There are some economic theories that refer to the strategy / the usage of a hidden agenda and how it influences decisions or costs (i.e. transactional costs). In daily corporate work everyone has a hidden agenda. Here are some thoughts about how I try to find out who wants what and how the person wants to reach its goal.
Hierarchy
One big influence factor on how people behave is the hierarchy of the organization they’re in. There are different ways to look at hierarchy:
- What is the hierarchical relationship between the players in the project? Who is allowed to tell whom what to do and how can they tell it?
What you might find in big corporate projects is that people that are working below someone in a project are not directly or indirectly reporting to that same person when looking at the organizational structure. This means that they have to inform two different persons about what they’re doing or, in the case even worse, have to ask two different persons for permission to do something. This often happens when people are “lent” from one department to another for a project. In this case, the person is like a ball being pushed around between two agendas, hidden or not. In many cases there’s at least one hidden agenda, most times by the hierarchical superior lending the person to someone else. This superior wants his guy to spy on the project or the other department in order to find out stuff that can be used politically.
At the same time the project lead might have a trust issue with the team member from the other department as he expects that behaviour from the other department head.
You have to find out in which organizational structure / reporting lines the project members are related to another. I always have a org chart in mind (in a mind map if it gets to big). - Do certain team members have the ambition to change their hierarchical position with the project?
Very important question! Corporate careers are built up on achievements, corporate years and political connections. I’ve seen it more than once that the second person in charge wasn’t that unhappy about projects about to fail. It is their chance to upgrade their position within the project or even the organization if their current leader is failing. They’re willing to do the regicide if the situation is good in order to step up. Always be prepared for something like that. As an external resource or service supplier you don’t want to end up as the toy in those hierarchical games. You have to make sure that on the one hand your contract isn’t the reason why a project lead seems to fail and on the other hand you have to be in a good relationship to the possible follow-up. Always try to make yourself so important to the project that the project leader might change, but you and your team cannot be replaced. Don’t be surprised by the hidden agenda of the follow-ups! - Are the members of steering boards political / hierarchical enemies?
Hierarchical ambitions aren’t present only with the operating team members but also with the members of steering boards. In those boards there often are different c-level executives (i.e. CIO and CSO) with different agendas and competing ambitions. Those political agendas might slow down your projects enormously. Try to have members of the steering board informed well and give them the feeling that their most important wishes are implemented. At the same time you have to reject some wishes from everyone to show that you’re not the puppet of one executive! This sounds like people are bad from their inner heart… They aren’t! They’re just pushing their careers which means that possible competitors are less dangerous if they fail.
Shareholders
Another thing that influences decisions and actions is the opinion and the agenda of shareholders. The higher your project is located in corporate structures the more attention you get from stakeholders. No matter if we’re talking about shareholders or owning family members, there are great influencers on decisions everywhere. You have to think about that you’re messing with the money of those people! And there are always people in your project that are well connected to some shareholders / shareholder groups. Those people will try to steer decisions in the way shareholders want it. This political influencing is a hidden agenda of the connection persons of shareholders.
I’ll write more about that in the next posts…
See you!
Categories: basics, motivation
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