the reality or the perception is different out in the field, whether it be at one of our offices or with a customer, then what's on paper doesn't really matter…. You just can't spend enough time out in front of your team members listening—and sharing!
Implications
In a merger or acquisition, everybody's first question is, “What about me?” A merger or acquisition resets everyone's progress up Maslow's hierarchy of physiological, safety, belonging, self-esteem, and self-actualization needs.
As you reboot or establish new relationships with internal and external stakeholders, including customers, you're going to have to meet them where they are and move back up the hierarchy together. Remember, it's a competitive world. Play not to lose on hygiene physiological and safety factors. Then move on to belonging, self-esteem, and self-actualization benefits.
Hygiene
In the 1950s and 1960s, Fredrick Herzberg taught us about job satisfiers and job dissatisfiers.
The dissatisfiers, like company policies, supervision, relationships with supervisor and peers, work conditions, salary, status, and security, are hygiene factors that need to be good enough not to dissatisfy people. But there are severely diminished returns to taking them beyond good enough.
On the other hand, the more the better with satisfiers like achievement, recognition, the work itself, responsibility, advancement, and growth.
Maslow Hygiene Factors
In general, the first two levels of Maslow's hierarchy are hygiene factors. People's physiological and safety needs need to be met well enough for them not to be problems.
The top levels are satisfiers. The more self-esteem and self-actualization, the better.
Belonging benefits are caught in the middle. They are higher-level than hygiene factors, but often not satisfiers on their own. People want to belong to a club, tribe, or fan base. But it's only a differentiating benefit if that membership builds their self-esteem or self-actualization.
Reboot
One of the tricky things for people working through a merger or acquisition is the shift from focusing on Maslowian satisfiers to hygiene. The issue is that people generally move through Maslow's hierarchy sequentially. They can't even think about the next level up until they've satisfied the level below. And a merger or acquisition sends everyone back to thinking about physiological or safety needs.
There's a huge risk in not meeting people where they are. You can't talk about higher-order objectives with people trying to figure out if they're going to lose their job.
Happiness
Happiness is good. Actually, it's found in the pursuit of three goods: good for others, good at it, good for me. These line up with Maslow's hierarchy as physiological, safety, and belonging are about good for me (and those I care about), self-esteem is correlated with being good at what you do, and self-actualization comes from doing good for others.
Thus, the prescription for success: Win at office politics by getting alignment around a shared purpose first and then taking a principle-based approach to navigating through the politics.2
- Start by reconfirming your purpose.
- Figure out the Maslowian political landscape.
- Take a principle-based approach to working through the politics with your allies.
Shared Purpose
Start with what matters. Call it what you want: mission, vision, cause, higher calling. There is some reason for your organization to exist, some purpose. This is why people are part of your organization and why the organizations needed to merge. Everyone in the organization should agree on this—even if they forget it from time to time.
In his work to gain passage of the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery and indentured servitude, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln went all the way back to the Declaration of Independence's unalienable rights of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Securing those is the nation and the government's purpose. In general, all agreed with this.
Sometimes this will be hard. But find and reconfirm your organization's purpose as a starting point.
Political Landscape
Even if all agree on the purpose, they will be at different stages of Maslow's hierarchy and may have different interpretations of that purpose and different views of the best way to achieve it. Different people will have different constituencies, different allies, and different personal agendas. You cannot influence these people until you understand their context, perspectives, and needs.
Lincoln understood the different factions in the House of Representatives. Some had different priorities. Some saw different sequences of events. One of the big questions in 1865 was whether to push for an end to the Civil War before pushing for the constitutional amendment or the other way around. Some congressmen had been voted out of office. They would be worrying about their next jobs. Net different people had different perspectives and different personal agendas.
Understand the political landscape.
Working Through the Politics
Taking a principle-based approach to working through the politics with your allies helps to elevate things beyond the personal. It's not about you. It's not about them. It's about working together in pursuit of a shared purpose. Try to avoid arguing about different opinions as much as possible. Instead, agree on a set of principles. Then marshal your allies to move things forward in keeping with those principles.
As depicted so well in Stephen Spielberg's film Lincoln, Lincoln was prepared to push all sorts of boundaries to eliminate slavery. He was prepared to work with anyone he needed, humble himself when needed, cajole when needed, bully when needed, and stay out of the way when needed. He was prepared to trade jobs for support, but not pay bribes. He was prepared to delay peace talks so he could say they had not happened yet.
Play from principles, not personal persuasion.
Think in terms of a BRAVE approach to office politics:
- Where to play (environment): understand the political field and especially where people are on their reboot up Maslow's hierarchy.
