Seat at the table.

A very dear friend (an Agile Coach) recently called me to ask for some advice and he narrated an incident that had happened at his workplace.?

The first six months of him joining this org, my friend spent a lot of time understanding the organization, its culture, the dynamics, the constraints under which people operated.?

He quickly came to the understanding that he was a "fall-guy". He and his team were designed / meant to take the hit for anything that happened. Folks were using his shoulders to fight a battle of one-upmanship and basically sabotage processes and absolve themselves of all accountability. He quickly became the "dirty-a**-wiper". Wherever there was sh*t, he was called on and was expected to take care of it.

My friend hated this lack of accountability from other teams and desperately wanted to change the situation. At the same time, the "leadership" "decided" that with the existing issues, my friend was not "mature-enough" to handle the situation, hence hired a manager.?

The manager joined the organization and my friend in all his innocence, brought his manager up to speed with whatever he knew. The manager assured him that he was doing a great job and to continue doing whatever he was doing.?

Very soon the manager came to realize that it was indeed a sh*t show and there were no true powers embedded in him in his current role. With absolutely no carrots to dangle, no leverage and nothing to dazzle my friend, the manager began to play some really stupid games.

What followed was an hour long drivel during weekly 1:1s about how he was not adding enough value and when he starts adding value, people will start noticing and pay attention, that "social-capital must be earned" and "that's one way we can earn our seat at the table."

"Once we are at the table, we will be heard. Folks will listen. We can control the narrative. Even bend a few processes here and there and get things done."

My friend brought up several concerns including but not limited to :?

"Why are we the only ones accountable ?"

"Why is it that we have no forum to opine on what is actually wrong and what can done to fix it."

"Define value ?"

?

"I am already doing more than what is expected of my JD"?

The manager, obviously couldn't handle the onslaught and gave some BS on "how our work is being valued and that we will see the light at the end of the tunnel very soon" and that "we have to earn our seat at the table" etc.

In the weeks that followed, the manager did absolutely nothing to address the issues, but in fact only enabled these "games" more and was absolutely shit scared to address the elephant in the room with the leadership.

My friend, being really intelligent - could smell the BS from afar but decided that he wouldn't take rash decisions and called me for some advice.

This is what I told him :?

"Your manager is using the "seat-at-the-table" metaphor to basically grow himself in the organization. He wants that "seat-at-the-table" for himself. Not for you, not for the betterment of the org. You are what I call as "collateral". The manager wants to ensure that he is looking good in front of the leadership. You are portrayed as a bad apple. He gets his bonus for the year and a "well-deserved-promotion".

A lot of industry leaders and veterans - even today - think that getting that "next higher role", "that VP role" or "that CXO role" would mean they would be able to do a lot of things. They will have "control", will be able to direct things etc. Sure, sometimes the roles open up doors but most of the times you don't need a "seat at the table" to make things happen.

My friend is already on his way out but he learnt his lesson. This also now makes him cautious of anyone who promises growth without accountability or talks about "earning a seat at the table".