How do “Office Politics” impact on success?
How important is understanding office politics to success?
What types of actions are acceptable and what types of actions unacceptable, or is it all fair in love and war?
Where can you learn how to “play the game”?
In the past month I’ve come across three organisations that are being paralysed by Office Politics. Paralysed because as the Executive Directors vie for power, influence and defend their positions the company’s productivity is falling as people watch the “Bloodletting” that’s going on at the top. Indications of the negative effects are already beginning to show up through loss of morale and some key staff working on their CVs.
One of the major problems with “Office Politics” is that there is almost no training in how to handle the negative aspects and how, if used appropriately, it can improve productivity. Instead the subtle art of working with office politics is left up to individuals to experiment with as their career progresses.
Another problem is that the phrase “office politics” has such a negative context as it’s associated with stolen ideas, cliques, manipulation, shifting blame and so on. The greatest problem is when office politics spills out from the boardroom and affects the rest of the employees.
* Employees feel uneasy
* Morale drops as cliques are formed
* Some employees will enjoy the spectacle of the board or senior management in conflict
* Productivity falls
* Top talent starts to look for other opportunities
* Turnover increases
One thing to consider is that when the CEO and other senior people behave politically then that legitimises similar behaviour lower down the organisation.
The politically unskilled feel that office politics is something played by others but not by themselves. The skilled, however:
* Network – make friends with those with influence
* Build a support system
* Seed ideas at different levels in the business simultaneously
Two areas of competence in particular stand out as being essential for people wanting to prosper in their career. Effective communication skills is one. For instance, we are all familiar with project reports that have an executive summary. For some this is sufficient to gain an understanding of the report content but for others the detail in the main report is important. Understanding and accepting the differences of how people approach their work is vital to being able to work effectively with them.
The second attribute is being well informed and well known. Having a large and effective internal network is both a source of information to be tapped and is a provider of “profile”.
People within organisations will often admit that addressing the political issues would be difficult. Having said that a business that trains its people to use office politics effectively and appropriately tend to win in the competition stakes.
Finally, office politics need not to be seen as being wholly negative. Because on a good day getting things done and moving the organisation forward – against all the odds – is progress. Indeed with the appropriate political skills and using them for corporate goals they can provide a competitive advantage.