If I had to narrow down the biggest lesson of my workplace career it would be this gem:

I always thought that being smart or being persistent were the keys to success. If you were smart or you worked hard or both… you would get ahead. That isn’t true.

The key to success is being political. It’s about “not getting voted off the island”.

Think about it.

It explains so much.

There is one in every workplace right? An idiot everyone wonders… how did they get in here and how the hell do they keep getting promoted.

It’s because they are playing the “game”. They are political. They are building alliances.

If you are in a company of all smart people, it’s not intelligence or hard work that is going to get you noticed. No my friend. The only way to become a star is to be political. Hard work and smarts are really a corporate myth. They are the ultimate leveler. Everyone has them to some degree. What really distinguishes people is how well they can weld their political skills in the workplace.

What do I mean by being political? It means not getting voted off the island. Walking the fine line of getting what you want, doing your job, building great products, handling controversy…without people hating you or how you handle things. It’s getting buy in and getting it early. It’s getting people committed to you and your ideas. Yes my friends, you must build alliances. And if you choose the wrong people to build them with, you can get voted off the island. (But we’ll talk about that in another post sometime.)

Identify the people in your organization who are well thought of and then stick yourself to them like glue. If they don’t like you, you simply have to “sound like them” and support their agenda. They will come around. And remember you must always make your boss look good, even if you hope to vote him off at the next meeting.

Yes. Basic stuff. But stuff no one tells you at review time as they focus on how “hard” you are working.

And remember, you heard it here first.

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