Defeating the politics by being apolitical

About a year ago, a senior manager at Google told me when I asked about how to deal with what seemed like a political situation I saw, by saying "Do what you always do. Be apolitical, make good decisions that work for everyone, and you'll find that it works out."

A few things at work, and the section on judgement in the Netflix preso I mentioned below, got me thinking about that again.

I realize that applies not just to political behavior, but a bunch of other bad habits that creep into large companies (e.g. not sharing info deliberately, gossiping etc. etc.) I believe that staying above the rat-race rather than joining it, is in fact that smartest option in the long-run.

On the other hand, this kinda thinking smacks of UChicago efficient market kinda thinking; and we know how that's viewed right now.:)

Personally, I'll stick with this, with the only caveat that acting "good" doesn't mean being unaware of the "evil."

Try, and try hard, to understand the political dynamic happening around you; just choose be better than it, rather than acting that way out of ignorance or a sense of being better than the system.

With that: my lecturing for today ends.:)