I’ll put the background explanation below, and lead with my question:
I’m on a team that manages a set of data processing documentation that is used by our external customers. Because the company is just now elevating their heads out of their behinds in terms of technology and best business practices, we currently use manual version control of these documents. In a nutshell, a document has to be reviewed and approved, is published in a pending state until our customers also approve of it, whereupon it’s published again with an “approved” status. All of that involves a sequence of modifying, adding, removing text, highlighting it so everyone knows what was changed and then removing the highlighting in the final version. We update the documents frequently but they’re approved rarely, something like every other year, which means we have multiple pending versions out there simultaneously. The manual version management means that when one pending version is updated to approved status, it’s highlights are removed and those changes are copied into all the other pending versions.
For those who don’t have the mental picture that goes with this process, we’re talking about a high risk of error, and a silly level of manual work that these days can be done with a good document management system. Company leaders have mentioned that we need to implement one, but it’s not going to happen for a few years at best.
Can anyone here coach me as to how to work my company politics so that over the next 1-3 years I’m transferred/promoted into a role where I am not taking on this risk and hassle until the DMS shows up? I’m in an odd role where my job is seen as difficult and rather unique (in a culture where people transfer laterally quite frequently, this team is never on anyone’s want-to-work list), highly paid… and yet not at all respected. The management team has many other priorities although they give lip service to the importance of this team, I really think they feel we are “legacy”. I suspect that the future (1 - 3 years) this documentation will be phased out, along with whoever is maintaining it. I’m planning to retire in 5 - 7 years, so not especially ambitious for career growth here, but I don’t want to be on the team that gets the axe.
I’m not great at company politics. So how do I do a really great job at this so that I become an in-demand talent, without looking like such an integral part of the team that I shouldn’t be moved?
Background for those who have read my other posts about not being happy in this job: I was job hunting for the last 6 months but stopped in January when I got sick of being treated like dirt by recruiters and hiring managers. I suspect that it’s my age (54). Also my attitude: I don’t need to put up with shit, so I don’t. Also this company is working on a serious culture change initiative, making sincerely good changes and getting rid of the old petrified mentality. It’s not fixed yet, but they’re making enough progress that I feel I can stay here as long as I don’t get stuck in the flypaper of this bass-ackward team.
The best thing I can think of for you to do it to network with managers in groups you might be interested in transferring to. If they respect you and your work, they can tell you if there is an opening and you’ll be first in line for it.
People complain all the time that internal job posts are jokes since the poster already has someone in mind. There is a lot of truth to this. So, make it work for you.
I was in an organization where no one could quite figure out what we were supposed to do. I went to the VP of another organization which at the time was a,lower prestige one. I had a good enough reputation that he was happy for me to transfer in. About a year later he took over my old organization, but being there first was very useful for me.
Bottom line - almost any manager would prefer to go with a candidate they know over one they don’t know. So be the candidate they know.
Well, by that I meant counter-productive things like this:
ridiculous job descriptions (three jobs rolled into one)
the numbers game: applying to 100 openings for every phone interview, five phone interviews for every in person interview, ten in person interviews for every offer, etc.
constantly being ghosted; anybody who’s been recently job hunting knows what I mean
being grilled instead of interviewed for a mutually satisfying fit
the obvious focus on trying to screen people out instead of finding a good fit
etc. etc.
I understand what you mean, and I try to do that. I have a feeling that they don’t respect me/my work because of the team that I’m on. Stench by association, if you will. So that’s where the politics come into play: how do I play the optics so that I’m no longer seen as “she’s on the politically-out-of-favor team”? I am often referred to as “the POOF person” (POOF=politically out of favor, just an anonymized version of the actual team name)
Are there cross-departmental committees that you can get on. Being in one of these has the others see you as you and not a part of your current team. No one wants to volunteer for this stuff, so getting on should be easy, and most people who feel they are stuck on them do the minimum amount of work. Standing out is not that tough.
I’m not an expert by any means on corporate politics, but I have a lot of experience (and high levels of skill, I believe) with document configuration control, and what you describe sounds like a nightmare of a mess in terms of actually creating and updating documents. That sort of nightmare is rather common, in my experience, and can be fixed with creating and sticking to a robust process. It’s not clear by your post if you actually have the authority to make that happen, though.
This seems pretty common, as managers try to fill three openings with one person. Don’t worry about it. If you get to interview with team members, ask what they actually do. No one is in better shape than you.
