How to advance at work without losing yourself

After researching company cultures for more than two decades, Dr. Michelle King has learned that people who succeed know how workplaces work.

There are tons of books and academic journal articles that make a case for learning to manage office politics, influence, persuade, and even manipulate people in the name of getting ahead. But these approaches have one thing in common: they are self-serving. When you “play the game” to get ahead, it often comes at a cost to your colleagues. The game always has a written rulebook, people who get ahead are not focused on what's written. Instead, they know how to read the unwritten, informal, invisible rules that exist to help us manage how we work, while benefiting their co-workers and organization.