Chief Change Officer - Jennifer Selby Long on Growing Beyond Office Politics: Breaking Free from Toxic Cultures That Follow You - Part Two

Episode Date: November 26, 2024

Part Two. Ever left a toxic boss or workplace, hoping for a fresh start, only to land in the same chaos at your new job? It’s a frustratingly common cycle. The truth is, office politics are everywhere. From power plays and subtle maneuvers to that colleague who always seems to win, navigating workplace dynamics can be exhausting. In this two-part series, leadership expert Jennifer Selby Long joins me to unpack why office politics happen, how some people thrive in politically charged environments, and why others struggle. We’ll explore toxic cultures, power dynamics, and the hidden forces shaping your work life—and how to navigate them without losing yourself along the way. Feeling stuck or burned out? These episodes are packed with relatable stories and actionable insights to help you take your next step forward. Key Highlights of Our Interview: Talent vs. Tactics: Why Performance Alone Doesn’t Guarantee Success “In corporate environments, it’s often not the most skilled or hardworking employees who thrive—it’s those adept at navigating office politics. Top performers may drive results, but their brilliance can threaten insecure leaders, creating a system where political tact outshines true talent.” The Right Culture for the Right Person “Some thrive in competitive political environments; others find them draining. The key is identifying whether your personal interests align with the culture around you. The fit matters more than fighting a system that may not suit you.” No Permanent Friends, No Permanent Enemies—Just Interests “Drawing from the wisdom of Martin Luther King’s attorney, Clarence Jones: the game of politics is about aligning interests, not forging everlasting alliances. Understanding this can shift how you approach your workplace dynamics.” Burnout and Disengagement: The Fallout of Neglecting Talent “When talent is neither respected nor recognized, it creates a workplace rife with disengagement and burnout. Organizations lose not just individuals but the potential for meaningful progress, leaving behind a culture where playing the game matters more than delivering value.” _________________________ Connect with us: Host: Vince Chan | Guest: Jennifer Selby Long Chief Change Officer: Make Change Ambitiously. Experiential Human Intelligence for Growth Progressives Global Top 3% Podcast on Listen Notes World's #1 Career Podcast on Apple Top 1: US, CA, MX, IE, HU, AT, CH, FI, JP 2 Millions+ Downloads 50+ Countries

Hi everyone, welcome to our show, Chief Change Officer. I'm Vince Chen, your ambitious human host. Our show is a modernist community for change progressives in organizational and human transformation from around the world. Today's guest is an old friend of our show, Jennifer Selby Long. Jennifer was with us in season 3, episode 7 and 8. In the last 30 years, Jennifer has been helping tech leaders navigate the waves of tech evolution, leading and managing organizational change. But leaders can't successfully drive organizational change without being a master of their own

personal transformation. So last time, Jennifer and I looked into the natural process of personal change. We also talk about how to manage self-doubt and self-sabotage. Jennifer, welcome back to Chief Change Officer. You are setting a new record for us. For one guest, you are going to have full episodes under your own name. Indeed. Thank you for having me. I so appreciate it.

At the end of our last conversation, we talked about something that really resonates with everybody. How some people, when making career moves, leave a toxic boss, or a harmful culture, or an environment that is so vested in office politics, only to find themselves in a similar situation at the new job. It's like running away from one problem only to land in another. That led us into a bordered discussion on toxic cultures and even the role office politics play in these dynamics. We also touched on how some leaders or managers might unknowingly struggle with their personality disorders, which can contribute to these environments. Today we are honing in on office politics specifically.

Let's be real, who hasn't faced them, whether it's subtle power struggles or outright maneuvering, is something everyone has encountered. Yet, when I type office politics into Google, I don't find as much as I expected. Maybe the term isn't as trendy, but that doesn't mean the problem isn't real or common. People might call it power dynamics, workplace dynamics, but the underlying issue is universal. Do you think having a hybrid work model might actually help manage office politics?

