I don’t know if you’ve heard… but there’s this show called Game of Thrones, which inspired this post. For the unindoctrinated, a quick google will tell you more than you need to know about the show and all the related conspiracy theories.
Now, on to what I really wanted to talk about.
If you tilt your head about 36 degrees to the left, close your left eye, and slightly squint your right-eye, the corporate world looks frighteningly similar to Westeros (the fictitious where most of the show takes place).
So basically, minus the dragons flaming people and literal massacres of slave owners, and weird incest (I think), some of the ideas have been running rampant in the corporate world (small biz too) forever and that’s not going to be changing any time soon.
- Abusive bosses taking advantage of inexperienced employees
- Cut-throat competition to build the biggest empire
- Backroom dealings
- Children not living up to their parents’ expectations
- Alliances formed out of necessity to avoid extinction instead of as a multiplier of opportunity
- Ambitious women aspiring to executive rank only to be questioned, underestimated, and referred to by some less than pleasant names
That last one’s probably my favorite because it’s obvious to me the mother of dragons is the woman for the job, but that’s not the point of this.
I bring all this up comparing Westeros to business because 1) I try to keep things at least a little entertaining for you and 2) imagine for a moment you’re working in a place where you’re completely oblivious to the fact these things are even taking place. You just just show up every day, do what you’re told and hope for the best. You’d be at the whim of a whole lot of other people, and who wants that?
Like it or not, you’re part of the Game of Thrones and need to try to play that game accordingly.
It’s fun to try to guess what happens in fiction and your mind can be unconstrained to all the possibilities no matter how morbid or how improbably they might be. It’s easy to ignore real-life those because even when constrained to what’s possible, you may not want to face your likely future.
If you’re ready to stop hiding your head in the sand, I’ve captured some of the rules of this corporate game in my book, Corporate Ladder University. And since several people have asked, I’m offering it in paperback format.
A funny note about this idea of giving other people advice is every now and then even the advice giver will get comfortable / complacent with what their doing. Oddly enough, I failed to keep some of my own advice (page 32-33) in this last year and paid a hefty price for that.
Hop on to the link below to learn that piece of advice and a whole lot more:
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