CEOs - What The Available Technologies During Covid-19 Will Do To Corporate Politics

By David Mugun |Author |Management consultant & Trainer |Publisher|.

Albert Einstein, a century ago, observed that: "There's been a quantum leap technologically in our age, but unless there's another quantum leap in human relations, unless we learn to live in a new way towards one another, there will be a catastrophe."  Human relations in the office and in general seemed to worry Einstein and as he rightly stated, the answers lay in learning to live in a new way towards one another. That seems to be what COVID 19 has forced on us. But let us begin with things as they are now in the office. Every organization has two organograms. First, is the official one that is shared with all stakeholders across the board and often lends meaning and weight to the job titles used on business cards. This first organogram gives us a glimpse of who officially commands what sort of delegated authority or even craves for some of it, based on where they are placed on it. This structure, many times, is constructed with the help of costly management consultants. The second organogram needs no paid consultants as it is formed out of selfishness. It is an invisible kind that exists whether we like it or not. This is the political organogram. And they could be many of them in the same outfit depending on who leads which one of them, and also where their command centres are located. In this structure, the CEO's driver could be ranked much higher up and perhaps closer to the General manager whose leadership style, serves to coalesce his followers around office politics. The driver may hear of something that concerns you while dutifully taking the boss around. The secretary is another high ranking staffer in this structure. The ultimate price for the ambitious power wielders is to attain the 'untouchables' label which in turn lends weight to their self-assigned longevity goals in the organisation. This is about self-preservation not career development. The political organogram brings together those who acknowledge that power can either protect them or, can be used to secure for them much-needed resources at the expense of 'outsiders' who must be treated with contempt. The cost to any organisation of political shenanigans is quite high as the players manipulate resources to suit their own objectives. It promotes mis-allocations and displacements, thus compromising efficiencies and harmony. Power games in their various permutations and combinations may take any form. the pivots of bias can manifest ethnically, racially, take a gender-based angle or even a religious one. A common type is the one between born-towns versus rural chaps, aka, District Focus - DFs. It can take just about any kind of differentiators that people can rally around to apply pro or counter-efforts around a defined mission. Ultimately, it's about the control of all resources and influence within a given system. The allure of the power to dole out resources, tangible or not, is a very hard temptation to resist for many people. In the political organogram, for one to look good, another must be made to look bad. It is both the art and the science of dirtying others to attain selfish ends. The art is in the execution and the science is found in the methodology. In the corporate world, power games play out when the scarce resource that brings about conflict is something like a job promotion or a transfer. A promotion demonstrates confidence and added power, but to which side of the divide? The endeavors of the undercurrents are actualised through crucial information blackouts on rivals, and character assassinations that surly make one a part of the living dead. You know it when people walk past you like you don't exist, or when they cut you off or even bypass you on activities related to your docket. Some are suave and remain hidden from you. These are the ones that fatten you, then use you before they dump you. (Kikulacho, ki nguoni mwako). Continuous attempts to demonstrate an opponent's deviations from corporate norms are the order of the day. Say, an enemy file's a travel expense claim and his genuine purchases receipt is made to look like a forgery. And if it doesn't get him fired, it delays reimbursement until the authenticity of the receipt is demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt. The office politician's mantra is: "If you cannot convince them, then you must confuse them!" And these actions are employed to great effect only when many people are in close proximity. Its more exciting when they collectively laugh at you. The increased use of teleconferencing / virtual meeting technologies, adds to the mitigants of managing political risks at work. I know of a guy who was locked up in the toilets just minutes to his much-awaited presentation to the board of directors. He had left his cell phone at his desk. Everyone swore not to have known of his whereabouts and so the meeting went on and ended without his crucial presentation. The overseas-based directors went back home without listening to what had really brought them into the country. They registered their displeasure with the turn of events. Thankfully, the CCTV footage showed the watchman locking the toilet door. He confessed to being directed by a senior manager