Hi Penelope

Thanks for noticing my post and linking to it !

Am honored !

Warm regards
Gautam

Thanks for bringing this subject up again. I believe it is an important one. Office politics aren’t just for suck ups. It is a way to help champion your agenda. We all have them; an increase in staffing, an increase in budget, wanting to get our fresh idea in front of a decision maker, whatever it may be.

Last month (Penelope is going to hate me here–) at the holiday party I invited my boss, a new Rear Admiral, to visit our offices and learn more about what we do. My office is short staffed, under funded, and needs a shot of support from upper management.

The only way I could accomplish this was by being nice and making this high level decision maker a member of the team. I prepared by reading his bio, talking to his secretary to find out what sort of soda he drinks (he is a diet Pepsi guy) and what newspaper he reads.

When he came up I was ready. I had diet Pepsi for him. I had his newspaper ready. I knew his past, how he could help us, and helped cultivate him as one of the team. He bought it. He offered to call in some “favors”. We chatted about our kids, our recent trips to India, and New York.

He came to my office as a distant boss and left a guy in the trenches right with us, working to accomplish a common goal. We ended up with a pledge of more money and staff! I was friendly, made him comfortable, and played the office politics game; to myadvantage.

I never “sucked up” or kissed his butt. I just treated him with respect and made him one of “us”.

I followed Penelope’s advice even before she posted it. I made time for the visit, listened to what the boss had to say, and was truly interested in his opinions and thoughts. I had a better understanding of his position and he of mine.

It sounds corny but it worked! And it was so easy being nice.

 * * * * * *

Benjamin,

Thaks for the respectful nod to the five hundred times I’ve said how much I hate holiday parties. But hey, if your comapny has one, you have to go. And there’s no better use of that time than to make your boss love you.

-Penelope 

I see Gautam’s in there politicking. But perhaps a winning smile isn’t enough. Payoffs can be part of politics as well. And I used to work for an Indian guy who told me that in India nothing happens without a bribe. Does it enter the workplace as well as b2b?

Personally, I do not really like office politics, however I do agree that if you do not play, you will be cast out.

Be an insider, stick to your principles, treat people with respect, do not back stab other people, there are many levels of politicking, at the extreme may just be your water cooler talk and gossiping and at the other extreme, it may be back stabbing a colleague to vie for a promotion. Pick the level that you want to play on, which does not violate your morals or ethics.

No man is an island.

PS: Easier said than done!

I agree with the main idea of your post - office politics are unavoidable, no matter how much you despise them and don’t want to participate. However, there can be different levels of participation. Eric is absolutely right - if you stick to your principles and don’t join the crowd in badmouthing somebody, you will only gain respect and get ahead in the office politics in the long run.

One area where I found office politics absolutely essential is taking credit. If you’re one of those people that doesn’t say much and “let your work speak for yourself”, you’re kidding yourself. If you’re not speaking up, you’re not getting credit. And you can be sure that somebody else is taking it. Every time you do something good, make sure it becomes known, otherwise nobody will realize how awesome you are for doing it :-)

All of this is true but usually when people say they want to avoid office politics or they talk about a workplace having “a lot of office politics”, they are talking about something more hardcore. No one would deny it’s good for your career to connect with people and be nice (to a point, too much chit-chat can also get you noted for being lazy and disruptive). But “office politics” usually refers to bitter factionalism between opposing ideas and personalities. I think it’s possible, even helpful, to stay out of this and get ahead.

Your description of one’s “best, true self” seems to be describing someone with an extrovert personality. This is obviously more difficult for natural introverts. I don’t think it’s true to say that it’s inherently better than introversion. The description “best, true self” makes it sound likes it’s about right and wrong but it’s not. And in a practical sense, while extroverts will have an easier time making these connections and that will benefit their career, introverts often have other things going for them and if they’re smart they can ensure these skills offset any lack in natural gregariousness.

This is a remarkable post.

As someone who has spent his whole career evaluating talent and building teams to evaluate talent, effective interpersonal skills and managing office relationships are one of the consistent gaps or deficiencies that I see people struggle with (at all levels, from individual contributors just out of college to executive leadership).

The new book Conscious Business by Fred Kofman is a must read for people interested in this topic.

I think this idea goes far deeper than ‘office politics’ and is really about human nature, and the natural barriers that humans have to communicating effectively. The Kofman book explores this in great detail, and for me personally, provided a level of self-awareness regarding these principles that I did not expect.

One doesn’t need to change to be effective at office relationships, one just to need to master the art/science of interpersonal dynamics and how human beings work together.

This will augment professional success more than nearly any other professional/personal investments that one can make.

Hi Penelope,

There’s no question that we “bring our family to work” - our biology and our biography. This is a major underlying causation of many healthy, positive, or co-dependent and dysfunctional relationships at work, relationships that are defined as “politics”.

