TLDR I found myself caught in corporate politics. Softening messages. Navigating egos. Getting nowhere. So I stopped and asked a different question. Not how do I navigate this. But what do I actually want. And that question changed everything.
Not long ago, in a consulting situation, I found myself caught in something I remember as inconvenient, stressful, and energy draining. I wanted to get a deal with a new customer, but I got pulled into the corporate politics of that company. And getting pulled in means softening your messages, being careful about their egos, thinking about how to communicate in the right way, without going over anyone. I was navigating. But I was getting nowhere.
So I stopped. I made a pause. Because something was not right.
I didn’t notice that I had entered the game. The game that compels you to start asking how to make it happen.
This game becomes like a chessboard. And that chessboard becomes a space where someone loses, and someone wins. In that game, honesty becomes a problem. The environment is no longer conducive to success. It is toxic, and it pushes for compliance or submission.
How could I do great work under those conditions?
I have seen situations like this one many times in my life. But this time I wanted to pause and reflect from a different perspective.
My usual inclination is to quit after trying enough times. If something proves not to be good for me, I just quit. But then I feel like I didn’t do enough to solve the situation.
So this time, I didn’t want to end up feeling disempowered. My pause was more deliberate. And my exploration of the situation revealed something amazing.
The initial instinct is to interpret the politics and the tactics. It is a reaction, like what happens after an unexpected punch, received politely, as if it didn’t hurt. That effort is a waste of energy.
“How to send the message? Should it be verbal or email? Who else should be included? Should I talk to the leadership? Will that upset someone? How to be constructive and not whine?”
Alan Watts often said that some situations are like “an illusion married to a futility.” The illusion of playing the tactics, trying to outsmart the politics. And the futility of forgetting what the ultimate objective is, individually and collectively.
You want to succeed? Yes.
Then look at what is preventing that. Toxic corporate politics come from the invisible need to protect territory or individual interests. Achieving results becomes secondary, a pretext for the toxicity.
And once you are inside that environment, the pressure to adapt is enormous. Not because anyone forces you. But because the system has its own gravity. It pulls you in. It makes compliance feel like wisdom and resistance feel like naivety.
And then something shifted.
I finally asked a different question.
I had been asking, “how do I navigate this?”
That question has no good answer when the environment is toxic. It just generates more tactics, more calculations, more softened messages. It keeps you inside the game.
The question that changed everything was simpler. And much more honest.
What do I actually want?
Not the contract, the project, the deal, the promotion. Those are the obvious answers, and they are also the trap. What I wanted was to do great work. To feel useful. To feel respected and seen. And here is the truth that became impossible to ignore.
What do I do with a contract, a project, or a deal if the conditions are adverse? Why would I want to diminish by default my chances to do great work?
Under those conditions, my energy would go into the mechanics, into the politics, instead of into using the best of myself. Corporate politics make you forget what you came for. They are not material. They are not inevitable. They are a confusion that everybody bought into.
Capitulating does not feel like surrender. It feels like an adaptation, a smart implementation of a tactic: One more softened message. One more careful calculation. One more compromise that feels reasonable in the moment.
The question is never what is happening and how you deal with it. The question is, what do you want to achieve? And whether the conditions around you make that possible.
In my case, I managed to communicate directly with the person who was blocking the way forward. From a point of integrity, not tactics. And that opened new doors. It even created the possibility of connecting directly with the people who should be making the decisions about the direction of the project in the first place.
You can lose the contract. You can lose the project. You can lose the promotion. But you can also earn the right conditions for doing great work. I would rather bet on the earnings!
And even if you lose, you do not lose your dignity. And you do not lose your energy.
You keep your integrity intact. And that becomes the empowerment. Your response comes from a deep and solid ground. And that kind of example might inspire change. Because at the end, everyone wants success without the toxic process.
Sometimes clarity is enough to change the geometry of a situation.
Fear of corporate politics? Debunked.
Love,
Jose.
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