Opening — The Day Good Code Was Not Enough
A few years ago, I watched a project I was proud of quietly disappear.
Technically I thought it was flawless. High test coverage, clean architecture, good performance benchmarks. I believed that if I simply built something good, recognition and resources would follow on their own. That was the only way I knew, what I would call the orthodox approach: win on merit, head-on.
Then in the quarterly priority meeting my project got pushed to the next quarter, and the quarter after that it vanished from the list entirely. What survived instead was, honestly, a project from another team whose code quality I privately considered weaker than mine. The difference was clear. That team kept showing decision makers what they were doing and why, and they pulled key stakeholders onto their side early. I had been staring only at my code.
I was bitter that day. I muttered to myself, this is all just politics. But over time I realized something. While I was dismissing their behavior as politics, I was dodging my own responsibility to make my good work reach the people who mattered.
This essay grew out of that realization. It is my attempt to reconcile the orthodox approach and the power game. Here is the conclusion up front: to go far, you need both. But both must stand on top of real competence and ethics.
The Core Insight — These Two Are Not Enemies
Many engineers, especially the past version of me, split the world in two. On one side is the clean orthodox approach, winning purely on merit. On the other side is the dirty power game, lining up behind people, reading the room, currying favor with the boss. And of course you assume you belong to the former.
That binary held me back. The truth is more complicated.
- The orthodox approach is necessary but not sufficient. Politics without competence eventually gets exposed, but competence without politics often gets buried.
- The power game is not inherently unethical. Securing visibility, building relationships, and persuading stakeholders is simply the craft of getting things done in an organization.
- The truly dangerous things are the two extremes. The person who plays politics with no skill, and the person who despises politics and trusts only their skill. Neither goes far.
In his books Power and 7 Rules of Power, Jeffrey Pfeffer offers an uncomfortable truth: the belief that performance automatically converts into reward is naive. Performance becomes reward only after it is perceived, remembered, and evaluated by someone. Managing that perception and memory is exactly the domain we casually call politics.
I do not love all of Pfeffer's cynical tone. But his core diagnosis matched my experience precisely. Doing good work and making that good work visible are two different skills.
A Project With No Champion Dies
Earlier I touched briefly on the project that disappeared. Let me tell it more honestly, because it was the decisive event that changed how I think.
That project was a tool that cut our internal deployment pipeline to half its time. I designed and built it almost alone over six months. It worked, it was fast, and the tests were solid. I believed that once it was finished it would naturally get adopted, and I only prepared a presentation after it was already done.
In the priority meeting, an executive asked a question.
- Executive: "Who requested this. Which team said they were stuck without it."
- Me: "Well, no specific team requested it. I just thought it would help everyone."
- Executive: "I can see it is a good tool. But there is no one in this room who will take responsibility for pushing it."
That single line was exactly right. My tool had no champion. No matter how technically excellent it is, if not one stakeholder in the room will say "I will own this and carry it," the project drifts. I had skipped the entire job of persuading people and clung only to the code.
About a year later, I proposed another project of similar scope. This time I reversed the order completely. Before writing a single line of code, I went to the lead of the team that suffered most from this problem and spent thirty minutes listening to their pain.
- Me: "How many hours a week do you lose to this task right now."
- Team lead: "Honestly half a day just evaporates. Everyone is annoyed about it."
- Me: "I want to build something that cuts that in half. Could you help me review the design direction. Would you be willing to be the first to try it."
- Team lead: "Of course. If that works, I will push it hard to my team."
With this one conversation I gained a champion. The person who defended that tool in the priority meeting was not me but that team lead. The same level of technical work, the opposite outcome. The difference was not the code; it was that I had built in advance the fact that the code was connected to someone's real problem and that someone would own it.
The lesson from these two events is cruelly simple. Good work does not get adopted on its own. Someone has to take it on as their own for it to survive. And creating that someone is not politics; it is simply part of the work.
Going Deeper 1 — The Power and the Limits of the Orthodox Approach
First, I do not want to disparage the orthodox approach, because it is the foundation of everything.
