Ask HN: I have constantly fallen prey to office politics. Need Advice

[frustratedmngr]

I have graduated from a top-notch university and joined a big tech company. I started my own business as a side job and eventually got acqui-hired by a bigger startup with ~50 employees (my hiring being the main reason of the acquisition). I joined this bigger startup as their highest paid employee (I wasn't named the CTO because the company had a "no roles, no bosses policy").

I was hired mainly due to my experience with high quality / scalable code. Soon, a few key employees begun downplaying this ability of mine – for instance, they loved to rewrite the components originally written by myself whenever they could. I would never criticize their work as a way to fight back. The "no bosses, no roles policy" also made things harder for me, since I didn't really feel like I could trust anyone.

Eventually, I left and took a top management position (reporting to one of the company's VPs) at a more established corporation. I gave my best at this new job, building a new development team from scratch and delivered solutions with real business impact throughout the company. My work was recognized, and I became known in the whole company. It felt truly amazing. However, there was one executive that made it clear, from the very beginning, that he didn't like me. Things went south recently after a reorg, when he began owning an area I worked closely with and loved the work we did. This executive (who happens to be the CEO’s favorite) begun searching for motives to belittle our work. Things have now gotten to a point where even my boss is refraining from defending us.

I had to control myself not to quit this job today (and let go of my bonus). It would be fairly easy for me to find another similar position. However, I wonder if I am lacking some sort of skill. I do notice that I have a hard time saying no and that I generally like pleasing people. I don't want this to happen to me again, so any advice (books, therapy, "you shouldn't be a manager") is deeply appreciated.

[superflit]

Allow me to disagree with you.

"Soon, a few key employees begun downplaying this ability of mine"

"begun searching for motives to belittle our work. Things have now gotten to a point where even my boss is refraining from defending us."

What IF... Your university have a high "pedigree" but the education and your skills are really not great?

It may surprise you.. But what if you are "average"? Or Worse.. You are smart but did not work/study hard?

Now you have 2 options:

1. Be angry and defend yourself and your actions as you are doing and use "top notch" university as a shield.

2. Consider what I am saying and search for "real" feedback.

#2 is very hard because people are so afraid to offend or loose their time discussing with someone that does not want to listen that they avoid giving feedback.

My strategy at similar situation was sit with my "enemies" and say:

"Ok, I can sense we are not getting along and may work is not to your standards. Can you really really give me feedback and tell me what I can get better?"

Now be aware.. One of my "worst" enemy rant for 40 min. talking about how I do X, Y ... etc. Mostly were his personal agenda but in the middle of that I grasp two things. And that really help me.

What I want to mean is: When people complain our become your enemy is not about YOU but it is about HOW they PERCEIVE YOU. They don't know you are a nice guy that teaches for free in a poor kids school or that your a nice neighbour that helps your senior.

They only "know" perceive you for small hours and with their glasses.

So if you adjust two or three things on your "representation" you can make leaps in positivity.

My Enemy perceived that I was not hard working despite I was the most hard worker. So Every Friday I went to his office and talked about what I did on week and my plan for the next.

In two months I was the "best employee" working the same load. Surely I did not work more but his "perception" was that I did...

You know... Humans...

PS. I really want to help you in a positive way

[frustratedmngr]

I appreciate you trying to help me. I am sorry if I sounded arrogant in my original post, that wasn’t my intention.

That being said, I don’t think this is about me being “average” or not. I don’ even think it is possible to measure how “good” people are in a global scale. People with different skillsets are good for different positions.

My main question is whether or not I am lacking a specific skill, what that skill is and how to acquire it. Or even if I should give up on managing people and going back to being an IC.

From what I understood based on your comment, sounds like you believe I should improve my communication skills. Is this the case? Do you think just communicating more with the people I am having problems with is enough?

[osullivj]

Large corporate envs are highly political at senior levels. Sounds like you're focused on building solutions and making users happy, which leaves you exposed to backstabbing from peers and seniors. To operate successfully at senior levels in a big corp you need to manage outward and upward. Unfortunately this means spending less time with your team and users, and more time with key peers and seniors to form relationships and alliances.

