Introduction to the Brainy Business
Melina Palmer: Welcome to episode 566 of the Brainy Business: Understanding the Psychology of Why People Buy. In today’s episode, I’m excited to introduce you to Nilofer Merchant, author of Our Best Work. Ready? Let’s get started.
Announcer: You are listening to the Brainy Business podcast where we dig into the psychology of why people buy and help you incorporate behavioral economics into your business, making it more brain friendly. Now, here’s your host, Melina Palmer.
Reframing Office Politics
Melina Palmer: Hello. Hello, everyone. My name is Melina Palmer and I want to welcome you to the Brainy Business podcast. Today’s topic is one that might make you cringe a little, but hear me out. Today we’re talking about office politics. Now, I know for many of you that that phrase immediately made you want to roll your eyes and say, “ugh, I don’t do that.”
There’s this sense that not participating in office politics is somehow the high road. Like you’re above the fray, refusing to stoop to that level. But what if that instinct is actually hurting you and your team? That’s what we’re exploring in today’s conversation with Nilofer Merchant. Ranked among the world’s top management thinkers by Thinkers50, she brings decades of experience, including working with companies like Apple and Autodesk, and as the founder of Intangible Labs.
Her new book, Our Best Work, digs into the 24 invisible norms that limit us at work and how we can reframe them to unlock real innovation and fulfillment. In our chat today, we unpack why avoiding politics isn’t noble and how it’s actually potentially limiting. Nilofer will share her definition of politics that’s been proven to open even the most skeptical of minds in this area, along with practical tips and insights you can start to use right away in your career.
As you listen, I encourage you to consider this: Are you unknowingly sitting out important conversations at work because you’re afraid of how it might look or feel, and what’s really going on there? How is it holding you back? What might happen if you were in those conversations and meetings? Keep that to chew on as we go through the episode. Really quickly, before we get into the conversation, I want to be sure you know that there are links in the show notes for my top related past episodes and books, ways to get in touch, and more. It’s all within the app you’re listening to and at thebrainybusiness.com/566. Now let’s jump right in. Nilofer Merchant, welcome to the Brainy Business podcast.
Meet Nilofer Merchant
Nilofer Merchant: Thanks, Melina. I’m so glad to be here.
Melina Palmer: Yes. I’m super excited to be chatting with you here today. We are geared up for a really interesting topic of conversation, for sure. Something I think everybody’s going to be interested to learn about. Before we jump into that, though, for those who don’t yet know you, can you share a little bit about yourself and the work that you do?
Nilofer Merchant: Sure. So, Nilofer Merchant. I have been a tech executive. I have run a consulting company. I have worked with most of the major brands around the world. I’m a third-world kid, meaning I was born in India, I’ve grown up here, I’ve lived in France. I’ve actually lived on three different continents. So, I have a different sort of global perspective. And then most recently, I founded an organization called Intangible Labs, which is trying to figure out the metrics that matter for the work of the future.
Melina Palmer: Having lived on three different continents, does that have an impact on how you study? I’m going off-script immediately with the first question, but that’s always fun. Do you think that your background in having lived on three different continents has an impact on the way that you see interpersonal relations and things at work? That you’re open to seeing things differently, having access to different types of people and that sort of approach?
Nilofer Merchant: Yeah, I think it’s really, you know, anytime you learn a new language, for example, you have to think, “why are they saying it that way?” And it helps you understand a culture differently. And I think the same is true whenever you are in a sort of foreign place. You just study it differently. So I think one of the reasons why I’m probably more of an observer and kind of can go, “here’s the pattern I’m seeing,” is because I have had to switch different contexts—I’ve been in education, I’ve been in government, I’ve been in business. And also, different countries and different languages. By the way, I can only speak one. And to the degree I even do that one well. But I’ve learned eight different languages over my life. Which is sort of pathetic that I can’t speak them all, but I’m going to forgive myself for that and be like, just aim for English.
