Play office politics without getting dirty

Ok I have played the polititcal game and managed to get things under control but suddenly someone ruined it.

He (one rank above) planned to edge out his competitor (me)because we were working on several projects and despite keeping a reasonably low profile I totally outdo a senior. Somehow he managed to get support from few other seniors (that I have tamed) to take his side. Initially I accepted the bullying from these seniors and even their friends. They see me as a threat coz by our local standards I normally outdo the middle/lower middle shelf . Instead of a retaliation I befriended them in my attempt to move on. Maybe the others see this as an opportunity to launch another attack to eleminate their competitor.

They collaborated and got the boss to turn her tail around. Due to majority’s pressure she fired me.

How could I have done better?

Please email ideas to carryadeel@yahoo.com

My comments are given as a possibility. An idea to discuss:
Office politics, in and of itself, isn’t good or bad. The effects of it and from whose perspective one views those effects is what we judge as good or bad. If we think of the goal of working — of doing business — it changes the perspective and the complexion of workplace politics. I agree there are bad managers and co-workers. Deception, devious practices, illegal activity are all destructive to people, projects, companies, and ultimately our customers. The source of the problem, though, might be found in how we view our relationships. Relationships exist in all kinds of forms and contexts. The workplace is one context. There’s a change occuring in today’s workplace. More and more, we are having to do business differently than we might have during the industrial era or guilded age. The hierarchy of presidents, vice presidents, managers and supervisors holding positions to direct people to meet production goals doesn’t work so well anymore. We still produce products, but we are also seeing a shift from organizations that focus on delivering products to ones that deliver services – services to its customers, to its shareholders, to its internal business units. People are having to rely on each other in the context of teams with shared responsibility to their customer. The innovation of Henry Ford was moving the production line, not the people on the production line. But when asked if the company should produce cars painted different colors, Ford said, “Yes, as long as that color is black.” Efficiency produced profit, and customer experience was secondary. Today, the successful leaders are leading by example and empowering their employees to make the business decisions that used to be made by the Rockefellers, Eastman’s, and Fords of the 20th century. We no longer compete effectively when the workplace is controlled by the individual, who has a leadership title and spends his/her time in meetings where all the decisions are made (or no decision is made.) The dependence on shared information (knowledge)and how that knowledge is leveraged to create and innovate requires a shared mind set and shared leadership. Positions and titles will always exist, but to remain competitive, business must encourage collaboration from the top-down and the bottom-up. Workplace politics, in the common sense, are relationship dynamics between people who happen to be managers who manage, workers who work, and company leaders who are supposed to come up with the corporate goals and strategy. That is, behavior exhibited among people will always exist, but how that plays a part in today’s business world must change. The ideal is: Shared leadership — empower workers to be leaders in thought and innovation. Make an enviroment where we can fearlessly pursue change and innovation in the positions we currently hold. Shared responsibility – motivate me and give me incentive to participate in reaching a common purpose/service to the customer. What promise does it hold? Shared minds -encourage and support a collaborative environment. I need diversity of opinion, experience, and skills to accomplish the goal. Innovation today depends on collaboration, no longer the inventiveness and greatness of one person. If successful in setting this kind of stage, the workplace politicos (who view success in terms of individual power and achievement) will have to move to a company that is less mature, less competitive, and less rewarding. From whose perspective would that be “good” or “bad”?

I really don’t know playing office politics is too good or bad, for the record, I am 27 yrs. old and I have lost my job 2 days back, coz of this office politics. But what I felt, people bad at working in their expertise field, often take O.P. to boom into professional career. I was best at what I was doing for last 4 yrs. and look at me, I am looking at an end when I have just started my career.

Politics? Hah… Who won’t face it… in order to get promotion easily and effectively, my colleauge back stab to higher rank in the company. She just a few months from the company and think this is the best way to get promoted easily. She always talks about other people wrong, and she did a great job. BUT SHE did WRONG! Well, this is the person i must handle now…

Office politics, its gotta be a hit. Everyone likes to voice there own opinion and sometimes its just worth hearing. What good is it if you know the awnser before the Corp,executives,mangers come up with the solution? How does that reflect apon you as a team player?

Your article was timely. As an executive career advisor, I frequently work with people who get crosswise with office politics or office politicos. Only rarely are the differences in the area of “illegal or unethical”. They’re usually differences in culture or management philosophy. I usually use a sports analogy to help a client understand the business climate where they work. Example: Athletes who choose to play for Bobby Knight, collegiate basketball coach at Texas Tech. Some work places are difficult and challenging, it is up to each individual to decide if they can surive (or thrive) in a certain setting. Frequently, just a change of personal attitude makes the workplace more enjoyable. The workplace didn’t change, the person did.

I have seen some bad office politics. As part of management, I can say that I have seen first hand that several of my superiors are they themselves backstabbing, two-faced, manipulative liars. At least one supervisor got his position by getting the old one fired, and he hadn’t been employed there for more than six months. The shift supervisor has suspended people for being drunk, yet has let others work out the shift when they were obviously under the influence. Other managers will tell on each other to the supervisors in an effort to get the other in trouble. Teamwork? Not at my job.