The solution to this is to short circuit the process by finding hiring managers and going through them, not HR. From the hiring side, if we had to disrupt our schedules ten time for each person we made an offer to, we’d shoot ourselves. And try to figure out why we were inviting unacceptable candidates. We would invite 50% of those we phone screened, and offered 50% of those we interviewed. 100 - 1 resumes versus phone screens is about right for resumes coming in from job posts.
Shows an overworked or incompetent HR, and hiring managers too chicken to say no.
Have you ever had the thrill of going through a stack of 100 resumes? If you have, you know why people get screened out.
However there are plenty of managers who are incompetent about hiring. These are the ones who wonder why no one on their teams are good at their jobs.
We have little cross-departmental committees for tasks related to the culture change that I could volunteer for. I’ll look into that.
One other possibility that comes to mind is that I’ve been “matrixed” onto a product team that is going heavily into Agile/Scrum development. We’re only on sprint 2 of this year but I already see that we are heading for a trainwreck. That wreck I see coming is that we don’t have enough business analysts and the ones we do have are struggling to work on completely different things. One “thing” is standard IT business analyst work (writing requirements, working with dev and QA to get the software done). The other “thing” is our long-term product development, designing product solutions, making important presentations at industry user groups, working to build consensus of our external customers before we can actually do our internal development. Right now we’re trying to shoehorn all of that into the Agile/Scum sprints. We’re prioritizing one sprint at a time, which means that longer term product development work (which has definite deadlines even if they’re six months from today) isn’t getting the necessary planning and organization that it needs.
So this afternoon I’ve been thinking maybe I can propose that we split the BA’s and have one team of BA’s doing software development and another one doing product development. And then maybe I can angle myself into the product owner role of the product development team. Not sure it will work, but it’s a thought.
Even if you can’t get on worktask cross-functional teams, try getting on a volunteer team that management is promoting – management-supported charity (United Way?), health & wellness, etc. You need to network with other groups, outside of your current role.
I’d avoid volunteering for the more frivolous, “fun” stuff, though (e.g., planning potlucks or birthday celebrations or whatever).
If management pays lip service to your team, but doesn’t actually want anything to do with it, maybe you can work with that? Approach management with solutions to some aspect of the issue: “Hi Mr. VIP, I’ve been thinking about the role of our team - we’re doing good work right now, but I think that in the future this role will become redundant with other role. I’d like to start working on how to make that transition seamless. Can I take charge of managing this handover?” This differentiates you from your team and presents you as a problem solver. (Protip: do not accuse management of ignoring your team! Act like they have the utmost respect for your team - as they should - and you’re just looking towards the future.)
I have seen various posts, but I do not recall what your position is. Are you a BA? What is your background? Have you been or are you a developer? Are you a technical writer? Are your skills easily transferable outside of your company? Inside your company?
I am not very good with the politics either. Probably why I am stuck where I am (Senior SQL Developer). I could probably go somewhere else for more money, but I have built a pretty good career with my company. It is a large company and no danger of it going out of business and we will always need SQL developers. But I have considered moving into a BA type role, but the groups that do this have managers that have reputations that I am thinking I would be in worse shape with.
My best advice is to go along with a couple of the ideas of getting known outside of your group and trying to be positive and proactive and look for ways to increase not only your visibility, but your worth.
Have you considered becoming a contractor and working for an agency? I have a friend that has pretty well stayed employed for the last 3 yrs doing the contractor route.
If the economy is about to crash, remember that contractors get “fired” first. That’s the whole point. No severance and no bad rap in the press. At the least companies expecting a downturn will stop hiring them.
One thing to keep in mind - it is not your task to fix the company, no matter how much it needs fixing. It is your task to get yourself into a better role.
I’ve seen that the root cause of problems are often in areas a single person can’t fix, even one with a lot more clout than you have. It would be nice if you can make things better, but making connections in a committee that tries hard and fails is just about as good as making them in a committee that succeeds. As long as the manager in charge sees you as being on her side.
Yes, I’m a business analyst with a background in software engineering (legacy stuff). My skill set is broad and easily transferrable. Convincing internal management and external recruiters/hiring managers of that has been a huge challenge. I’ve found that management puts you where they want you, regardless of your strengths or weaknesses and keeps you there (unless you completely fail whereupon they fire you, but I don’t let that happen). The skill I’m weakest in is politics and by that I mean knowing how to convince people to let me do more or better.
