What are some unspoken rules about what to say and what NOT to say when navigating politics?

"Politics" often feels like such a dirty word... but ultimately you need to navigate stakeholders to be able to influence without authority. Oftentimes, folks tend to butt heads when they have differences of opinion (whether that's on naming, launch timing, product readiness, etc.). When people have differences of opinion, it might be because they're not seeing the same data you are, or maybe they have other priorities you don't have visibility into.

DO come to the table with a point of view.

Do NOT force your point of view on others, especially if you do not own the decision.

DO bring others along for the ride.

Let's use a concrete example. Let's say a VP Product wants to continue investing in a product line. But based on customer research and market data, you know that demand is going to be low and the field is not going to be excited to sell. In this case, PMM does NOT own the decision on whether product investment -- PM does. But how do you advocate for what you know is good for the business?

• Do NOT say - "This product will not succeed in the market."

• DO say - "I'd like to show you some data from the sales tiger team. The average deal cycles are xyz days for this product, and the ASP is $xx. Is this the level of performance you'd expect from this new product?"

This approach requires you to put aside your ego, by letting stakeholders come to their own conclusion. It just so happens to be the conclusion that you might have recommended. Navigating politics effectively isn't about proving that you're right -- it's about navigating stakeholders so that everybody can come together to do what's right for the business.

In building trust with your stakeholders/xfn partners, I think having a curious, open mindset, demonstrating kindness goes a long way.

For example, if you disagree with a decision, first seek to understand the rationale and context around the decision (e.g., in a quick Slack chat), before pushing back in a more formal setting.

In the past, I've seen colleagues run into issues here, where they will unintentionally hijack meetings by voicing concerns in front of a broad audience, without having taken the time to understand the rationale with an open mind. This can create resentment from the working group (and wasted time) and in the worst case lead to exclusion from similar meetings in the future.

In general treating people with respect while also balancing holding firm ground with your opinion can be challenging.

There are two principals I like to keep in mind that a coach gave me once: 1) Assume good intent - unless someone has shown you over and over that they dont have good intent, always assume that someone is doing their best with the tools/resources/time they have 2) Use curiosity - instead of questioning someones approach and offering a solution, come at it with curiosity. For example, don't say "I would've done it like this" you can instead say "I'd love to understand why we chose that strategy over X strategy" - this is less combative and acknowledges that it's a team/company decision and also shows that you're seeking to understand.

A popular situation I see come up is also when two teams have overlapping responsibilities. I try to step into those situations with the attitude of : "hey, we're working on similar things, I'd love to hear about your work and share mine so we're not duplicating efforts and amplifying each others work. Hey maybe I'll even take something off your plate!" People get easily frustrated when multiple departments are working on similar problems, but I actually think its a GOOD thing when multiple teams are tackling the same problem from different angles. For example, let's take product adoption. There is likely folks within product, customer success, PMM etc. thinking about how to drive adoption of a certain feature and it's okay - especially if you're in a smaller company where folks are wearing a lot of hats. As long as you're being clear who is owning what tactics to reach the bigger goal.

Lastly, I'll just point out a few phrases I learned to take out of my vocabulary early on in my career and some helpful reframes. I even forget these sometimes, no one is perfect :) But keep these in mind not just with your manager, but with your peers, your direct reports etc.

• That's not my job --> That's not the priority right now. Should it be?

• I dont have bandwidth for that --> That's not the priority right now. Should it be?

• I have no control over that --> I'm not sure how I would solve for that today with the tools/resources I have. I could talk to X person/peer/friend/manager and see if they have any good ideas for us.

• I've never done that before, I don't know how --> That's not a challenge I've run into before or my area of expertise. Do we know anyone internally has this skillset that I could learn from?

• I should've gotten credit for that --> I played a big role in that project and I value recognition, I was disappointed.

• We can't do that with X tool/person/team --> How were you imagining we execute that? What combination of tools and people do you think would help us ?

• We've already tried that before, it didn't work --> When we tried that in the past, we didn't see great results because of XYZ. But, we could consider a version of that idea by changing XYZ.