The good news is that by mid November, who is or isn’t the best candidate will be a moot point. But in the meantime, there are political-discussion booby traps wherever you go. And these situations — in or out of the office — with co-workers can be particularly hazardous.

Most of us learned a long time ago that money, sex, religion and politics are topics best left to discussions away from the office. Few people will be swayed or “enlightened” by water-cooler debates, but many will feel uncomfortable, threatened or harassed when co-workers or supervisors start to pontificate about their favorite candidate, issue or party.

Below are eight reasons why talking politics at work can be a waste of time at best and a potential disaster at worst:

1. Disagreement can be interpreted as disapproval or poor judgment.

If your opinion about, say, abortion or the death penalty differs from your supervisor’s, it may be hard for her to not question your judgment on other subjects, as well. Even if others accept your political position, just knowing that you disagree with theirs might make them question your ability to be a team player.

2. Even political discussions with people who agree can be hazardous.

The person you are talking to may totally agree with your opinions. Unfortunately, there is the possibility that your conversations will be overheard, misunderstood and/or repeated by someone else. And this kind of office “scuttlebutt” can have disastrous effects on even the most promising career.

3. Silence is not necessarily golden.

Even if you decide to only listen to the discussion, your silence can be interpreted as a sign of agreement. It’s OK to “suddenly” remember a call or e-mail that you need to return.

4. Team spirit can be shattered by political extremism.

Every office needs to maintain certain levels of respect and camaraderie to meet management’s goals. Political debates tend to dilute the team spirit.

5. Few political discussions really include a discussion.

What most people who want to “discuss” politics really want is to tell others about their own views.

6. Political discussions often end badly.

People who have strong feelings about politically sensitive topics or candidates can inflict unintentional damage on those who disagree, as well as on their own effectiveness within the office. The result is that hard feelings persist long after the conversation has ended.

7. Give the First Amendment a break.

Some workers insist that they are entitled to talk about politics at the office because free speech is a constitutional right. But they need to remember that such discussions can — and almost always do — have a negative effect on the workplace, i.e., they need to reexamine “right” as a noun vs. “right” as an adjective, because discussing politics at work is rarely the right thing to do.

8. You have better things to do with your time.

Unless you are a paid political consultant, it’s a fair bet that you are not being paid to share and debate your position on candidates or issues. The office is not the place to discuss politics for a variety of reasons, but the most important one is that you’re being paid to work — not campaign.

The bottom line is that your boss and colleagues will be happier if you remember that the office functions best when it’s a politics-free zone.

By: Connie Glaser

About the Author:

Coupon Organizer

In almost every working environment we are faced with office politics. It seems to find a way of involving us and usually not by choice. The key to coping with these circumstances without crossing any ethical boundaries is to first and foremost decide what is of importance to you- the short term chance of promotion or the long term value of your professional development, which can take a life time to build but can serve as inspiration for life times to come.

Some people think that they should avoid office politics all together, but statistics have shown that those who understand and use these politics are more likely to succeed than those who dismiss it all together.

As Andrew DuBrin once said “to ignore office politics is to ignore those underlining forces that account for the differences in success between equally talented people”.

There are two different types of office politics, good and bad. Which ever one you choose to participate in is solely up to you. First you must distinguish between the two.

Bad politics can consist of:

Withholding or delaying information that may be needed Deliberately holding meetings or making decisions without all parties necessary Arranging scenarios that make others look bad or set them up for failure Discrediting the efforts of others or taking credit when it is not deserved Not delivering on promises made or denying the legitimate requests of others for your benefit Giving false support or advice in order to serve your own agenda Complaining, criticizing, wasting time on gossiping or harassing others

Good politics can consist of:

Going out of your way to insure the success of others even when it serves no purpose or benefit to you Building trust, the key to building trust is through consistency and understanding Your peers feeling comfortable to come to you with their questions and or issues Creating a lighter environment in times of stress Seeing things through to the end, not abandoning people mid way

To show leadership you must first of all understand office politics as well as the times to participate in it. In the CMC Pinpoint what you want and why
Identify who controls what you need
Find out who can get you what you need
Figure out what you need to do what you want
Go for it with determination and resolve
Watch out for the harmful politics of others as you go (ethical)
Protect yourself along the way

Circumstances we face in life can take away everything we have worked hard to acquire; everything except our name, for it is the essence of who we are. The only way we can lose this is if we make the conscious decision and are willing to give it up.

