Howdy hey ,

I'm cooking up a new set of services. Still working on the details, but I wanted to give you wonderful readers a first look. Information is at the bottom of today's issue.

Last week, I spoke to a class of graduate accounting students at Ball State about storytelling in their careers. We had a lovely and thoughtful discussion (and they rewarded my efforts with their rapt attention and a neat plaque).

Amid talk of the technicals of good storytelling and analysis of recent finance/communication failures (think FTX and SVB), we spent time applying this stuff in their accounting careers. They wanted to know: What can relatively entry-level talent actually do with storytelling in a company?

Storytelling is the basis of persuasion — directing folks toward a course of action through reason, emotion, and trust. It forms the backbone of interactions between people and teams within business organizations. Or, by another name, "office politics."

In my experience, schools (and, later, companies) skip discussing "office politics" because it's seen as gross, unlikable, and downright ugly. Office politics is the shady VP stealing credit for their underling's work. It's the CEO browbeating teams into submission on a course of action. It's the gossip that transforms into problems and gets people fired. There's tons of research about the many ways office politics goes wrong.

But we do ourselves and the next generation a massive disservice by ignoring the exercise of social and political capital within companies (a more abstract definition of office politics). Yeah, office politics can and does go very wrong, but it fuels significant change initiatives. It's what makes "movers and shakers" move and shake.

So, what should we tell these soon-to-be graduates about office politics? And what roles do leaders play in all this?

I feel a change comin' on 

The World Economic Forum's latest Future of Jobs Report reiterates the dire need for workers with soft skills in companies worldwide. They specifically note:

The socio-emotional attitudes which businesses consider to be growing in importance most quickly are curiosity and lifelong learning; resilience, flexibility and agility; and motivation and self-awareness – evidence that businesses emphasize the importance of resilient and reflective workers embracing a culture of lifelong learning as the lifecycle of their skills decreases.

So, coding languages change, but the curiosity and agility to learn new languages are what companies need from their people. These types of employees need environments that foster and reward lifelong learning.

And paramount to a culture of lifelong learning? Change. In a business context, change includes alterations to systems, processes, or resources and the advocacy, conflict, and support necessary to effect said change.

Change means moving something from a current state to a desired future state. Conducting that act with more than one person involves — you guessed it — politics.

Through time and experience, we build relationships with our coworkers, bosses, direct reports, and others in the working world. Those relationships operate on spectrums: sometimes, we lean more on a pal, and sometimes, they lean more on us. The ebbs and flows of relationships represent the transfer of "social capital" (or "political capital," which I'll use interchangeably).

That's why you might feel iffy about asking for a week of PTO right after asking for a raise. You feel like your boss is doing you a favor, and you're waiting to reciprocate that favor before asking for another one. This is social capital in action.

So, when you want to advocate for change, you encounter office politics. To succeed, you need soft skills (curiosity, agility, resilience) and practice applying political capital. Unfortunately, this is where most "thought leadership" today falls flat. Folks want to know the practical steps to deploy political capital within office politics. Instead, they receive either a generic "just avoid it" or well-meaning but toothless advice:

• Encourage a culture that celebrates and rewards everyone's achievements.
• Institute policies that support open feedback.
• Engage positively and strategically.
• Develop networks through collaboration, not competition.

I call these the "No Shit, Sherlocks." They're the banal platitudes we throw out instead of contemplative answers reflecting our learned experiences.

Should you foster a positive, collaborative environment where everyone can be heard and applauded for contributions? Yes, duh. Is that a practical application of social and political capital, especially for entry-level talent? Nope.

Instead, we need our people to embrace the soft skills behind well-executed office politics — and be equipped with the tools and resources to champion change. They need to know how to deploy political capital responsibly to support their growth — and your business's success.

It starts with negotiation

To avoid leaving you with a No Shit, Sherlock, I offer the next step to train your people on deploying capital wisely: practice with negotiation.

Exercising social and political capital effectively starts with strong negotiation skills. Negotiation sometimes has a dirty connotation, too, like office politics.

But it isn't the hard-charging, fast-talking salesmanship of sleazy car dealers and stock brokers. Negotiation is persuasion. It's listening to each other, empathizing with their position, and using logic and emotion to develop arguments to sway them toward a new position.

