Indeed. We should be under no illusion -- employment is a popularity contest. In non-startups, the only thing that matters is how much the people around you, especially the high-ranking people, like you. Other things matter only in the most extreme circumstances -- every normal value can be hand-waved away if the boss likes you enough.
If you want to be a successful employee, view yourself as a politician and run a successful campaign: minimize anything that will be viewed negatively, blatantly exploit peoples' biases to emphasize a positive image. Don't talk about divisive subjects, regardless of their relevance to your job. Anyone smart enough to see what's going on but naive enough to call you out will immediately be viewed badly, the only real threat to your power is someone who is smart enough to see the manipulation and experienced enough to respond to it through his own counter-manipulations.
Welcome to Life 101. It's all about sales + skill. Skill is one part of the equation, necessary but not sufficient. Sales is the other part - unfortunately a great salesman can go very far without hard skills (to be fair, a great salesman has unique skills).
This is a hard fact about life and something a lot of talented people realize way too late. Now you know. Focus on your pitch - ABC - always be closing. Every interaction in life is a transaction of some sort - your sales strategy will determine if you get a good deal or a raw deal.
"Every interaction in life is a transaction of some sort."
What about when a mother kisses her baby's head? What about when a friend offers a hug to someone who has just lost a loved one? What about when a kid gives a friendly smile to the kid who always gets bullied?
Are those transactions? Did those people get "good deals"?
Now I'm just some hyperbole-prone kid who isn't qualified to give advice to a Life Veteran like yourself, but I find myself wondering what you might learn if you stopped keeping score for awhile. In my experience, treating every interaction as a little game to maximize profit is a great way to scare away anyone who is interested in anything more worthwhile than profiting off of you.
> What about when a mother kisses her baby's head? What about when a friend offers a hug to someone who has just lost a loved one? What about when a kid gives a friendly smile to the kid who always gets bullied?
Well, there are the obvious ones: evolutionarily beneficial responses. Still transactions, unconsciously working for the benefit of the species.
The others are more selfish. Obviously not angry or malicious, but they convey certain clear benefits for little to no effort. Definitely transactional.
Just because they are transactions, however, doesn't mean you have to weigh them in terms of some sort of emotional "profit", or they're in any way unwanted. It's just a way of talking about them, even modelling them for study.
Of course those are all transactions. The helping hand, the caring kiss from the depths of motherly love, etc - they are win-win transactions. The baby gets comfort and love and the mother gets a dose of oxytocin to encourage further bonding. The friend offering a hug provides comfort and gets the good feelings of helping/offering comfort. Win-wins, but still a transaction, an exchange of value. Time, attention, love, care - these are all benefits that can be given and received.
Same with business - win-win transactions are best. When you provide something that others find valuable and you receive something valuable in return (loyalty, money, hype, etc) it's a good thing.
Surely you would agree that the amount of oxytocin the mother gets is not determined by the quality of her "sales strategy."
Thank you for clarifying that you were not advocating the rather shallow, exploitative, and depressing approach to life that I misinterpreted from your previous comment.
There are a lot of successful sales people who'd agree with you. Choosing a non-sales field makes it so you don't have to focus on this as much since much of your work is non-social and you have a good excuse to be in a corner staring at the screen, but the social element is still the most important part of maintaining and improving your employment status. Your social status is much more important than the quality of your actual work product.
An old and dear friend, who started out as a brilliant civil engineer but moved to marketing where she has spent most of her professional life, would completely ratify your second sentence.
Unfortunately, I find it harder and harder to refute her assertion that in the end, it all comes down to marketing.
Nobody is good enough to warrant being a torvalds-esque dickhead.
"get away with" is entirely different.
I think the world would be a better place if Torvalds took a couple martial arts classes and 1) got his ass handed to him a couple of times and 2) felt physically self confident enough that he no longer felt the need to verbally beat every body else up before they got a chance to do it to him.
If you want to be a successful employee, view yourself as a politician and run a successful campaign: minimize anything that will be viewed negatively, blatantly exploit peoples' biases to emphasize a positive image. Don't talk about divisive subjects, regardless of their relevance to your job. Anyone smart enough to see what's going on but naive enough to call you out will immediately be viewed badly, the only real threat to your power is someone who is smart enough to see the manipulation and experienced enough to respond to it through his own counter-manipulations.