- What matters (values): your purpose and principles.
- How to win (attitude): how to navigate the politics to achieve your purpose by (1) meeting people where they are on Maslow's hierarchy, (2) helping them understand how things can be good for them, (3) helping them do what they are good at, and then (4) helping them do good for others.
- How to connect (relationships): build alliances first to keep people safe (good for me), then do things they are good at together and finally to do good for others in line with the organization's purpose.
- What impact (behaviors): make it real.
Acquired Company Leaders
The prescription is not much different for acquired company leaders—if you immediately flip from thinking about yourselves as acquired company leaders to leaders in the new, combined company.
The people evaluating you and trying to figure out your role in the new organization have the same first question, “What about me?” In other words, what role can they put you in that's best for them? Treat them like you would treat a new boss.
Portions of this framework were adapted from Kevin Coyne and Edward Coyne's article “Surviving your new CEO,”3 and then expanded. Here are seven behaviors to keep in mind:
- Foundation: Treat your new boss and new colleagues decently as human beings. Make them feel welcome, valued and valuable. Enable them to do good work. Do the job they ask you to do well—not the boss’s.
- Attitude: Choose to be optimistic. Believe the best about your new boss and colleagues. Focus on these positives at all times with all people.
- Approach: Proactively tell your new boss and colleagues that you want to be part of the new team and follow up with actions to reinforce this.
- Learning: Present realistic and honest game plans to help your boss and colleagues learn. Seek out the new boss's and your new colleagues' perspectives early and often, and be open to new directions.
- Expectations: Understand and move on your new boss’s agenda immediately. Know the boss’s priorities. Know what the new boss thinks your priorities should be.
- Implementation: Adjust to your new boss’s working style immediately. This is a hard shift, not an evolution around control points, decision-making, and communication.
- Delivery: Be on your “A” game. Be present and “on”—everything done by you and your team will be part of your new boss’s evaluation of you. Deliver early wins that are important to your new boss and to the people they listen to. In a merger or acquisition, the score is reset. Your old wins and your team's old wins are history.
Working for a Boss Who Didn't Want You
It happens all the time. Headquarters or the owners drop someone in to help a division or portfolio company accelerate through a point of inflection like a merger, working for a boss who doesn't want them. If you're the one getting dropped in, jump-shift your loyalties immediately: (1) disengage from your previous situation; (2) engage with your new boss; and (3) do what is required to accelerate progress—in that order.4
Disengage
Whatever the people who put you into the job have in mind for the long term over the short term everyone needs you to help your new boss and their organization be more successful.
Be prepared for your new boss to fear the worst—that you were dropped in for a darker purpose. They may think you're there to spy on them, to shore up one of their personal weaknesses, or to replace them. As much as they try to bury those concerns, and whether they voice them or not, they are real and must be addressed before they can trust you.
Your long-term loyalty to the people that put you in to work for your new boss is best served by transferring your immediate loyalty from them to your new boss. Help them by helping your new boss. Making this is a hard shift. You no longer work for the people you used to work for. You work for your new boss and have to earn their trust. The best way to earn trust is to be trustworthy.
Be explicit with the people who put you into the job. Be clear that you're going to route communication to them through your new boss. Neither they nor you should go around your new boss in any way. You may not be able to and may not want to sever all communication links, but you can make sure your new boss knows everything you're telling their bosses—ideally before you tell them. And in all cases make sure your new boss hears about communication with their bosses from you and not from them.
Engage
Choose to be optimistic. Even if they didn't choose to have you work for them, you can choose to make this the best possible experience with the best possible results for all involved. Commit to your new team's purpose, its cause. Do this explicitly with your words and actions. Adjust to your new boss’s working style. Engage with your boss personally.
Regarding your game plan, don't assume that what the people who dropped you in told you or what you observed from your previous vantage point was right. Understand and move on your new boss’s agenda immediately. Know your boss’s priorities. Know what your new boss thinks your priorities should be. Be open and willing to do whatever it takes to move the organization forward, putting aside your own interests as appropriate.
Follow Through
Be on your “A” game. Be present and “on.”
Notes
- 1 Bradt, George, 2011, “Three Priorities in Ensuring a Smooth Merger or Acquisition,” Forbes (July 20).
- 2 Bradt, George, 2012, “How to Win at Office Politics,” Forbes (December 3).
- 3 Coyne, Kevin, and Coyne, Edward, 2007, “Surviving Your New CEO,” Harvard Business Review (May).
- 4 Bradt, George, 2021, “Executive Onboarding with a Boss Who Didn't Want You,” Forbes (December 1).