Melina Palmer: You’re trying and that matters. Right? I’ve lamented about this on the show many times, but I’m terrible at learning languages. I have a really just terrible time of it. My Duolingo streak is almost at 700 days on Spanish, but I don’t feel like I could have a useful conversation even yet. So, I mean, who knows?
Nilofer Merchant: Language is hard.
Melina Palmer: Language is hard for sure. I definitely bow down to everyone that has mastered any language, but definitely for one. Right.
The Definition of Office Politics
Melina Palmer: Well, one thing I’m guessing is present in all of those different industries that you’ve been in, all the locations… office politics is still something that people have a visceral reaction to probably everywhere. Why do you think people have such a strong emotional reaction to that topic?
Nilofer Merchant: Well, don’t you?
Melina Palmer: Right, yeah.
Nilofer Merchant: In fact, when I was thinking about this, I was working with a person who had just left a big tech company, and she ran like a billion-dollar division of a big tech company. And I asked her something about office politics and she said, “oh, I never want to do that.” And I was like, “I’m pretty sure you do do that because you’re running a billion-dollar operation.” And I said, “but explain to me why it’s so icky.” Because that was exactly like the sense I had as a kid going, “no.”
And she explained, and I thought it was such a beautiful vignette of her saying, “you know, the people who are really good at office politics are the people who you feel advance their own interests so well, but often at the detriment of the group’s interest.” And then if you’re like a person who actually really makes sure the group interests are met, you kind of feel mad at the person who can just sort of walk over you and achieve their own objectives. And as she and I talked, I said, “yeah, but you have to do both.” You have to be able to advocate for yourself. That’s like a fundamental. And you have to be able to take care of the shared interest. But I think so many times we associate politics with that person who sort of steps over us in order to get what they need. And then we’re like, “I don’t want to be that person.” So then we just abdicate completely, which really isn’t fair to us.
Melina Palmer: Right. And so, I mean, in that way, can you ever actually opt out or does the influence just get shifted to someone else? Like it’s going to happen anyway, so you should participate, but it doesn’t have to be icky?
Nilofer Merchant: Yeah, yeah, I think that’s exactly right. You know, it’s so that same executive, when I said to her, “well, you’re already doing it. The only question is whether or not you’re doing it well.” And I define politics as the way we get things done. It’s just the resource allocation, it’s the prioritization. And therefore we have to participate in it. Because if we’re not, we’re not showing up to the game. Somebody else is telling us.
I think about the politicians—so just skip domains for a second and we can see this. Politicians who say they hate politics, but then they want the job, right? Well, they’re teaching us that it’s their job. They’re trying to get us to back off so they can have their hands on all the knobs and stuff and then saying, “no, no, you don’t need to put your hands on it.” And I’m actually arguing—and I think most of us kind of realize it when we think about it—all of our hands need to be on that knob. Each of us owns a piece of it, so we can’t let go. And then the question is really, how do we learn how to conceive of politics not as an elbow fight, but as the way in which we articulate our needs and lobby for them? And people can say no, but it’s our job to own our side of the fence.
Finding the Venn Diagram of Interests
Melina Palmer: Yeah. And so how does that all… because it gets complex quickly. Right? So it’s like me advocating for myself and my own career, which matters. There’s my team and my department advocating for a specific project—whether it’s where I’m going to be on that project, if I want to lead it, or I’m trying to get budget for something. How do you balance, or recommend for people balancing, what’s in the politics that’s good for me or my team, but being able to articulate it in a way that is speaking the bigger corporate language? Right, we want to be doing stuff that’s good for the company as well as the individuals.
Nilofer Merchant: Right. And I think the thing we often want is for the Venn diagram to exactly overlap. Meaning my interests match the interests of my team, which matches the interests of the organization. And sometimes they don’t. And so the question is for us to be able to say, how do we figure out where those intersections are? And so my number one thing I want to teach people is this: are you doing the work that matters? And if you’re doing the work that matters to the firm and to you, that’s where the Venn diagram has to overlap. Right?
