Chief Change Officer
#212 Jennifer Selby Long: Office Politics Without the Backstabbing—Yes, It’s Possible
Tue, 4 Mar 2025
Jennifer Selby Long has spent three decades coaching tech leaders through the messiest corners of organizational change. In this episode, she tackles everything from leadership blind spots to stakeholder tug-of-wars and shares why handling office politics doesn’t have to feel like an episode of Survivor. Whether you’re managing a team or just trying to stay afloat during corporate upheaval, Jennifer’s strategies will help you keep your cool and make an impact.Key Highlights of Our Interview:Aligning Change with Personal Motivations“People don’t move mountains for stock prices or cost savings. They do it when the change connects to their personal ‘why’—what matters most to them as individuals.”Recognize the Root of Politics“Politics can stem from unhealthy leadership, but more often, they arise from competing needs and varied skill levels among stakeholders. Identifying the source is key to navigating them.”Empathy as a Superpower“The path through political challenges begins with empathy. Understand the needs of those with power—even if you think they don’t deserve it—and align your strategy with their goals.”Avoid Playing Psychologist“Trying to diagnose your boss’s issues only disempowers you. Focus on what you can control instead of guessing why your boss behaves the way they do.”Assess the Real Problem“Ask yourself: Is the boss genuinely ineffective, or am I resisting the changes they’re implementing? Recognizing your own resistance can help you approach the situation constructively.”_________________________Connect with us:Host: Vince Chan | Guest: Jennifer Selby Long______________________--**Chief Change Officer**--Change Ambitiously. Outgrow Yourself.Open a World of Deep Human Intelligence for Growth Progressives, Visionary Underdogs,Transformation Gurus & Bold Hearts.6 Million+ All-Time Downloads.Reaching 80+ Countries Daily.Global Top 3% Podcast.Top 10 US Business.Top 1 US Careers.100,000+ subscribers are outgrowing. Act Today. --Chief Change Officer--Change Ambitiously. Outgrow Yourself.Open a World of Expansive Human Intelligencefor Transformation Gurus, Black Sheep,Unsung Visionaries & Bold Hearts.12 Million+ All-Time Downloads.Reaching 80+ Countries Daily.Global Top 3% Podcast.Top 10 US Business.Top 1 US Careers.>>>140,000+ are outgrowing. Act Today.<<<
Chapter 1: Who is Jennifer Selby Long and what is her expertise?
She spent 30 years helping tech leaders navigate the ever-changing world of technology and lead organizational transformation. In recent years, her focus has been on cybersecurity, digital transformation, and user experience. but don't tune out if these areas don't apply to you. What Jennifer shares is relevant for anyone who wants to thrive in today's fast-paced world.
Stick with me for 30 minutes and you'll find something valuable in this conversation. This episode and the last one is all about guiding yourself through personal transformation. It's about stepping into your next opportunity. Leaders can't successfully drive organization change without first mastering their own personal growth.
In the last episode, we talked about the natural process of personal change. We also touched on self-doubt and self-sabotage. In this episode, we'll dive deeper. We'll discuss how neuroscience can help manage self-sabotage We'll explore how to make career moves that work in your favor instead of just jumping from one bad situation to another.
It's such a great question. And as you were talking about this experience of you leave, you're starting a business, you see your colleagues get promoted. They're still sitting in their six figure incomes. Oh, believe me, that one resonates with me personally. And it's not a straight line.
Chapter 2: How can neuroscience help manage self-sabotage?
When I started this business, which is actually my second business, a few years after it started, we hit the dot-com bust. And the business sank, right? And really struggled. And then again, we got hit in 2008 when the economy collapsed in the United States. And it is so easy to fall into the self-sabotage. The reason, though, is really interesting.
Thank you.
the AD, C-H-A-M-I-N-E, Shirzad Shamim. And he writes a great deal about the neuroscience of this because that self-sabotage is something that develops in very early childhood. It is almost entirely wired into our brains by the time we're five years old. Now, why is that in there?
those saboteurs as he calls them are neural networks that very tiny children develop to ensure their survival if a little tiny kid recognized that their parents were not infallible which is actually true It would be terrifying because they cannot care for themselves, right? So these neural networks form as a vital part of early childhood. They're just part of that survival mechanism.
However, in adulthood, we don't need those anymore. But at that point, they're really strong. They've been there for decades, right? Getting stronger and stronger, and they're just lurking in there.
and i want to really convey the important message that when you start to feel yourself self-sabotage that's not you that's the saboteur neural networks in your mind firing up that's all that is and they're sitting in there and they jump out when they get a signal that indicates that there's a threat to survival.
