Election Special: Workplace “Politics” – Stamp out individualism through planning and focus on customers, value, and sustainable profits.

My contributions resonate with people who are focused on value and understand that reality is far more complex than soundbites. With that in mind, if you close your eyes and reflect on the heading, you already know everything I’m going to share. But then, why does it happen so often? Because you and I haven’t fixed it.

Politics vs. “Politics”

The word politics evokes a strongly negative reaction in many people, especially those who believe in “good” outcomes for others. That’s unfortunate, because the actual definition of politics is:

“Who gets what, when, where, how, and why,” according to Harold Lasswell in his 1936 book Politics: Who Gets What, When, How.

These terms are commonly interpreted in this context as:

• Who: Who are the actors involved in political processes?
• Gets what: What are the resources, values, or benefits being sought?]When: When do these political struggles occur?
• When: When do these political struggles occur?
• Where: Where do these political processes take place?
• How: How are these decisions made and implemented?
• Why: Why do people engage in political activity and pursue certain goals?

This sounds like systems thinking in a government context. As a value-focused capitalist, I believe society is the equally important fifth stakeholder, with the government representing society at every company’s round table. The other four stakeholders are customers, investors, employees, and partners. This definition of politics can be likened to what one would do for a government entity, just as you and I would for a company. So why do many of us react so negatively to the word “politics”?

It’s simply because most of us observe long lines of individuals who claim to represent society yet do a poor job of it. “Politics” has become synonymous with people who want to win without creating value. When we use the word “politics” colloquially, we aren’t describing the definition above; we’re referring to self-serving behavior that leads to poor outcomes for those they represent.

This colloquial usage is what we refer to when we talk about “politics” at work:

Behaviors that serve specific individuals while leaving other stakeholders to pay for the imbalance.

Knowledgeable people staying silent creates a rationality void.

Truthfully, writing this newsletter gives me pause. In fact, stepping away from the protection of established companies to work independently as a value-centered change agent in 2017 showed me just how much companies rely on perceptions rather than realities.

I know that I’m a deeply introspective person who always questions myself. I’ve spent years working on self-awareness and have been building intrinsic skills since I was a kid. I’m not doing any of this because it’s an easier way to make money; there are far easier ways to do that. All I’d have to do is pretend like everything is just fine. So why is it hard to talk about important things?

My answer is that when people who see important patterns and ramifications stay silent, others find it deflating and take it as a signal to stay silent, too. This leaves our airwaves filled with “politics” – the undesirable kind.

For instance, here is a truth that at least some people know but don’t discuss:

The American economy is experiencing a major regression in skills and intrinsic motivation. Money, and the desire for it, have largely decoupled from actual skills and value creation. The political backdrop of a country always seeps into how companies, families, and individuals operate. In my 20-year career, workplaces have become increasingly political, and fear and conformity have increasingly superseded meritocratic decisions.

The increase in Price-to-Earnings (P/E) ratios of companies is a good proxy for this decoupling from value. After the financial crisis, the US market’s P/E ratio was under 10. Today, it is over 26 – higher than during the internet bubble. The largest contributor to inflation and consumer spending has been this perceived money in retirement and brokerage accounts, which could disappear in a month.

There’s much more I could share on this, but I encourage you to start your own research and look beyond surface-level pieces.

Our regular programming here has recently focused on strategic planning. In that context, here is a challenge:

Choose a topic you know well, are objective about, and that your company isn’t addressing but could draw intrinsic value from if it were approached with objectivity and systems thinking. Set up time with your GM or CEO, share what you know – and the objective basis for it – and ask how you can help solve this problem in 2025 for your company.

Macro-evolve to break up “empire building.”

We all have a general understanding of what “empire building” is. In its simplest form, it involves an executive who creates influence or gains control over larger portions of teams or the company in a way that is intended to defend their own position within the organization or rise to the top – yet the value that the collective receives from this person’s rise tends to be limited. I define it as:

A person or a group creating or expanding their zone of influence for a benefit that is largely self-serving and ultimately harms the collective that it promises to serve.

Empire-building is far more prevalent than just the actions of a single person. In fact, why are US national elections always so close? The truth is that both major parties have perfected misinformation to the point where they can reliably depend on states, electoral votes, and precincts to act as expected, despite the declining quality of candidates and the limited policy- or value-centered approach to governance.

Let’s look at a sophisticated business example to understand how pervasive empire building really is.

In the past week alone, I explored multiple 2025 employment and salary reports from staffing companies. I caught national network channels covering these reports, with representatives from major staffing firms sharing largely “political” talking points. The general talking points were:

1. Employees want to be paid more,
2. People are hard to find, and
3. Supervisors say skilled employees are hard to find.

Frankly, that is nonsense:

1. Companies and employees aren’t deploying value-based compensation. Compensation is often handled as a haggling exercise, which is not value-centric.
2. Anyone who has spent enough time talking to experienced individuals knows that unemployment and underemployment among truly experienced and skilled workers in the United States are high.
3. Most recruiting efforts are not preceded by strong organizational design, processes, or company-level maturity improvement efforts; instead, they look for new hires to be miracle workers. Expecting someone from outside to come in and solve a real problem – one often created by the current staff – isn’t the purpose of hiring.

So, what exactly are recruitment firms doing? They are running poor surveys and creating recruitment empires where collective entities (companies) and individuals (employees or contractors) are at odds with each other, continually cycling between hiring and seeking opportunities. The only beneficiaries here are recruitment firms – much like those running for office in the political parties.

So, from a planning perspective, ask yourself this year:

What problems are real, and how have they been proven to be real? Real problem-solving requires understanding the root causes of perceptions. Get off the hamster wheel and solve real problems, not ones manifested by perceptions.

Evaluate performance to limit “Fake it till you make it!”

Political candidates lacking the skill or integrity to lead have run for power since humans formed groups. The issue with “fakers” in group dynamics is that it:

1. encourages more fakers,
2. discourages intrinsically motivated people, and
3. lowers the average quality of the group, making it harder to attract high-quality individuals.

Companies must stay focused on their purpose. When a company engages in areas outside its core value exchange, it invites undesired behaviors. Virtue-signaling by a company is just another form of “faking it,” which, in turn, permits anyone within the company to do the same. If the organization pretends to know answers it doesn’t have, why shouldn’t individuals feel justified in doing the same?

Imagine someone investing significant resources in buying expensive sports equipment and telling grand stories about their heroics, yet never actually playing. That’s what “faking it” at work looks like: lots of meetings, personal relationships that skew decisions, and minimal interest in company-level outcomes. These are all symptoms of “politics.”

Excessive non-work-related engagements by superiors with specific people can be an easy way to curry favor, leading to promotions, compensation, or job security. This is off-putting to high-performing individuals. When personal relationships start driving decisions within a company, competition shifts from skills and value to relationships.

The only way to handle a slippery slope is to avoid it entirely. The biggest challenge to effective capitalism is lack of transparency and stakeholder imbalance. Objective and transparent performance evaluation that prioritizes value over relationships is essential to attract top talent and build a sustainable system. There is no such thing as half-objective or half-transparent. Here’s something to consider during strategic planning:

How effectively does your performance management measure intrinsic and sustainable value created by each employee and each partner?

If your confidence level in your performance management approach is low, then shifting the maturity of the performance management approach is a strategic initiative you’ll want to prioritize through strategic planning.