People skills are absolutely key to successful working in M&A. John R Hughes of Radical Strategy gives pointers for career development.
Power and politics aren’t dirty words. They’re the mechanics of how things really get done. They are not peripheral to performance – they are at the heart of it. Successfully navigating power and politics is essential for leaders, especially in high-stakes, high-intensity work environments such as corporate finance.
Working with power is often treated as a dark art. One option might be to rise above it or, to be more accurate, pretend to rise above it. But that just means you’re leaving others to shape outcomes around you. Power isn’t necessarily about hierarchy. It’s about agency and confident, clear decision-making, even when all around seems to be chaos. The quiet confidence of sending and receiving signals through the noise brings power.
Sometimes, working with power involves status games and bureaucracy, such as when issues are referred to committees “for further study”, haggles over wording, insistence on proper channels. These can signal excellent governance, but may also be tactics to stall or bury an idea or person. It is important to spot when there is a futility in fighting those battles.
Horses for courses
Whether we like it or not, we all participate in subtle (and not-so-subtle) games of status and control. Meetings, emails, small talk – they’re all performance spaces. There is no need to dominate, but reading the room is essential. Sometimes the time is right to lead and sometimes it makes more sense to follow. Shakespeare wrote “All the world’s a stage” – and he was right. A corporate finance adviser is always on stage, even when they think they’re not, and sometimes just observing is the best course of action. Who has everyone’s attention? And why? Who’s being listened to? And why? Do I want to move the conversation? Where can I shift the narrative?
In some rooms, directness is respected. In others, it can be viewed as aggression. Matching personality to the power dynamic without losing integrity gets you in the game. Connection brings power. Identifying those who energise, and those who drain, is the first step. Using that knowledge to choose allies really will matter in improving personal power across the deal table.
Politics has a bad name. But at its core, it is just about navigating ambiguity, pressure and status. Organisations are intrinsically political because they’re made up of people. On paper, the way businesses or advisory firms operate is rational: maximise shareholder value, while monitoring KPIs. In reality, executives are seeking a sensible approach to deliver for multiple stakeholders with different – sometimes conflicting – priorities.
Think first
The world doesn’t run on facts alone, it runs on shared reality. And shared reality, a shared sense of what matters, can be manipulated. In the 1950s Solomon Asch, a social psychologist, conducted an experiment that demonstrated the power of conformity: people knowingly agreed with a wrong answer just to stay aligned with the group. Real power is helping shape reality by encouraging clarity and curiosity, and welcoming difference.
Flattering those with power is not necessary, but avoidance is not a good strategy either. Savvy people talk to decision-makers because they want to understand how things work. It’s not manipulation – it’s situational awareness. People’s intelligence should never be underestimated. At the same time, their knowledge should not be overestimated. Most rooms are full of noise. Deal meeting rooms are no different. Cutting through that, and connecting, is key. People want to be seen, heard and understood.
Understanding how people see the world – their internal map – is critical to managing the politics of working in corporate finance: curiosity about people’s thinking, their beliefs, their goals. Create space for clarity. When in a room, be all in. Host conversations. Connect dots. End things cleanly.
The ‘game’ of power and politics should not be viewed as evil or dirty. Reality is co-created. Influence is earned. To make a difference, stay curious, stay sharp, stay human, and keep your eye on the ultimate goal.
“Love all. Trust a few” is another Shakespeare quote that makes sage advice. It was in All’s Well That Ends Well – a phrase that resonates through every deal.
John R Hughes, founder and director of management consulting firm Radical Strategy and co-founder of Farnham Mediation, a network of lawyers and psychologists working to resolve disputes. Previously he worked at PwC in various roles. He developed his perspective on issues of power and politics through formal research and frontline experience.