Office Politics, Diplomacy and Peace of Mind

This resilience blog was first published by Ahron Friedberg M.D. in Psychology Today. Link here.

Navigating office politics requires more than just good intentions; it demands strategic diplomacy and a keen understanding of organizational dynamics. While good intentions provide a solid foundation, success in the complex landscape of workplace politics also hinges on effective communication, relationship-building, and the ability to navigate conflicting interests with finesse.

Engaging in corporate environments entails grappling with the intricate moral landscape that underlies professional life. Employees must often navigate the spectrum of moral dilemmas.

Not to talk about politics... but one of my patients, Alice, had a refreshing take that has stayed with me since the 2020 presidential election. Yes, the 2020 election was intense, but we made it through! Even though the aftermath tested our democratic norms, Alice had a refreshing take. She called it a picnic compared to what she's faced before.

Alice Works for a Famous Non-Profit, Enjoyed Her Job Until Office Politics Took Over

Alice worked for a big-deal nonprofit in New York. which I’ll call it ABC. On the surface, it was all about helping folks in need, and the pay wasn’t bad either. But behind the scenes? Total mess. The top brass cared more about their image than the actual work. The regional offices were obsessed with impressing the higher-ups, playing this elaborate game just to get funding. It was all smoke and mirrors, and Alice saw right through it.

The nonprofit had some heavy-hitting supporters, big companies and international players, who loved being associated with it – made them look good. But here’s the catch: when the nonprofit tried to do some real good, it risked exposing the shady practices of these very supporters. So, they’d make noise without actually naming names. Talk about a tangled web!

As Alice described it, however, it was full of rot. The national office was busy with its own projects and with lobbying Congress; its self-importance left it indifferent to the regional offices. It mounted huge fund-raising efforts, then wasted the funds on ridiculous consultants whose prescriptions for efficiency obscured ABC’s purpose in B-school jargon. The regional offices, or at least the one in New York, spent their time trying to impress the national executives with endless reports; the point was to keep them as far away as possible, except around budget time when the point was to get them to distribute lots of cash for the coming year. It was down to a science of winks and nods. Did the regional offices actually do anything? Sometimes. Maybe. If none of the supporters would be offended.

Navigating the Spectrum of Moral Dilemmas at a Corporation

Millions of workers must navigate the spectrum of moral dilemmas, ranging from corporate social responsibility and environmental impact to individual decision-making within the confines of organizational objectives. I took this into account while guiding Alice on this journey.

The supporters – major U.S. and international companies – liked their association with ABC because it polished their reputation. The only problem was that sometimes when ABC tried to help people, it potentially exposed the unfair labor practices, union busting, and low wages that kept these companies profitable. Can’t have that! So, most of the time, ABC made important-sounding pronouncements that shrewdly avoided naming names or casting blame. It was win-win all around. Alice detested the whole system, which she blamed on the national executives and the time-servers that they appointed regionally. “It wasn’t always like this,” she told me, “but as the careerists took over, they whittled away at the mission. Now it’s a very effective façade.”

Why Did Alice Stay In Her Job, Even After the Office Politics Became Unbearable?

So why had Alice stayed all these years, as she watched the corrosive influence of the supporters and the people at the top who coddled them? “I stayed for the money,” she said matter-of-factly. “Besides, I was past 60 by then and I would never have found a new job.” When I cited the contradiction in her last statement (“you stayed for the money?”), she finessed it. She professed to having ignored the fund-raising, and asserted that she just coasted through the day. At that point, maybe I raised an eyebrow. Maybe she saw. Finally, she offered a rationalization: “At least I wasn’t doing any harm. If they replaced me, it would have been worse.” Indeed, it did get worse, notwithstanding that initially they didn’t fire her.

Alice’s job was to review research that other people did. Then she’d pass it on to the office’s director who was supposed to publish it or, in tricky cases, send it to the national office for further review (where it often silently died). But since no one did very much, neither did Alice. Sometimes she did research on her own, but most of the time she came in at 10 AM and left around 4 PM. She took long lunches. She went to the gym. The other people were great gym enthusiasts, and there were times in the day when almost no one was around. Alice told me that she knew she was taking money for not doing much, but she said nobody cared. “I was complicit in the scam that the national office was running. If they were happy, I was happy – everyone was in it for money.”