Why the Orthodox Approach Is Strong
In So Good They Cant Ignore You, Cal Newport pushes back on the common advice to follow your passion and argues that you should first build rare and valuable skill. The career capital he describes is earned only through competence. And you need that capital before you can later buy autonomy and influence.
My own experience confirms it. Learning table tennis makes it obvious. No matter how well you read your opponent's weakness and wage a mental game, if your basic drive and footwork are weak you collapse at the decisive moment. Strategy means nothing without a technical foundation. Work is the same. You can run great meetings and write great reports, but if the actual output is thin, you might get away with it once or twice, but you eventually lose trust.
Why the Orthodox Approach Alone Falls Short
The problem is that organizations are not perfect meritocracies. Information flows unevenly, human attention is finite, and decision makers judge based on what they have seen and heard. No one reads your code line by line.
One of the things I learned working at LINE is this. In a large organization, there comes a moment when it matters less what you did and more what you are remembered for having done in the decision maker's mind. It feels unfair, but it is reality.
The typical failure of someone who trusts only the orthodox approach looks like this.
- They assume their work will obviously be seen.
- They treat asking for help or building relationships as a weakness.
- They stay outside the decision process and then resent the decisions.
- They watch opportunities go to more visible people and blame the world.
I have done all four. So I know them well.
Going Deeper 2 — What the Power Game Actually Means
I understand the discomfort the phrase power game evokes. But the power game I mean is not conspiracy or scheming. It is the craft of influence.
Influence Is a Learnable Skill
In Influence, Robert Cialdini lays out six principles of persuasion: reciprocity, consistency, social proof, liking, authority, and scarcity. These principles are not a manual for deception; they are a description of how people actually make decisions. Knowing them lets you communicate your good work more honestly.
Take social proof. Saying a hundred times with my own mouth that a tool I built is good is far weaker than getting two or three real users to say it genuinely made their lives easier. This is not manipulation. It is possible only because the tool was actually good, and all I did was make that fact visible.
Givers Go Far
In Give and Take, Adam Grant shows an interesting pattern in the data. There are givers at the very bottom of the success ladder, but there are also givers at the very top. The difference is that the giver who does not become a doormat, who knows how to look after their own interests too, goes the farthest over the long run.
That insight changed how I view the power game. Healthy politics is ultimately the accumulation of relationships, and relationships accumulate when I give first. Reviewing a colleague's PR thoughtfully, making time for another team when they are stuck, sharing my knowledge. All of it comes back when I later need help. I am not saying give with a calculation in mind. Simply being known as a person who gives is itself the most powerful political capital.
Trust Capital — Deposit Before You Withdraw
I have come to think of relationships like a bank account. Asking for help, voicing dissent, demanding resources are all withdrawals. To withdraw, you first need a balance. That balance is trust capital.
Adam Grant's distinction between givers, takers, and matchers is useful here. The taker always tries only to withdraw. It works the first few times, but people catch on quickly. And at the decisive moment they do not step up for him. The matcher repays only as much as they received. Stable, but does not go far. The giver keeps a thick balance, so when a large withdrawal is needed the account is not empty.
Cialdini's principle of reciprocity explains this deposit. People have a strong tendency to repay what they received. So the act of giving first is not mere kindness; it is a deposit of trust that you can honestly draw on later. But the key is not to demand repayment. The moment you present an invoice, it stops being a gift and becomes a transaction, and transactions do not build trust.
There is a simple question I ask myself. Before I ask someone for something now, have I ever deposited anything into that person's account. If the balance is empty, I do not start with the request; I start with the deposit.
Visibility Is Closer to a Duty
I once viewed promoting my own work as bragging. I see it differently now. If my work truly has value for the organization, making it visible to decision makers is not bragging but a responsibility. Burying good work in the dark is not humility; it is closer to dereliction of duty.
Engineering leaders like Will Larson repeat a similar message in their writing. An influential engineer does great work and at the same time clearly shows how that work connects to the company's priorities.
Visibility Is Not Bragging, It Is Translation
At the root of the discomfort with visibility lies a misunderstanding. If you think of visibility as making yourself look bigger, it feels like bragging. But I have redefined visibility as translation.
