Understanding Political Dynamics

Don’t be blindsided by sneaky corporate politicians. I lost my job as VP at a startup because of decisions made behind my back, behind closed doors. This taught me to be much more aware of corporate politics. Most people say they dislike politics. They want to know how to navigate them without having to be political themselves. The good news is you can definitely do this - I cover exactly how below. The first thing to know is that influence and politics are different. Both are used to impact decisions and outcomes, but for different reasons and approached in different ways. –Influence is seeking the best decision; politics is seeking personal benefit or gain. –Influence is done transparently; politics is hidden and often even denied. –Influence is earned, based on track record and data; politics is manipulative, hiding data and distorting facts. To avoid political surprises: 1. Do not drive dissent underground. Be open and invite discussion. Many people will accept a decision they do not like if they feel heard and understood. Deny them this and they will resort to sneaky politics to try to manipulate the outcome. 2. Create strong relationships with decision makers and set the expectation of being included in discussions. If someone does attempt to go behind your back, you want your leaders and stakeholders to step in and stop them, or at least tell you what is going on. “Politics” can only happen when multiple people are willing to keep a decision hidden from you. --In your own leadership, avoid tolerating politics within your team. If you show people around you that you are open to secret, private influence, either from peers or favorite subordinates, then you contribute to a political environment. If you do not stick to transparency and open decisions yourself, you create a culture of politics that will come back to bite you later. --Learn who is political in your company. The best way to avoid being blindsided is by being attentive to politics without becoming jaded or suspicious of everyone. You want to cultivate awareness. Look for unhappy faces in meetings and listen carefully for words that seem to indicate agreement without really saying yes. Statements like “We'll look at your request in the next sprint” sound very supportive, but don’t actually commit to anything. The truth is that human beings are wired to get what is best for themselves. We cannot eliminate this part of our nature. However, what we can do is be more aware of this reality. We can also influence others to see that politics will eventually hurt them, while building transparent influence will benefit them, helping to build relationships, alliances, and coalitions. My colleagues Omar Halabieh, Steve Huynh, Sundas Khalid, and Rajdeep Saha are all sharing insights on how to navigate these tough situations. Read their perspectives in their posts and comments. What lessons have helped you navigate politics at work?

A major new paper that will shape our thinking for the years to come. As rich nations are once more kicking away the ladder, this time through renewed protectionism, Ha-Joon Chang and Jose Miguel Ahumada revisit the intellectual legacy of the #NewInternationalEconomicOrder to propose a renewed international agenda centered on: - restoring industrial policy autonomy in the South - revising trade rules to allow differentiated treatment - multilateral frameworks for technology transfer and data governance. - confronting existing asymmetries in global governance and building coalitions capable of reshaping the normative foundations of the international economic order. MUST READ. full paper below and link to the paper: https://lnkd.in/etzy7ZsT #GlobalSouth #Industrialpolicy #Trade #technology

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has just presented its much-anticipated Advisory Opinion on climate change. The highest judicial body of the UN has spoken very clearly: States have a legal obligation to protect from harm caused by climate change! 1️⃣ The Opinion makes clear that states that are party to the UNFCCC "have an obligation to adopt measures with a view to contributing to the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions and adapting to climate change." 2️⃣ The Court clarified that obligations also exist under customary international law. This could have consequences for states that are not (anymore) party to the Paris Agreement (such as the U.S.). 3️⃣ "Failure of a State to take appropriate action to protect the climate system from GHG emissions — including through fossil fuel production, fossil fuel consumption, the granting of fossil fuel exploration licences or the provision of fossil fuel subsidies — may constitute an internationally wrongful act which is attributable to that State." 4️⃣ The Court made a clear link between between human rights and climate change. "[T]he human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment is essential for the enjoyment of other human rights." While not legally binding per se, this Advisory Opinion carries significant legal and political weight. The Opinion interprets binding international law to which countries have already committed. Courts are likely to treat this Opinion as a persuasive authority, and it will impact rulings that have binding effect under national or regional legal systems. ❗ From now on, climate inaction by governments does not just reflect another policy failure, but it can be seen as a breach of international law.

