Galaxy Class Biz

Bystander Part 2/2

After you have identified the potential bystanders, you will need to identify the reasons they are acting as bystanders.

-          Why do you think they are bystanders?

-          What are the reasons why they have to take such position?

-          If I am failed, how will it benefit them?

-          If they offer help to me, what benefit will they get?

-          If I am confront with them, what will cost me?

Since the bystanders have decided to take the bystanding position, they will continue to do so. The best way to handle these bystanders is to confront with them politically. It does not mean that you go directly and accuse them that they are taking such position. On the contrary, you will need be diplomatic to confront bystanders. Some of the example that you can use to confront with them.

-          I believe that you aware that I am in the deep trouble here. Can you share your view on the issue?

-          Many people said many things to me that I might go down with the project, what do you think about these statements?

-          What do you think this project will end up?

-          If you were in my position, what would be your actions?

-          It seems that I might losing control of this project or the issue is much beyond me, can you give me some advise how I should get this project back in control?

-          Do you think that I should give up?

-          Do you know who are really opposed to this project?

-          If you could help, how would the organization get benefits from your help?

-          What would you gain from helping?

The bottom line of all these questions is trying to make your problem become their problems too. You need to observe the non-verbal behavior. Need to identify any conflict in behavior. Normally, people will feel stress if you are confront with them with these types of questions. If they are lying to you, it will pretty much make them nervous and you should be able to confirm that they are bystanders. It will be quite difficult to convince them to be on your side if they have decided to be bystanders. What you can do is trying to find your leverage?

-          Is there anyone who you can get help to neutralize the position of these bystanders?

-          Since bystanders will not do anything, they will not tell you exactly what they think. Can you identify the people who are close to bystanders? Can you involve them in or trying to get information from them? Most likely, bystanders will share something with these people.

-          Do you know bystanders boss? Utilize them if you can. This is quite a good strategy if you can convert bystanders to be part of the solution. If your problem becomes their problems, you will get additional help. However, need to make sure that they are trying to make your problem worse.

The final though on this. Sometime it worth to look for people who are really supporting you instead of trying to convert all people to help you. If you think you cannot do anything to bystanders, do not proceed further since it might waste of time. Move on and focus on the people you can help you since it will provide better result. Bystanders will not act much so that the damage from them might not be so high.

Galaxy Class Biz

Bystander Part 1/2

This is another political trick that is very normal. Bystander is the person who know the situation well but try not to offer any help. This trick is a bit difficult to identify. Yet, it is one of the most commonly used in the work place since it is very easy to do. Why do people want to be Bystander? There are many reasons. One of the most common reason is that they might benefit from your failure. Instead of trying to offer help, they will sit and watch you fail. How can we detect that? First, let’s imaging if you want to be a bystander yourselves. You might have the following questions in your mind.

-          What are the good reasons for me not getting involved?

-          What will cost me if I involve?

-          What impact to my colleagues and organization if I take the bystander position or involve?

-          What do people expect from me if I am involve?

-          Am I manipulated to be involved? Anyone expect any actions for me? How it will benefit them?

-          How do I feel if the project is failed?

-          Is this conflict to my own believe? Can I stay still and take bystander position and watch the project fail?

Most of the bystander will try to avoid discussing the on the real issue. They will try to divert you out of the main subject. The way to identify bystanders is to notice the following behaviors

-          Who is less helpful for me that I have expected?

-          Who could help me but actually they are trying to avoid to help you?

-          Who have provided help but suddenly faded away?

-          Who is not offering any help to you but keep stress on the fact that this situation is very difficult?

-          Who is suggesting you to take too aggressive actions but refuse to play a part in it?

With all these questions, you should have a good idea who is doing what. Be honest to yourself when you answer all these questions. Write them down. Not all bystanders will have part for all these questions. In the next part, we will discuss how to handle the bystander.

GalaxyClassBiz

 

Here’s a little clarification of corporate lingo.

COMPETITIVE SALARY:

We remain competitive by paying less than our competitors.

JOIN OUR FAST-PACED COMPANY:

We have no time to train you+-

CASUAL WORK ATMOSPHERE:

We don’t pay enough to expect that you’ll dress up-well, a couple of the real daring guys wear earrings.

MUST BE DEADLINE ORIENTED:

You’ll be six months behind schedule on your first day.

SOME OVERTIME REQUIRED:

Some time each night and some time each weekend.

DUTIES WILL VARY:

Anyone in the office can boss you around.