So in the end you must ask yourself, is a promotion worth your name?

By: Fred Sarkari

About the Author:

business marketing strategies

Nasty office politics are promoted and reinforced when organizations send the message that backbiting, underhandedness and manipulation are the quickest ways to get ahead. But nasty office politics hurts everyone. It forces people to develop a cover-your-back mentality and resort to deceptive and manipulative behavior. It also fosters a hostile work environment. To avoid engaging in nasty office politics read on:

Do not gossip about or bad mouth anyone who works in your organization.
Do not criticize co-workers or subordinates in public, even if you belive they deserve it. By criticizing people in public, you humiliate them and make other employees who are within earshot of your conversation uncomfortable. Also, you set you and the other person up to be the target of office gossip. People have a tendency to repeat what they hear and once the rumors start, you will not be able to stop them.
If you plan to challenge the status quo, do your homework and do it with tact. Many senior level managers strongly believe in the company’s longstanding policies and practices and may view challenging the status quo as a personal attack.

Don’t be a habitual whiner. Nobody likes a chronic complainer. If the job or organization is that bad take the necessary steps to change your situation.

Don’t pass off someone else’s work or ideas as your own. It will leave a lasting mark of hostility. And it speaks volumes about your character.
When dealing with someone who engages in nasty office politics try to keep your distance. If his/her behavior is directed toward you try to resolve the issue. If the person is unwilling to stop, document the incident or incidents and gather your facts so that you can describe the incident to the appropriate parties in detail. Then, follow your company’s protocol for dealing with this kind of behavior.
Keep in mind that when you engage in nasty office politics everyone loses.

By: Cassandra Mack

About the Author:

business marketing strategy

When most people hear the phrase “organizational politics,” they react very negatively. They see politics in the workplace as forming clicks and another way to keep those who go against the status quo labeled as an outsider. People also think that it’s a toxic dynamic that allows manipulative behaviors for people to get what they want by stepping on their co-workers’ backs. But not every instance of workplace politicking is a selfish maneuver to win.

The text “Building Great Teams: Charting the Path of Organizational Politics” (Book Surge, 2007) takes you inside one of the greatest team building organizations in the world, the United States Marine Corps, to examine and discover the strategies that business leaders must be willing to learn, use and employ for building ordinary groups into extraordinary teams; leading the right team of commandos who understand what it takes to win on the business battlefield and defeat workplace politics using warfare as the key to experience a significant win. The strategies within the text defines workplace and office politics as “the path to smart growth…using the power to accelerate the careers of high potential future leaders and teams power in the workplace.” It implies that office politics are not always negative, but offer opportunities for greatness. And while workplace politics aren’t necessarily avoidable, people can learn to understand their purpose, find their voice and understand how-to strengthen and build the teams dynamics and interpersonal communications skills – all while managing responsibilities with tact, poise, and polish.

The game of politics, when understood how-to use it as a strategic weapon, helps to successfully chart the path of personal and professional growth as the essential task to achieve personal mastery from the results of peak performance. Organizational politics also offers the hidden treasures that allow people to stand-out from the crowd. They learn to demonstrate their ability to navigate the maze of successful team building – a task that is viewed as positive organizational behavior from the individual that is perceived as an extraordinary leader. This is the type of person that others seek to follow and emulate for the greatness they wish to develop for themselves.

Workplace Politics vs. The Battlefield Engagement

Just as in any military engagement, in order to win one must know the rules better than his/her competitor to outsmart them on the battlefield. It also is beneficial to be a part of the right team for controlling the elements of the battlefront. However, some might claim the workplace and the military are very different in many ways. Thinking from this approach causes significant missteps in organizational politics. There are significant issues that are similar in the workplace and on a military battlefield. For starters, the one constant is “people.” Any time that people are involved in a scenario, decision-making must play a role in the ability to win. Using the strategies from the United States Marine Corps, people are responsible for making critical decisions from the highest ranking officer down to the lowest ranking enlisted – and the decision could mean life or death.

