Empowering Yourself

by Harvey J Coleman

Overview

"Work hard and you'll get ahead!" We've heard that all our lives, but has it worked? If you have been passed over for people who are not as hard-working or effective at their job as you, this book is a must-read. "Empowering Yourself: The Organizational Game revealed, The Best Kept Secret in Organizational America, tells why your career might be slowing or has hit a "glass ceiling." For the first time, the "unwritten rules" that define our system have been defined and written. Whether your definition of success is increased credibility in your current assignment or moving up the organizational ladder, this book will give you the knowledge to make the proper decisions to accomplish your goals. When you're told, "You gotta play the game" Reading this book will teach you how to play the organizational game This book will, as never before take you into the critical area of the "unwritten rules" that are so important in a successful career or life. You will, after reading this book, truly know how "the system" works and how "the game" should be played. If gaining empowerment or owning/controlling your career is an objective in your life, you must learn how the system works. This will allow your choices to be meaningful and productive. Without the information contained in this book, personal decisions will be hollow and careers will be left to the dictates of the system. After reading this book, events in your organizations will make sense, the advice from your mentor will be better understood, and even the evaluation of the evening news will take on new excitement simply because you\It is impossible to win any game if you do not know the rules of the game you are playing. This book can level the playing field for any and all individuals. 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781087919881
Publisher:	Harper Partners
Publication date:	02/18/2022
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	171
Sales rank:	487,397
File size:	9 MB

Read an Excerpt

Empowering Yourself

The Organizational Game Revealed

---

By Harvey J. Coleman

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2010 Harvey J. Coleman
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4490-8034-1

---

Chapter One

The People Game

It was my understanding that the path to senior-level management and to the executive suite lay solely in hard work. After all, family and friends alike, even my college professors, had ushered me into the business world with a parting battle cry. "Work hard," they said, "and you'll go far."

At first, the well-intended advice seemed filled with merit. After a successful sales stint at Xerox, I stepped onto the fast track at IBM as a young executive headed for the top. One evening, I afforded myself a rare moment to reflect on my work history. It had been filled with long hours, with total commitment to my career, and I was rewarded with a steady stream of promotions.

That evening, amid the clutter of pie charts and business plans, I reasoned that career advancement is the obvious result of hard work. Therefore, because I had no aversion to working hard, I should be the company's CEO in a few years. On the spot, I proposed my philosophy. "I'll give one hundred percent, exert every effort, accept any task, and the company will promote me according to my proven results." That's what I thought the company was telling me, and that's what I believed. Even now, as I look back, it seems like a contract of fairness and equality.

But you're probably ahead of me already. Rule number one in the system's culture insists: "Nobody said it was going to be fair!"

For if hard work is all it takes to excel at one's career, if our advancement is based strictly on results, then how are promotions made when several able managers rise simultaneously toward a single position? I knew of several others in my department who worked nights, weekends, and holidays. What would distinguish one of us from the other?

It was a question I had never considered and one whose answer proved my downfall.

How Can They Do This?

I never really questioned the process of candidate selection until my seventh year on the job at IBM, and then I questioned it a great deal. I held a fairly visible position in the company, one where my results were easily compared with eleven other managers throughout the nation. The results I was posting at the time put me in a secure third place, which wasn't bad considering the caliber of the competition. So I wasn't surprised when the two ahead of me were promoted. I was very surprised, however, when the fourth-ranked manager was also promoted.

My manager saw me that afternoon, at my request. Foregoing pleasantries, I bluntly asked why I had been passed over. He responded with a non-answer. "Just keep working hard," he said. "Don't worry about it."

Work hard? Don't worry about it? I was already working hard. And I was going to worry. For the first time in my career, I had been passed over for promotion, and I was being asked to treat it like a broken shoelace. I didn't have the slightest clue why I had been passed over, and my manager, the only person who could give me a definitive answer, had just passed the whole matter off with a yawn!

That year, I went on to top every objective measurement for my job title. My peers fell away below me, into a distant second, third, fourth place, and on into the haze. I had done all I could do. True to my philosophy, I had worked very hard. My results proved it, and I was ready for the pay-off. That payoff was indeed delivered-to two others far down in the standings. Once more, I went back to my boss, asking for help. He shrugged. "You have to be patient," he said. "It'll happen."

Perhaps. But maybe it would not happen. I felt my motivation drop a few notches as confusion seeped in. I had given them my best, yet I wasn't receiving any guidance on how to overcome this rock-solid barrier that had stopped my advancement so suddenly.