Engineers work in the language of technology. Latency, throughput, coupling, test coverage. But decision makers think in a different language. Cost, risk, revenue, customers, timeline. Between the two languages, translation is needed. And if you do not do that translation, the decision maker has no way to evaluate the value of your work.
Let me give an example. "I raised the cache hit rate from 60 percent to 92 percent" is the language of technology. To a decision maker it barely registers. Translate the same fact and it becomes this. "This change cut peak-hour response latency in half, which let us postpone the server expansion we had been delaying by a quarter and saved on cost." Same work, completely different audibility.
Seen this way, visibility is closer to a service. I am organizing information in a language they can understand and handing it to the decision maker so they can make a better decision. This is not inflating myself; it is laying a bridge between my work and the organization's goals. Bragging needs no listener, but translation is always an act for the listener. Remember that difference, and visibility stops being embarrassing.
Going Deeper 3 — Multiple Personas for Different Situations
I do not work as a single fixed self. Depending on the situation I deliberately bring out different personas. This is not pretense; it is adaptation. Just as you speak differently to a friend and to your parents.
The personas I use often look roughly like this.
- The craftsperson persona. In deep technical discussions or code reviews. Here only skill and accuracy are the currency.
- The translator persona. Between engineering and the business. I translate complex technical decisions into the decision maker's language, that is, cost, risk, and timeline.
- The connector persona. In cross-team collaboration. I figure out who knows what and link people together.
- The advocate persona. When I need to make the case for my team's or my project's value. I bring data and persuade calmly.
The key is that all of these personas must be the genuine self of the same person. It is not about wearing a different mask for each situation, but showing different sides of the same person. If what I say in one room contradicts what I say in another, that is not a persona; that is a lie.
Going Deeper 4 — Three Ways to Survive in an Organization
In Exit, Voice, and Loyalty, Albert Hirschman lays out the three options available to a person who becomes dissatisfied with an organization or relationship. I use this framework like a compass for working life.
Exit
When you judge the situation is beyond recovery, you leave. Changing jobs, switching departments, stepping off a project. Exit is not defeat; it is a legitimate option. But if you use Exit too early and too often, you never accumulate deep capital anywhere.
Voice
You stay and raise the problem and try to change things. Voicing dissent in meetings, proposing a better direction, objecting to a wrong decision. Voice requires courage, and it also requires trust capital to be effective. The Voice of someone who has earned trust through competence carries a different weight.
Loyalty
Even with grievances, you follow the organization's decision for now and wait. Loyalty is often misread as cowardice, but Hirschman saw it as the foundation that makes Voice more effective. The Voice raised at a decisive moment by someone who has built trust over time is the strong one.
I switch among these three depending on the situation. The key is to choose them consciously. Not impulsively exiting because I am angry, nor blindly staying loyal out of fear, but coldly picking which card is most rational in this particular situation. That is how you survive.
Orthodox Approach Versus Power Game
Here is a side-by-side comparison of the two approaches. Remember that neither is the single right answer; you have to use both together.
| Dimension | Orthodox Approach | Power Game |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Core currency | Skill, results, quality | Relationships, visibility, trust |
| Strength | Sustainable, foundation of deep trust | Securing resources, fast momentum |
| Weakness | Risk of being buried, slow recognition | Exposed without a foundation |
| Failure mode | The world-blaming lone expert | The hollow operator |
| Capability needed | Learning, focus, craftsmanship | Empathy, communication, timing |
| Ethical risk | Low | High if misused |
| Used alone | Slowly buried | Quickly collapses |
The last two rows of this table are the point. Use only the orthodox approach and you are slowly buried; use only the power game and you quickly collapse. That is why you need both.
Healthy Politics Versus Harmful Politics
Lumping the word politics into one good-or-bad bucket loses the thread. The healthy politics I pursue and the harmful politics I guard against can look similar in behavior, yet point in opposite directions. I have laid out the criteria that separate them in a table.
| Criterion | Healthy Politics | Harmful Politics |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Handling information | Shares it transparently | Hoards it as a weapon |
| Handling credit | Shares it actively | Steals others' credit |
| Direction of influence | Grows the pie | Takes others' share |
| Motive for relationships | Sincerity and reciprocity | Use and transaction |
| Relation to truth | Delivers it so it lands | Distorts it to favor self |
| Handling conflict | Speaks directly, to your face | Tears down behind your back |
| Long-term result | Trust accumulates | Trust collapses |
Looking at the table the difference becomes clear. Healthy politics is a positive-sum game that makes the whole better while your value shows honestly. Harmful politics is a zero-sum game that stacks your gain on top of someone's loss. The two use similar skills, but the intent differs. And people detect that intent faster than you would think.