The Erosion of Alice's Personal Integrity

The erosion of personal integrity is a subtle yet profound process that can occur in the face of various challenges and pressures. Personal integrity, the adherence to a set of ethical principles and values, can be compromised over time due to external influences, internal conflicts, or a combination of both.

What Alice described was a long, slow slide in her personal integrity. She was morally incensed by the “scam” – the lack of follow-through on ABC’s mission – but, finally, she gave in to its lucrative appeal. Since found cover, sort of, in the fact that everyone was in on it.

The inflection point came around two years before she started seeing me. While Alice did progressively less work, the director of the New York office, Neil, did almost nothing. He was rarely around, and claimed to be out fundraising. Actually, he was palling around with the supporters whom, he hoped, would patronize the PR business that he ran on the side with his girlfriend. Alice ended up having to do his work, such as it was, and she resented it. She told me that he set a bad example but, in fact, what I heard was that Neil had gotten under her skin because now she had more work. She was galvanized with indignation (a.k.a. with annoyance at having to stay past 4 o'clock).

When a Colleague Gets Under Your Skin

Alice called the national office. She said that they were protecting Neil because that was in their interest, but that if they didn’t do something – finally – she’d spill the beans to the trade papers about his AWOL behavior and the PR firm that he was running from home. “You’ll look worse than he will,” she told them. She got their attention. They worked out a deal.

Under the deal, Neil would be kicked upstairs to a fundraising job in the national office (it wouldn’t do to fire him) and he’d have to clock in. A new director would be found for the New York office and, during the search, Alice would be paid extra while she picked up Neil’s ostensible duties. Great – more money for Alice! Alice told herself that she had done well by the organization, and deserved every penny. What moral qualms she had about working at ABC went into hibernation.

But then she got an idea. She thought that if she could help pick the new director of the office, and let that person know that she’d been instrumental, she could guarantee her future for as long as she cared to stay. “I wanted someone who was on my side,” she told me. “I thought they’d scratch my back if I scratched theirs.” So, actually, Alice’s self-congratulation over Neil turned into a crusade for self-protection. “Okay, I wanted things to change, but not that much. Once we got rid of Neil’s corruption, I thought everything would go on like before . . . only maybe with some tweaks.” In setting her sights on a new director, therefore, Alice herself had become corrupt. In The Altruistic Brain (2015), Donald Pfaff explains that corruption is when two self-interested law-breakers help each other out – like the bar owner who hands out free beer to the cops, so they’ll ignore his busted trash cans. It was the same with Alice, as her slow slide towards dishonesty got a little steeper.

It took eight months to find a new director and, in the end, Alice’s candidate won. Alice had worked tirelessly to promote her. Carey was an official with a big foundation (Alice knew from all the conferences they’d attended). She was 40ish, brilliant, driven. She understood child poverty, and all the programs to alleviate it. She knew everybody. The perfect choice. When Carey finally came on board, Alice was thrilled. That is, Alice felt that her future at ABC was assured. Carey knew about Alice’s role in her selection, and they’d actually stayed in contact during the process (Alice furnished Carey with inside information that gave her a leg up). Alice waited to be summoned.

The Twists and Turns of Alice's Role at the Corporation (non-profit)

What happened next was almost Hitchcockian. Carey called everyone into her office, one by one, except Alice. The people she called were either summarily fired or reassigned to jobs that they couldn’t do and would quit after a few weeks’ floundering. Carey issued a memo saying that the research function of the office, which had been its crown jewel, was being disbanded. The funds dedicated to that effort would be used instead for grants, and for “think pieces” that contained little research but that raised “important questions for debate.” New people would be hired to write them. The national office, she said, liked the idea, and it was one of the reasons they’d hired her.