Six months later, I was passed over a third time despite my continued high standings. I was caught on some sort of treadmill that kept slamming me against the invisible barrier, and the bruises tore away at my work philosophy. There I stood, with my top-notch results on every manager's desk all the way up the line, and yet I was absolutely, undeniably unpromotable. And it hurt.

Thoroughly disgusted, I drew the only conclusion I could understand at that time in my life. The game was rigged. Good ol' Mother Liberty, with her huddled masses and confounded executives, had torched my work ethic.

Powerless to control my own destiny, and apparently the victim of some high-level crap shoot, I resigned, bursting with hefty amounts of resentment, anger, confusion, and a deep feeling of betrayal by a system that had turned its back on the private contract I believed in so strongly. The one I had never told anyone about, but the one which was so sensible: "Hard work and results are rewarded by promotion."

Ready ... Set ... Crash!

It hurt when I hit that barrier. I was moving very fast, and the impact left me bitter. The faster anyone moves in a career, the harder a person tries, the more it hurts when the goal is missed.

To some extent, every employee in the nation is working, just as I was, with a secret contract locked away in the desk drawer. And they might be setting themselves up for a bitter encounter with the same ceiling I met. Their contract might not say exactly what mine did, but these contracts shape career decisions, and expectations, coast to coast.

The problem is, most work philosophies are constructed in a manner which allows the wounded employee to shift blame to the company whenever an apparent injustice has occurred. Mine was like that. I honestly felt that my company was to blame when my results, according to my evaluation and philosophy, meant that I should be promoted and was not. It never occurred to me that I could control my future. However, with my limited knowledge of the game and my limited actions on the job, I hadn't allowed the company a choice, other than to pass me over.

You Really Are in Control

You are in charge of your destiny! It's time to kill all the scapegoats and confront that image in the mirror. You can accomplish anything in your career as long as you understand and accept some major ground rules of the game. You see, your career, and life in general, is a part of the game, but the ingredient that makes it all work is people. Yes, that's right, the game is about people. Everything else in life is just detail. Everything else is detail.

This includes your focus on advancing your career and your quest for riches. Career advancement and money may well be in your future, but only when you first take care of the people who touch your life. Money is just a by-product of your relationship with people. Impress the boss, and you get the pay raise. You will never, ever, receive a promotion unless another person agrees to it. That's why I say you're in charge of your own destiny. You are the only person who can control your interaction with people around you.

Since life is about people, since your job is among, for, and about people, and since you control your interaction with people, then you have full control to take yourself anywhere you want to go. You, in fact, are the boss.

But First ...!

Just one thing. In order for us to have a true shot at the top, which means bypassing that career-jolting ceiling I hit, all of us need to leave from the same starting gate. Many of us have worked for years with a heavy anchor that we didn't even realize we were dragging. Even though we might have worked harder than anyone else in the company, we were probably never in the race for upper management. We didn't understand the game.

Life's game is played out on a game board shaped like a pyramid.

Notice how it comes to a point at the top. The shape means anyone entering at the bottom in a company of 1,000 employees must outdistance 999 others if the goal is to be CEO. Now, when every employee knows the secret of reaching that peak, the game shifts onto a more equitable playing field, one which assures all candidates an equal opportunity for promotion, based on the quality of play.

When the rules of the game become common knowledge to everyone, this is a rare business situation where everyone wins. Employees win because they know the choices they must make to have an opportunity to reach the top. Thus, more employees will participate fully in their work when they understand how promotions are made. The company also wins when motivated employees improve productivity and quality.

I've taken some liberties in calling your career a game, although it should be noted that it is a serious one. I do feel there is justification in referring to the organizational world as a game, and it might even be enjoyable to approach it as such.

First, for a game to exist, there must be a contest or some sort of struggle. This is an obvious match. Without too much effort, you can probably recount a recent work situation that was difficult or seemingly impossible to resolve. In careers there are constant challenges, between you and your customers, your employees, your managers, your co-workers, your work, or between you and the system itself.

A game also engages opposing interests, which means you must have competition. The organizational game is certainly competitive! Wherever you are on the pyramid game board, you can safely assume that you and many of your co-workers want the same job. You definitely have competition. Players most adept at handling this competition will eventually reach the upper portion of the pyramid.

Competition may take different forms. One form is the individual competition that I faced. Everyone in my office competed for the same vacancy. Ideally, we like for this type of competition to be a friendly rivalry. This can be achieved, but only if everyone knows and plays by the same rules. Otherwise, the game will be viewed as unfair to the other players ... and they'll resent the handicap. In the new team environments within many organizations, rewards will be given to those players that compete by making contributions without hurting other teammates or hindering the spirit of cooperation, which is essential.