[frustratedmngr]

Indeed, this is good advice and rings a bell. I am definitely focused on spending time with the team and making sure they are delivering good solutions. I will make sure I spend more time building relationships.

[brokenmachine]

Or, alternatively, try to find somewhere where your solution-focused attitude is rewarded.

Not saying you shouldn't try to build relationships but I'm not much for hand-holding just so people won't hate you for no reason.

It's ok, you don't have to be friends with everybody.

[segmondy]

When they rewrote your components was the solution better or worse?

In the 2nd position, do you know why the executive didn't like you? If you don't know, then that's the problem. Maybe you are too proud, perhaps you are too loud, perhaps you smile a lot, perhaps you don't smile a lot. It doesn't matter the reason, it could be valid or not. You need to discover why this executive doesn't like you.

If you figure out why, you can try to at least control it. Perhaps he doesn't like you, because your team was crushing it, releasing amazing stuff. Perhaps he wants credit. Sometimes giving people credit even when undeserved to get them off your back is worth it. You can ask him a question or two. Release your project and say you couldn't have done it with the amazing advice.

It would be nice not to have to play politics, but in most organizations, a lot of people are motivated by money and power. As you climb up it becomes a game of throne like environment. Ignorance to the happenings will frustrate you and be the end of you. You can either play or be destroyed. BTW, grab a book on "Nonviolent communication" best of luck.

[frustratedmngr]

The startup actually used two different stacks / programming languages. They would generally just port my micro-services from one stack to the other and brag about the fact that they were faster than me in writing them, which, in my opinion, really isn't a fair comparison given that porting something is a lot easier than writing from scratch (since you don't have to make decisions about architecture, etc).

On your second question, I have no idea why this executive doesn't like me. I wrote a comment on another thread on my first negative interaction with him and someone suggested that my presence somehow messes up with plans he originally had. However, I can't really think of anything.

[beatgammit]

Have you tried talking to the exec? Take him out to lunch or something and get to know him. Find out his professional interests, get a feel for his motivations, and understand his relationship to the CEO.

Once you understand him, you can make a gameplan. Since you said the exec is close with the CEO, he's probably a good friend to have, and patching things up with him can really improve how you look to the CEO.

Business is about people, and technical accomplishment only goes so far. Figure out how to make the right people happy and you'll go far.

[sergiotapia]

>that I generally like pleasing people

Wrong move buddy - this is 100% the cause of all the issues you're facing. People smell that, they kind of dislike you. BAD people smell that, they exploit your weakness to the max. There is no upside.

Work on fixing this immediately.

[yesenadam]

Um. Not sociopathic enough, that's your diagnosis? No room for decent human beings in business? It's bad to like pleasing people?! ...

Hopefully this is one of those times I find a comment horrifying/depressing but they didn't really mean what I thought they meant.

[frustratedmngr]

The problem is... how do I actually fix this? I have considered therapy before, however, I find it particularly hard to pick a given therapist/approach. Do you have any recommendation?

[brokenmachine]

Just accept that you don't need to be friends with everybody. Some people you just will not get along with. Whether it's you or them that's responsible is not really important.

I always try to be nice at the start, but if it goes south I just try to avoid that person. It has worked for me but YMMV.

[brokenmachine]

Also something I read recently and agree with is this:

You do NOT have to be nice to people who are mean to you.

[hiaux0]

> that made it clear, from the very beginning, that he didn't like me.

How 'directly' was it made it clear?

How is your day to day contact with him?

It is also possible that misunderstandings at the start between you two can spiral out of control (even into hate).

Edit: formatting and spelling

[frustratedmngr]

The area that I manage didn't use to exist in the company, so while I was still building the team (it was my 2nd month into the job) I invited him for a conversation and, before I began speaking, he interrupted me, asked the following question, which derived into the conversation below.

- What have you done so far?

- I am building the team, have already hired X people and they will begin next month. I have also mapped what all other areas are doing and I am planning our deliverables.

- So, essentially, you have done nothing, right?

- Well, there wasn't really much I could do other than that without a team. Besides that, I had to invest some time into planning and showing the executives the structures and resources I will need.

