Not to toot my own horn but I'm very good at the politics game. Probably because I used to work in politics haha. Listening, schmoozing, and positioning myself carefully while curating my personal network both in and outside of work. You basically need to figure out who to be chummy with and how to do it without brown nosing. Something you need to know is that you can't always build those direct relationships. There just might not be anything you can connect with them on. So you connect with their assistant or a peer of theirs or another out of COC direct report of theirs (like your director's peer). It also comes down to knowing when to speak up in meetings and when to keep your mouth shut. It's definitely an art not a science.