This type of friendly and yet supportive competition can be seen at any National Basketball Association (NBA) game. Simply watch the players on any team sitting on the bench during the last two minutes of play. Almost every player on the bench wishes he could be in the action during the closing seconds, and some of the sidelined players believe they belong in the game. Despite these feelings, all will erupt from the bench to their feet when any of their teammates make a decisive play, which takes the team closer to victory. They, in fact, become the most enthusiastic and supportive individuals in the entire arena. However, during the next week of practice, those same players will do all they can in their play to replace one of the starters.

The other type of competition is inter-company, Ford versus General Motors, Boeing versus McDonnell Douglas, DEC versus IBM. There's a robust rivalry in this arena, extending into the international marketplace where the U.S. competes with Japan, and where Japan competes with Korea. Just as the most skillful individual wins the game at a specific level, so do the more able companies and nations emerge foremost among their competitors. The simple fact is that without competition we would never achieve the excellence needed to produce winning results.

Next, in order for this to be a true game, there must be specific information or guidelines available; in other words, you must have rules. You wouldn't think of playing a new card game without asking for rules. Neither would you coach a football team without giving the players the "Game Book." Yet, we're engaged in a very serious game without being aware of some of the more important rules. One of the truths of any game is that people who do not know the rules of the game they are playing, no matter how much they want to win or how hard they try, will not do very well. In order to win, they need the rules.

Finally, as in any game, if true empowerment is to exist, everyone must be allowed a choice of moves. Our decisions about our careers, and the things we're willing to trade off in exchange for the ability to accomplish our goals, become a direct barometer of our potential for success.

Choice? It's Your Move

Every game player understands the importance of choice. A series of well planned, well executed moves drives any player closer to success. But at the same time, one serious miscalculation can sidetrack a career.

The organizational game involves a series of increasingly difficult choices that come in the form of trade-offs. These trade-offs sometime help us to choose to plateau our career. Many of us, for example, wouldn't want to be president of the United States. The pressures, lack of privacy, and life-and-death decisions of the commander in chief, for many of us, just aren't worth the rewards. However, the choice of moves is always ours to make.

We can easily see how the issue of choice affects a career similar to our own. As an example, say you're working in San Francisco. You own a small sailboat and divide your time between the water and the mountains. The kids are doing well in school, which is located around the corner. Both your parents and your spouse's parents live ten minutes away and are great baby-sitters. Life couldn't be better as a second-line manager in a growing company.

Monday morning, your manager calls you into her office and, with a big smile, offers you a promotion to branch manager of the Cheyenne, Wyoming, office. This is an important opportunity, as that office has been having some problems. Your boss trusts you to straighten things out. Clearly, this is one of those game challenges you should take.

However, when you go home with the good news, your family has other thoughts. They're not willing to move away from family, friends, and the ocean. No way! So the next morning, you thank your boss for the offer, but explain that now is just not the right time for you to accept the position. Maybe next year.

At that point, you've made a move on the game board. You had a choice, and you chose to go with the family team rather than the work team. Sure, the choice wasn't easy, but choice is what the game is all about. By the way, the opening is still available, and someone must fill it. You can be sure that four or five of your co-workers will gladly move to Cheyenne for a promotion. The move for them will be upward, while, at least for the short term, you will likely remain in San Francisco as a second-line manager.

For those who want to play hardball, for those who really want to reach that top rung of the ladder, no sacrifice is too great. That's what makes the game so fascinating. It's guided by rules, moves, and countermoves, and consists of a series of trade-offs we choose to make or not make.

If you're willing to play the game for upward mobility versus maintaining current status and are willing to dedicate extra hours to improve the strategy and execution of your game, the rewards are advancement within your chosen career. However, you must develop your own game plan and execute the plan in order to maximize wins and minimize losses. Along the way, you will find that you are in total control of your own destiny. It is completely your choice.

The purpose of this book is to introduce you to the major elements of the game. The charts are designed to help you assess yourself and your developmental requirements as you create a personal game plan.

Chapter Two

Reading the Environment

Successful play in any organization requires careful attention to the work environment. We find that the best players are those who work hard to familiarize themselves with the rules of the organizational structure. They understand rules most of us have buried at the subconscious level, and they eagerly adapt to changing requirements.

The Japanese are a good example in this area. About four decades ago, they embarked on a farsighted mission to learn about the American business culture. They enrolled in our finest universities, and hired our best consultants. They studied, pondered, and absorbed our business sense. Then they began to manufacture shiploads of notoriously inferior consumer items. They had learned our game but were struggling desperately with quality.

