[idrios]

You don't have a lot of control over that if you're not a manager. Early career politics is basically your relationship with your coworkers and your manager.

Ideally you'll have coworkers that want to succeed and want you to succeed so that you are all open to learning from each other.

Sometimes you have a coworker who has gaps in their knowledge and is insecure (or sometimes that person is you). To avoid politics there, just help that person feel secure -- find things to learn from them or find ways they can help you.

Maybe a coworker is burnt out and doesn't have the energy to work as hard as you can. Learn what you can from them too, help them feel important.

Maybe your manager is overloaded with work. Figure out what their responsibilities are so you can prioritize what you work on in a way that makes their life easier.

Basically: politics is inevitable but you should just be new, make friends, have empathy, and let things fall into place.

[zwkrt]

This advice to avoid politics by becoming a people pleaser is not a bad strategy to attain the goal, but it might come at the cost of your sanity. The only way to be not involved in politics is to totally accept the current situation and to align your goals and interests with those in power.

This is the type of behavior that causes mid-life crises.

[majormajor]

> The only way to be not involved in politics is to totally accept the current situation and to align your goals and interests with those in power.

At a small, young, growing company, that's what the company needs - if your goals aren't aligned with the company's, you are going to be spending scarce resources on the wrong things.

If there's a way, in a larger company, to prevent "necessary alignment" from turning into "political gamesmanship," I've never seen it. If the people in control of your fate have goals that aren't perfectly aligned with "overall health of company" then now it's games and bullshit and it gets real hard on the individuals. And that can happen very easily: Director X wants to be promoted to VP, needs to show results in their domain, maybe doesn't care if this has knock-on effects on other orgs; the company is 99% likely to be fine anyway, and it'll help them move up... do you get on board, or do you push back because it's a bad overall strategy? Good luck... :|

[barking_biscuit]

>At a small, young, growing company, that's what the company needs - if your goals aren't aligned with the company's, you are going to be spending scarce resources on the wrong things.

Implying management doesn't do the same...

[idrios]

This is extremely true. I should have also added that sometimes situations and people are just toxic, and when that happens all you can do is try to get out of those situations. If you have burnt out coworkers and an overworked manager -- these might also be red flags