The Mayor is a person of no importance
Why you need to know who really holds power
The Story
I once worked with an architect who was the project manager in charge of renovating an office building that would house city employees. It was a big project—for the city and the firm—so as soon as the contract had been signed, the project manager walked to city hall to meet some important people: Not the elected officials or the senior city leaders—he wanted to meet the people involved in processing his monthly invoices. He started with the city’s project manager and then asked to be introduced to each of the four or five other people in procurement and finance whose hands his invoice would pass through. He visited each person, introduced himself, asked what they needed for a complete invoice, how he could make their job easier, and made small talk. He collected all their business cards and handed out his own, but more importantly, he made a genuine human connection. Despite the city’s big bureaucracy, that architect never had trouble getting paid because those people remembered him well, took his calls, and ensured his invoices kept moving through the system. And when there were wrinkles, he knew who to call, and they would help smooth things out. As you might imagine, we can learn a great deal from this architect's approach to the people with whom he did business.
The Theory (or, in this case, a literary metaphor)
In Franz Kafka’s novel The Castle, a Land-Surveyor is summoned to a walled town with a Castle on a hill, but when he arrives, he has trouble convincing the guards at the gate that he should be allowed to enter. After some haggling, he is allowed into the town—provisionally—but he must sleep on the floor in the lobby of the more rundown of the town’s two inns while faceless bureaucrats up in The Castle consider his status. The Land-Surveyor stays, and, over time, finds slightly better lodgings, and has two unasked-for and bumbling assistants assigned to him, who follow him around wherever he goes. He also begins to develop relationships with some of the townspeople as he meets with different officials, all in his attempt to prove that he has a valid reason for being in the town in the first place.
The Land-Surveyor finally gains an audience with the Mayor, who is laid up in bed with gout. He is escorted into the mayor’s oppressively stuffy bed chamber and begins to make his case. The mayor suddenly interrupts and says,
“’ Mizzi,’ to the woman who was flitting about the room in incomprehensible activity, ‘please have a look in the cabinet, perhaps you’ll find the order.’”
Mizzi, it turns out, is his wife; she begins rifling through the cabinet, which is crammed full of papers rolled into bundles and tied with string, throwing those on top onto the floor where they scatter everywhere. The Mayor orders his wife to, “look for a document with the word ‘Land-Surveyor’ underlined in blue pencil.” The two bumbling assistants join Mizzi, and together they sort aimlessly through all the papers on the floor while the Land Surveyor and the Mayor continue their debate, making various points and counterpoints. The Mayor then lists the many intimidating-sounding officials involved in the matter, including Control Officials, Sordini, Brunswick, Laseman, the Village Council, Department A, an Under-Castellan called Fritz, and the all-powerful and mysterious Klamm. The meeting finally draws to an inconclusive close, and the bewildered Land-Surveyor bows and takes his leave of the Mayor.
When he gets back to the inn, the Land-Surveyor informs his landlady, Gardena, that “the matter is urgent, you see, especially after the unfortunate outcome of my talk with the Mayor.” The landlady replies,
“The Mayor is a person of no importance. Haven’t you found that out? He couldn’t remain another day in his post if it weren’t for his wife, who runs everything.”1
The Lesson
Like my architect friend, we can accomplish much by first identifying those who hold real power—the administrative assistants, clerks, schedulers, and the many other people in human resources, communications, and finance. These are the gatekeepers, and while they may not have the most prominent titles or appear important or powerful, they control everything. Furthermore, some of them will move up in their jobs and become people we will want to know in the future. We are well-advised to identify those gatekeepers and begin to build friendly relationships with them: they can help us now and, perhaps, down the road.
“Always be nice to secretaries. They are the real gatekeepers in the world.”
- Anthony J. D’Angelo. [Educational Capitalist]
Kafka, Franz. The Castle. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1930-1982; published by Shocken Books, Inc., 1946 and distributed by Pantheon/Random House. Pages 76-97, 112-113. Franz Kafka supported his writing career by working in several insurance companies, where he investigated claims. He loathed the work and particularly the bureaucracy, which, paradoxically, fueled his best writing. Indeed, Kafka could paint a picture of an impenetrable and dislocating labyrinthine bureaucratic hellscape like no one else, as he did in The Castle, as well as his most famous novel, The Trial. Although his work is now treated seriously, when Kafka used to read drafts to his friends, they would all—including him—weep from laughing, as any seasoned bureaucrat might weep from laughing at the passages above.