For a full decade, at least, the "Made in Japan" label sold more extended warranties than any salesman! But somewhere along the way, sometime between the Korean War and the Vietnam War, they got the hang of it and have since built an international reputation as quality manufacturers.

The Japanese became experts in reading our business environment and converting it to their advantage. They looked at our game board, adopted our rules, and then, some years later, beat us soundly at our own game.

The Shared Environment

If we are to recapture the playing field at every level (individual, national, and international), we must redirect our efforts, as did the Japanese, and focus on learning to read the environment in which this game is played. Just like the opening in Cheyenne, Wyoming, there are plenty of other individuals and nations who will happily fill the position if we hesitate.

To understand the nature of a work environment, I have asked seminar participants over the last eighteen years to describe their organizations. In every type of organization, whether business, military, government, academia, or nonprofit, many described their environment using the following words:

Traditional

Conservative

Innovative

Downsizing

Team Oriented

Empowerment

Ownership

Chain of Command

Image Conscious

Technically Oriented

Political

Service Oriented

Results Oriented

People Oriented

Changing

Quality Conscious

Diversity Oriented

Community Minded

Line vs. Staff

Merit Oriented

Policy Bound

Competitive

Rarely will my audience require adjectives other than these to describe their workplace. In fact, organizations share many similarities at this basic level, not only in our country, but all around the world as well. But then, they must share similarities to effectively communicate with other organizations. They all must speak the same business language, the origin of which can be traced back more than 700 years to the beginning of the British Empire. The global economy is now a reality since the fall of communism as we knew it; the world, in essence, is playing by the same set of rules.

(Continues...)

---

Excerpted from Empowering Yourself by Harvey J. Coleman Copyright © 2010 by Harvey J. Coleman. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

---

Table of Contents

Contents

Acknowledgments....................vii
Preface....................viii
The People Game....................2
How Can They Do This?....................3
Ready Set Crash!....................5
You Really Are in Control....................5
But First!....................6
Choice? It's Your Move....................10
Reading the Environment....................14
The Shared Environment....................15
Where Did It All Begin?....................16
Culture Says It All....................17
Languages and Their Impact on Advancement....................18
Fluency-The Automatic Answer....................19
Exchanging Chips....................21
PIE-A Formula for Success....................21
Performance-The Entry Ticket....................26
You're Important, but....................26
Improve Your Performance....................27
The Performance Plan....................28
The Performance....................30
The Appraisal....................35
Image....................38
The Non-Verbal Message Sight Over Sound....................39
Dress....................41
Off with the Facial Hair....................45
Be on My Team....................46
How Can I Keep My Culture?....................47
The Team Player Attitude....................52
Friends Implore Quit Playing!....................54
Exposure....................58
The Game Begins....................58
How to Get Exposure Inside the Organization....................59
How to Get Exposure Outside the Organization....................63
The Game Board Defined....................64
England's Influence....................66
It All Begins When....................67
They're Just Not Like Us!....................69
Why Do I Always Have to Be the One to Change?....................72
It Just Isn't Worth It!....................74
How the System Works....................75
You Can't Go Home Again!....................78
Hitting the Glass Ceiling....................79
The Game Board....................88
Who's at the Top?....................89
Occupation....................92
Where People Live....................96
Location of Home....................100
Entertaining in the Home....................103
Leisure Activities....................108
The Fine Arts....................112
Cars....................116
Vacations....................119
Money....................122
Community Involvement....................126
Summary of the Rules....................137
Game Skills....................142
Goal Setting....................142
Tips for Setting Goals....................144
Emotional Control....................145
Solutions to Controlling Emotions....................146
Delegation....................148
Delegation Suggestions....................150
Planning....................152
Suggestions for Planning....................153
Power-The Ability to Influence....................156
Position Power....................156
Knowledge Is Power....................157
Charismatic Power....................158
Power by Association....................158
Does Any of This Sound Familiar?....................159
Using Power....................159
How to Keep Power....................161
Why Are the Rules Important?....................166
Career Planning....................167
Mentoring Others....................168
Mentoring Our Children....................170
Understanding Your Work, Community, and World Environments....................172
A Message to Our Young People....................174
You Are in the Game Already....................176
How to Learn the Rules of Your Organization....................180
The Skills of Reading the Environment....................180
Make Choices That Make Sense for You....................188
The Challenge....................190
What Is Success?....................190
Working in a Diverse World....................191
Success Does Not Happen in a Vacuum....................192
(Again) Knowledge Is Power....................194
But the Game Isn't Fair!....................195
Think Outside of the Box....................197
Remember: You Are in Control....................198
Set the Right Goals....................199
Just Do It!....................200
Never Stop Growing....................201