If you answer yes to three or more of these questions then you have a political acumen problem in your team.
- Does your boss sometimes ambush you with things your team should have warned you about?
- Does your client sometimes ambush you with things your team should have warned you about?
- Are you discovering your team has made mistakes at the worst times?
- Does your team confuse private (within the team) and public (outside the team) information?
- Do people in your team share data with ‘unfriendlies’?
- Do team members criticize the team or your leadership with influencers outside of the team?
- Do people complain to HR or their internal clients about issues they haven’t yet brought to your attention?
- Do your team constantly say they don’t know what the vision is?
- Do people misunderstand the function of work-in-progress meetings?
- Do they spend too much time discussing what they can’t fix?
- Do they tell you very little and then wonder why they’re not getting promoted?
- Do they spend all their time trying to look good and fail to deliver?
- Is there lethargy in an otherwise high-functioning team?
- Does your high potential team make political errors in dealing with internal clients?
- Does your boss favour your peers and fail to notice your good work?
- Is your area the metaphoric garbage collectors – people only notice you exist when you haven’t done your job?
Get more than three of these and you’ve got a political problem.
Talk to Cindy Tonkin about getting some political acumen in your team. It will make them work smarter, faster and “nicer”.