MUST HAVE AN EYE FOR DETAIL:

We have no quality control.

CAREER-MINDED:

Female Applicants must be childless (and remain that way).

APPLY IN PERSON:

If you’re old, fat or ugly you’ll be told the position has been filled.

NO PHONE CALLS PLEASE:

We’ve filled the job, our call for resumes is just a legal formality.

SEEKING CANDIDATES WITH A WIDE VARIETY OF EXPERIENCE:

You’ll need it to replace three people who just left.

PROBLEM-SOLVING SKILLS A MUST:

You’re walking into a company in perpetual chaos.

REQUIRES TEAM LEADERSHIP SKILLS:

You’ll have the responsibilities of a manager, without the pay or respect.

GOOD COMMUNICATION SKILLS:

Management communicates, you, figure out what they want and do.

I’M EXTREMELY ADEPT AT ALL MANNER OF OFFICE ORGANIZATION:

I’ve used Microsoft Office.

I’M HONEST, HARD-WORKING AND DEPENDABLE:

I pilfer office supplies.

MY PERTINENT WORK EXPERIENCE INCLUDES:

I hope you don’t ask me about all the McJobs I’ve had.

I TAKE PRIDE IN MY WORK:

I blame others for my mistakes.

I’M PERSONABLE:

I give lots of unsolicited personal advice to co- workers.

I’M EXTREMELY PROFESSIONAL:

I carry a Day-Timer.

I AM ADAPTABLE:

I’ve changed jobs a lot.

I AM ON THE GO:

I’m never at my desk.

Let’s analyze why most of the reason you hear are pretty bullshit. Normally, management has big face. They cannot lose face but you can. When something go wrong, there’ll always be someone to take a blame. The deep root of this kind of issue is about the face. YOU CANNOT MAKE YOUR MANAMANGE LOSE FACE. That’s it! If he made wrong decision, such as hiring a wrong guy, he would make sure that someone will take blame. If the project is about to fail into the crack, he will try to appoint someone to take it. Once it fails, the new guy will get blamed.  

In the real life situation, if something is about the go wrong, you might be called into your boss or your management office. Then, he will ramble on with the detail of the new work for you. Keep in mind that he wants you to take it and then put everything on you after that. He will give you all the good reasons. The reason will be very good since he will want you to take it. Keep your guard up but no so obvious. He will ask you to give him answer. You MUST NOT answer right away. Nobody will kill you if you need more time to think. Don’t be such a rookie and try to give your boss a favor by saying yes to everything. Take time to think. Also, your boss will not be so dumb to force you right away since it will be very suspicious to do so.

Now, the questions you should ask yourself will not be so much difference from the common questions.

1. Why me? What is really good about me?
2. Who are the candidates for this project?
3. Are you really in the position to change anything?
4. Is there any new development that you are aware? For example, new positions, international assignment?
5. What is the real motivation for your boss to ask you to sign on this project?
6. What would stand to win or lose if you sign on this project?
7. If you fail, who will benefit?
8. What will cost you if you don’t take it?

Once you have analyze and determine that this could be another trap for you to take and your chance to get out of it is close to zero, here are some advises for you before you sign on it.

1. Face to face discussion with your boss. Even though he sent e-mail and assign new work for your over the e-mail with many people in the CC, DO NOT reply e-mail and ask direct question. Management do not like people to challenge them especially for this type of case. You need to make appointment and have private conversation with your boss.
2. When you start the discussion, be direct on your concern but not trying to make the boss losing face. Keep your emotion in check. You cannot just burst with anger with your and tell all the truth. Need to be quite diplomatic. Always talk in term of company business and company interest. Tell the guy why you think so differently from him. Think about it. Management always has high level view while you have detail view. You need to use this kind of reason to challenge him and give him more detail why you think you are right.
3. Since your boss came up with all craps because he want to save his face, the options that you will provide to him must always benefit him. The result of the option should save his face.
4. Make sure that you have enough options for the guy to choose. Stay focus on the company interest and how your option will help him keeping his reputation.

In the end, even though you might not be able to get out of it (most likely), again, you should try to maximize the situation to your benefit.

Galaxy Class Biz

 

A Japanese company and an American company decided to have a canoe race on the Missouri River.

 Both teams practiced long and hard to reach their peak performance before the race.

 On the big day, the Japanese won by a mile.