Practice — Combining Them Step by Step
Let me translate the abstract talk into the steps I actually use.
Step 1 — Build the Foundation First
No political skill survives without the foundation of competence. You must first become someone genuinely good in your field. This is a non-negotiable premise.
- Pick one core competency and dig deep.
- Do not compromise on the quality of your output.
- Become able to explain your work more accurately than anyone.
Step 2 — Make Your Work Visible
Once skill is in place, it is time to make it visible.
- Regularly record and share what you did. Weekly updates, a technical blog, internal demos.
- Translate results into business language. Not we cut response time by 30 percent, but and as a result churn dropped and we saved this much in cost.
- Keep the tone of sharing information, not bragging.
Step 3 — Build Relationships in Advance
Trying to build relationships only when you need help is too late. You have to be the one who gives first, day to day.
- Take genuine interest in your colleagues' work.
- When you see someone stuck, reach out first.
- Identify who the key stakeholders are and understand their goals and worries.
Step 4 — Bring Stakeholders in Early
My biggest past mistake was showing the work only after it was finished. Now I do the opposite.
- Share important decisions with key stakeholders at the start.
- Reflect their input early so they feel ownership.
- Do not surprise people in a big meeting. Persuade them one by one beforehand.
Step 5 — Pick the Right Card for the Situation
Finally, I consciously decide every time which of Hirschman's three cards to play.
- Is this problem worth fighting for, or should I follow.
- Is my trust capital built up enough to carry this Voice right now.
- If it really is beyond recovery, is it time to prepare an Exit.
A Practical Checklist
These are the questions I ask myself before starting a new quarter.
- What is my core competency, and is it actually rare and valuable.
- Can the decision maker say in one sentence what I did last quarter.
- Is my output translated into business language.
- In the past month, have I given help to someone first.
- Do I know the goals of three key stakeholders in my organization.
- Did I bring the stakeholders of my initiative in at the start.
- For the grievance I have right now, have I consciously chosen Exit, Voice, or Loyalty.
- Are my multiple personas consistent as one person, without contradiction.
Pitfalls and Balance — The Ethical Line and the Limits of Politics
If you read this far and take it only as a call to sharpen your political skills, then I wrote this poorly. The more important half is balance.
The Ethical Line Is Clear
Politics and unethical behavior are different. The line I hold is simple.
- Do not lie. Visibility means making real results visible, not fabricating results that do not exist.
- Do not steal others' credit. On the contrary, share credit actively.
- Do not tear people down behind their backs. Compete by raising your own value, not by dragging others down.
- Do not hoard information as a weapon.
Machiavelli's The Prince is a classic that coldly describes how power works. It is worth reading, but I read it as a warning, not a prescription. The logic that the end justifies the means may work in the short term, but in the long game where trust is the currency, it always ends in bankruptcy.
An Ethical Red-Line Checklist
The boundary between influence and manipulation can look blurry. So I keep a list of questions I ask myself before taking an action. If even one answer comes back yes, it is no longer healthy politics but manipulation.
- If this were made public, would I stand tall, or would I be afraid of someone finding out.
- Am I deliberately hiding information the other person lacks in order to gain.
- Is what I am conveying the truth, or a truth bent in my favor.
- If this persuasion works, does the other person also benefit, or only me.
- Am I making a result that does not exist look as if it does.
- Am I quietly turning someone else's credit into my own.
- In this relationship, do I treat the person as an end, or only as a means.
What these questions share is transparency and reciprocity. If you can disclose it openly and the other person benefits too, it is influence. If it must be hidden and only you benefit, it is manipulation. The line is clearer than it seems. If it feels blurry, usually the thing that wants it blurred is my own mind.
