These days you have to be an office politician

ll/f" FRIENDS orreN ask me, "Don't you miss working for a big company and all its IVlbenefits?" The answer is emphatically, "No." Nobody could quite understand it when I walked away 12 years ago. Even I looked at myself and said I must be crazy! But the truth is, I knew that I did not have the stomach or acumen to be the politician I sadly needed to be to survive in what was tantamount to me putting my head through a brick wall over and over again and expecting a different result each time.

In today's workplace, office politics suggests favoritism, self promotion, and backstabbing. In the end, sadly, we all see it and often succumb to it. Of course, office politics is not new, but it seems to be worse than ever. Perhaps due to the limited opportunities for growth in most companies, self aggrandizement seems to be necessary to get ahead or keep your job. If you do not participate, you run the risk of losing your job and career path. We all see it and watch it often succeed, although it may sicken us inside.

The reality is that most people do not have a choice and have to come to terms with it. Jobs are hard to find. Most people find a coping mechanism and a way to join in. As a management leader you have to recognize that it exists in your organization and your management team. Develop your own skills to manage it and be careful how you foster it. Politics can be positive. Frankly, when done properly, most people appreciate and even admire it. But we also observe over our business life the unfair side of things, when someone gets an undeserved pay raise or is promoted over someone else obviously due to sucking up to the boss.

One of the issues I struggled with was, who do you believe? When I have an idea, I ask for opinions. Then whose opinion do I trust? Critical is identifying who is telling me what they think I want to hear and who is too scared to speak up.

I recently read a definition of political skill as the ability to understand and effectively influence others for personal or organizational benefit. So using my 80/20 rule, I have observed that most office politics has been 80Vo for personal benefit and 2O%o for organizational benefit. I often think how great it would be and what success a manager or company would have if it were reversed to 80Vo for organizational benefit and 20Vo for personal. How could your company unlock its true potential if BS could be minimized?

Being good at positive politics is about being able to adjust your behavior to different people and situations, and being able to build support for your views in a way that lets peers become believers. When you have that skill, you become a real winner. In fact, exceptional political skills become invisible to everyone else. That's because you are seen to be real, authentic, smart and effective-as opposed to manipulative and full of it. And there lies the issue in too many companies-that type of person is not encouraged by those above who are protecting their turf. Rarely are we so lucky to work with a political, organization-focused colleague or manager, but how many times in our career do we end up working for the self-serving one? And, sadly, over my career I have observed the latter succeed over and over again without ever getting found out.

To be a good leader in these situations, you have to think before you speak and really lay out your presentation of an idea. You must manage and massage it up and downwards for institutional buy in, and involve the "influencers" in the decision process. The end result is that the best decisions set made. there are better relationships, and more cooperation. This political style is seen as positive, not negative, and perhaps sets you up for the next promotion or review, and everyone will applaud when you are successful. The good news is that you didn't have to step on anyone, and that certainly feels better when you look at yourself in the mirror every day.

Alan Oakes, Publisher aioakes@aol.com

www. bu ildi n g-prod ucts. com

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