Political Dilemmas at Work: How to Maintain Your Integrity and Further Your Career

Create Multiple Connections with the Inner Circle

It sounds simple. Identify the inner circle members, introduce yourself, build rapport quickly, and hit them with your request. Mission accomplished. Except that building professional relationships is usually a gradual process, and while speed is possible, it is not the main driver. Creating multiple connections is an investment strategy, and it takes time before there is a payback.

However, identifying inner circle members is still a good place to start. They are usually senior staff members, rather than juniors, and are more likely to be working near the boardroom than the mail room, but you should not let status be the only measure. Power is not always proportionate to status. It is more important to look for connections and relationships. Who does the CEO favor? Who is the CEO’s confidant? Who gets to present to the executive committee regularly? Who gets most one-on-one time with the president? Who gets invited to the small and exclusive Christmas party the president holds each year at his home? Initially, this is less of a scientific process and more about intuition. And it can be as fun as it is rewarding to identify the inner circle and become a political anthropologist.

Stakeholder management tools, which look beyond the essential dimensions of power and interest to examine the interconnections and network of relationships between stakeholders, are required. Remember that the lines between the boxes on an organizational ...