The Americans, very discouraged and depressed, decided to investigate the reason for the crushing defeat. A management team made up of senior management was formed to investigate and recommend appropriate action. Their conclusion was the Japanese had 8 people rowing and 1 person steering, while the American team had 8 people steering and 1 person rowing. So American management hired a consulting company and paid them a large amount of money for a second opinion.

They advised that too many people were steering the boat, while not enough people were rowing. To prevent another loss to the Japanese, the rowing team’s management structure was totally reorganized to 4 steering supervisors, 3 area steering superintendents and 1 assistant superintendent steering manager. They also implemented a new performance system that would give the 1 person rowing the boat greater incentive to work harder. It was called the ‘ Rowing Team Quality First Program’ , with meetings, dinners and free pens for the rower. There was discussion of getting new paddles, canoes and other equipment, extra vacation days for practices and bonuses.

The next year the Japanese won by two miles.

Humiliated, the American management laid off the rower for poor performance, halted development of a new canoe, sold the paddles, and cancelled all capital investments for new equipment. The money saved was distributed to the Senior Executives as bonuses and the next year’s racing team was outsourced to India.

“Spending more time with family”, “health problem”, or “pursue new greater opportunity outside the company” are common reasons when some of the top guys leaving the company. I bet you have seen some of these before. I also have seen many of them. Most of the farewell email seems to talk about how good the person was. I am wondering if any of this in the e-mail is correct, why did the person have to leave the company at the first place. Beware, people are wearing mask in the organization. Whatever you see or hear are might not be what really is.

Another example, when top management said that the company would have some exercise to align or streamline, they usually said that the reorganization has nothing to do with the headcount reduction. It is more like aligning the company structure and to put people on the right place. Oh yes. They might say the truth since the right place for many people is not in the company but in other company.

From the example above, the bottom line is that do you believe what you hear or see.

Now, back to the key part. Why management or your boss cannot say the truth? The truth is never die but people who say the truth die first. Sorry, this is not the point. Think about the organization. It is the place of many people working together. Management will try to make sure that they can keep everything under control. Normally, any announcement would usually come out in the moderate tone. The real action would normally be taken place behind the scene.

Let’s say if your boss come to you and say to you that he wants you to work on some project. It is very good for you. Keep your political radar antenna up and scan the situation. You might not always be able to tell whether he say the truth or not. However, you can do some assessment and identify what kind of options that you have. We will continue the part 2 and analyze the motivation behind of kind of behavior and how to handle this kind of situation.

Galaxy Class Biz

How do you really get out from this mess? I hope I have all the answers in the world for you. Unfortunately, I don’t have all the answers but I just have some advise that might be useful.

Like I mentioned in part 2, you don’t really have choice so you have to take it. Now, how can you beat the odds? The simplest thing that you can do is to make sure that you are not the only one in this mess. However, before you can pull in other people to jump in, you will need to analyze the project very seriously. Few things that you can do.

1. Identify the key stakeholders. Please note the word “Key”. I don’t think identify the wrong stakeholders might take this matter even worst.
2. Identify the position of each stakeholders. Who are the supporter and who are not?
3. Analyze the current situation of the project.
4. Identify the key issues for this project
5. Find the relation of each key issues to the key stakeholders.
6. Formulate the new plan
7. Communicate and execute

One the most important thing, you need to be able the analyze the business case whether it makes sense from the company point of view to continue. Since you are the fall guy, most likely you still to do it anyway even though it does not make sense to continue.

Now, what’s next? Think about it. If this project is really destined to fail, you should discover by now who is the key person behind this whole thing. You might need to identify the motivation behind this. You might not be able to change the fact but you will need to face with that person face to face to straight thing out. Before you do that, you have to make sure that the context of conversation is not about “you and him or her”. It will be all about the Company interest. You will speak to them not to protect yourself but you talk because you see the way out for the best interest of the company.

When I mentioned that you might still be successful to position yourself even though the project is fail. These are extra steps to prepare yourself.

1. Know your bottom line. Again, you will fail (most likely). So, you need to engage people with good EQ not totally emotional. You need to picture yourself as a person who will drive project to be very successful. Always project the confidence in yourself. Make all the stakeholders to see that even the project is about to fail, you are still trying to do everything to bring it back on track. In the end, people will remember you of this picture. Keep one thing in mind. Invisible contribution means nothing. When you project the confidence, make sure key people see it.
2. Identify the key supporters. You need to get people behind your back. You need to talk to each key stakeholders. Starting from the one who support you the most. Then, talk to your adversaries. Let them know all the people who are supporting your execution to make it successful. Again, this is not about key people supporting you  as a person. It is all business. Key stakeholders support the business. Always project the picture of company business.
3. Execute the plan. You need to make sure that you are in close contact with your supporters. You need to keep remind people all the support from the key stakeholders to make this project successful. Your adversaries will try to do everything to make you fail
4. Identify the “hard stop” button. The project must end somewhere. You will need to add some key few milestones and get all the key stakeholders to evaluate the situation from time to time. Need to know when to stop.

