Playing the Organizational Game
As shown in our last blog, “The P.I.E. Theory of Success” (Performance (10%), Image (30%), and Exposure (60%)) are all required for you to get your next promotion. This follow-up article is focused primarily on how P.I.E. plays a part in the Organizational Game.
Organizational Pyramid
The Organizational Pyramid is broken into seven tiers. Each tier represents a socio-economic group of similar individuals. To move up one tier, an individual must Act (Perform), Look the part (Image), and be noticed (Exposure) by those in the new tier. Choosing to move up to the next tier is a career choice made by the individual. If you want to be promoted, you must play the game. You are in control because the choice to play, or not play, the game is yours.
Let the Organizational Game Begin
Image
To play the game, you must first show up with your entrance ticket, which in this case is an extremely high rating on your performance review. Let’s assume you are a young engineer in Tier 4 and knocking on the door to enter Tier 5. A gentleman in a suit answers the door and asks, “Who are you and what do you want?” You respond with, “I am Tom Smith, the highest-rated engineer in Tier 4 and want to enter Tier 5, as a Middle Manager. The man from Tier 5 looks at the clean-shaven, long-haired, casually dressed young man in a wrinkled shirt and replies, “I’m sorry, but you just wouldn’t fit in. “You’re not like us”. Young Tom understands that he needs to improve his image and returns to his office.
Exposure
Tom has a choice to make. Does he want to change his image for the chance to move up a tier? Over the next year, he watches the Tier 5 managers and emulates their dress, mannerisms, and speech. After another stellar performance review, he once again knocks on the door of Tier 5. The same gentleman dressed in a suit answers the door and asks, “Who are you and what do you want?” Young Tom states, “I was here last year trying to enter Tier 5 and you told me I wasn’t like you and wouldn’t fit in. But now I do look and act like you.” The gentleman in the suit responded with, “Yes you do, but we have never heard of you and don’t know who you are”. Tom lacked exposure.
The Choice is Yours
To move up to the next Tier, Tom will have to devote a lot more of his time to business exposure. He will have to join a professional organization and perhaps become an officer, he will have to run some type of event for the office, and will have to do some volunteer work, maybe even join a board or two. Tom has a decision to make. Does he want to dedicate that much more of his free time to his career, or does he want to spend more time with his family? This is a personal choice each of us has to make, but it is a choice, and the choice is yours. What would you decide to do?
Check out part 1, The P.I.E. Theory of Success – Performance, Image, Exposure
Information for this blog was obtained from the book, “Empowering Yourself, The Organizational Game Revealed”,
by Harvey J. Coleman.