Negotiation is storytelling.

The best negotiation resource I've ever used is Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss. Voss is a former FBI hostage negotiator with numerous international successes who turned his experiences into a consulting practice to teach others how to negotiate.

His TEDx video is a great introduction to his negotiation principles:

The soft skills he highlights, like active listening and demonstrating empathy, should sound familiar. Combined with wise social capital expenditures, trained employees can achieve organizationally positive outcomes. I won't spoil Voss' message, so dive into his material (which is usually packaged in easy-to-use templates and guides).

Now, not all office politics is above board. Credit thieves will steal your spotlight, jerks are real and plentiful, and cliques will whisper about secret love lives. But broadly instructing employees to Just Say No to office politics limits opportunities for newer talent to learn, develop, and grow soft skills — just when we all need them the most.

As company and agency leaders, we must foster the culture that all the thought leadership keeps telling us to create. Much of this isn't being formally taught in schools or internships, so there's a gap for emerging talent that agile organizations can solve to their benefit.

This doesn't mean we sand every edge to spare our employees pain; advocating for change is hard, and negotiations can fall apart for many reasons. It does mean:

• Setting aside our egos and not taking the challenges inherent in change so personally
• Training to be the arbiters for constructive conflict resolution
• Holding our teams — and ourselves — accountable when things go off the rails

None of this is easy, but our organizations benefit from talent who know their way around a persuasive argument. You want people who listen to and empathize with each other (and their clients) and believe in working toward a common goal, even if they disagree on the steps to get there.

Organizations that embrace a healthy view of office politics and equip their leaders and team members with training and space will attract high-quality talent like the students I spoke to last week. They'll build faster and better in a world demanding more soft-skill usage. And they'll deploy social capital intelligently to create the kinds of dreams teams you and your clients desire.

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Stellar content about content

Ed Zitron is my favorite writer on the internet today

I've written through so many tech hype cycles and the breathless coverage that entails. So, when I found Ed Zitron's newsletter, it was like a mountainside zephyr blowing in.

He pulls no punches in his assessments of tech topics like generative AI and the Dead Internet Theory. I thoroughly enjoy his deep dives and come away with more than a few good screenshotted quotes.

Plus, that newsletter title, c'mon. I have copywriter's envy.

Your Action Item: Sign up for Ed's Substack (that's the bold link above). That's it.

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UNHIRED Ep. 3: Ego Death, Asking for Help, and Navigating Male-Dominated Spaces

Hosted by Allison Nordenbrock Brown, ft. Tina Liu

UNHIRED, the podcast by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs, is back with a new episode. Allison is on a roll with her show, which features Tina Liu, head of accounting agency TSL Partners, covering one of the topics I struggle with: asking for help (eek!).

Your Action Item: Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Content from my pocket of the galaxy

BSU Digital Marketing Summit — April 29, 2024

I'm speaking at Ball State's first Digital Marketing Summit on April 29th. I'll be on campus in Muncie to run a workshop on telling more compelling stories in your marketing efforts. There's a great slate of speakers throughout the day who will undoubtedly have a ton of good marketing info.

Your Action Item: If you want to attend, sign up here. Feel free to invite others in your network — especially marketing-minded students!

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New services? Have you gone mad, Alex?

Indeed, I have. This quarter, I'm experimenting with thought leadership management for agencies and companies' internal marketing teams. I'm still working on a sharable landing page, but this service line will include:

• Topic brainstorming, research, and identification sessions (i.e. What's worth talking about in your market?)
• Planning and conducting interviews with internal experts
• Creating thought leadership content like bylined articles, white papers, and story-driven case studies

While I've technically offered these services for some time (and several dear readers have taken me up on them - thank you), I want to make thought leadership management a more prominent element of my company.

A few asks, then:

1. I would love feedback on the landing page and these offered services. The page will go out in a (hopefully very near) future email; this is just a heads-up.
2. What am I forgetting here? What other thought leadership-type services have you heard from company leaders?
3. I'm still narrowing down the target market. I have extensive experience with the tech sector, logistics & manufacturing, physical/cyber security, and nonprofits/NGOs. I'd welcome advice or exercises to help me hone this further.

More to come, but I wanted you, dear readers, to get a first crack at all this. Thanks for your support!

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See you at the water cooler,

Alex