Of course, if you go after a contract in your new business and you work really hard on it, you put all this time into it. When you were an employee, if that contract didn't close, you still got your paycheck. But now all of a sudden, you're looking at, can I pay my rent? Can I make my mortgage? So that, of course, your brain fires that up as risk to survival. And so the saboteurs jump in there.
The universal saboteur is called the judge. Every single one of us has this. And the judge has snuck in there and is getting in your way when you feel a negative feeling and you are judging either yourself or
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Chapter 3: What is the role of the 'judge' in self-judgment?
or someone else or the situation that is a sign that your judge is in there your judge is going to tell you you need me i am good for you but you don't need that judge to be talking and the judge is not good for you so the way that you can recognize that again you feel a negative feeling You're feeling stress, frustration, anxiety.
These are all signs that the judge is in there and your thoughts are in the direction of, oh, I'm such a fool. Why did I do this? Or why, what's wrong with them that they didn't sign my contract, right? Or if only we had such and such process in place, we wouldn't have this problem, would we? Those are all signs that the judge neural network has fired up. and you just need to weaken that judge.
How do we deal with judgment? Judging ourselves? Judging others? Honestly, this aspect of judgment has come up a lot for me. In fact, in the second episode of season three, in which I spoke to Benedict from France, he'd mentioned the importance of being kind or kinder to ourselves. Yet we often forget that. Yes. If a colleague or someone else makes a mistake, I would say, it's okay, let's fix it.
No need to blame, just move forward. But when I make the mistake, what do I do? Yes, I fixed. But at the same time, I start blaming myself. I think, why did I make this mistake? What's wrong with me? I become harsh on myself, much harsher than I am with others. In those moments, I realize I'm not loving myself enough.
This constant self-judgment can be really detrimental if we don't learn to manage it properly. Don't you think?
Yes, absolutely. And people have asked me, why is it so hard to make this judge go away? And I say, we don't necessarily want to make the judge entirely go away. That's almost impossible. It's a neural network that's in there. But boy, can we weaken that judge. And the reason I say we don't necessarily want the judge to completely go away because that negative feeling, it's like a warning sign.
It's just a little warning sign that there's something you need to attend to. But it's like a hand on a hot stove. You want to feel it. You want to feel the pain. You want to feel that negative emotion of the pain so that you recognize there's something you need to attend to. But as soon as you feel it,
It's important to just call out, oh, that's my judge versus I can't believe I made that mistake. Oh, stupid. What am I going to learn? It is, by the way, it is no better to be a judge of yourself and not of others than to be a judge of others and not yourself. It's all the judge. It's all negative, right? It all is contagious. The judge energy is contagious to others.
no matter which direction it's headed. And so it's so vital to call out and recognize, oh, that's my judge versus it's me. There's something wrong with me. That's my judge. And then you can weaken that judge in so many different ways. One is to gently make a little fun, like you would with a little kid. Oh, I see you. I caught you, right? I found you, hide and seek.
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Chapter 4: How can empathy counteract workplace judgment?
Because one of the things that the judge does is the judge also calls up what's called an accomplice saboteur. It's another saboteur or two or sometimes three that have taken root in the fertile soil of your brain and wrapped themselves around whatever your gifts are. I had a client who went into his first CISO role ever. A number of my clients are in their first C-suite role ever.
That in and of itself is a huge personal change to manage. And then they're having the surprise of what they learn as they're in that role. And in this case, this client had gone from a highly regulated industry to a fairly regulated industry, which is a whole different ball of wax. And then Vince, as if that weren't enough,
He discovered that his organization, which he inherited, which had a 44, 0% attrition rate and had many people who were actually too junior for the roles that they had. There was also, they were swept up in a company wide quote unquote optimization effort, which is to say cost cutting headcount reduction. He actually needed to replace people.
He needed to spend more because he needed to hire more senior people to manage them. And there was this huge pressure on him, which was particularly being driven by a guy who was a peer of his, who had his boss's ear and who drove him nuts, which is to say he tried. triggered my client's saboteurs.
So we spent the first three months of our coaching completely focused on recognizing the saboteurs and weakening them. Because one of the things his accomplice saboteur, a hyperachiever, was telling him was pretty much, I have to win. And the only way I can win at this change is if this guy loses because this guy is my enemy. What was that going to do?
I can guarantee you my client is sharp and this guy was right and he was going to win. But what was the cost going to be in that organization? Right. What was that cost going to be? So with him, we worked on calling out when his judge was judging this guy. If only that guy weren't here. I could do everything I need to do, right? We focused on calling out his judge when it was judging him.
