Latest / New Manager Conversations with Fexingo: First 90 Days, Managing Former Peers, and Leadership Basics / How New Managers Can Navigate Office Politics Without Playing Games
Transcript
- Lucas: We are six weeks into a new manager series and we have talked about feedback, delegation, one-on-ones, hybrid teams — all the stuff that shows up in the job description. But there is a whole layer of the job that no one puts in the offer letter and it makes or breaks new managers. Luna: You are talking about office politics, are not you? Lucas: I am. And I know the phrase makes people cringe. It sounds like backroom deals and sucking up. But the kind of office politics that actually matters for a new manager is just understanding how decisions get made in your organization. Who do you need on your side to get a project approved? Whose buy-in is non-negotiable even if they are not on the org chart? Luna: Right. It is not about being Machiavellian. It is about map reading. You walk into a new company and you do not know the informal power structure. That is dangerous. Lucas: Exactly. So let me give you a concrete situation. Say you are a new product manager at a mid-sized tech firm — call it 400 employees. You have been there maybe six months. You are tasked with launching a feature that requires engineering resources, sales alignment, and a legal review. You have no formal authority over any of those teams. They all report to different VPs. Luna: Classic cross-functional squeeze. And a lot of new managers try to solve it by sending a deck and hoping for the best. Lucas: Right, and that is how your project dies in a meeting where no one says no but no one says yes either. So what do you do instead? You do stakeholder mapping before you ever schedule that kickoff. You identify the key players: the engineering lead, the sales director, the legal counsel. But you also identify the influencers — the senior engineer whose opinion the VP trusts, the sales rep who has been there fifteen years and knows which features actually close deals. Luna: You are describing a classic stakeholder analysis. But the step a lot of people skip is the one-on-one pre-brief. You do not walk into a room full of people and spring your idea on them for the first time. Lucas: Yes. The pre-meeting. Before the big cross-functional meeting, you go to each stakeholder individually. You say, 'Hey, I am working on this feature and I would love your early perspective before I bring it to the group.' You listen to their concerns, you incorporate their feedback, and by the time you get to the room, you already have three allies who feel heard. Luna: It is a huge force multiplier. And it does not feel manipulative because you are actually getting better input. You are building a better proposal. Lucas: Exactly. There is a study from the Center for Creative Leadership that says 60 percent of new managers fail within the first 18 months, and the number one reason is not technical incompetence — it is failure to build key relationships and navigate organizational dynamics. That is the statistic that keeps me up at night. Luna: So this is not optional. If you ignore it, you are setting yourself up for failure. Lucas: And here is the thing about building those relationships: you have to do it before you need them. If you only reach out to the legal team when you need a contract reviewed, you are already behind. You want to have a casual coffee with the legal lead two months before, so when you do need something, it is a conversation between two people who already have rapport. Luna: I love that. And it ties into something we talked about in episode ten about giving feedback to underperformers — you build trust in the good times so you can draw on it in the hard times. Lucas: Right. So let us talk about how you actually identify the informal power structure. There is a simple exercise: draw your org chart from memory. Then add the names of people who are not your boss but whose opinion matters to your boss. Those are your key influencers. Then ask yourself: who has access to information that nobody else has? Who gets pulled into the room when a tough decision gets made? That is your map. Luna: And once you have that map, you start scheduling those one-on-ones. Not asking for anything — just getting to know their priorities, their pain points. Lucas: Yeah. And you do not have to do it all at once. Pick three people this quarter. By the end of the year, you have a network. Speaking of networks, I want to mention something briefly. This podcast is ad-free and it stays that way because of listeners who support us directly. If you have found these episodes useful as you figure out your own management journey, you can support the show at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. It is a small gesture but it genuinely keeps us going. Luna: Yeah, it really does. And we appreciate every single one of you who has contributed. Now back to building your influence map — Lucas, you were talking about the three people to target first. Lucas: Right. So you have your map. Next step is to understand what each stakeholder cares about. The engineering lead cares about technical debt and team velocity. The sales director cares about closing deals and competitive differentiation. Legal cares about risk exposure. When you frame your proposal, you have to speak their language. Do not lead with the technical elegance to the sales director. Lead with how it helps them win. Luna: That is a skill that takes practice. I have seen new managers get really defensive when someone pushes back in a meeting. But if you have done the pre-work, you already know the objection is coming and you have a response. Lucas: And the response is not a rebuttal. It is an acknowledgment and an adaptation. You say, 'I hear you on the risk. We have actually adjusted the rollout plan to include a phased launch so we can catch issues early.' That shows you listened. Luna: One more thing I want to add: reciprocity. If you help someone else get their project over the line, they will remember it. Build political capital by being useful. Lucas: Yes. That is the long game. And it works because organizations are fundamentally human. People trust people who have helped them. So if you are a new manager, do not think of office politics as a dirty game. Think of it as building a reputation for being collaborative and reliable. That is how you influence without authority. Luna: And it is a skill you can learn. It is not a personality trait. So the question for our listeners is: who is one person you have not talked to this quarter that you should schedule a coffee with next week? Lucas: That is the homework. Do it. And we will be back next week with another real situation new managers face.