The underlying dynamics that characterized how we relate(d) to members of our family of origin play out everyday in our life in relationship at work vis-a-vis seeking acknowledgement, safety, appreciation, recognition, approval, being “seen”, and “loved”, etc., on the one hand, and those who we choose to push away through gossiping, bullying, resisting, undermining, sabotaging, resenting, rejecting, demeaning, etc., on the other. Our ego needs for acknowledgement, recognition and security, which we developed as we grew up now play out in our adult life at work and in our “politics” at work (and at home and at play).

These psychodynamic behaviors are mostly unconscious except for those who have made an effort to do some type of “work” to become more conscious and self-aware of who they are and how they are in relationship at work.

Much of the “politics” issue points to the need of most folks to be seen, by themselves and others, as “somebody” as opposed to “nobody”. Their “political” behavior is a manifestation of this ego need…again, developed early on in childhood, and now as that same child in adult clothes and in an adult body.

Good stuff!.

* * * * * *

Peter, thanks for introducing birth order theory here. I am a big fan of birth order theory even though when I interviewed the king of birth order research, Frank Sulloway, he would confirm very little. Anyway, here’s my favorite book on the topic: Birth Order Book: Why You Are the Way You Are, by Kevin Leman.

-Penelope

It’s all about empathy. Listen rather than talk. Strive to understand. Do what matters to the other person. We call it politics when it is inauthentic and we don’t want to play that game. But you can’t just walk away from the game because you think you are too good to play. We need to learn to play the game of work in an honest, authentic manner.

Excellent point here. It now dawns on me as to why I am in the midst of “a slow, painful career death” in my short 10yrs out of school. All isn’t lost and I know where I can improve. However, I’m curious to understand how everybody else handles the constant barrage of after hours parties and weekend socials. Am I the only one who gets tired of spending 50-60 hours / week with these people and then have to be subjected to go out for drinks every other night or the commute* to my boss’s house for a barbeque on my personal time? I would much prefer to spend this time with family, friends, and hobbies then with people I would not otherwise have a connection with if I didn’t have to work with them. Also, it appears I’ll have to figure out how to handle this delicately because when I mention this point of view to my co-workers, I receive odd looks so clearly I am the only one that feels like this.

How does one balance climbing the ladder and not looking like an anti-social?

* Currently it is a 2hr commute to my Director’s house because he chooses to live in the Inland Empire of SoCal where he can afford to have a backyard.

* * * * *

Going to your boss’s house for multiple barbeques is absurd. One is nice to go to, if you can swing it.

-Penelope

Yesterday at a friends house there was an experience shared of a boss who never tolerates dissent of any sort. No ideas that conflict with his values/ideas. If one does that, either one gets transferred out of the group or out of the job.

A savvy organizational person would realise the pattern of this person’s behavior and know the futility of trying to change him.

It’s ultimately trying to understand what your strengths are and where can you most effectively deploy them :-)

* * * * * *

Gautam,

-Penelope

Dear Penelope, Thanks for this excellent post, I just realized I’m in the same position as Adam. I’ve been with my company for 8 years and I have done nothing but many long hours and not to mention 365/24/7 on call. However, everyone else seems to have moved on to better stuffs except me. I always thought of myself as the longest nobody working in my department. And of course I refuse to play the game…always thinking that my hard work and long hour sacrifice would someday pay off…

I think I’m in a battle of either start playing the game or get a new job (which will most likely require playing the game anyway). And so I have decided to join the inevitable and see how far it might take me. Thank you again for the enlightened post.

While I like this post on principle, I think the issue of politics is getting conflated with being stuck on a dead-end track.

There are many reasons one can get stuck running in place forever, and quite a few of them have little to do with politics. If you take any company over a five year period and you look at who moves up the ladder and when, some obvious patterns will emerge.

Lots of jobs lead sideways no matter who holds them or how hard they work. You need to look at where you want to go and who else is in line and how long they’ve been there. It’s also worth comparing yourself to your peers at your own level and judging how much like them you look. If they’re all younger and have been there half as long, time to move on. In many, perhaps most cases, if you’re a good value creator you will have an easier time proving your potential to a new employer than convincing your management to let you out of the cage, especially if you do a really good job at something no one else wants to do.

Politics, on the other hand, is an issue that affects you anywhere, and almost always gets worse the more you are on the “fast track.” Especially in larger companies, it is important to know who is talking to whom and about what. One of the worst beatings I ever took in my career happened largely because I underestimated the willingness of a certain person to repeatedly question my competency behind my back. My general experience is that the more competent people are, the less of this goes on, which gives some sense of when you have to be most on guard for it.

 * * * * * * *

Hi, Colin. What I like about your comment is that you lay out so many different aspects of office politics. But, alas, it’s all politics.

If you are not on a good track, for example, it’s your job to figure out how to move yourself. And the best way to move yourself from a bad position to a good position is via office politics: Find out where the good positions are, find out who can get you there, and befriend them. Or maybe you’ll find out where the good positions are and you’ll find out you can’t get there, and you’ll go to another company. No matter what, it starts with politics.