Geez, if only I were a better CISO, we wouldn't have this problem, right? We called out his accomplice saboteur who was saying, in order for me to win, that dude's got to lose. And so instead of that, we did something which is the, it is the kryptonite to the judge, right? which is empathy. We called up empathy for this poor colleague of his.
who was having a highly unpopular initiative and frankly wasn't doing it in a very effective way and was triggering people all around him. And my client really, truly put himself in that person's shoes. In one meeting, I even had him speak as that individual to me so that he was completely in that guy's shoes and he was able to make his case
and build his argument in a way that was compassionate, right? That was not competitive. That wasn't even about this other guy. The end result was that my client was much happier day in and day out. He was much more successful.
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Chapter 5: What are common challenges in leadership change?
a great deal and get that under control and this is not something that would have come for him so quickly with such success he becomes the guy who has the boss's ear where he becomes the guy whose organization is turning around and performing how did he not really face that judge and that talk with saboteur and weaken them by calling them out
And then in this case, calling forth his empathy for someone who was, in his mind, incompetent. And to really deeply have empathy so that he's not trying to compete against this guy, but to just get the right thing done.
Through all these years, you've worked with so many different people, each with their own unique characters and situations. I'm curious, looking back, can you recall any cases where you feel you didn't succeed in helping a client navigate or take charge of a change? By failure, I don't necessarily mean they disengaged with you, but rather the impact you aimed to create.
didn't work out as well as expected. Could you share one of those experiences? More importantly, what did you learn from it? Why do you think it was so challenging in that specific situation?
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And we've had a couple of those. One that comes to mind had such a surprising conclusion in that what I came to recognize was that this leader fundamentally did not want to change and grow. And as a result, we would make a few steps forward and then a few steps back. Interestingly, that particular leader was very strong in some other areas.
And the individual that person reported to, I guess you could say, was my core client. actually concluded that he needed to go find a better opportunity for this guy. Because this guy was absolutely not going to change in his own style to what was needed there. And he wasn't going to change in his fundamental beliefs about what the strategy should be of that division.
And I learned a lot from that, from watching him, because he was an extraordinary role model of... not letting that judge and that hyperachiever neural network drive you to do something stupid, right? Instead of trying to force this guy to go along or to try to butt heads with him endlessly, he saw that he had tried that and it didn't work.
He actually went and advocated that this other man should head one of the most exciting new divisions that the company was creating. And this man did go over and do that. And he did lead that division in its early days quite well, because in part, he didn't need to change to lead that. He was already established. kind of reasonably well suited to it.
And so it was extremely enlightening to me because until my client made that decision and that commitment, we struggled. We really struggled. That team had been brought together through two acquisitions. That team was so far behind Vince.
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Chapter 6: How does Kurt Lewin's model apply to organizational change?
Finally, there's unfreeze, where you solidify your new identity or the new you. So it's like freeze, change, and unfreeze. A lot of business school professors reference this model for organizational change. Are you familiar with this?
yes i think that there are a lot of parallels to bill bridge's model but something that you said there about his third his is you know unfreeze again his third and final stage is that you emerge with a new identity and i think that this is so vital for us as leaders to understand that when we are asking our people to make a significant change
they often do have a change in their fundamental identity or how they see themselves and it can be hard to recognize because often in the leadership role we already see them in that way if we didn't see that they had the potential collectively and individually
to make this change successful, we probably wouldn't have started down that path or we wouldn't have brought in some different people to lead them. So it is so vital to understand that change management is about hitting the target, right? Implementing the change on time, within budget, to a set standard.
But this can actually be much more profound for others than we recognize because they can come out of it with a new identity. Think of, for example, my clients who are financial analysts. Today, even just as recently as three years ago, the technology didn't really exist for them to spend the bulk of their time Truly advising senior business leaders on what they should be doing in the business.
They had very little time to say things like, hey, here's a market force that I see going on in Japan. And I think we need to focus 40% more of our sales effort there on this product line. No way. They were too busy being Excel jockeys, right? Today, that technology has come a very long way.
But what happens to someone who for 10 years has been spending most of their time, maybe not real happily, but spending most of their time just getting those numbers accurate? And now suddenly you are telling them that within a matter of months, those leaders are going to be able to press a button and see the data that you used to have put together for them.
And they are now going to turn to you and say, what should I do? Or what happens when the leader doesn't turn to them and say, what should I do? Now, suddenly it's a new identity and they're recognizing they have to earn it. They have to earn that credibility as something more than a master Excel jockey.
that is terrifying that's terrifying that's a whole new set of skills they're going to have to learn how to convert that data into a story they're going to have to learn how to influence they're going to have to learn how to read that person and speak in their language it's terrifying it's terrifying and so really recognizing that people are going to come out of this change with a new identity helps you as a leader
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