Usually, I don’t really want you advocating for, “I need all the money on the table,” because that really isn’t in the best interest of everyone. But I also need you to go, “yeah, I can’t just focus on getting everything for myself because I need the collective to be successful,” because all good work is collective work, right? And so it’s like, okay, how do you figure out how to build that Venn diagram?
And so the coaching I always do when I’m talking to friends is: what is the thing that you’re trying to do that adds value? And I’ve never had anybody ever say to me, “gosh, I’m trying to do work that doesn’t add value.” I’ve never had that, which is such an interesting, beautiful thing to notice. Then go, “okay, so then are you telling people, here’s the way in which I want to add value, and actually making that clear to other people?” And then you can say, “because I’m trying to figure out how to add value in this way, I’m trying to ask for resources, or I’m trying to ask for prioritization, or I’m aiming for this.” Because now you’ve linked the higher-level shared goal to the thing you’re asking for.
And there might be multiple ways for you to get the thing that you need. But by naming it though—like, “in order for me to achieve this with you, I think I need this”—then people can go, “well, I can’t give you that, but I might be able to give you this that will still give you the same outcome.” So it’s owning the Venn diagram for yourself and then figuring out how to articulate it, because then people know the context. But if it just looks like you’re doing Hungry Hungry Hippo games…
Melina Palmer: It’s a great visual for this, right?
Nilofer Merchant: You remember that beautiful game with the purple little hippo trying to get all the balls? Sometimes it just feels like a grab for everything. But I don’t think that’s what we actually want to be advocating for. And so if we see politics as the way in which we get the resources we need so we can add the value we want—boy, that’s a beautiful message, isn’t it?
Melina Palmer: Yeah, definitely. And what I think is really important in that is the time that someone needs to take to consider why they actually want the thing and where the value lies and what they can create and how that ties into the bigger picture. Right. So if you don’t think about what the person you’re talking to needs or wants and what that’s going to mean for the larger company, and all you’re coming to this conversation from is your own perspective—like “well, I really need a raise so I need you guys to do this thing”—that’s not really great for influence purposes. But when we can frame it as: “what do they care about? What am I asking this person to do, why should they care? And how am I helping? How will this help everyone?” Doing that work is really critical to having a positive impact and getting buy-in from other people.
Leadership and Self-Sacrifice
Nilofer Merchant: Yeah. And I think it’s like two-part here. The counterintuitive part is I’m working with leaders all the time who are really good at achieving the things for the company but they don’t hold a vote for themselves. So they’ll self-sacrifice and sort of throw themselves into the fire to save everyone. Right. Because it’s like, “oh, it needs to get done and there’s a deadline and so I’ll be the sacrificial lamb who works all weekend.” And then they’re not taking care of themselves. And that doesn’t lead to longevity, that doesn’t lead to aliveness, it doesn’t lead to thrivability. And so it’s really not a great model.
And then there’s the thing where we communicate sometimes here’s what I need without connecting it to the larger need. And so the way I want to think about it is when it works for me, it works for us. And when it works for us, it works for me. How do you draw that picture so that we’re not figuring out a way for the votes to all go one direction or the other, but for each party to get a vote? And for work, by the way, the reciprocal is also true. I want work to put a vote in for me for my own viability and a vote for them and how we accomplish this big goal. And then if everyone’s holding the two votes of “I vote for me and I vote for us,” then it’s like, okay, now we’re building a model that works because it works for all of us.
Choice vs. Control in Change Management
Melina Palmer: And so I know that you and I both have a background in change management. And in perhaps we’ll just say a distaste for existing models of change management. Right. And some of what’s around there and how people might think about change. I argue in my book, What Your Employees Need and Can’t Tell You, that every moment in conversation is one of change. You’re either in the wake of change that has already happened, you’re actually having a change conversation, or you’re prepping for a future change that’s yet to come. Right. And so you have to look at these micro-moments that really add up to overarching experiences people have with us. I could feel like kindred spirits in reading your book that it’s kind of that same similar kind of big-picture idea when thinking about change—that all these little things matter and are either working for you or against you. But would love to hear what you think about that and just more about change and how this all ties into getting that buy-in from people in an organization.