The Signs of Over-Politicking
It is dangerous when politics starts to overwhelm competence. Here are the signs I watch for in myself.
- I spend more time looking like I am working than actually working.
- I start pushing the decision that benefits me over the decision that is right.
- Relationships feel transactional rather than genuine.
- Colleagues start to be wary of me rather than trust me.
When I see these signs, I deliberately shift the weight back toward the orthodox approach. Because in the end the source of all political capital is real competence and sincerity.
Organizational Culture Is a Variable Too
Finally, to be honest, some organizations are places where politics overwhelms competence. There are environments where, no matter how well you balance, a healthy game is impossible. In those cases Hirschman's Exit may be the wisest answer. You cannot change every organization. But you can choose which game you play.
Closing — Carry Both and Go Far
Let me return to that disappeared project. If I could say one thing to my past self, I would say this. Your code was good enough. The problem was not the code; it was that you dismissed the work of making that code reach people as dirty and turned away from it.
The orthodox approach is the firmest foundation I have. I will keep being proud of winning on merit, head-on. But now I know. Doing good work and making that work visible, resourced, and capable of moving people are different skills, and both are worth sharpening honestly.
If the phrase power game still feels distasteful, you may call it influence. The core is the same. Build influence on top of competence, and never break through the floor of ethics. That is how you go far. And while going far, you can still look yourself in the mirror.
A 90-Day Plan — If You Just Joined a New Organization
To compress the theory, here is how I would spend 90 days if I joined a new team tomorrow.
First 30 Days — Observation and Foundation
- Map the power that is not on the org chart: who the real decision makers are.
- Listen to the team's core pain. Ask more than you speak.
- Land one small but certain first win. It is the first coin of trust.
- Do not yet voice big opinions. You lack the capital to use Voice.
Next 30 Days — Visibility and Relationships
- Share your first win appropriately, in the tone of information sharing, not bragging.
- Have a one-on-one conversation with each key stakeholder. Ask about their goals.
- Help others' work first. Plant the reputation of a giver.
- Step gradually into the team's decision flow.
Last 30 Days — Influence and Direction
- Now, on the trust you have built, raise a meaningful Voice.
- Propose a larger project, but bring stakeholders in from the start.
- Decide the rules of the game you will play. Judge whether this organization is healthy or whether to keep Exit in mind.
The key to this plan is the order. Pursue visibility without a foundation and you look lightweight; raise Voice without trust and it sounds like complaining. Everything starts from the first coin of competence.
Lessons from History and the Classics
Let me record the one-line lesson each book gave me as I wrestled with this topic.
- Hirschman — grievance has three cards, Exit, Voice, and Loyalty, and which to use is a choice.
- Pfeffer — performance becomes reward only when perceived. Do not dismiss visibility.
- Cialdini — persuasion is not magic but an understanding of how people judge.
- Grant — over the long run, the wise giver goes the farthest.
- Newport — rare and valuable skill is the currency of all autonomy.
- Machiavelli — see the bare face of power, but do not fall into the trap that the end justifies the means.
These six books seem to say different things, but for me they converge into one message. Build influence on top of competence, and treat people as people, not as tools.
The Difference Seen Through Real Dialogue
Sometimes a concrete conversation lands better than an abstract principle. Here I reconstruct how the past me who used only the orthodox approach differs from the present me who combines both, in the same situations.
Scene 1 — Before the Priority Meeting
The past me did no preparation until the day of the meeting, because I believed good output would pass on its own.
The present me sends a separate message to the key decision maker a few days before.
- Me: "Could I grab five minutes about the X project I will propose in the next meeting. I would like to share the direction in advance and hear any concerns."
- Decision maker: "Sure. Honestly I was a bit worried about the cost side."
- Me: "I brought the data on exactly that. The structure actually lowers operating cost."
This one short pre-conversation turns the meeting from a place of persuasion into a place of confirmation. This is not manipulation. I simply gave the decision maker the information to make a good decision.
Scene 2 — When a Colleague Takes Your Credit
The past me would have seethed inside and quietly cut off the relationship. Now I do it differently.
- Me: "About that part in the last presentation, I actually drafted it, so I wanted to add a word. How about we present it together next time."