The worst thing to do in a career is to approach a problem thinking you have no control over it. You can control everything becuase you choose how you work and you choose where you work. The fine tuning of all this is the politics.

Finally, competent people do office politics so competently that it looks like it’s not politics but rather just being nice. -Penelope

Penelope,

Thanks for your response. I think that most people recognize a difference between positive politics, where people are maneuvering for ends that are broadly well-intentioned, and negative politics, where people are seeking private advantage or working from more mixed motives. Of course, the difference can easily be in the eye of the beholder, but I think it’s worth distinguishing between the two, if only for the sake of discussion, lest we say that all politics are simply business as usual and the term loses its usefulness.

The only other bone I’d pick is that it strikes me as being very focused on people trying to improve their lot within their existing employers. I’m a little of two minds about this. On one hand I think that it’s easy for some people to blame the company for their own flaws, I think it’s equally easy for others to do the opposite. So, I guess what I’d say is that you need to give things time to make changes, but not too much time.

Penelope,

I like this post quite a bit and think that you are absolutely correct that nobody can afford to ignore office politics.

Similar to Colin, I think, I have noticed that the people who complain about office politics the most are people that:

- feel like their job wants them to ‘pretend’ to be somebody that they are not.
- are in a job that is a bad match for their skills and aspirations.
- are sullen and discontent without knowing what to do about it.
- are afraid of the unknown and resist change.

I think, in the right environment, office politics can be challenging. In the wrong environment, it can be debilitating. A better use of emotional capital would be an honest self-assessment and work toward finding a new job that is a better fit.

Hey Penelope… did you notice the Peggy Noonan article in last weekend’s Wall Street Journal about “being nice”? I referenced it in my recent post on the topic, about how “nice” can be a two-edged sword. http://carpefactum.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/03/putting_it_on_n.html

“Office politics aren’t just for suck ups.”

“When he came up I was ready. I had diet Pepsi for him. I had his newspaper ready. I knew his past, how he could help us, and helped cultivate him as one of the team. He bought it.”

“I was friendly, made him comfortable, and played the office politics game; to myadvantage.”

“I never “sucked up” or kissed his butt.”

Ok, first, I’d like to point out that having his diet Pepsi ready, his newspaper, etc. is indeed sucking up and kissing his butt.

Secondly, and more importantly, your other comments bring up the exact thing that I hate about office politics: it is a game, nothing more. If he ‘bought it’ when you ‘played the office politics game’, how are you being this rosy picture of a perfect person as Penelope expresses, and not sucking up and kissing his butt?

Sure, being nice *to those in power* is obviously a part of playing this game, and if you have a good boss, it’s not that hard. My main issue is when you have to do that kind of thing to jackass superiors for which you have little respect or that you may even downright despise. I just feel dirty and sleazy when I think about having to act like this towards someone whom I wouldn’t give the sweat off my balls to if they were dying of thirst.

And, as someone already pointed out, when talking about ‘office politics,’ people are usually referring to that backstabber who is nice to your face but talks down about you to the boss (and eventually convincing the boss that you’re a bad worker/not a team player/not as good as the backstabber/etc.). And, usually, this is indeed a power play for more/better projects. It’s difficult for normal, decent people to lower themselves to playing this kind of game, playing the boss against others, especially in self defense type situations. It is this type of ‘office politics’ that give people the most issue.

I work in a company where almost everyone sucks, except me. I was being laid off just because I do not know how to please my lady boss. Now that i have left the company and embarking on a new career soon, I am very concern the nightmares I had in my previous company will haunt on me - retrenchment. I knew I have a problem in interacting with people / colleague. Most of the time, I would require more time to understand the person before I open up myself. I guess this is mainly because i am an introvert by nature.
Please advise how do I overcome my shyness before I was being retrenched due to poor socialising.

* * * * * * *
It’s not just the shyness you have to overcome. Here are other things you need to get over:
Your sexist attitude toward female management - you add a gender qualifier to your boss in your comment yet none is necessary unless you have a hard time with women.
Your arrogance - someone there doesn’t suck becuase they’re earning enough to give you a paycheck.
Your misunderstanding about what skills are important at work - at this point, the only skill you need to work on is being kind. You need to understand why you do not feel kind toward other people and what you can do to change that.

-Penelope

I find this article to be just the opposite of what is really happening. My belief is that people continously politic not to better themselves, but to get ahead because they really do not know what they are doing in the first place so they use that to move to the next level. Think of it this way…you can be the best at what you do, read books to better yourself and get advice outside the work place. These are the people I find to be better all around but because they dont “politic” they dont get ahead…Interesting….

ch� luogo piacevole. lo gradisco, yeah, io!)))

sto andando dire ai miei amici circa questo luogo - � solo perfetto!

Here is much work done, obviously. Good site