Workplace politics can make any environment dangerous, both to your career and to your health. This excerpt from my little catalog of devious political tactics describes the false opportunity, which appears to be a chance to perform, to contribute, or to make a real difference. It's often something else.
ordan looked up to see Stephanie standing in his doorway. She didn't look happy. With her eyes, she asked him for some time. Jordan rolled over towards his table and pointed to a chair, palm up. Stephanie closed the door, set down her water bottle and slowly sat.
False opportunities appear to be chances to contribute or achieve. They aren't."Bad day," she began. "Marigold might be shelved."
Jordan had no words. Stephanie had created Marigold, and she'd hoped for a ride on its success. Marigold was a great idea, and she certainly deserved recognition. "I don't understand," he said. "Why?"
Stephanie stared at her water bottle. "Emmons mumbled something about new priorities from Diamond Square, that's all I know."
"But he must have known," said Jordan. "Why would he give you Marigold only to shut it down a month later?"
Lots of possibilities. Stephanie's predicament could be the result of having accepted a false opportunity. A false opportunity is a tactic some managers use to manipulate subordinates or to build empires. Here are some kinds of false opportunities.
The rhinestone
It glitters, but it's worthless. A rhinestone looks like an opportunity, but the grantor can undermine it in important ways: offering it too late; providing insufficient resources; requiring impossibly short completion dates or impossible amounts of work; or failing to remove conflicting demands.
The diversion
The offer might be less desirable than another opportunity that's out of your awareness or isn't yet announced. Once you accept, you're tied up, and unavailable for the really good one that comes along.
The dead end
It looks like an opportunity, but it's under threat of material change, such as reorganization, acquisition or downsizing; or a new high-level manager might be about to appear — one who's hostile to the opportunity; or a related business line is about to be sold off or shut down; or a competitive project is about to begin.
The foray
The opportunity might be an attempt to infringe on the turf of another, using you as a pawn. Sometimes the Foray is covert. If the project works, the grantor might go public, claiming an achievement. If it fails, it fails secretly. If it's discovered before completion, you might be left exposed, and bear some or all of the responsibility for the infringement.
Calisthenics
Some opportunities serve only to occupy the subordinate. Even if the project is successful, it will likely be shelved. This kind of "opportunity" is most often secret, because it could lead to demands from others for support for their own preferred opportunities.
You don't have to accept the False Opportunity when it appears — you can consider it a request for a favor, and ask for something in exchange before you accept. Remember to be careful what you ask for. TopNext Issue
Is every other day a tense, anxious, angry misery as you watch people around you, who couldn't even think their way through a game of Jacks, win at workplace politics and steal the credit and glory for just about everyone's best work including yours? Read 101 Secrets of Workplace Politics, filled with tips and techniques for succeeding in workplace politics. Order Now!
You just made a great suggestion at a meeting, and ended up with responsibility for implementing it. Not at all what you had in mind, but it's a trap you've fallen into before. How can you share your ideas without risk of getting even more work to do?
To solve problems, we change existing policies or processes, or we create new ones. We try to make things better and sometimes we actually succeed. More often, we create new problems — typically, for someone else.
The Three-Legged Race is a tactic that some managers use to avoid giving one person new authority. Some of the more cynical among us use it to sabotage projects or even careers. How can you survive a three-legged race?
Many conversations follow identifiable patterns. Recognizing those patterns, and preparing yourself to deal with them, can keep you out of trouble and make you more effective and influential.
The quality of an organization's culture is the key to high performance. An organization with a blaming culture can't perform at a high level, because its people can't take reasonable risks. How can you tell whether you work in a blaming culture?
I offer email and telephone coaching at both corporate and individual rates.
Contact me for details at rbrenner@ChacoCanyon.com
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