Nilofer Merchant: Yeah. In the opening story of the book, I tell a story about Steve Jobs because I got a chance to present to him early on in my career. I was probably 20-something and my division had been working on something very successfully—more successfully than anyone else at the whole company. And because my project was sort of the centrifuge of that, they said, “well you should be the one to present it.” And I came into the room and, you know, totally polished in a 1990s navy suit with pearls, trying to be so professional. And he walked in with his flip-flops and ragged T-shirt. This is before he’d gone to the turtleneck model. And he put his feet on the table and said—because my slide right behind me said Channel Management—he said, “we don’t need the channel.”
I remember thinking, “okay, this is not going to go well.” Talk about corporate politics. But I kind of rallied. I looked at my team members like, “any clue on what I should do?” and they just kind of looked at me and I was like, “okay, I’m going to just press play and present all the information.” And he was just as quiet in that next 20 or 30 minutes as he was loud in those first few moments. What he was doing was basically saying, “I’m going to set the tone where you get to know I’m fully in charge.” And then by being quiet and not engaging, he got to basically determine everything. It’s such a form of politics.
But it’s also—to get to that earlier conversation—it’s change. That’s what change looked like. And in management language, what we’re told is you have to tell people what to do. You have to enroll them and get them to buy in and then you have to direct them. And I don’t know if that’s change from my perspective. I think that’s control. Because change is something that you do voluntarily. Right. It’s vastly different if you say, “hey, Melina, where do you want to go?” and then we decide where we’re going to go. And then together, you could be coming from the direction of Texas and I can be coming from the direction of California and we can both figure out what that horizon looks like and get there. That’s what change looks like. It’s voluntary, it’s organic, it’s what we all do every single day. We grow and change, but it’s not based on somebody telling me and then demanding it. That’s just control masquerading as change.
And yet that’s what we often call change management at work. But it’s really a top-down edict. And I’m like, excuse me, but that’s not change. Because for me—and I think it’s one of the lines in the book that I wrote—there’s only when there’s choice is there change. Everything else is capitulation. And I think that’s the thing we’re kind of going for: where’s that sense of choice and agency that each of us can have? And then as soon as you have that, then we have a whole bunch of people engaging together on something versus one person telling the other people what to do.
Melina Palmer: Yeah, well, coming from the side of behavioral science—and choice architecture is a foundation of the work that I do—I’m all about choices and how we present options and how that all comes into play. So thank you for sharing your perspective on all that.
Politics as Choice Architecture
Nilofer Merchant: And I think it goes back to the politics point. Right. Politics has been positioned as something a very elite group of people do, asking the rest of us to opt out. And because it’s often done in such an icky way, we do opt out. But if we’re going to actually realize that politics is being presented to us a certain way as a thing other people do, then we’re actually limiting our own understanding of what it is. But if we understand politics as the way all decisions get made, then we actually understand a different framework and a different set of choices.
You know as well as I do that in economics, what drives purchases more often is how something is presented than the actual thing. So we’ve got to actually understand it differently. We have to understand politics differently. I remember when I wrote the chapter, my book agent wrote back to me and she said this thing about “it’s how we decide what we decide” is the best definition of politics she’s ever heard. Because she was saying she’s always thought about it as that icky thing that it’s about elbowing. And I’m like, yeah, as soon as you reframe it, then you understand your choice in it. And that’s what gives us all power back at the table.
Melina Palmer: Yeah, no, I love that. And being able to reframe how we think about it so that everyone—like you said—is part of it. You’re in there whether you think you want to be or not, so you better at least show up so you can represent yourself in a positive way.
