This article was written by Ken Leaver who comes from a product & commercial background. He has founded multiple companies and held senior product positions at SEA tech companies like Lazada and Pomelo Fashion.
Now Ken runs his own agency that helps early stage startups with content and traction called End Game.
Guest Author: Ken Leaver
Over a decade back I worked in a company where there were many different fiefdoms. Which is to say that teams were tight and highly aligned to their manager/leader.
Which is typically a very good thing, right? I mean don’t you want teams that have tight bonds?
Also, each team leader was trying to promote their own interests. It’s just natural. They developed their network of relationships in the office… and knowingly or less knowingly played ‘politics’.
If someone made a decision they didn’t like… they’d perhaps mention it in the lift with the CEO. And of course added their own slant/agenda to it.
Or perhaps they didn’t say it directly to the CEO… but rather they told a few other department heads when they went out for a beer at the company outing.
And pretty soon…. there was a repercussion on whoever it was that made the decision that triggered this sequence.
The unwritten rules of the game
What I have described above are pretty much the normal ‘rules of the game.’
In fact there are tons of books that try to teach these skills… like “The 48 Laws of Power” by Robert Greene. A book that was one of my first reads many years ago when transitioning from nieve strategy consultant to a corporate job… and honestly it saved my butt.
Because it taught me these unwritten rules.
Prior to that in my first few months of the company I was guided only by “doing what was right”. So I did thorough analyses, applied logic, and spoke my mind.
This was very stupid thinking indeed.
It was not long before several departments in the office were shooting arrows at me and my small team. Hitting us from all directions… things that related to work and things that were less directly work-related.
I would not have survived if I had not read “The 48 Laws of Power” at this pivotal time.
And when I read it… I literally made a summary and made myself re-read the summary each day for almost a year.
Everytime a situation arose… I thought about which of the 48 frameworks I should apply.
I began making decisions not because they were the ‘right thing to do’ but rather they were the right thing to protect my interests given the network of relationships in the office.
I even did some projects or made some decisions that I felt were outright stupid…. and not the right thing to do for the company long-term. But they curried favor with some of the folks I needed support from in order to get my own key initiatives through.
It felt like US politics. And while I started getting better at it… the reality was I hated it. And I wanted to set a bonfire to it.
This is the reality of most companies
The situation in pretty much every company I have ever worked in was some version of what I described above, but to a lesser extent.
The reality is that in pretty much any company… it is extremely important to understand the network of relationships that exist and how your decisions impact this network.
If an analyst comes to you from another team and asks you for something that you don’t consider a priority… you need to first ask yourself… what team is he from? Who is the manager of that team?
And then think through… if I refuse the request, how will that manager react? Are they tight with the CEO or Cofounders?
Don’t think this is how it works in most companies? Hahahaha if so, than I think you’re nieve.
The ‘who’ mattered more than the ‘what’ in most companies I have worked in during my 20 year career. Because we are humans… and that is human nature.
These days I do not play that game
I’ve described my system in many previous posts so I won’t go in detail here. But essentially the underlying foundation is that:
- anything that anyone in my team does is a task
- I track and respond to updates to these tasks in a very flat structure that is highly responsive
- we don’t have any regular team or 1-1 meetings/calls
- I haven’t even met over half the team face-to-face on a call. And they don’t know each other either.
So basically there are not really any true relationships in the company/team because we never really see or talk to each other. We just respond to each other’s tasks.
This might sound awful to some… but let me say that it sounds a lot worse than it actually is. If you were to ask each of our team members… I would bet you that you would hear that they like it a lot.
Because it is very simple and straightforward. They have tasks and they do them. When they need help they tag someone in and get help fast.
You pretty much never need to worry about ‘politics’ because there are not really any relationships. And politics can only exist on top of relationships.
I personally love this system. We are efficient and it’s all very transparent.
By changing the rules of the game you change who the best leaders are
I was describing the system to a friend and mentor recently… and trying to explain how the actual rules to this game are different.
In the typical large company… most leaders will share certain qualities. They will often be very polished verbal communicators.
In my system you still need to be a good communicator.. but in a different way. You need to be responsive, organized, and make good decisions fast.
You do not really need charisma or the ability to influence others in large meetings. Those skills are rendered pretty much useless.
And so my friend said something like… “Well Ken.. that’s fine.. you prefer to work this way and others prefer to work the old, more relationship-based way. But that’s not gonna change the world.”
And I disagreed… If more teams & companies run this new way and they beat the companies that are run the old way… natural selection takes place.
And those companies run the old way become like dinosaurs and start to die off. Or they need to evolve.
That in essence… is my vision.
Hopefully in time… many others will join in that vision.