Suddenly, with no research in the pipeline, Alice had nothing to do. She went from leisure to outright boredom. She wondered what was up regarding her fate, but was afraid to ask. When she ran into Carey in the hall or the ladies’ room, Carey was polite but distant. Alice was worried, isolated, bewildered. She broke out in hives. When she couldn’t stand it anymore, she walked into Carey’s office and confronted her. Carey was, as always, polite but distant. She said that maybe Alice could think up something to do. Alice was stunned.

Finally, it dawned on Alice that she was being frozen out. Apparently, Carey had decided not to fire her because of possible age discrimination, or maybe because she didn’t want to draw any more attention to the shake-up than she had already. Unlike the others who had been reassigned or fired, Alice was well-known and liked throughout the non-profit community. If she were fired, people would wonder what had happened at ABC. So, Alice sulked. “At that point,” she told me, “I still wanted to stay for the money, but the humiliation was getting to me. My doctor said that the hives were the direct result of stress.” Money, money, money.

Alice decided to call the national office and complain. She gave them an earful about how Carey was treating her. But oh, what a mistake. After a few calls, which went as high as the Vice President for HR, Alice realized that she’d been had. Here was the payback for exposing Neil – that money she’d received for doing his job was just to ensure her continued silence. Nobody appreciated her rocking the boat. Moreover, they liked Carey’s ideas about eliminating the research, which delighted the supporters. Alice’s claim that research was the lifeblood of the New York office just turned around to bite her.

When You've Lost Your Position, Don't Expect Support From Colleagues Afraid That They'll Be Next

Alice realized it was all over, and she quit. She managed to wangle six months’ pay out of them, but it didn’t compensate for how bad she felt. Over the preceding few months, her self-esteem had plummeted, as had her sense of well-being. She felt isolated. When she tried to talk to the people who had been reassigned, they avoided her, afraid that Carey would find out and fire them even before they might have to quit. After leaving with only one week’s notice, and a cake that Carey had baked herself (“I couldn’t even eat it,” Alice said), she came to see me.

Alice was depressed and disillusioned. “What did I do?” she asked. “I was just like everyone else.” Yes, except that some of them had more power. If Alice had become a mini-careerist, in it for the money and playing along, Carey was a bigger, cannier careerist who knew how to manage the national office and, apparently, aspired to join their ranks eventually. If Alice thought she was pulling strings, then her strings were being pulled by much higher-ups while she didn’t even know it. The point is that Alice had been self-seeking and naïve, a lethal combination. She had sacrificed her principles only to find out, in the end, that it would do her no good.

What we learn from Alice’s story is that selling out one’s principles, in an environment where everyone is doing it, means that you are constantly exposed to unprincipled people who will turn on you when it’s to their advantage. We also learn that thinking you know what the higher-ups are thinking, because you think you made them think it, is a mistake. Alice thought she had secured her future by promoting Carey, while in fact she had no idea about Carey’s real appeal to the national office – and, consequently, Carey’s real intentions towards Alice. After much discussion, I suggested to Alice that she review her whole history with ABC (including the whole sorry episode with Carey) with unvarnished self-awareness. Alice had been telling herself stories, making up rationalizations that had allowed her to keep playing along. Now she had to unravel those stories, and acknowledge her part in her own undoing.

Had Alice been honest with herself from the beginning, she would still have been young enough to find another job or, with her years of experience, to start a consultancy. At the very least, she would not have exposed herself to sudden humiliation, and the sense that she’d been thrown on the trash heap. The point is that in pursuing happiness in the world of work, we have to be true to ourselves. We have to resist being presumptuous, thinking that we can pull off whatever we dream up just because we’ve been playing the game all along. Alice told me that she is waiting for the last laugh when Carey gets the boot – but so far, she’s still there. Better for Alice to turn inward and reflect, painful as that may be.

Yesterday, Alice told me “I didn’t see it coming, but I guess I had it coming.” Finally, a ray of hope.

Author Ahron Friedberg, M.D., is a Clinical Professor in Psychiatry at Mount Sinai Icahn School of Medicine and Editor of the Academy Forum, a leading professional journal, as well as Book Editor of Psychodynamic Psychiatry. He practices as a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst in Manhattan.