Or does it make things worse? On one hand, with less in-person interaction, people aren't constantly grouped together, which might reduce some of the tension that can build in enclosed quarters. It creates a bit of balance. You're not always in the office, so those dynamics don't dominate your entire day. But on the other hand, there's the behind-the-scenes factor. Those who want to curry favor with the boss could still do it privately, in ways others might not even notice. It's a different kind of polyticking that could still cause issues, just less visibly. I imagine researchers are already looking into this shift and its impact on workplace dynamics.

What's your take on how hybrid or remote work influences office politics? Does it shift the balance? Or do you think human nature finds a way to keep the same patterns alive just in new formats? Yeah, I think it's a great question because it is very much our current situation for many businesses. And I wish the answer were super simple. It's not quite as simple as I wish it were because it does depend a little bit on your situation. So in the hybrid work model, are people going into the office to just work on their own

work? If so, I'm not sure you're going to get huge benefit out of that in terms of lessening politics or political alliances, because they're not really interacting that much. Nor do I think you're going to get much of the benefit of obviously working on very complex problems together if you're not really there to work together. The other particular challenge I'll play you into is most of the clients that we work with are distributed not throughout one metropolitan area, but across the globe. And so sure, if your team is largely local and you can get together fairly regularly with intention,

with the purpose of working on complex problems, right? Coming to very challenging agreements together. Sure, you wanna do that in person, you are going to get a better result. But if your team is distributed around the globe, I would question how much significant benefit there would be to going into an office, you would all just be in different offices.

So I think you really have to look at being incredibly purposeful for when you get together and to work on the talk when you are together and not just simply trust that the fact that you can have a lunchtime conversation in and of itself is going to be enough. In fact, one of my clients is working on what they call more a sense of belonging or connectedness across their very global organization. And they're experimenting with all kinds of things to help build more of that personal trust. I'll let you know how those experiments go across time,

because this is a significant challenge. People who are lonely at work and don't feel connected. It's a big problem. It's a big problem in a lot of places. It causes a lot of additional problems. And from my point of view, it feeds notions of politics because there are people who feel connected and people who don't. And if you feel more connected, you're going to be more of an insider, right? You're going to have a more of an understanding of the political dynamic and the needs of other people. So, I think that this is one we need to keep observing, assessing, and experimenting with

across time. It's a super new way to work when you look at how very many years people work together in person. And it's really only been the last few where the majority do not work together in person. When I worked in corporate, I collaborated with people across different locations. Hong Kong, London, Singapore, New York, Australia, all over the place. Remote collaboration was the norm for me, even without smartphones at the time.

While the systems were smooth, politics was always present, whether locally or at the headquarters. Decisions made at headquarters, often driven by power dynamics, would ripple out and affect us in Asia-Pacific regional office. You've brought up the idea of some people being immune to politically charged environments. But I've also observed an other type, those who thrive in them. And here's where it gets frustrating. In many organizations, it's not the most skilled or high-performing employees who stay.

Often it's those who navigate all this politics best. I've seen this firsthand. Imagine you have three people, A, B, and C. A and B are top performers, far better at their jobs than C. But somehow, it's C who sticks around, while A and B either leave for better opportunities or are squeezed out. Sometimes bosses prefer it that way because they don't want to feel threatened. Leaders may say they want to hide people smarter than them to push the organization forward, but in reality, jealousy, ego, and sense of insecurity often get in the way. A boss might think, why should I keep someone who doesn't follow my orders, even if they

are brilliant? Even when colleagues or clients sing the praises of these high performers, it can backfire. A boss who feels overshadowed might quietly engineer a way to push them out. The result? Talented, hardworking people leave, feeling disillusioned and disengaged, while less capable colleagues remained. It's no wonder we hear terms like burnout or disengagement tossed around, but at its core, it comes down to a lack of respect and recognition for those who truly contribute. This cycle is what I have observed and even experienced myself. Those who stay aren't always the best performers.

