Anyone out there?

Surprisingly, no one has responded to my first post. This isn't surprising, really, for like a tree that has fallen in an isolated forest, no one knows it is even out there. I wonder how long it will take for me to get my first response, if ever.

I am reading the book Seduction, by Robert Greene, who also has written books about power and war. I thought the Power book was great and have used his ideas in my daily life; the War one was okay, but nothing too great for someone who has studied military strategy for some time.

I am amazed at how so many organizations manage to function on daily basis and how they have done so in the past. It seems like incompetence can be rampant in an organization and the cause of it is never really addressed. Many people seem to be comfortable in this type of organization and don't seem to want to do much to get the organization into a better position. Are they doing this because they are afraid that they may risk their current standing? I suspect it is in the latter category.

I find myself somewhat disappointed about the way an organization seems to approach matters, lacking some of the organization skills to do as well as it could. I digress, though, for what I have to discuss here is how to do well in a variety of environments, especially those where the ability to accomplish change is not as good as one would like.

First. one must realize how much influence he can expect to have on an organization that is constrained largely by external forces that consistently push and prod it. It is also constrained somewhat by those people who have the reins of power over it. Stepping into an existing situation and seeing that your chance for influence is going to be small in the next six-months, you need to adopt at the outset the right expectations or you will become frustrated, and as much as you would like to think otherwise, it will soon affect your interactions with people.

All I can recommend that you do is find a few opportunities to excel and then keep your options open for future opportunities. I don't recommend leaving your place of work before at least a year is done because it may create the impression that you are a job hopper. That being written, doing it once in a blue moon after a series of successful jobs probably won't hurt you too much.