Nilofer Merchant: And from a corporate or business side story, one of the stories I write in the book is a story about REI, who is so good at doing supply-chain management stuff to go, “okay, how do we build things that really build a sustainable earth?” Like, we don’t want to ship things if we don’t need to. We don’t need to over-package things. But I was working with that team and somebody said that they had ruled out a series of options on strategy. And I was like, “why?” And they said, “well, so-and-so won’t like it.” And I was like, “okay… do you know they won’t like it or do you just think they won’t like it?”
And it was basically like they had developed an internal sense of, “oh, so-and-so will always choose X, and therefore we won’t get what we need, so we won’t bother presenting it.” And I think that part of us is the part that doesn’t want to feel let down, doesn’t want to show up and have people trash it. So we’d rather show up with something someone can say yes to. But by doing so, we’re actually limiting the choices that we make available to ourselves. Going back to that behavioral economics model—if you understand the choices that you’re presenting to yourself are smaller, then you’ve actually boxed yourself in and no one else has to do it for you. You’ve put yourself in your own little box and then the whole world becomes smaller for you, but it also becomes smaller for the value that you can create and the contributions that the whole company needs from you. And so it’s about expanding that range of choices to go, “I’m not taking anything off the table.” Other people can take stuff off the table. That’s their job. We’re going to lobby each other. But my job is to show up with this full set of choices for myself and really play the full game.
Melina Palmer: Yeah. And just… you don’t need to limit you. Let someone else also weigh in. Sometimes I forget where I heard the story, but there’s a CEO talking about how every meeting they came into, there were always bananas on the table. And it was like, “why does every meeting have bananas? What’s this about?” And apparently, in the very first meeting where he came in as CEO, he saw some bananas and said, “oh,” and grabbed a banana. And they were like, “he loves bananas! They have to be everywhere!” Every meeting is full of bananas because he liked one once.
Nilofer Merchant: Once. Exactly. And so then people make decisions based on guessing what the other person wants. But that means we’re centering their point of view. And I really know that for us to be able to all come together and do our best work, we need all of our points of view to matter. That’s actually the cornerstone of this modern economy—the social economy, ideas economy, whatever you want to call it. It’s this notion that each of us has a point of view that has value to add. And it’s from that distinct point of view, from that spot in the world only you stand, that you get to have that point of view. In an ideas economy, it’s that novel perspective, that fresh take that’s going to give us something. It wasn’t true 30 or 40 years ago when what was driving the market was about capital and money. Today, you can actually connect those ideas together and do some really monumental things. Which means that we don’t need to center other people first and foremost. We need to first listen for: what is it I think that matters here and how is it I can add value? And then be able to express that to people and lobby for that.
Addressing Power Imbalances in Meetings
Melina Palmer: Yeah, absolutely. So what happens… I know this happens all the time that companies say they want to be open and collaborative and we’re going to have a dialogue. But they’re quietly, maybe, punishing any sort of disagreement or dissension. Or if you ask a question, you can tell very quickly that that’s not something that’s going to be respected here. So people just kind of stop speaking up because you don’t want to stand out. What are your thoughts on if somebody’s in that environment already—maybe to help get out of it—and what are some things that can happen that perpetuate that sort of a problem?
Nilofer Merchant: So the data behind it says that somewhere between 60% to 70% of all of our ideas are lost right now because we don’t say the thing that we think matters. 60% to 70%. And that is a twofold thing. It’s someone saying, “gosh, they’re not really going to hear me anyway, so why bother?” And that’s not stupid. That’s smart. That’s like somebody going, “don’t talk when no one’s listening,” because why waste your time? And then the other part is when an organization’s really just listening for the people who already have power and they’re listening for the Steve Jobs type persona. I’ll be really loud and obnoxious and speak and so on, and I will therefore be in charge. And I’m like, well, some of us are quieter and some of us are more reflective.