They are often just the best at playing the game. Jennifer, what's your perspective on this dynamic? How do we address this to create fairer and more effective workplaces? Yeah, and if you notice this pattern insistently with your boss, I would say this is where you do have to really step back and navigate for yourself. Go out into the future, 10 or 20 years, and look back on the current situation

and ask yourself truly in your heart, what is most important here? Because in that situation, maybe there's one employee who has two little kids to support and they go, what's most important is they keep my dog for the kid. And so I'm just gonna, I'm gonna stay, right? Even though it means I'm gonna have to carry some of the workload for others and someone else might be in a situation where they're going, no, the most important thing is for me to go find an environment where the leadership is not threatened by me and where I can really flourish.

I would never, as a coach, tell someone which of those choices is the right choice, because it's whatever is the right choice for you and what you need to do, looking at your situation and looking in your heart. Because if you find a consistent pattern where the boss is just simply easily threatened by the stronger performers, that is what it is, right? There is not necessarily a lot that you can do to influence that.

Not in a real significant way, not from where you sit as an employee. Exactly. Office politics, as its core, isn't inherently good or bad. It is simply a reflection of human nature in group dynamics. When people come together to work towards a goal, there's always an underlying assumption that everyone is aligned. But in reality, goals often clash. When priorities conflict, tensions arise, people start using alternative methods to advance their own objectives and agenda at the expense of others. Sometimes this is when things like back-stabbing, back-mouthing, or other manipulative behaviors emerge, is not the politics itself that's the issue,

but how it manifests. Pursuing individual agendas can erode trust and create a toxic environment. It's a cycle. One person's actions trigger an other's defense mechanism. And before you know it, the focus shifts from collaboration to competition. Understanding this dynamic is key to addressing it. The question becomes, how do we redirect these energies back towards shared goals and healthier workplace relationships?

Yeah, absolutely. It's one of the reasons that I think it is so important for leaders to not just somehow think we aligned on our goals and now we just march forward because goals are pretty dynamic, right? And the different pressures that businesses are under changes, markets change, as the geopolitical environment changes, you need to stay well-staked up and well-aligned

as a leadership team, or you're going to be giving differing direction to the people who work for you. And then those people will find themselves with loggerheads and starting to do some infighting with one another, in part because you did not stay aligned at that higher level. And didn't, and really also I would say a great significance to learn how to raise and address conflict in a way that was healthy and effective. We could probably eliminate a good chunk of politics by just improving the ability to

raise and resolve conflict in a healthy way. Could you elaborate on the last point you just made? Sure. I think that often when people get together to have conversations about business, about where business or whatever it is that they're accountable for within a business, they talk about the goal that's passed, the things that seem very concrete, hard, and in a plan. And then when one person

believes that one thing is true and the other believes the other is true, they just start talking at each other instead of stepping back to say, wait a minute, it seems like we're in conflict here. How many times have people done that in the business environment? Pretty rare to step back and say, it seems that we're in conflict with each other. Let's step back. Let's put ourselves in one another's shoes. Let's ask some more questions.

Let's make sure we understand the situation. And I've had a number of early clients say, oh, I don't have time to do that. How much time are you wasting now on the political battles because you didn't step back and try to put yourself in the shoes of all of these other people and understand where they're coming from? Check to make sure you actually understand

where they're coming from and what's driving them because you're probably making some false assumptions about what that is. I can just about guarantee it. Are you stepping back to list the areas where you're in agreement? Probably not. Most people don't. As you start to work through these things, differing dialing is another one.

Oh my gosh, I've had teams that were leadership teams. See, we're just starting to backbite one another and get into a little bit of gamesmanship. And when we analyze the different styles on the team, and we were able to step back objectively and look at that and say, can you come to some agreements on your behaviors? Cause you all have naturally different styles. You're all coming in with naturally different assumptions about what it means to be on a team,

what it means to communicate, what it means to commit. You all have different assumptions about what that looks like. And so stepping back to look at the style, and do you have conflict that is really exacerbated by these different styles and the fact that you haven't talked about it out loud. You've just frustrated one another. So as you start to work your way through this checklist of things, eventually what you come down to

is the substance of what you don't agree on. And from there, then you can start to work through what that is, but it's often quite small compared to what it looks like. Because people are not taking the time to raise and deal with conflict, it's exacerbates the politics in the situation, right? It is because it feeds that lack of trust. And where you know the lack of trust, of course, you're going to have more politics.

