Thread by @mipsytipsy

i'm only just seeing this now, but @copyconstruct knocks it out of the fucking park in this post. copyconstruct.medium.com/know-how-your-…

cindy and i have talked many times about the kind of blowback one gets for posting these kinds of things; writing it anyway takes guts, and nerves of steel.

@copyconstruct there's no shame in wanting power and influence to advance your agenda, if you're trying to fix things or improve complex situations. in fact, i think it's a moral imperative for people who care to not cede the space to those who ONLY want power and influence.

twitter is full of critics who have never written a line of production code or managed more than a pet rabbit. and that's fine.

but if you care about enacting real change more than being Right On The Internet, that means working through the vehicle of imperfect organizations.

the better you understand those organizations, and their formal and informal levers of power, the more change you can effect with what energy you have.

most engineers dramatically underestimate their power to effect change, because they spray energy everywhere when they try.

this is one of the reasons i always say that any engineer who wants to try management, should try it at some point. even if you don't love being a manager, it will make you a much more powerful technologist and advocate for change, whatever your role.

"politics" is not a bad word -- it's the art of persuasion and coalition-building, as opposed to violence or coercion.

using political skills for personal gain is what gives politics a bad name. you counter this by building your own political skills, not by opting out the game.

important political skills include:

* listening
* empathizing
* identifying common goals
* helping people, and them helping you
* thinking long term
* being generous and willing to forgive
* knowing why you're there, and what kind of difference you want to make

most of the things that get disdainfully thought of as "political" -- stabbing people in the back, invisible machinations, lack of transparency -- are actually terrible politics. it's short term thinking at the expense of longer term relationship building and trust.

too many people think that being innocent of how politics works is a strength.

it doesn't make you pure. it just makes you ineffective. the whole socio- part of sociotechnical systems runs on political navigation and negotiation.