BusinessWeek has this excellent article about how Google (more specifically Marissa Mayer) runs meetings. What stood out to me the most is #5: Discourage politics, use data
This idea can and should apply to meetings in organizations in which people feel as though the boss will give the green light to a design created by the person he or she likes the best, showing favoritism for the individual instead of the idea.
Mayer believes this mindset can demoralize employees, so she goes out of her way to make the approval process a science. Google chooses designs on a clearly defined set of metrics and how well they perform against those metrics. Designs are chosen based on merit and evidence, not personal relationships.
Mayer discourages using the phrase “I like” in design meetings, such as “I like the way the screen looks.” Instead, she encourages such comments as “The experimentation on the site shows that his design performed 10% better.” This works for Google, because it builds a culture driven by customer feedback data, not the internal politics that pervade so many of today’s corporations.
Well said. Too many times have I seen favouritism/politics trump true merit, inconvenient hard-facts that are just “shrugged” off (and left at that). Or just be given some lame excuse (so shoddy and shady that it wouldn’t stand fact-based scrutiny) of why the idea “wouldn’t fly”.
By definition, sheer hard work and determination won’t help since merit isn’t appreciated. The solution? Cut your losses and get the hell out.