You're going to have much more of those power battles. Where you have more trust, you're going to have less of that. Just because of human nature. At the end of the day, it's about knowing yourselves and being intentional in choosing the workplace culture that fits your character and values. If you thrive in all this politics and it energizes you, a politically charged environment might suit you. But if that's not who you are, staying in such an environment could lead to frustration, burnout, disengagement, and lower productivity. For those feeling stuck, reflect on whether you can adapt without compromising your values.

Ask yourself, does this place, does this environment truly support who I am and how I work best. If the answer is no, it might be time to move on to a place that aligns better with your strengths and allows you to grow. Change isn't just about leaving, it's about finding the right fit to thrive. Yeah, you need to find the environment that is the best fit for you and for what you enjoy. I love your example of the person who said, yeah, we could probably be a lot more effective or successful if we had left the political animal thing. But the reality was that was what that organization was like as and he saw it. And so maybe that was not the right bit. But maybe for someone who enjoyed that

culture, it would be a great bit and they'd be pretty happy there. I do think what you said reminded me of some advice that is actually, it's not my own. It was from Martin Luther King's personal attorney, Clarence Chiles, and he was part of the core group of activists who worked really closely with Dr. King. I was super fortunate to hear him speak a number of years ago. Imagine your situation. They have figured out that their little man is never going to get what it needs if they do not get a powerful white man from the South to align and to become an advocate. And that's got to be something that was pretty painful for them to realize.

But the realization was there are no permanent friends and no permanent enemies, only permanent interests. So what are your interests? What are theirs? In this case, they figured out that they needed a stakeholder who was a powerful white feathernet. In your case, you might find that your personal interest and the personal interests of a firm that has that more intensely competitive political

culture are aligned or are not aligned, right? What are your interests? What are their interests? What is that thing, the environment that you're in and the ones you're considering? Get really clear on your own interests or values that are fundamentally unchanging and core. Your deep interests, right? The deep things that are who you are. Not the more superficial current interests like I need to make this much money to, I don't know, pay my mortgage. The second thing he said is you will not prevail unless the powerful majority sees that what you want is also in their interests. And I do think sometimes what looks like intense politics is actually just

the line of interest, the powerful majority and your interests are not. They don't go together, right? and your interests are not, they don't go together, right? Looking at who stands to lose if you win, if it's a whole lot of people, that's gonna be a highly political environment. Right. But if you can help those people to not lose money, to not lose space, to not lose if you prevail,

if you can find a way that it could make it a win or a benefit to at least some degree for everyone involved, particularly if you're in a leadership role, that could give you a wonderful outcome where you don't have to make a dramatic change. What can you offer to these up-and-comers? How can you align what you want with their interests and vice versa? And I will say sometimes the best outcome involves someone getting what they want, even if they don't deserve it, if it still gives you the outcome that you want. And to use sort of your painful example, if you leave because your boss was particularly unfair to you, they might get what they want and they don't deserve it, but they get the

headcount reduction. You would say they don't deserve it, but just try to let it go. If it gets you the outcome that you want, if what you really want is to move on to somewhere else and identify, you absolutely must identify the strongest ally from the powerful majority and make him or her a leader in whatever your cause is if you're going to stay. You don't want to stay and be constantly feeling like you're swimming upstream and can't win. You've got to find your strongest ally and get that person a leader

in what it is that you want there. You actually can read my summary of parents Jones's talk on our website. If you just go to celbygroot.com and you search for politics. Really, I thought one of the most interesting and powerful speakers I've ever heard in terms of connecting that deep personal passion and desire with just that practical reality of politics. Thank you so much for joining us today. If you like what you heard, don't forget to subscribe to our show, leave us top-rated

reviews, check out our website, and follow me on social media. I'm Vince Chen, your ambitious human host. Until next time, take care.