Understand the government and enjoy success in high level jobs.

Advice to Fernando

The 10th thing you need to know before your first day on the job.

Working in the headquarters building builds relationships.

Posted March 3, 2010

There is something else I thought of and wanted to ask you about, Fernando. Will your office be in the agency’s headquarters building where the top managers work? Knowing you as I do, I think you might want to be off-site so you can do your job and not be involved in all the politics in headquarters. This is a mistake.

Think about it. If you are carrying on a romance with a sweetie and she lives in the same apartment building as you, you are likely to have more contact with her and the relationship is more likely to blossom than if she lives across town, a one-hour drive when traffic is light.

Your relationships will develop  if you can drop into your boss’ office late in the evening for a short chat, a bit of advice, and the opportunity to plant a few ideas about your program that your manager can use in meetings with the head of the agency.

When you are available in the main headquarters, your boss and peers will invite you to
ad hoc, impromptu meetings. If you are located across town, you will be shut out of such meetings because they’ll be over before you could make the trip. You might not even know they took place.

Working in headquarters, you will soak up all of the information that passes around in the parking lot, on the elevators, in the hallways, and you will develop relationships as you run into people. You will be able to arrange spontaneous luncheons with peers and bosses all of whom have information that will help you to position your program. You will meet people across the agency in impromptu ways, and you will begin to understand the organization and its moods.

At the same time, your staff needs to have access to you easily and frequently. If you end up with an office at headquarters, but with your team housed elsewhere, you will have to manage your time between main headquarters and the other site.  Periodically, meet with your staff in the headquarters building. This will allow them to develop and  maintain their contacts and relate to the larger agency.

Technology today allows all kinds of options for working from remote locations, and it can seem almost as good as being there. But, there's really no substitute for physically being in the same building as your managers and peers.

I know you hadn't asked about that, but it occurred to me to mention it because it's important for you to know.

Advice to Fernando.  If no space is available for you and your staff in the headquarters building, request a single small office for just you, your secretary, with room for a conference table to accommodate meetings of eight people.

Use this office three afternoons a week without fail so that people will learn that you are always there on those days.

 Frank