- Colleague: "Oh, right. Sorry, I left it out in the flow of things."
Reframing from accusation to a collaboration proposal lets you draw a clear boundary while preserving the relationship. It is a way of using Voice without burning the bridge.
Scene 3 — Objecting to a Wrong Decision
The Voice of someone with accumulated trust capital works like this.
- Me: "I find it hard to agree with this direction. I might be wrong, so let me give my reasoning. I see three risks."
- Decision maker: "Hmm, I had not thought of the second risk. Let us review it again."
Had I not built trust through competence beforehand, the same words would have sounded like mere complaining. This is the moment the orthodox approach becomes the foundation of the power game.
Deeper Cases — Two Turning Points I Experienced Myself
First Turning Point — The Power of a Demo
After that disappeared project, I ran a small experiment. On the next project, when the code was about halfway done, I deliberately built a working demo and shared a short video in the team channel. Not a finished product, but a work in progress.
The response was striking. People started commenting, and a senior said, "this looks like it could solve our other team's problem too." That one sentence saved the project. That was when I learned visibility must be built during the process, not after completion.
Second Turning Point — Giving First
Another time, I helped another team handle an incident over a weekend, something with no direct connection to my work and that counted toward none of my metrics. Yet a few months later, when an initiative I was driving urgently needed that team's cooperation, the team lead stepped up to help first, with a single line: "you helped us back then."
That is how I felt the long-term return of the giver that Adam Grant described. Because I had not given with a calculation in mind, it came back all the stronger.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is not politics just flattery in the end
Flattery and influence are different. Flattery bends the truth to please the other person; influence delivers the truth in a form the other person can more easily accept. The former erodes trust, the latter builds it.
Can an introvert play the power game
In fact many of its forms favor introverts. The power game is not flashy sociability but deep one-on-one conversation, clear written sharing, and steady demos. I am on the introverted side too, and rather than shining spontaneously in big meetings, I use the approach of persuading people one by one in advance.
My skills are lacking, can I learn politics first
The order is wrong. Politics without competence is the fastest path to losing trust. It might work once or twice, but the substance gets exposed at the decisive moment. Build the foundation first. Politics is laid on top of it.
My company has way too much politics
Then you have two options. Voice, trying to shift the culture little by little toward a healthier game, and Exit, if you judge that to be impossible. Either way, being dragged around endlessly by politics that eats away at you is the worst outcome.
Will not colleagues resent me if I raise my visibility
Bragging and sharing are different. Trumpeting only your own results earns resentment, but sharing the team's results together and actively crediting colleagues actually builds trust. Visibility must be a skill of making others shine together, not shining alone.
Common Myths About Office Politics
Finally, let me lay out a few myths I believed for a long time before they broke. These myths kept me trapped longest in the tunnel vision of the orthodox approach.
- Myth 1. Politics is for people who lack skill. The truth is closer to the opposite. The most influential people are usually also at the top in skill, because skill is what earns their influence its trust.
- Myth 2. Good work makes itself known. My disappeared project proves otherwise. No one translates your work on your behalf.
- Myth 3. Politics equals lying and flattery. The core of healthy politics is, on the contrary, honest visibility and giving-first reciprocity. Lying is the fastest path to collapsing trust.
- Myth 4. Only extroverts are good at politics. One-on-one conversations, clear written sharing, and steady demos are often things introverts do better.
- Myth 5. Keeping away from politics means living cleanly. Turning away from politics may not be cleanliness but dodging the responsibility of making your good work reach people.
Each time I let go of one of these myths, I grew a little less bitter and could go a little farther.
References
- Albert Hirschman, Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit,_Voice,_and_Loyalty
- Jeffrey Pfeffer, Stanford GSB faculty page: https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/faculty-research/faculty/jeffrey-pfeffer
- Robert Cialdini, Influence at Work: https://www.influenceatwork.com/
- Adam Grant, Give and Take: https://adamgrant.net/
- Cal Newport: https://calnewport.com/
- Will Larson, engineering leadership writing: https://lethain.com/
- Harvard Business Review on office politics: https://hbr.org/
현재 단락 (1/201)
A few years ago, I watched a project I was proud of quietly disappear.