When you’re dealing with stalling behavior, using a sensitivity analysis or putting the burden of proof on the other person can help you break out of that stall and move your ideas forward.

Every organization suffers from some level of political intrigue. Whether it’s hoarding of resources, manipulative tactics, or passive aggressive behavior office politics distract your organization from getting things done. It also makes time at the office stressful and discouraging. Ignoring these dynamics can create risk for you, but you can take a productive approach to dealing with common political issues.

People Stalling Your Ideas

Some people aren’t comfortable directly opposing your idea, but they don’t want the idea to move forward. So what they do is they stall. They hope your idea just eventually dies. This person might seem really interested in helping you. They’re very interested in your ideas and your recommendations—a little bit too interested. Every time they interact with you they say how excited they are. They’re really eager to help you. Then they ask for more information. Then the next time they sit down with you, they ask for more information, and more, and more, and more. They’re using this as a stalling technique to prevent you from moving forward. But the way they’re doing it makes them look really helpful and supportive in the process.

To get past this dynamic, I like using a basic sensitivity analysis if people are bringing up concerns about maybe how many customers you might lose because of your idea. You might start drilling in and doing retention analysis and looking at historicals. But that is going to be a never-ending pool of analysis you need to do. Instead what you can do is say, “You know what, for this to turn into a bad idea we would have to lose a thousand customers. Does anybody in the room believe that this idea would cause us to lose a thousand customers?” If everybody in the room says, “There’s no way we would lose that many,” all of a sudden, that analysis this person is asking for is completely irrelevant and you can move forward.

Another technique I encourage people to use when you’re seeing this stalling behavior is putting the burden of proof on the other person’s plate. If they have to do work, suddenly some of their concerns aren’t as important to them. What that conversation can sound like is, “Hey, you know what, that’s a really interesting concern. I would love to see your analysis on that. When do you think you can have it done?” The person might say, “Yeah, it is really important and I’m going to go do the analysis and I’ll get it to you next week.” Well then it’s a big concern. More often than not, what I see is, “Well, you know that’s actually going to be complicated and I don’t really have the time to do that analysis. And you know, as I think about it some more, this really isn’t that big of a concern.” And then you’ve gotten past the stall.

Let’s imagine you have a chief financial officer who doesn’t like one of your ideas. They keep showing up to your meetings and asking a lot of financial analysis questions. You find yourself answering those questions every single time and getting them more data and more data and more data but they keep asking for more. A way to break out of this stall is to ask them to run the financials using their scenarios. That’s going to be a lot of work. They might just walk away from the situation. If they really do believe that these are big concerns, they’re going to do that analysis. If they don’t believe they’re big concerns and they’re just really trying to stall you, you might find that they walk away from it and say, “You know what, I guess the project can proceed from here. I’m not as concerned as I initially thought I was.”

When you’re dealing with stalling behavior, using a sensitivity analysis or putting the burden of proof on the other person can help you break out of that stall and move your ideas forward.

Want to learn more about navigating politics as a senior leader? How about taking an entire course on it? Go directly to the course and start learning how to navigate politics as a senior leader. The entire course is available at LinkedIn Learning. Enjoy!

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Information is power. Withholding it is how people can force themselves into a decision-making cycle or weaken your efforts to get things done.

Every organization suffers from some level of political intrigue. Whether it’s hoarding of resources, manipulative tactics, or passive aggressive behavior office politics distract your organization from getting things done. It also makes time at the office stressful and discouraging. Ignoring these dynamics can create risk for you, but you can take a productive approach to dealing with common political issues.

Information hoarding

Information is power. Withholding it is how people can force themselves into a decision-making cycle, or weaken your efforts to get things done. Without their information, your idea can’t move forward. Even worse, they might wait until the last minute to share information and show how bad your idea is. To counter these situations, make it public what information you need, and ask them to provide it. If they won’t provide it, tell them you’re going forward with what you have. This forces their hand. When they don’t provide the information, call it out.

