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"Imagine for a minute, a workplace where everyone is aligned with business objectives; where everyone understands the value they contribute; an environment where people actively seek to build mutually beneficial relationships across the organization. In other words, a workplace of politically savvy individuals.
If we define leadership as 'the process of social influence in which a person can enlist the support and aid of others in the accomplishment of a common task' as defined by the author in this Forbes article, then political savvy is most definitely a leadership skill. A fresh mindset about political savvy then replaces the self-serving and manipulative attitude that prevents talented employees from collaborating. With this new perspective, an active engagement in relationship building and a focus on understanding the most effective way to get things done becomes a positive force in the workplace."
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"What I urgently want you to understand is that we're entering an era in which the skills that make you valuable are not only changing—they comprise a fundamentally different kind of skills from those that have made people economically valuable up to now. As the economy is transformed, some people will do great, and plenty of others will suffer. The winners will be those who conceive of skills and value in a fundamentally new way, different from what we're used to."
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"I don't want to do anything to deter anyone from believing there is power in the group, in the network. But it also seems like there is a lot of rhetoric the last few years against the power of one person, against 'hero worship.' Don't get me wrong—I'm not a fan of false, egotistical, self-centered 'heroes' either. But I do believe that the positive social impact one person can create has never been clearer, stronger, and more urgent. Let me explain... "
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"Unfortunately, most of us can't be above average—the math just doesn't work. Now clearly, some people are aware that we're below average in some areas of our lives, some may even believe that we're below average on the whole, but overwhelmingly, human beings are a little delusional when it comes to their conception of their own competence.
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This translates to the expectations we place on other people too. In our experience, every CEO or leader we work with extols the virtues of their team. 'We've got the best team in the industry,' they'll often say. Of course, this is pretty unlikely. What they might have is the best team they could afford given the time and budget they've invested in finding them and developing them.
So our delusion is wide spread and for most of us, invisible and unconscious.
So what drives this delusion? What does it cost us? And how can we avoid it?"
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"Marx and Engels wrote in their Communist Manifesto of 1848 that 'A spectre is haunting Europe—the spectre of Communism,' which 'the Powers of old Europe' were determined to 'exorcise.' This dogma was exorcised in Eastern Europe in 1989, only to be replaced by another one. Today the world is haunted by the spectre of an 'economic man' and his form of capitalism, seen as the be all and end all of human existence. We shall have to stop the be all before it becomes the end all—of our planet and our progeny."
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