Well, the same goes for the workplace. People are responsible for making critical decisions that could mean that the organization acquires strategic assets (executive suite decisions) or that a customer is treated in a way that causes them to continue doing business with the organization. Both can be seen as life or death for the organization. As seen with Wachovia bank, a decision from the top level leadership was made to acquire Westgate Financial to boost their mortgage business. When the U.S. mortgage markets and industry imploded during the financial crisis, the organization was effected with incredible implications – it became the beginning of the end for one of the country’s largest banks and people lost careers and more. Similar to the likes of a military battlefield engagement and a series of wrong decisions made by leadership, loss of life was experienced.

But what most people fail to realize is that the workplace is too a battlefield. Business is warfare and those who understand how to navigate the politics always win. Consider the game of chess. Chess can be low-key and quiet, a friendly game between friends. Or it can be explosive and highly competitive, set amid a crowd of observers, where the ultimate winner reaps world-wide accolades. Consider the skill behind the game of chess. It requires well-planned strategy and a great deal of mental acuity and patience, not to mention years of practice to reach an elite status.

These are the same skills required by a great leader, one who has the ability to guide an organization and one who understands the world of workplace politics. On the other hand, while playing a game such as chess, there can only be a single winner where there often can be a more neutral outcome in the world of workplace politics. With the proper skills of negotiation and influence, savvy leadership might be able to create a win-win situation.

The Truth about Politics in the Workplace

Politics will always be part of an organization because people are people. The dynamic relationships of individuals who run a business enterprise play an important part in how the business operates: How the mission map, posture statements, vision, values and organizational culture is forged. And while the average Jane or Joe might feel like they are being run over by co-workers who manipulate the system, bully, gossip, backstab and brown nose to get what they want, there is more to workplace politics than those negative daily encounters. The quintessential aspect of organizational politics is the team. Building great teams’ hits at one of the most discussed topics in business media and the workplace: Organizational Behavior, transformational leadership, organizational renewal and inter-office politics. The day of the individual worker is over, as today’s business arena demands that workers possess the ability to effectively work as team units that consistently produce extraordinary outcomes from their performance. It is a scenario all top leaders and managers knows well: The organization, their people, and their systems all require efficient and effective processes to remain constant in its approach to move quickly toward new and innovative ways of reaching mission-critical objectives.

Good leaders are a thing of the past, as global economies now require more than good – they seek greatness and ordinary just does not fit the bill any longer. They now require the ordinary to be “extraordinary.” The new battlefield in the workplace requires the extraordinary leaders’ understanding of workplace politics and the accompanying landscape to be significant. They can no longer work in the old silos of the past that was developed by the silly political conflicts. No, these extraordinary leaders can no longer exhibit the behaviors that ultimately invite disaster. This is not to say that leaders of the past demonstrated the behaviors that put-up with negative politics that caused disastrous outcomes nor does it imply every good leader has found his/her way to the top of the heap by climbing over the bodies of crushed co-workers. It simply means that leadership understands workplace politics well enough to use them as “strategic weapons” to produce positive returns without the mud slinging and backsliding of unethical and immoral actions.

Understanding how-to chart the path of organizational politics means being able to maneuver using political warfare to enhance the organization’s ability to rise to the top of its industry, without leaving one of its warriors lying wounded on the battlefield. It means having a well crafted Battleplan, understanding the players, building positive alliances and coalition of forces, using the art of war as a significant warfighting strategy that all stakeholders understand and buy-in to for winning, and finally, developing a compelling case study for the associates of the organization to understand the comprehensive approach for integrating strategic human capital and team development initiatives into the fold.

Convert Uniqueness into Ultimate Power

The best leaders are the people that understand the nature of warfare in dealing with and overcoming workplace politics. These are the men and women who have a tone on the pulse of the workplace – internal and external – and know what it takes to remain on task “ethically” to lead others into greatness. Here are five important things to know about politically savvy leaders:

http://www.walterboronews.info/archives/411 http://www.walterboronews.info/archives/411#comments Sat, 04 Sep 2010 08:49:21 +0000 admin http://www.walterboronews.info/archives/411

As I am no longer involved in Corporate Office affairs I am conscious in writing this article I am in danger of sounding like a grumpy old man. But in relation to corporate office politics I saw something this week that astounded me.

In The Times of London on a management and business page there was a write up with photograph of a chap who coaches people in how to succeed at office politics. I only glanced at the article but it stayed with me.

