A campaign strategy for your career

Organizations are inherently political, and pretending they're not is just plain impractical. But strategizing like a politician to advance your career doesn't have to mean compromising your integrity. You can craft a campaign plan that actually gets results without making you feel soiled. So argues Clark, who has worked with top-tier politicians and business executives as they strive to achieve their goals. She recommends that in business, as in politics, aspiring leaders choose their career milestones from the get-go and plan precisely what reaching each one will demand. That means taking inventory of the skills you'll need to acquire and figuring out exactly where and how you'll develop them. The best career planners work backward on the calendar: They start with the end points and carefully mark, in reverse, all the steps along the way. Then they set out on the course, identifying influential people whose favor they need to win and getting specific about how to garner it. They use power maps to home in on the most influential individuals and groups, and they aren't shy about courting votes. "Being political" still sounds negative to many people in business, but learning how to play the game doesn't have to be a Machiavellian endeavor. Indeed, harming people in the process won't help you at all, but if you eschew the political process altogether, you'll only harm yourself.