And so my tool is not to ask people to speak up more, but to actually change the entire room—like change meeting dynamics. For example, one of my things is to have a “plus-one” commentary, meaning if it’s already been said, don’t say it again. But then say the incremental piece. Say, “I want to build on that; add this one other thought.” And then another one is we could do a round-robin in a meeting room where everyone has to say something. You can pass, but we actually will make sure everyone has turns. Those could be two norms that any group could establish. And all of a sudden you’re going to give more weight to every idea in the room. Or you could have people write down ideas and put them on the board so that the quieter voices have a chance to actually do a little bit of reflection and put it up. That way we have a chance to weigh it and not tie it to the person who may not have power. So there’s all sorts of great meeting norms that can be put together. Then the whole team gets a chance to go, “you know what, we’re going to listen to all of our ideas because we know that access to new and novel ideas is how we innovate.” It’s one of the three key drivers of all innovation—that you have access to new and novel ideas. And mostly what we’re doing is listening to everyone who already has power today.
Melina Palmer: Yeah, definitely. So for someone who does feel kind of powerless, whether it’s because they don’t have the title or it’s just very obvious in the way things are showing up—they’re not able to change the dynamic and say “everyone gets to speak”—what are some things that they can do to feel more powerful?
Tools for Advocacy
Nilofer Merchant: Well, how about we just ask this question? Here’s a primer. It’s so counterintuitive, but sometimes we show up and we have an idea and when we blurt it out and they don’t like it or it doesn’t land, then we’re like, “well, it must not be a good idea,” and then we’ll stop. And I found that people need a primer to be able to hear you. If they’re not used to listening to you in a voice like yours, they need a primer. And so one of my sentences I’ve used for years is: “Are you open to a new idea?” I’ve never had anybody say no. And it’s such a great primer because now all of a sudden everyone’s going, “oh, we’re listening to a new idea.” And there’s this leaning in that sort of happens.
Then I’m going to say it very clearly. And then before I wrap up, I’m going to say, “I’d love to hear three questions.” So that way people entertain the idea for a minute before they dump it. Right? Because if they don’t understand it, they might just move on because they’re uncomfortable sitting there going, “I don’t understand it.” But if you go, “I’m sure a new idea has a ton of questions behind it; let’s make sure we at least ask three before we go on to the next thing,” you’ve given context for what you want to introduce, you’ve shared it with clarity, and then you’ve asked people to engage it. Then all of a sudden you’ve given yourself your own vote.
Melina Palmer: Right, right. I love that. And let me… I have a phrase that I’ll even just say I hate every time I hear it. You didn’t say it, by the way, so good news! But I hate when people say, “does that make sense?” It’s so unintentionally condescending. Right? Like, when people would ask me, “does that make sense?” my first reaction is, “well, I’m not stupid, so… yes.” But if I do have a question, you’ve now put it to where I have to be like, “well, nope, I guess I’m dumb. It doesn’t make sense.” And people don’t want to admit to that either. One of the reframes I suggest there is to say, “did I explain that well?” So then it’s about me if there’s something that’s off.
But I really like, in the case of what you’re saying here—especially where someone’s trying to step in and show some authority where maybe they haven’t had it before—I really like the way that you put that framing. “I know that new ideas… there should be questions. I’d love to hear three of them.” And I love the anchor of three. By putting something out like “let’s get some more discussion going,” there’s some solid authority in that. I’m curious your thoughts on the “does that make sense?” question.
Nilofer Merchant: Oh my God, I hate that “does that make sense?” part. And I think exactly for the same reason. You know, the thing is most of our communications at work are either talking down to people or asking people to… or we put ourselves down. Like that thing that you just said about “it could be me, I may not have explained it well,” which is beautiful and humble in a certain way, but also not really reflective of your real question. Your real question is: we got to understand each other. I’m not doing this, and I’m not doing this—I need to meet you here. Because for us to be able to build something together, we have to understand each other and the actual thing that we’re talking about. So we got to figure out how to actually go: “what is it that we just started to explore? Let’s understand what this thing is. Let’s explore it, let’s turn it around.”