I admit (from some self-examination) that I still have a “blue collar” way of thinking, which is that I expect that if I see a problem and propose solutions, they’ll be impressed and let me implement at least a little of it. But I’ve found over and over again that’s not the case, and it tends to frustrate me. I tend to perceive all my jobs as having been “shut up and do what I tell you” because I am unable to know how to “work” people. I don’t want to be manipulative, just be a better participant in the company, and I struggle to know where the line is.
Yes, this is exactly the kind of thing I’d like to talk about, and learn. Thank you. After mentioning that possible fix to the product team, I later realized that I already know it’s going to be a very hard sell. They don’t want to hire more BA’s, and we’re being directed to do everything we can to make the Agile/Scrum methodology work. I think we’ll have to do that, and if the long-term product development tasks crash and burn for lack of planning, at that point they may rethink it. However, since I’m one of the people up there in front of our external clients trying to impress them and build consensus, I have an almost deathly fear of failure, so letting the train wreck scares the jeebus out of me.
I am certainly no expert at corporate politics, but people are pretty easy.
You are wise to be planning for the future-especially as it sounds like the future is not bright for your current position.
Many of the suggestions so far in this thread are of you volunteering to solve a problem that you can see coming. I think that is not the best strategy.
Some of the advice so far focuses on you improving your personal reputation among other managers. That is the best strategy.
Your job isn’t to solve the company’s problems. Your job is to do what your boss has told you to do and your goal is to solve your problem. So, focus on those two things. The first you already are doing-great.
What you need to do is to talk to other managers in areas where you would be happy to work for the next 7 to 10 years and find out what they believe and what their problems are. If they believe your current work is “legacy” and dumb, that is a data point not a challenge. Especially since you seem to believe the same thing. Be agreeable and be on their side. I hate to say this, but as an outsider to their team, the best strategy is to be a yes man, not a new idea man. One can do this ethically, don’t put down your current team or agree with things that aren’t true, but don’t try to correct or educate others. No one likes a… fill in the blank here. Build your reputation as a person who thinks like the members of the team you want to join. Equally important, know what some of the challenges are on the new team. Let the new team leader know of your experience in these challenges and let them know of your positive opinion of the solutions that are being implemented.
There are two reasons to hire someone: either to solve a problem the existing team can’t solve or to increase the work force to handle the existing or expected work load. First and hardest, be the new solution to the problem. Great if your solution is obviously so great that you are the best way to implement the solution. For the rest of us, be someone who the leader is confident can join the team easily and help get the existing work done.
It would be nice to be tasked with leading a new team solving some problem you identified. But frankly, I don’t think this is a high percentage way to meet your goal. If you think you can do that, go for it. But as you say, you need 7 years more coverage, not a great new challenge in life. Know your goals and work toward them.
It sounds like you are in contact with many different projects. If that is the case you can let the people in charge of those projects that you want to know if they have an opening. Try to network within the company and find out where the growth is and network with those in charge of that.
Well, I’m not expert on corporate politics. I’m generally much better at finding new jobs than keeping them. But I’ve been at a lot of companies and I’ve actually been fairly successful at my current role for about 3 years now.
So my advice:
-Do your job well. No one is going to have you do anything else if you can’t do the thing they are actually paying you to do. So that comes first.
-Be on good terms with everyone. Underlings. Overlings. Their bosses. Other groups you partner with.
-Avoid people you are not on good terms with. Out of a company of 50 people, there is one bitchy woman I hate. The thing is, everyone hates her. I still avoid her as much as possible because I don’t want to be cast as “guy Bitchface hates”.
-Once you’ve completed your job, do activities that contribute to the job you want. I wanted to be less “delivery” and more “business development”. So I started networking and attending conferences. So one day my boss took my aside and said one of our Managing Directors wanted a NY guy to be the “face of the company” developing one of our practice areas. So now I get paid to do the shit I was pretending to do before.
-Be positive. I don’t mean in some bullshit PollyAnna sort of way. I mean come up with actionable tasks to solve problems. Your job may not be to “fix the company”, but if you can find ways for the company to save money or make money, they generally appreachiate that. And if they don’t, put it on your resume for your next job.
It is easier to apologize than to get permission. ISTM that you need to go ahead and do what you think is best, and worry about convincing people to let you do it later.
Yes - a good thought. You see a problem, you have a solution. Be the product owner role - when it is working, it will be taken for granted that this is your role.