When the city signals, are we reading it? Most urban problems get managed. Avoidance zones get cameras. Informal crossings get barriers. Repeated parking violations get fines. Part I of Shaima Abdurrafea's Behavioral Guide For Urban Spaces argues for a different starting point: treat those patterns as system output, not individual failure. The guide frames public space as a feedback system. Bodies react before plans are understood. Recurring patterns, especially avoidance and rule breaking, show where friction, uncertainty, or exclusion is produced by the environment, not only by individual choices. The practical value sits in the format. Each behaviour is described through the same sequence: what it is, why it matters, what to observe, design strategies, common mistakes, and behavioural indicators. That consistency turns it into a fast site walk tool and a shared language across design, engineering, management, and enforcement. For municipal practice, the strongest parts sit where delivery tends to default to control: Avoidance is treated as information. If people detour, hurry through, or do not enter at all, the assumption is not that the space is unnecessary. It may be unreadable, uncomfortable, or socially unsafe. Safety seeking is treated as design work. Reduce dead corners, strengthen sightlines, and use layered lighting that supports natural social safety, instead of relying on bright uniform illumination. Rule breaking is treated as a policy reality check. If a behaviour is structural, for example repeated informal crossings or persistent parking patterns, the guide argues for redesigning the space before escalating enforcement. Enforcing a misaligned system increases cost without changing the pattern. Adaptability is treated as a diagnostic signal. Informal adjustments by users are not automatically vandalism. They are evidence of unmet needs, and a direct prompt for targeted improvement before a problem compounds. A systems lens helps operationalise this. Behavioural indicators are output metrics. Paired with GIS, maintenance logs, and basic demographic context, they show who is missing, where stress concentrates, and which small interventions reduce friction over time. I posted earlier on Part II (linked in comments), which expands the vocabulary further. But if you work in delivery, Part I is the more useful starting point: it reframes what you are already observing as actionable data. The lesson for urban professionals is simple: observation before intervention. The city is already telling you where the design is failing. The question is whether you are set up to listen. #urbandesign #publicspace #behaviour #systemsthinking #urbanmanagement #streets #safety #placemaking #citymaking #mobility

'Global Strategic Trends: Out to 2055' by UK Ministry of Defence offers foresight analysis from a thematic and geographic perspective, complemented by five scenarios which describe hypothetical pathways into a future world order. The publication identifies six global key drivers of change, connected in turn to 22 underlying trends that can be observed today, and which are likely to shape the coming decades. Taken together, these drivers represent a complex set of dynamics which serve to influence, counteract or accelerate each other, often in unexpected ways. By describing the key drivers of change and illustrating alternative outcomes, it helps you to test assumptions and prepare for an uncertain world. Without context, there is a risk that planners, policy makers and capability developers will assume a future that conforms to preconceived ideas and assumptions. Read it here: https://lnkd.in/dt_qqPxp #Scanarios #Futures #2055

RETHINKING POWER IN ORGANISATIONS For over a century, management theory has catalogued organisational forms—Weber’s bureaucracy, Mintzberg’s archetypes, coops, B Corps, social enterprises, DAOs. Yet this proliferation masks a remarkable evasion: virtually no mainstream framework systematically uses philosophical tools to analyse how power is legitimated within organisations. We classify governance codes, ownership structures, and culture, but consistently ignore political analysis that explains whose interests prevail, whose voices matter, and how compliance is enforced. This is no innocent oversight—Management science has deliberately severed itself from political theory to conveniently evade foundational questions of legitimacy. The result? We fail to ask by what right any organisation commands, excludes, allocates resources or value, thereby encoding systemic injustice into the architecture of organisational life. Imperium—the capacity to command and enforce rules—becomes “hierarchy” or “leadership style,” shorn of questions about what legitimates organisational sovereignty. Dominium—control over productive resources—becomes “fiduciary duty”, “minimum wage” or “business case,” occluding property as a social relation structuring power and exclusion through contracts. Potestas—the capacity for collective self-determination—shrinks to “employee engagement” or “empowerment”, while true constituent power is foreclosed. But every organisation is a political order. Just as societies struggle over state power, market dominance, and popular sovereignty, organisations mirror these tensions internally. State-owned enterprises concentrate imperium, suppressing both market discipline and democratic voice. Shareholder corporations prioritise capital’s dominium, reducing labour to disposable input. Cooperatives and NGOs attempt to maximise potestas—collective agency—but often suffer fragility without broader regulatory and legal scaffolding. Hybrids proliferate—social enterprises, platform cooperatives, steward-ownership, self-managed partnerships—each seeking to rebalance structures of authority, ownership, and agency. Yet even these “innovations” rarely confront core political questions. Most power distributions remain historically contingent, ethically incomplete, and open to manipulation. By mapping organizational forms onto the Political Triangle we can deploy rigorous political analysis to ask: What constitutes legitimate organizational authority? How do property regimes structure possible distributions of power and surplus? When does constituent power get captured by its own ideology? This is no mere academic exercise—it is the precondition for business to be a force for good. Only by reintegrating political theory with management and economics can we link macro justice to meso organisational design. Until we reckon with the legitimacy of power, management theory cannot become a genuine engine of societal transformation. #leadership

