We Are All Playing Politics at Work

Politics is any discussion where the truth doesn't steer the course of action.

Most of us like to think we are above it. We believe that in our daily jobs, we are rational actors exchanging facts. We assume that if we simply present the truth, the right decisions will naturally follow. But this is a naive fantasy. We are not machines that go to work to process data. We are political animals trying to navigate an imperfect world.

I often meet purists who want to separate politics from work. They argue work should be a place where actions turn into resources that create value. They fail to see that even making that statement is a political stance.

For me, everything clicked during the pandemic. COVID dissolved the barrier between work and home, forcing us to manage perception over reality. We weren't just working from home, we were curating our backgrounds, hiding our messy lives, and performing professionalism in our pajamas. That performance of managing the image because the raw truth is inconvenient, is the very essence of politics.

We are all playing politics whether we like it or not. Work is messy. People complain, deadlines are missed, and coworkers bring personal agendas into the office. You might just want to do your job and go home, but to get there, you have to navigate the humans. And humans rarely deal in raw truth. They deal in emotions, ambitions, and incentives. If you refuse to play the game, you aren't rewarded for your honesty. Instead, you are just ceding control to those who understand the rules better than you.

Objective truth must be interpreted

If there is a place in our lives where truth should be the only thing that reigns, it should be in Science. Science is the pursuit of objective reality. But in practice, even science becomes political the moment humans get involved.

In the recent discussion about the Artemis II moon mission, I was watching news concerning the landing. One of the headlines stated that "experts believe" the re-entry capsule wasn't safe. But why do we need experts to have beliefs when we have science? Shouldn't the math just tell us?

The reality is that most of us cannot handle the raw scientific truth. If a physicist tried to prove the validity of String Theory to me, I wouldn't understand it. I don't have the framework to verify the truth. Instead, I have to trust the consensus of "our" experts because safety is not a binary fact. It is a threshold of acceptable risk that experts are in a better position to understand. Data requires interpretation, and interpretation is political.

When "experts believe," they are offering confidence, not necessarily raw data. It is a political stance designed to manage public perception and risk. If this happens in the hard sciences, imagine how messy it gets in the corporate world, where there are no laws of physics, only opinions and quarterly goals.

Voting has consequences

When we hear politics at work, government is what comes to mind. We think it's about which candidate we voted for. But voting is probably the least political thing we do. It is a binary choice with no immediate negotiation required. Once you cast your ballot, your role is done. You wait for the next election.

In the workplace it is different. Politics is a perpetual dance. You cannot cast a vote and walk away. Your vote is a decision, a critique, or a hire. Then the consequence is you have to live in the same room with it for eight hours everyday.

Because we misunderstand politics, we often mistake naivety for integrity. I learned this the hard way early in my career.

In a past job, I witnessed my manager and lead developer committing what I will politely call a clear policy violation. The team came to me with evidence, and I did what I thought was the right thing. I gathered the facts, built an airtight case, and presented it to the VP. I played the Truth Game.

The result? I was scrutinized and pushed out. The manager and lead developer? They were both promoted.

I was confused and bitter. I had the truth on my side. I even had evidence. But I failed to see that the VP's priority wasn't Truth. For him what mattered was stability and hierarchy. My manager and lead were playing the Political Game. They had influence and power. I was playing a game of logic in a room designed for leverage. While I was busy being right, they were busy being effective.

It turned out that maintaining the illusion of a stable hierarchy was more valuable to the acquisition than the operational truth. The company sold for $1.1 Billion regardless of their incompetence. My truth was irrelevant to the outcome.

A more political savvy me would have socialized the issue with the VP first, found an ally in HR, maybe even reframe the issue. Instead of presenting it as a moral failing, I would have framed it as a "risk to the acquisition."

The Art of the Impossible Deadline

Once you accept that the workplace is political, you stop fighting reality and start navigating it.

In my current role, deadlines often come down before the project is even defined. Leadership hands down a target date as if it were written in stone—perhaps delivered by God himself, according to my manager. The facts, however, are clear: I know my team size, I know the scope, and I know the deadline is mathematically impossible.

If I were still playing the Truth Game, I would say "No." That would get me labeled as negative or incompetent. If I were a coward, I would say "Yes," and burn my team out.

Instead, I play politics. When asked if I can make the date, my answer is Confidence. (roll your eyes here)

We are fully committed to the goal. Based on our current velocity, we're focusing our resources on the core features first to ensure we hit that date with a stable build.

(eye roll ends here)

I don't answer "yes" or "no." I provide a malleable statement that offers reassurance without committing to the impossible. I protect my team and offer leadership the confidence they crave, the same way "experts" offer confidence on a moon launch. It is a political maneuver designed to keep the project moving and relationships intact.

When you are in a room with two groups of experts shouting their facts at each other, they may turn to you to see which political party you will join. I've been in a meeting where the database team was arguing for using store procedures, while the dev team wanted to use an ORM. Each team wants to retain control of their queries, and you sit in the middle and they expect you to lean one way or the other.

What is the Truth Game here? Well, you can't go wrong by following tradition.

"What is our standard? Did we use ORMs in the past? Then why change? Let's get back to work."

That's the truth. You won points with the Dev team. You were efficient and logical. But you made an enemy of the Database team. Now, watch all your future requests get ignored. You were right, but you failed.

What's the Political Game? You already know you have to choose the ORM to meet the deadline. But you start by praising the stored procedures.

"I think we can greatly benefit from switching to sprocs. In fact, this will allow queries to be optimized in the background without having to involve the dev team's resources at all. In the long term, this should be our strategy. But given our short timeframe, I don't think we can make those upgrades without impacting our deadline. Let's make sure to include these in our plan of action so we don't forget it."

The Dev team is happy because you sided with them. The Database team is happy, because you recognized their expertise.

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Politics is not a dirty word. It naturally grows as people organize around an idea, or a workplace. It is the operating system of human organization.

It is the gap between how things should work (truth) and how they do work (influence). It's not a shortcut to manipulation. You can have political integrity by using your influence to protect your team and achieve the mission, rather than just being right while the ship sinks.

You can choose to ignore this reality and cling to your facts, but don't be surprised when you find yourself scrutinized while the political players get promoted. We are all politicians. The only question is whether you are campaigning for your own success or letting everyone else write the rules for you.

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