Can you recommend a resource for learning personal skills and politics? Books or something? How does one do this, exactly? Just show up for meetings and be nice to people? This kind of reminds me when a dorky buddy of mine suddenly became an expert in "The Game". He went from tolerable dork to "call the cops" creepy in a matter of weeks amongst female company. I can imagine a similar technically proficient but socially mal-adjusted IT guy making a similar transformation when they try to apply their engineering problem solving skills to office politics.
Yea... a lot of socially inept guys who get into "The Game" are like that. Most don't make it out. I was an instructor for a while at one of those companies, and all that stuff only makes sense to someone who already GETS IT on a basic level socially. Otherwise, you just get weird. The unmentioned first step is "Go become a normal, socially aware human being who occurs as normal to other people". Tell your friend I said that, and tell him to go look at Sinn's little ebook on the subject.
Where there's a will, there's a relative.