PIECES OF CHINA – In order to understand China, you need to change the scale China is not a country. It is a continent disguised as a country. Without shifting to a different scale of analysis, no business strategy for China can be accurate. Its provinces are like countries, with populations, territories, and economies on a European scale. And its cities are megacities : 20 to 30 million inhabitants each, larger than entire nations. ▫️ A continental scale Sichuan has 83 million people, more than Germany. Guangdong’s GDP exceeds that of South Korea. Shanghai’s metropolitan area has more residents than the whole of Romania. Beijing’s economy is larger than that of Switzerland. These are not “regions” in the European sense, but country-sized markets operating within one national framework. ▫️ Diversity across provinces Each province has its own identity, industrial base, and consumer profile. The Greater Bay Area (Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao) is driven by tech, finance, and manufacturing. The Yangtze River Delta (Shanghai–Jiangsu–Zhejiang) is a trade and logistics hub of global scale. Western provinces like Sichuan and Chongqing are emerging centers for innovation and consumption. To approach China as a single homogeneous market is to miss this diversity. ▫️ Why comparisons mislead Comparing China to Germany, France to the United Kingdom hides more than it reveals. Within China, there are multiple “Germanys” in terms of scale, but with very different dynamics. What works in Shanghai may fail in Xi’an. A marketing strategy that resonates in Beijing may miss the mark in Chengdu. Oversimplified comparisons lead to flawed analysis and flawed business plans. ▫️ A new mindset for business The right question is not “How do we enter China?” but “Which province, which city cluster, which ecosystem should we start with?” A European company wouldn’t approach the EU with one single plan; it would differentiate between Germany, Spain, and Poland. The same logic applies to China... only on an even larger scale. ▫️ Change of scale, change of perspective Understanding China means seeing it not as a single country but as a continent of provinces and megacities. Each province is a country-sized market; each major city is a national capital in its own right. Changing the scale of analysis is the first step toward building a realistic strategy. 💡 My Piece of Advice : My first advice for anyone approaching China is simple : change the scale. Think continent, not country. Provinces are like countries, cities like nations. Only with this mindset can you start designing strategies that fit the reality of China’s vast and complex market. ____________ #PiecesofChina #ChinaStrategy

A super-majority of the world's citizens (from 74% in the US to 89% in parts of Europe) want their governments to do more about climate change, but the majority of that group is convinced they're a minority. That perception gap has a silencing effect that in turn enables politicians to think they can continue serving the interests of polluting industries with impunity. The media bears some responsibility for that gap. From taking the bait on false equivalence to creating the fossil fuel industry's advertorials pushing false solutions to treating advocates like criminals, media coverage of climate has often perpetuated the idea that only a fringe minority wants action or is willing to pay for it. In the new Climate Social Science Network book Climate Obstruction: A Global Assessment, Melissa Aronczyk and Max Boykoff led a chapter pulling together the peer-reviewed research on the media's role in climate obstruction, and a new book coming from Michelle Amazeen later this month looks at how advertorials in particular have been used to misinform the public on climate. As I wrote in The Nation, the media contributed to the creation and persistence of the perception gap on climate, but it's also uniquely positioned to close it. https://lnkd.in/gUYRAssR #climate #media

The Rappahannock Tribe is the first in the U.S. to enshrine the rights of nature into their constitution, reports Liz Kimbrough, Ph.D. The Rappahannock Tribe has achieved a historic first in the United States: adopting a tribal constitution that formally enshrines the rights of nature. The document grants legal protection to the river that has been central to their culture for millennia, marking a notable moment in environmental governance and Indigenous sovereignty. The constitution outlines nine specific rights for the Rappahannock River, including the right to “naturally exist, flourish, regenerate, and evolve” and to have “abundant, pure, clean, unpolluted water.” These provisions extend to the entire watershed, underscoring a holistic approach to environmental stewardship. Chief Anne Richardson framed this as a cultural and spiritual responsibility: “As the Mother of our Nation … it is our inherent responsibility to protect her.” What sets this framework apart is its enforceability. Tribal members can bring legal cases on behalf of the river, with a tribal court system set to oversee these matters by 2025. This legal innovation reflects Indigenous cultural values, which prioritize the interconnectedness of people and ecosystems. “Tribal court systems are driven by different value systems than Western European court systems,” observed Thomas Linzey of the Center for Democratic & Environmental Rights. The Rappahannock’s constitutional move builds on a broader Indigenous-led movement to protect natural resources. Yet, while other tribes have passed resolutions or laws recognizing rights of nature, this is the first to embed such protections in a tribal constitution. As Linzey explained, “It’s kind of like the difference between Congress passing a regular law and actually embedding something into the U.S. Constitution.” The initiative arrives against a backdrop of historical and contemporary challenges, from colonial land dispossession to suburban sprawl and fracking proposals. Yet, the tribe’s action demonstrates how sovereignty can work toward safeguarding ecosystems and cultural traditions. Reflecting on the mission, Chief Richardson emphasized, “The logical next step for us is to do all we can to protect our River.” 📸 The Rappahannock River. Photo by Justin Critzer.