who at the time, was angling for an executive directorship that was in the works. Later, the board was split down the middle on what to do with the ill-intentioned manager because some members were compromised. He was eventually eased off quietly. But many times, the bad guys win. (watu wameumia sana bwana) We all know about these games. Politics thrives where crowds are freely available like the playing pieces on a chessboard. Office politics hates social distancing because conspiracies, just like any other form of intercourse, depends on the physical presence of the actors to be effective, besides, present-day recording devices, suitable for away-from-office use, preserve rather than conceal unwanted evidence. Office politics is strictly practised offline. It hates digital footprints that enhance traceability as they work against them. The work-from-home policy disrupts office politics in ways that could actually liberate the typically timid people (pawns), into greater productivity. Attention is now shifting strictly to output per person and this means that Departmental Heads will get measured on clear deliverables void of inconceivable forces. Those who've always flourished by intimidating the battle-hardened majority from regular-schools, by weaponizing (group-of-schools) aesthetics, jargon and the acquired mannerisms, whenever power games have come calling for their optics and verbosity, are in for a discomforting journey ahead. Such superfluity is vastly measurable in political settings but this is seldom the case in purposed output-driven setups. An earlier edition vehicle's dashboard is ineffective in a newer car model. To each, it's own. Or is it prudent to add that an off-roader serves well both in and out of town whilst the town purposed car is restricted to city limits? This is important moving forward because the cheaper employee is now the dearer one. With possibilities of harnessing work-based technologies from anywhere, the rural chaps can relocate upcountry and easily adjust back to their factory settings, if their job output is not dependent on their operating location. There will be no need to hang around the Head Office to sniff for political whiffs. Working away gives added freedom to all employees as they can now work from an environment relatively under their own control. It may not be prudent for a boss to drop by at a junior's house to monitor progress unless there exists a mutually respectful relationship, but hopefully, not the kind that tolerates the breaching of social distancing rules. And whichever one of them it is, it is still harder to patronise someone in their own home. So for the office politician, the ground has shifted against you. Now, there is the kind of organisation leader who operates a carefully crafted divide and rule policy. Such types feel insecure when those working below them seem organised. They will deliberately create opposing sides and feed each with half-truths about the other side or person. This is meant to stir up emotions and when people smell betrayal, their survival instincts mode is fully awakened. The fight is now on, and each one thinks that they have the boss's backing. It's no wonder that some bosses have popcorn in the office in times of high drama. These kinds of leaders, require people around them to keep receiving information. There are instances where the owner-Chairman or CEO of the company, often invites certain members of staff over for a 'drink-up' at his house. This 'informal' gathering, is a very potent council whose unminuted discussions have a bearing on careers back at work. These kinds of meetups are difficult to stop but the nature of the working environment, moving forward, denies their participants with the juice needed to tell on the other camp. What can you possibly say of someone you hardly meet anymore? You have to begin looking good by yourself now. So you must change the content and approach. It is also inevitable that technology-backed work-away arrangements will shrink work forces further. This means that bosses will retain versatile staffers to ensure the attainment of desired outputs. This will keep the chosen few quite busy. Politicking will be a luxury that no one can afford. In fact, the level of politics in an organisation, if measured, will tell you how many people you need to get rid of, in order to attain a sense of productive peace at work. There are leaders who are waiting for things to thaw, COVIDwise, then get back to business as it was before the pandemic. These ones will encourage office politics at the company's peril because, those other organizations that emerge leaner and meaner as a result of cutting the fat to focus on output, will have lower operational costs. This, in turn, shall afford them the wiggle room to pass the savings competitively down to their consumers, thus forcing the business-as-usual types to react by cutting their own fat too, to get back in the game. The end result shall be as a consequence of shading off the politicians in favour of results-oriented employees. So to avoid the catastrophe that Albert Einstein warned us about a century ago, we must embrace change or wait to be changed by it. If you cannot shape up, then you must ship out, willingly or otherwise. Office politics love's quantity but professionalism love's quality.