I dealt with one client who was a vice president, and we were trying a cost reduction project for their organization. I was an external consultant at the time. I went to her and I said, “Hey I need this data to be able to make the business case.” She said, “Well I’m not really comfortable sharing that data outside the organization.” I pointed out that we had a confidentiality agreement in place and she still said, “Yeah I’m not really comfortable sharing that information with you.” So I worked on the project as best I could, but the steering committee meeting was going to be the next week. I went to her and I said, “Hey I really need that information to make this case.” And she said, “Yeah, I’m not going to provide it.” So I went back the next day and I said, “Here are the numbers I’m going to share with the steering committee.” And she said, “Well those are totally wrong.” “It’s the best I got without that data, so this what I’m going to present.” She then realized that the steering committee knew that she was the guardian of that information. If I went and presented an idea that was bad or with incomplete numbers, it was going to reflect on her. That situation then flipped her hand, and she provided the information I needed.

I know one other individual who was a senior vice president, and he saw an idea that publicly he was very supportive of. The person leading the project asked him, “What are your concerns?” And in that meeting he said, “I have these two concerns, and here’s how you can address them.” The person went off, they addressed the concerns, and they came back for the final meeting. When they presented their idea, this senior vice president threw out a huge objection right at the last moment, and it was based on information that he knew and nobody else did. Needless to say, the project stopped. This individual had to get that project back on track, and the way they did it was they went back to that SVP, they clarified what his concerns were, and they shared that information in that final steering committee meeting, but not before they had been embarrassed.

When you’re dealing with these situations, be rigorous about the information gathering efforts you’re putting in place. Do your stakeholder management. I like using a tool called a RACI matrix. RACI stands for Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed. What you do is you make a list of all the stakeholders, and you let people know the role they’re playing in the process. It tells people who’s providing what information to the project. It lets everyone know that these people are being consulted, and they have inputs into the process. Basically you’re putting them on notice that you’re telling everyone that they are providing specific information for that recommendation. When you go to present the idea, you can even ask this person who has the information to present that part of the recommendation. Involve them in the process. When you do that, they have to own it. They won’t want to present incomplete or inaccurate data in those situations.

Getting the information you need is how you’re going to advance your ideas and your agenda in the organization. When you see somebody holding back that information, make sure they’re put on notice, and people understand their role in how that recommendation moves forward.

Want to learn more about navigating politics as a senior leader? How about taking an entire course on it? Go directly to the course and start learning how to navigate politics as a senior leader. The entire course is available at LinkedIn Learning. Enjoy!

Did you enjoy this post? If so, I highly encourage you to take about 30 seconds to become a regular subscriber to this blog. It’s free, fun, practical, and only a few emails a week (I promise!). SIGN UP HERE to get the thoughtLEADERS blog conveniently delivered right to your inbox!

When you’re dealing with somebody who’s looking to slow you down, be proactive about understanding the concerns and addressing them in a public forum.

Every organization suffers from some level of political intrigue. Whether it’s hoarding of resources, manipulative tactics, or passive aggressive behavior office politics distract your organization from getting things done. It also makes time at the office stressful and discouraging. Ignoring these dynamics can create risk for you, but you can take a productive approach to dealing with common political issues.

Overcome approval-withholding behaviors

Some stakeholders either won’t like your ideas or they don’t want you to advance your career in the organization. To slow you down, they’ll deliberately withhold approval for your ideas if they have a role in the decision-making process.

To get past this, ask for their concerns and do so in a public forum. You can do it in a meeting, or on an email where multiple people are cc’d. Ask for conditional approval to move forward with your idea. Say something like, “Are those all your concerns and if we address those concerns, and bring you the data, will you approve the idea?” You’re putting that person on record to say yes to your idea if you address their concerns. It tends to corner them into making a decision rather than constantly throwing out new objections to your idea.

