Defending your turf while WFH: How-to build political capital while remote

Times are tough right now -- leadership is looking everywhere for cost savings and ways to conserve cash until the COVID-19 panic passes. While your instinct may tell you to keep your head down and avoid eye contact (virtually speaking), that is absolutely the wrong thing to do. Staying under the radar makes you an easy target during tough times -- if no-one is talking about you, your team, or your projects, can anyone be sure that you're providing value? "Let's pause your projects and conserve the cash for a bit." Do you want to be on the wrong side of that conversation? If not, you've got to defend your turf.

While you may believe that your "good work" will speak for itself -- even during the best of times that is a very naive and quaint thought. Today, that approach to your work is beyond misguided, it's dangerous and will ensure you're considered expendable. Unless your company is going bankrupt tomorrow (my condolences if it is), money is still being spent! Even in these times! Money is being reallocated to teams and projects that leadership believes will help the company survive and possibly even thrive during these unique times. 

While everyone around you is shell shocked, dazed, and confused, the quicker you can get your head in the game and start driving value-generating projects, the better off both you and your company will be. Your ability to get projects sponsored and funded while working remote depends almost entirely on your ability to increase your political capital while WFH. To do this, you'll need to understand:

1. The "root" of Office Politics
2. How to build and maintain 360 degrees of support while working remotely

The "Root" of Office Politics

The reason we have office politics is pretty simple -- limited resources and growth opportunities. Your colleagues are jockeying for position because they want their ideas and projects supported and funded. With an approved project, they have the chance to shine on a big stage and have an opportunity to get the promotions and raises that come along with playing a significant role. Unfortunately, playing the game at a modern corporation is a zero-sum game -- more resources and growth opportunity for you, means less for them. Ideological differences play a part as well, and clear guidance from leadership can mitigate these issues -- but even without that, environments with plentiful resources don't tend to have as vicious a set of politics as those that are operating in a lean manner. During times like these when companies are looking to control costs -- watch out, the politics will go through the roof. Be prepared. 

How to build 360 degrees of support -- remotely

The key to building support for yourself and your ideas is more than just being likable -- people have to believe in your ability to both execute and drive forward their agenda. You do this by getting to know people and what they want to accomplish, and building support and belief in your abilities. In Washington D.C., there's the concept of Retail politicking and Wholesale politicking. With Wholesale politics, you win people over to your side en masse, with Retail politics you're winning customers one at a time. In essence, you need to do both to ensure you have the support you need to get your projects sponsored at any time, but especially during lean times. 

Wholesale Strategy

• Comms, Comms, Comms: Communicate early, often, and always. Your leadership should never wonder what you're doing because you're always telling them. Communications can be through email, team meetings, or exclusive updates -- tell the story of your excellent work early and often.
• Stakeholder Engagement: If you're leading a project, make sure to set up a steering committee. A steering committee is usually a group of folks that outrank you and would benefit from the successful completion of your project. You also want to invite the leadership of teams whose engagement on your initiative is critical for the project's success. Make sure to set up a regular cadence of stakeholder updates via video chat -- once a week is ideal, every other week is sufficient, but once a month, you'll be forgotten. To ensure attendance at your stakeholder updates, you'll need to make sure your Retail politicking is effective.

Retail Strategy   

• Managing Up: The interesting thing about WFH is that it can make engaging executives one-on-one a lot easier. Most execs new to working remote are going stir-crazy -- they feel disconnected from their teams and want information relevant to them now. Chances are you can send them a direct message and get a response. A few tips when direct messaging higher-ups:

1. Provide updates and information on initiatives in-flight that you're positive they care about.
2. Succinctly, see if you can get a read for how company priorities are changing or not changing for the near and mid-term.
3. Keep things brief and to the point -- they won't make time to banter with you until they get to know you better.
4. Unless you know them well, keep the tone formal. Especially if the executive isn't your direct supervisor, they aren't there for guidance and mentoring unless you know them well. After they get to know your work through your updates, they'll open the door to a more in-depth conversation and relationship. 

• Managing Laterally: With your peers, keep things casual, but dig. Get a read for what pain points they are having, and if they are pitching any projects that encroach on your turf. One-on-one video calls are appropriate. If a peer in the same department doesn't accept your meeting invitations, set up a one-on-one with their direct supervisor, and one of their delegates, you can't afford to be uninformed about how they are maneuvering for resources during these times.
• Managing Down: While a lot of your team may have already been very familiar with tech communication tools before lockdown, chances are they are feeling very disconnected from the company. Set up one-on-ones via video chat, and foster some goodwill with a virtual happy hour. People groan at the cheesiness of virtual happy hours, but a similar amount of goodwill from after-work get-togethers is generated from the virtual versions. Make sure to take note of concerns. When you manage up, sharing the key points from your temperature-check with the broader team will be appreciated.  

Let's Execute

So let's do this for real now! Getting projects sponsored while remote requires that you stay politically engaged:

• Office politics aren't going away just because you no longer work in an office -- if anything they will intensify -- politics exist because of limited opportunities and resources.
• To ensure you defend your turf, make sure you're maintaining and building relationships, being heard (or read), and pitching new projects that will create value for your company and its customers.
• Now is the time to demonstrate value to your company: Identify a problem and drive forward a project to solve it. 

Remember: We are here to help!

• Feel free to message me directly on LinkedIn with your email address if you would like a copy of our project pitch template.
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• Read our other articles for WFH guidance and best practices.