Do you really understand your political strength within your organization? If you don’t have a clear view - your reviews, compensation, direct reports and many other metrics will suffer. You probably need to think about creating a relationship map.
Creating a relationship map involves 2 activities. The 1st is to draw the political structure as is and not as documented. Your firm probably has formal organizational charts. However, those with real political power may or may not appear. Create a brand-new organizational chart not based on titles or departments, but based on individual's political clout. You may find that certain junior professionals have a lot of power and certain senior ones do not. You may get a clearer view of those that need to sign off on next year’s bonus.
Second, use a simple green/yellow/red color scheme and assign a color to each person on the new map. Green means a positive relationship, yellow means adequate, and red means poor. You will find that there are many people on the map where you don’t have enough information to choose a color.
There’s a high degree of likelihood that you have no or a weak relationship with many of the professionals. How you get visibility with these professional to start to build a relationship depends upon your individual circumstance. You might be able to approach your boss, senior members of other groups, or mentee's of those individuals.
In summary , you can create a realistic looking organizational chart to determine where your strengths and weaknesses lie.
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📌 Tags: #PoliticalSavvy #CareerAdvancement #OrganizationalDynamics #ProfessionalNetworking #RelationshipMapping #WorkplaceStrategy
Mike Mittleman is a career coach whose business focuses on investment banking finance professionals based in the NY/CT/NJ tri-state area, helping navigate their career paths with confidence and success. For more tips and personalized coaching, visit mikemittleman.com.
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