- I got it, you haven't done anything. Listen, I am really close to the the company's CEO and we spoke about you yesterday. I didn't say anything bad about you this time. Besides that, I have a really good relationship with executives X, Y and Z and advisors A, B and C ... [he kept on bragging about himself]

The conversation above really sounded to me that he was threatening me. I spoke with some people in the company I already felt like I could trust about it and no one really understood why he did it.

I ended up thanking him for the feedback and moved on.

EDIT: Added further details that were previously included as a separate comment

[arandr0x]

It looks to me like your hire messed up something about this guy's plans and he set out to minimize damage as fast as possible. Since he had contacts and you didn't, he won (they usually do). Look, when you start at a new place, especially as a manager but even for ICs, it's because someone high up thought they needed an extra person (or a different person). And it's quite likely not everybody agreed with them. It's not really personal (although sometimes these people are OK with the hire but had a dream of a different skillset and don't think yours matches), but it's dangerous.

In those situations you have two options -- find someone he is close to who's more positive about you that you can leverage into brokering a truce, or try to use him for information. (You can straight up ask braggarts what they would do in your place, which usually makes it obvious why they aren't in your place already, in addition to giving you future bones to throw him to keep the hostility in check)

[hiaux0]

Thank you for this detailed answer. On to the next stage:

> I invited him for a conversation

Why was this contact made? What's his connection to your team, ie. how important is his input to your team?

> I spoke with some people in the company I already felt like I could trust

Possible scenario: Chances are that these coworkers are also close to 'that' manager, and talked about it to other coworkers, which eventually resulting into 'that' manager heard that you talked about him. -> Source of hate?

I, myself, would do one of the following options

1. Make your sprint/monthly goals clear to the CEO and at the end deliver

2. Start looking for other opportunities. Since you were well liked in your previous positions, it may be easier to get references.

Hidden option: Look really hard at yourself. Are there unconscious behaviours of you that may cause dislike? Try to apologize to 'that' manager for tiny and unnoteworthy mistakes, he just sounds like a ... who needs more love.

[estilos]

You seem to be getting a bunch of criticism; so I'd listen to them. I don't like you might translate to "hey - can you improve your communication skills", and I'm rewriting your code to "this works, but is unmaintainable" etc.

Sure, some people are just jerks, but not usually consistently. So when someone doesn't like you, defuse the situation and ask what would help instead. You win listening points and also improve at whatever you were maybe messing up. And with people who are just being mean, you make them realise it.

[deconstruct]

"Developer Hegemony: The Future of Labor" by Erik Dietrich is an interesting read. Erik talks about his experiences in office politics in large companies. He makes some interesting observations and analogies. Recommended. It would be interesting to get your thoughts on the book if you choose to read it frustratedmngr

[PhilWright]

First, I recommend you do not quit your job. No matter how frustrating it might be, it is always much easier to find a new job when you already have one. So if you decide it is best to move on, look for and accept another position before handing in your notice.

[frustratedmngr]

You are definitely right. I controlled myself yesterday and ended up not quitting, but that was pretty close.

[Zelmor]

Bad streak, it happens, man. Wait for the bonus, then leave for something else. Plenty opportunities in the wide world.

[CyberFonic]

Based on your recounting of events I see four companies and you having "problems" at three of them. Working for a big tech company and the getting your side-job acquihired also raises some concerns.

You write that you got a "top management position" - at how many years out of university? I am guessing less than 10 based on your summary. That also rings some alarm bells.

Granted there always will be people who are difficult to get along with. A situation that unfortunately goes with the territory in any corporate environment. There are many articles that suggest that many people in management positions are sociopaths.

In any confrontation there are two parties involved. You might need professional help, i.e. a therapist or career coach, to identify how you may be able to alter your behaviours to attain better outcomes for yourself and, ideally, for others.

[frustratedmngr]

I spent 5 years at the big tech company and I was respected and had good relationships over there. I am pretty sure most my co-workers would hire me if they had open positions (granted, over there my work was purely technical). During 3 of those years I was also doing my business on the side.

I started my own business because I felt like the work at the big tech company wasn't challenging enough. I could have gotten my boss to make it more challenging, but starting my own business was a conscious decision, since I would have the opportunity to learn new skills and work with different technologies.

I was 9 years out of university when I got the top management position.

Fun fact: the startup I left wants to hire me back.