(Good) Office politics are essential for innovation
Just ask Jeff Bezos
The internet is full of stories about how terrible office politics can be. And it is easy to see why. Most of the what we hear around the subject tends to be about self-serving, self-promoting, powerful individuals who create a toxic, negative environment for all of those who stand in their way. LinkedIn feeds are filled with talented folks highlighting the subversive nature of the politics that run rampant in their ex-employers’ offices. Popular TV shows like the Office, Suits and House of Cards have made office politics a mainstream topic of discussion.
All of this has a knock on impact: There are over 50,000 career coaches just in the US alone, whose primary job is to help their clients successfully navigate through a maze of political hierarchies and invisible alliances in workplaces. Glassdoor is the defacto measurement standard for the workplace happiness — and with an average company rating of 3.3 out of 5.0 and an engagement rate at a low 32%, it is clear that organisation politics have taken a toll on the modern workforce.
Which puts this headline claim of office politics being good for anything useful, let alone innovation, be really hard to back. But allow me to make a case. Organisation politics is simply a game of influence. Influence is needed in situations where standard processes, procedures and power structures cannot get the job done. If a breakthrough idea, product or business model is to succeed, it has to break the rules first in its host organisation. Being politically savvy is the fastest way to get momentum and investment behind an idea. The very best leaders are adept at playing the game of influence to get the best ideas noticed. Lets pick up an example here.
Amazon Prime, the darling annual subscription program of the internet world, came to life through a series of strategic internal manoeuvres and secretive resource allocations. Classic signs of office politics as any. As recounted by recode here, getting the fast shipping program up and running resulted in a lot of tensions in the then $33 Billion market cap ecommerce company. According to Vijay Ravindran, ex director of ordering at Amazon, highly talented people within the company were not happy with the idea and Jeff Bezos’ commitment to it.
Very prominent people who are at Amazon today and in high positions told me, “You shouldn’t be allowing Jeff to do this,” and,” This is setting a bad example for the company.”
According to the article, Jeff and co. persevered against the internal resistance that had popped up and used political capital and grit to drive the idea to fruition. Prime was code named ‘futurama’ after the subliminal comedy TV show and remained in stealth mode -even for Amazonians — until it was launched on the 2nd of Feb 2005. The rest as they say is history. To this day, Amazon Prime continues to be a great example of using office politics and the game of influence positively. While the tools and techniques were similar to bad office politics (invisible negotiations, breaking procedure and norms, forming a group within a group etc.) the difference here was that idea behind Prime was geared towards creating a significant upside for Amazon’s customers, and not getting Jeff promoted over his peers.
It is ironic that a lot of companies today have formal innovation programs that do not produce products that actually move the needle or gain any significant scale at all. Being fortunate enough to have worked in innovative companies around the world, I can vouch that their leadership and company culture allow for healthy, constructive office politics, with the goal of providing breakthrough ideas enough air cover to overcome internal resistance effectively.
