Office Politics: Survival of the Savvy

There’s one skill everybody at work wishes they were better at, but you won’t find it taught in MBA courses: office politics.

Tales of political sabotage, power plays and turf wars are part of any organization’s history. Nonetheless, political competence is the one skill everyone wishes to have more of — but no one admits to it.

Political competence is the “ability to understand what you can and cannot control, when to take action, who is going to resist your agenda, and whom you need on your side. It’s about knowing how to map the political terrain and get others on your side, as well as lead coalitions,” according to Prof. Samuel B. Bacharach who wrote Getting Them On Your Side, 2005.

Defining Political Savvy

It’s naive to suggest that all office politics are destructive and unethical. If you define politics in such a narrow and negative way, you overlook the value of political awareness and skill. When political astuteness is combined with ethics and integrity, it can produce positive results for you, your team and your organization.

By avoiding or denying its existence, you underestimate how political behavior can destroy careers, a company’s reputation and overall performance. If you define politics in only negative terms, you are naively under-political, which leaves you vulnerable to overly political, self-serving individuals.

Three Phases of Political Competence

Political competence can be developed in an ethically sound way with a three-phase process.

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Comments

[Jerome Alexander]

Office politics saps an organization of valuable resources and talent. Instead of worrying about who is winning and losing in these silly games, attention needs to be focused on what's really important to the survval and growth of the organization. I place much of the blame for office politics on the top echelons of the organization who usually have no clue as to what's really going on in the ranks below them. Read more in "160 Degrees of Deviation: The Case for the Corporate Cynic." Yhis is critique of the corporate culture from a totally different perspective.