And the research says that people with power get that automatically. The person who brings up a sort of unbaked idea, someone in the room will say, “oh, so-and-so is also working on it, I want to introduce you,” or “I see that part, but it’s kind of rough, maybe think about this.” They’ll naturally weigh in and help you figure out how to shape that idea to be more real. People without power have to figure out how to show up and go: “Are you ready to listen to a new idea? Let me share it really clearly and then let’s ask a bunch of questions so we’re actually clear what we’re even talking about.” Because we get to create our own space at the table and give ourselves the things that other people don’t naturally do for us.
The common belief is the good ideas rise and the bad fall. That’s not actually true. The data says that the people with power get heard and the other people get ignored. And then so we’re only hearing from the same 20% and maybe 30%, but we’re not hearing from this full, beautiful body of ideas. And until we give ourselves the vote to show up with those ideas, we’re missing out. We underplay it to ourselves, like it must not be that important.
I remember there was one finance person in the banking industry and she took me aside and said, “oh, I have this idea to solve the underbanked situation.” She knew how her bank could serve them in a cost-effective way and take away all the usury fees because a lot of the check-cashing places charge 9% and stuff. She had a really beautiful economic idea around it. And I said, “oh, this is so exciting! When are you going to tell all the people in the room?” And she goes, “oh, never.” And I’m like, “why?” She basically went through and named all the social signaling that was going on in the room—that person’s wearing a Hermès tie and that person’s carrying a YSL bag. She said, “all these people are rich. And I’m talking from my life experience of not growing up that way, knowing what the underserved need. And I don’t want to admit to this group that I’m in a different category than them.” And I said, “yeah, but here’s the really interesting part: that’s your novel point of view. So if you don’t even show up and respect your own novel point of view, then you’re saying that it doesn’t matter. And it does. Of course it does.” That’s where all innovation and growth comes from—is those new and novel ideas. So again, that first vote is the vote to self, because if you can’t vote for yourself, no one else can ever vote for you.
Voting for Yourself
Melina Palmer: Yeah, yeah. And the great opportunity there that you don’t have to wait for the title or anything else. There’s something that you can do for yourself right now to start that ripple of change. And at least you can quickly see—maybe the opportunity is here for you, but maybe it’s somewhere else. Sometimes that opportunity comes in a different organization.
Nilofer Merchant: And I remember somebody at Morgan Stanley, many, many years ago, they got sued because they were not investing in their people in a fair demographic way. They got told they needed to invest more in women’s issues. So somebody within the firm saw that lawsuit and said, “you know, I have an idea for how Morgan Stanley can invest,” and actually created a fund. She had never done it before. And that fund basically only invested in companies that had three or more women on the board. The data says that if three or more women were on the board, the company tended to outperform the market. And so she said, “why don’t we make that an inbound criteria and build a fund based on that?” And that fund, I tracked it for the first five years and it did 40% year-over-year growth. It was just beautiful to watch. And it was this person who had no relevance, no authority—but she had an interest and she saw this little opportunity and she was raising her hand. This is the piece that I think most people don’t believe will ever be true: that if you see something that can add value and you can actually pursue it, it will actually create economic value. When you vote for yourself, you’re not being selfish; you’re actually figuring out how to tap something that the rest of the world needs.
Melina Palmer: Yeah, definitely. And such a great, great story. Thank you for sharing that. As we go to close the conversation—which makes me very sad—I think that really touched on a piece of this time where people are so burnt out and you have quiet quitting and all these things happening. But typically it’s just to say, “oh, the workload is the problem.” But how much do you think comes from feeling like you’re unheard or sidelined or not being able to be acknowledged? Like the not participating in those office politics—if people can kind of step up and that organization sees them in a different light, you can actually have this really beautiful workspace that helps everyone do their best work.
Final Thoughts: Liberating Our Best Work
Nilofer Merchant: Yeah, you know, I think you’re reaching a really beautiful question. It is all of those things. It is the office politics conversation where we opt out. It is the kind of change management that is about top-down directorship. They’re all part of one larger thing, which is: if we’re going to do our best work, we have to look at the frameworks that are in organizations and go, “that one actually leads to an outcome that we don’t want, and this one instead would liberate us.” So what limits us? What liberates us?