Since you are destined to fail, most likely you will fail. You will need to take this as an opportunity to show your key strengths and confidence. Take this opportunity to show to all key people about your determine to win. Show everyone that you have company’s interest at heart. In the end, by failing might not be such a bad idea if you can get benefit out of it. The most important one, you need to position yourself that you have got a good training from this falling cases and you are ready to take on the next bigger thing. Good luck.

Galaxy Class Biz

Now, it is the time to identify whether you are destined to fail or not. If you are really involved in this kind of situation, chances are that you will not be able to run free from it. One way or another, you will get some hits from someone. It might damage your reputation. What do you want to choose between big damage or small damage. Unless, you are very smart. You might even break the odds and turn around the situation. Let’s analyze the situation. How do we know whether we are the fall guy. There is no easy way to find out. However, we can ask some simple but important questions.

 - Why do you think this project is destined to fail?

- Which information that support your believe?

- Why you?

- Why do you really think you are the right person for this case?

- What damage to you now if you say No?

- If this project fail, who lose or win?

 - What will cost you to get out of this situation?

- What kind of action that you can really do for this project?

Of course, these are not all the questions you should ask to yourself. It depends on the situation. The bottomline is that you need to be very frank to yourself and answer your own questions. You will discover some interesting facts.

Let’s say that you have analyze the situation and found that this is a fall project and you cannot really get out of it. There are many options that are waiting for you.

1. Go with the flow and ready to get blamed. (Better review CV again)

2. Accept it and work your ass off the turn around.

Most likely, you will select the option 2. The actions that you need to take next will be very important. Again, you might not be able to run away from it. However, you might turn the situation around and you might really benefit from it. It could be the best case that you have ever lost. We will continue our discussion in Part 3.

Galaxy Class Biz

The Fall Guy – Part 1

Let’s the first episode begins. All company must produce or sell something. It is the source of revenue. In order to produce something, the company has to produce. Very straight forward huh?

Inside the organization, there will be many projects running in parallel. You can see by now who are the boss. Who are the boss’s favorite? Who has moved up in the corporate ladder very quickly? Chances are you pretty know the key player in the organization. Here is the story. What if your boss call you and ask you to take on one of the most important projects? Let’s call project “X”. People have been talking about project X for some time. It is the most difficult project. Many people who had worked in this project before have moved on. You are now called to lead this project. Your boss told you that you are the best and it is good for your career to take on this project. You are glad for a few minute and very proud that you were selected.

However, after you spoke with few people you know. Somehow you get a feeling that this project is about to fail. The former leader took off from this project and got promoted to another position. Now, you are about to take a leader role for this project. Your boss has committed to many other bigger boss that he will take it and appoint one of the best people he has, which is you, to take a lead. Your blood temperature is raising up a bit. On one side, you want to fast track yourself in the organization. On the other side, you also have doubt why you were selected in the first place. We will continue discussing and analyze the situation in the part 2 discussion.

Galaxy Class Biz

After long years in many companies, it is time for me to share my experience so that people can learn from my experience. Hopefully, I can learn from everyone too. We have learn many people saying it all the time that there is no politics in this office. In reality, there is no organization without internal politic. Unless, you are the one person company. We wouldn’t want to be political to yourself, would you? The fact is, company consists of many people wiht very diverse background. Each individual is unique. Each person has different motivation factor and has different target and goal in life. Put all of them together, it will create the dynamic and have unique pattern. Some people are very naive and do not have too many hidden agenda. However, some of them are very political savvy people who do whatever it takes to go to the top. If you are in their way, you’d better be ready. 

 I would like to share most of the tricks that I have learn and seen before. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not advising you to do all the tricks that I would like to share. Rather the knowledge will help you to expose all tactics used by manipulative yet savvy people to get their own way with the expense of others. Hope your enjoy my experience that I will share soon after this introduction. Beware. Many are watching you…. Keep your back safe.

Galaxy Class Biz