This article did bring out some points, however, I think I would like to state that there is a culture in an organization. After you know the culture of the organization, you can get advantage to join your culture group, or probably your problems start. And there is always cultural shock… and a period you can try to adopt it.

oh, maybe then it’s politics to make you go to another advance stage…

Great post! Yes, it is possible (and advisable) to play intelligent office politics. As I suggest, play “bear” politics – take the upper road to play politics for the sake of the team, department or company rather than just yourself AND keep your “sense of smell” alert to sniff out danger before it happens. A bear knows how to maintain intelligent relationships.

Marina Bacchetti’s comment is right on the money – “You have to be authentic. The cardinal rule of good politics is: If it isn’t really you, don’t do it.” This is the most important thing for me. No artifice, no acting. Treat people fairly, do what is right, and work hard. Simple, old-fashioned values that never really go out of style.”

I bet Marina works for a great company. Most of us in America no longer work for great companies. As America’s global competitiveness declines (see economic charts) – the practical value of Annie’s tips increases.

However, the downward spiral is always short lived. It stops when we hit the bottom. And that’s where Annie’s tips will stop being helpful. We will either regenerate – per Marina’s old-fashioned values of hard work and fair play. Or, we’ll adopt the styles of our foreign owners. Ironically, they’ll teach us – that the best office politics is – “work hard & play fair” !

It all starts from the top management. If top managers reward good performance and has little tolerance for back stabbing and rude behaviour, that culture will flow down. At Agilent’s IT dept we worked hard long hours during our spin off from HP, only to be told by our CIO that he wants to “raise the bar”. No one objected but in my experience the managers that have no respect for my time has no respect for me. Sure enough, we were all laid off and our jobs offshored to India. I trained them to take over my jobs and my opinion is that they are excellent liars – Indians and Parkistanis have no qualms lying about their abilities and qualifications on their resumes to get our jobs.

Note to others who experienced bad behaviour – In the three separate occassions, I was publically yelled at by colleagues – once for giving a compliment, another time for telling another colleague that he made the same mistake the third time. I was too nice and did not react… in retrospect I should have complained to HR and to their managers.

I think office workers who are the “real deal” and who are confident in him/herself to get the job done don’t have to play office politic. Only those who lack the skills/experience in the office need that “office political” boost to sustain their job. Someone who uses office politics to climb the corporate latter has litter or no respect from me. Those who are in real power often the one who are compassionated about their job, their co-workers, and have very interest or time in office politics. If you give me a name of a person who climb to the top of the corporate latter by pure office politics, I’ll give you my post in Iraq for a year.

The article is great in a general kind of way, but how do you actually avoid being a target for office politics and maybe you can also shed light on how to win the battle of office politics

One reason why debacles such as ENRON happen is often because bad behavior is rewarded. While human beings everywhere on the planet will often be less than perfect, the American workplace has clearly suffered in the recent years because of politics.

A Little politics is understandable and may be tolerated by most people but when that is the only way to go about life, sooner or later that organization suffers its consequences.

i think the number one rule of office politics is “the boss is always right”. this applies to everyone. when its not possible to make everyone happy or if you dont like/know kissing…guess what, your problems start.

“You have to be authentic. The cardinal rule of good politics is: If it isn’t really you, don’t do it.” This is the most important thing for me. No artifice, no acting. Treat people fairly, do what is right, and work hard. Simple, old-fashioned values that never really go out of style.

I think that a lot of it has to do with one’s personality type. Some people are just not cut out to play politics–they’re too straightforward or just don’t understand it. Others know how to play the game, but find it distasteful. Yet, for those who know how to play and don’t mind doing it, playing politics pays and is really just a nod to reality.

I was involved in an office politics were I was in great terms with almost everybody but the office secretary. She was a very jealous and critical personality. I had to confront her in the end. Looking back, I should have judged her character and dealt with her in a timely fashion. Life would have been easier had I not underestimated her.

Politics are positive and negative depending on the person and organizational culture.

At a previous job I didn’t fit in, though I tried really hard, and ended up being the sacrificial lamb for someone else. Lucky for me I was smart enough to put my resume out and be gone in under two months.

This is such a deep topic it is tough to get its real essence in a short article or post.

Being in an IT operations shop, many folks don’t recognize the need to play politics. I used to be that kind of person, and I was passed over for a promotion that I had been promised. Several years ago, politics in general really began to interest me, and I started practicing what I learned. Since then, I have received a promotion and built relationships across the department. The key to me is to give whenever I can, take whenever I must, and above all, be genuine. No one likes someone who comes across as slick.

The politics that are used in this company are kissing up to the ‘important’ managers and supervisors. I have seen th is almost on a daily basis. Another problem is our HR shows favortism to people which does not help those who refuse to kiss up to them. Any suggestions on this dilemma?