Opting out of office politics because it’s sort of the villain of the story is what limits us. And if we can actually just make politics more visible, we could liberate ourselves. I loved how you said it is an ongoing conversation that all of us opt into. Then all of a sudden we’re having a different way of showing up because we’re all going to get more engaged. So in this book, Our Best Work, what I went through is tried to just figure out: what are the everyday things we’re doing and what could we do differently? And it’s a “we,” not a “me.” I’m trying to say pick up your buddy Melina, hold your hand, the two of you together figure out a new way of being at work and support each other.
As soon as… you know, there’s a funny thing that happens—if the whole dance floor was full of people doing ballroom dancing and we really didn’t want to do ballroom dancing, all we have to do is stop ballroom dancing and pick up the tango. And as soon as you and I are having the tango, it’s not that ballroom dancing doesn’t exist; it’s still right there. But all of a sudden, we’re dancing to our own beautiful music. And then as soon as you and I are dancing the tango, other people are like, “I want to dance the tango, too.” And all of a sudden, we start to create the organizations and teams we want to be a part of. Culture changes when we change.
Melina Palmer: Absolutely. Well, a perfect spot to end the conversation. And for everyone who is so excited to follow you and learn more and get their own copy of Our Best Work and all those things, we’ll have links in the show notes, of course, but what’s their best route to do that?
Nilofer Merchant: Well, Our Best Work is available everywhere you buy books. And then I am found at Nilofer across all the handles. Connect up and let’s see if we can figure out how to hold hands and make big change happen.
Melina Palmer: Oh, perfect. Well, like I said again, we’ll have links in the show notes to make it easy for everyone. And thank you again, Nilofer, for joining me on the show today. It was delightful to chat with you today.
Nilofer Merchant: Thank you.
Conclusion and Engagement
Melina Palmer: Thank you again to Nilofer Merchant for joining me on the show today. What got your brain buzzing in today’s conversation? For me, I’m so glad we were able to really dig into the topic of office politics. It gets such a bad rap. But it’s one of those counterintuitive things where the brain tricks us into putting ourselves at a disadvantage and actually elevating those who do participate in a way that can kind of make everything worse for everyone except that one person, I guess.
So many well-intentioned people opt out of politics at work because they think it means being manipulative or power-hungry. But as Nilofer said, when you choose not to engage, you’re ceding power to someone else who will. That really resonated with me. Yes, from a behavioral perspective, opting out feels safer. Our brains like to avoid conflict and conserve energy, but when we step back too far, we also cut ourselves off from influence. The truth is you can’t change a system you’re not part of, and you can’t lead if you aren’t willing to work within the real dynamics of power. And politics is a key part of that game.
Hopefully Nilofer’s definition of politics helped you feel like it’s a game worth playing in, even if you were vehemently opposed to it in the past. As we close out the show, I invite you to consider this: where might you be sitting on the sidelines in your organization and what might be possible if you stepped in with intention? Come share with me on social media. You’ll find me as the Brainy Biz pretty much everywhere and as Melina Palmer on LinkedIn. There are links in the show notes to make it easy, as well as links to related past episodes and books, including Our Best Work, ways to get in touch, and more. It’s all waiting for you in the app you’re listening to and at thebrainybusiness.com/566. And thank you again to Nilofer Merchant for joining me on the show today. It was a delight to chat with and learn from you. Join me next time for another brainy episode of the Brainy Business Podcast. It’s going to be a lot of fun. You don’t want to miss it. Until then, thanks again for listening and learning with me, and remember to be thoughtful.
Announcer: Thank you for listening to the Brainy Business Podcast. Melina offers virtual strategy sessions, workshops and other services to help businesses be more brain friendly. For more free resources, visit thebrainybusiness.com.