I know one situation where the senior vice president didn’t want an individual in the organization to advance. She was constantly second guessing this person’s decisions. She threw out new objections every single day. This individual turned to using their staff meetings to discuss the concerns. During the staff meeting, he asked her, “Hey, I know you have problems with this idea. Can you tell me if those are your top two concerns?” The SVP said, “Yes, that’s what I’m worried about.” He then said, “Okay, if I come back to you with the data, and address those two concerns, will you approve this idea?” And she said, “Absolutely, that would be great.” A couple of weeks later, he came back with the data. He shared it in the staff meeting where everybody had heard her say yes a couple of weeks before. She had no choice in that moment other than to approve the idea.

When you’re dealing with this situation, actively seek out this stakeholder’s objections. If you avoid the person and avoid their concerns, they’re going to keep coming up with new objections to slow you down. Another technique you can use is to find ways to make your success their success. Ask them to be a sponsor of your project. If the project moves forward, it’s going to be good for them as well as good for you.

When you’re dealing with somebody who’s looking to slow you down, be proactive about understanding the concerns and addressing them in a public forum.

Want to learn more about navigating politics as a senior leader? How about taking an entire course on it? Go directly to the course and start learning how to navigate politics as a senior leader. The entire course is available at LinkedIn Learning. Enjoy!

Did you enjoy this post? If so, I highly encourage you to take about 30 seconds to become a regular subscriber to this blog. It’s free, fun, practical, and only a few emails a week (I promise!). SIGN UP HERE to get the thoughtLEADERS blog conveniently delivered right to your inbox!

Some people won’t have approval authority over your ideas, but they still seek to sabotage them nonetheless. Many times they’re doing this to advance their own interests.

Every organization suffers from some level of political intrigue. Whether it’s hoarding of resources, manipulative tactics, or passive aggressive behavior office politics distract your organization from getting things done. It also makes time at the office stressful and discouraging. Ignoring these dynamics can create risk for you, but you can take a productive approach to dealing with common political issues.

Avoid being undermined

Some people won’t have approval authority over your ideas, but they still seek to sabotage them nonetheless. Many times they’re doing this to advance their own interests. A lot of times these behaviors come from peers. When you’re advancing an idea, they throw every objection they can think of. They even proactively go and talk to other stakeholders to talk down your ideas. In some situations, they even speak poorly of you on a personal level.

When you’re dealing with these situations, remain fact based as you address their concerns in public. Bring forth your data. Let people know the logic behind your idea. That takes emotion out of the situation. If this person is campaigning against you, have a direct conversation with them. Let them know you’re aware that they’re speaking behind your back. Ask them to come directly to you with concerns instead of speaking to others.

I dealt with one of these situations personally. I was leading a big cost reduction project, and one of my peers was on the team. This individual shared personal text messages I had sent him with our COO. Needless to say, given the content of those text messages, our COO was not happy. They were not really flattering about the way he was participating in the project. The reason my peer shared this information with our COO is he was trying to curry favor with the COO and the CEO.

When I found out about this, I went directly to our COO. I apologized for the text messages. I said it wouldn’t happen again. I then sat down and had a very direct conversation with my peer. I asked him not to share that kind of information anymore. It was personal between me and him. Going forward, I tended to cut him out of the loop of information that I was sharing with other people, because I didn’t want to take the risk of him doing one of those end runs with another senior stakeholder.

When you find out someone is working at cross purposes to you, be fact based in addressing the concerns, and let them know you don’t appreciate the behavior. That’s one of the best ways to get that behavior to stop.

Want to learn more about navigating politics as a senior leader? How about taking an entire course on it? Go directly to the course and start learning how to navigate politics as a senior leader. The entire course is available at LinkedIn Learning. Enjoy!

Did you enjoy this post? If so, I highly encourage you to take about 30 seconds to become a regular subscriber to this blog. It’s free, fun, practical, and only a few emails a week (I promise!). SIGN UP HERE to get the thoughtLEADERS blog conveniently delivered right to your inbox!