3 simple tricks for driving change in your workplace, no matter your role

In our experience, too many people think that the president—or your CEO, organization head, or university president—is the instigator of change, the champion of reform, and the catalyst of new initiatives. That happens sometimes, sure, but we’ve seen just as many occasions when the instigator of massive change is an everyday employee who takes matters into her own hands.

Here are three tried-and-true bureaucracy-hacking strategies that can be used in any organization by any employee to get things done.

Play the newbie card

Once you’ve been at a job for a while, the window to ask basic questions closes. One of the best opportunities you have for shadowing processes, visiting other teams, and getting to ask questions that can unlock significant opportunities is by playing the “newbie” card.

Being a new employee or team member, rather than being a limitation, can be a huge asset—because by being new, you can ask questions and draw connections that more seasoned team members are now either too embarrassed to ask or too entrenched to see.

Show genuine interest. Asking questions is part of building a relationship and solving problems; it’s not a dry academic exercise. Make eye contact, ask follow‐ups, and try to take notes in a way that still allows for real conversation.

Don’t ignore your inner questioner. Maybe you’ve been in your role awhile, and you have a question you’re hesitating to ask anyone because you think you should already know the answer. Resist the urge to ignore it and find a way to find out— even if you have to enlist a new person or an outside consultant to ask for you.

Ask questions on behalf of others. Earn trust and build relationships by playing your newbie card for others, who may feel they have been at the organization too long to ask without embarrassment.

Don’t make a laundry list of problems

It’s so tempting to make lists of everything that’s wrong in your environment. This can be especially true when you’re new, and you believe that you are the first person to discover inefficiencies, gaps, and other issues. But lists of problems without context, and especially without practical proposed solutions, can cause much more harm than good.

Regardless of what you call it, this kind of list doesn’t get people poised for change and improvement; it makes them defensive. That’s not a productive starting place for getting buy-in for your ideas and projects.

What can you do when you start tracking a list of issues in your head? Write them down—but keep that list to yourself, and use it as a starting point for identifying practical solutions for your environment. You probably can’t solve all, or even most, of the challenges you’ve identified, but you can definitely pick one or two to start working on.

Share credit

Making someone else’s boss look good might sound contrarian. Shouldn’t you be making your own boss look good? Or yourself? Yes— and one way to do that is by giving credit to other people. Okay, but what happens when someone else publicly takes credit for the project you’ve been working on for months or even years? Why should they get the glory when you’ve been sweating the details since the days when glory was far from assured?

We’d say that another person or group taking credit for your project is actually a great sign, if you can put your ego aside. Even—or especially—if they take more credit than their contribution. Here’s why: Iit means they are more likely to champion it, advocate for resources, and generally advance your cause. They now have a vested interest—their reputation—in the success of your initiative. Others taking credit builds sustainability and momentum. Ask yourself: Do I care more about being the only person to get credit, or do I care more about my initiative being successful and having an impact? 

Try this thought experiment: What if your idea for change is massively successful—far beyond your wildest dreams—and you get zero credit for it? Would you still be excited about that future? Sure, most people like being recognized for an idea, hard work, and especially for success. There also may be a kernel of truth in someone else taking credit for your initiative—they might have done something to help you or at least did nothing to block you, that you can’t or don’t appreciate from your vantage point.

There are some caveats to this bureaucracy‐hacking tactic, of course. Giving credit has to be done authentically. If you offer insincere praise, people will see through it immediately. You’ll come off as naive at best, and more likely as manipulative.

What does it mean to give authentic credit? The person has to have actually helped you, unblocked you, or advocated for you. They must have done something—taken an action beyond their normal course of duties—to advance your project.

We’re not saying that you should forgo credit on everything, or that credit doesn’t matter. Promotions, bonuses, and career opportunities are determined, in part, by who is getting credited with success. Salespeople, for example, get paid on the completed deals they work on—i.e., deals that they get credit for. They wouldn’t get paid if they told their manager that other sales reps were responsible. We’re just saying that for many projects and initiatives, and in more scenarios than you think, a smart move is to focus on recognizing the contributions of others.

Credit has an equity dimension. Women and people of color in particular regularly have their contributions minimized or disregarded, with others unfairly assuming credit for their work. It’s not the sole responsibility of marginalized individuals to highlight their own work. Be an ally by going out of your way to recognize and credit colleagues who are underrepresented or who are being taken advantage of by more self-serving peers.

In the end, bureaucracies are about people working together to achieve outcomes. If you want to build authentic allies, you’ll want people to see you as part of a successful team—and not as a lone wolf. Give credit liberally.

This article is excerpted from Hack Your Bureaucracy: Getting Things Done No Matter What Your Role on Any Team by Marina Nitze and Nick Sinai. Copyright © 2022. Available from Hachette Go, an imprint of Hachette Book Group, Inc.