Most controversial excerpt from the soon to be reprinted OFFICE POLITICS: The Woman’s Guide to Beat the System. Realize that 90% of the info in this book applies to men! Women are people too!

Warning! A frank explanation of how and why the world really works is on the next two pages. These truths shocked some manuscript reviewers.

Cui bono?
The maxim of Cassius
Cui bono was the legal term in old Rome for investigating a crime. Who benefited?

Nothing is ever done in this world
until men are prepared to kill
one another if it is not done.
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

Status Quo Forever

Military intervention, sex education, illegal immigration, health care “reform,” it makes no difference what “issue” is being argued. In reality, there’s only change the status quo or keep the status quo.

The question of changing the status quo is never even raised if those who want to keep the status quo have enough power (money). Changing the status quo becomes an issue only if those who want to change it have enough power (money) to put, then keep, the idea in the public spot-light.

Deep Throat gave Watergate’s Bernstein and Woodward the single most important clue when he advised them, “Follow the money.”

If you want to understand any issue today, or forever, follow the money. There are no real issues, only who’s going to make money if the status quo gets changed or who keeps making money if the status quo remains.

FOLLOW THE MONEY

Ask yourself who makes money when the government requires illegal aliens be “educated equally?” The National Education Association and the millions of pubic education bureaucrats. Who makes money if the government requires illegal aliens with TB and AIDS be treated instead of deported? Public health doctors, nurses, hospitals and the millions of bureaucrats in “public” health. Drug companies. How about all the social worker-poverty pimps in the land.

Who makes money as millions of illegal aliens pour across our borders? Giant corporations who sell things they buy, like Pampers, gasoline, Pepsi, Budweiser, Chevrolets, electricity, gas, food, clothing? The more people there are buying, the more those kinds of companies make.

Cui bono? Follow the money.

Who among us wants illiterate, non-English speaking, diseased, third-world peasants to come here, have babies here, go on welfare here, form drug dealing gangs here? It’s not you and me.

FOLLOW THE MONEY AT WORK

To understand who’s keeping or changing the status quo in your company, follow the money. Who keeps his job or growth options if the status quo stays? Who loses his if the status quo changes? Too many people have too much to lose if anything changes. It’s that way at your office and it’s that way worldwide. That’s why it’s so hard to change anything. See what Shaw said above.

ILL WINDS BLOW SOMEBODY PROFIT

People only go to a dentist when it hurts bad enough. People only go to a shrink when it hurts bad enough. People only change jobs when it hurts bad enough. People only get fired when their boss hurts enough to fire them.

Profit from this phenomenon. If a situation at the office is causing pain, that’s when people are open to new ideas. It’s politically brilliant to let the wound fester until there is major trouble, then present your proposal. Even a Tower of Jello is happy to listen to a woman’s ideas if he hurts bad enough. He’s delighted to institute your plan if you make it clear he’ll share the spotlight and credit.

Caution! In your own life, personal and business, don’t wait until it hurts so bad that the pain forces you to change. Pain distorts your vision, preventing accurate choices. Change boyfriends, jobs, friends, stop visiting relatives, lose weight, whatever, before it hurts too much.

FOLLOW THE MONEY BEFORE PROPOSING

Before you suggest “improvements,” carefully consider who profits and who loses because of your proposal. Think about how to present ideas so the most powerful people are on your side. In short, figure out how to convince the boss and his boss and even his boss, they’ll profit from the “improvement,” by gaining a bigger budget, more floor space, more importance, more visibility, whatever. It is an immutable law of hierarchies that change only occurs from the top down.

If the guy on top does not want the change, it will not change. From your position, decide where the top is. Convince him. Begin with modest proposals that are easily approved and instituted. Build a track record before springing your proposal to open an office in Hawaii, with yourself in charge of the advance team.

NAKED EMPERORS MUST KEEP WALKING

Remember the fairytale? The emperor buys a new suit from swindlers who make it from “invisible” cloth. He decides to parade down the street so everyone can admire his judgement. His subjects pretend to adore the new suit. Then, a little boy shouts, “The emperor wears no clothes!” Well, the emperor can’t acknowledge he’s a fool, even after he realizes he’s naked. He must keep up the pretense. He must keep walking. He has no choice.

Fortune 5000 [not just 500!] CEOs operate the same way. Even when he knows he screwed up, even when he knows he doesn’t understand what’s wrong, even when he doesn’t know what to do, he can’t admit it! He’d be fired. Like the naked emperor, he must keep pretending and keep walking.

When the corporate equivalent of the little boy (a whistleblower) shouts the truth, everyone pretends he didn’t hear anything, including government investigators. That’s another reason it’s status quo forever.

Enough of the whys, let’s get back to the how-when-what of office politics.

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