> Politics shows up as a failure to construct an aligned organization.
More to the point, it reflects the failure of higher-level management to construct proper policies, processes, team interfaces, and incentive structures for teams, so that the team leads will be set up to give their engineers all the ingredients for happiness at work: autonomy, mastery, and purpose.
Constructing proper policies, processes, team interfaces, and incentive structures is really hard and much harder to well than most people give credit for. It is virtually always bespoke, building on individual personalities and the tools available. Balancing policies and processes with agility requires significant self-discipline on the part of upper-management to not just run roughshod over their policies and processes.
The question is whether you're optimistic or pessimistic about your upper-management. If you're optimistic about them, then you have Lawful Good upper-management that is interested in building out these governing structures that are needed for building collaborative culture. But if you accept that the vast majority of upper-management is human and flawed (like the rest of us), and there are very few Lawful Good upper-managers around, then you accept politics as a necessary evil, at least in that particular organization.
More to the point, it reflects the failure of higher-level management to construct proper policies, processes, team interfaces, and incentive structures for teams, so that the team leads will be set up to give their engineers all the ingredients for happiness at work: autonomy, mastery, and purpose.
Constructing proper policies, processes, team interfaces, and incentive structures is really hard and much harder to well than most people give credit for. It is virtually always bespoke, building on individual personalities and the tools available. Balancing policies and processes with agility requires significant self-discipline on the part of upper-management to not just run roughshod over their policies and processes.
The question is whether you're optimistic or pessimistic about your upper-management. If you're optimistic about them, then you have Lawful Good upper-management that is interested in building out these governing structures that are needed for building collaborative culture. But if you accept that the vast majority of upper-management is human and flawed (like the rest of us), and there are very few Lawful Good upper-managers around, then you accept politics as a necessary evil, at least in that particular organization.