As someone who has run major corporate businesses and eventually went on to found my own businesses it caused me to reflect. My style of management was to be open to avoid confusion and office politics by keeping everyone in the business informed on what we were attempting to achieve. It was their lively hood after all.

We worked hard at a structured briefing method, departmental groups were informed by the head of department what the latest issues were. The heads of department had been briefed by me and it was mandatory that any questions were answered there and then. If an answer was not possible the question had to be fed back to me and I would give the answer. The meetings were monthly.

This method of communication worked brilliantly, as we were able to bring about major change and re-organisation including job losses without any repercussions that threatened the business. There could be no corporate office politics because every one was fully briefed and all knew what the situation was.

The article about coaching people how to succeed at corporate office politics is the opposite of what is needed. To succeed we all need to work together with common goals. This applies in any business and honest open communication is an essential in this process.

However, I also have another take on it. The chap who has developed the course is obviously selling to the large corporates and getting coverage in one of the top newspapers. Which shows that there is a market. So best of luck to him for having the initiative to spot the opportunity.

Which leads me to another point that you have heard me go on about before. When you have your own business you see opportunity every where. Just another reason for escaping the office politics and exploiting the opportunities which are there for us.

By: Michael Harrison

About the Author:

Business Marketing

There are many resemblances between politics and management. One of them is that they both share the development of Policies.
Where should your company differ from a political institution in order to be successful?

A policy is like a map that serves to guide an organization into a certain direction. A governmental policy serves in the same way to guide citizens. The resemblance between government and management is even more striking for larger corporations with the practice of corporate governance;

Corporate governance is the set of processes, customs, policies, laws and institutions affecting the way a corporation is directed, administered or controlled. Corporate governance also includes the relationships among the many players involved (the stakeholders) and the goals for which the corporation is governed. The principal players are the shareholders, management and the board of directors. Other stakeholders include employees, suppliers, customers, banks and other lenders, regulators, the environment and the community at large. (www.wikipedia.org)

This means that politics and business converge with the size of a corporation and with the increasing number of stakeholders – especially the environment and the community.

…An important part of corporate governance deals with accountability, fiduciary duty and mechanisms of auditing and control. In this sense, corporate governance players should comply with codes to the overall good of all constituents.

And with this increase in size the “codes” (policies) increase as well. Both politics and organization deal with credibility. Politicians are facing a hard time to remain credible because of the enormous number of issues they are dealing with and which they need to respond to with a coherent line of policy. The more they deviate from this line the less credible they appear to be.

Larger organization can narrow their focus which will make it easier to pursue a consistent policy.
The difference between government (and governmental organizations) and market organizations is that the former lacks a strategy.

In line with this reasoning, and observing real politics, a company that lacks a strategy will have a hard time implementing a policy.
Or put differently; make sure that you elaborate a sound strategy if you do not want (internal) political debates leading you nowhere.

http://www.walterboronews.info/archives/324 http://www.walterboronews.info/archives/324#comments Fri, 27 Aug 2010 23:47:28 +0000 admin http://www.walterboronews.info/archives/324

To influence others and get them enthusiastically behind your plans, do you rely on persuasion or politics? Research shows that smart executives use both to build a power base to get things done through others.

Persuasion has four elements:

1. Credibility: Credibility is built on trust and expertise, and it must be earned. People will believe you have expertise and are worthy of their trust if you exercise sound judgment and demonstrate a history of success.

2. An understanding of the audience: Identify the decision makers and centers of influence. Determine their likely receptivity and personal agendas.

3. A solid argument: What is perfectly sensible to you may elude others – especially those who are already opposed to your ideas and prepared to resist.

You can improve your chances of persuading them when your case:

a. Is logical and consistent with facts and experience

b. Strikes an emotional cord

c. Favorably addresses the interests of the parties you hope to persuade

d. Neutralizes competing alternatives

e. Recognizes and deals with the politics of the situation

f. Comes with endorsements from objective and authoritative third parties

4. Effective communication: Don’t mistakenly think that logic and rationality will win out and persuade people to your side. You may inadvertently trigger confirmation bias, a situation in which people become further entrenched in their own ideas.

Effective communication appeals to people’s emotions, tapping into universal human values and desires. Appeal to both hearts and minds if you want to build and sustain commitment to your strategic plans.

Office Politics

It’s naive to suggest that office politics are destructive and unethical. If you define politics in such a narrow way, you overlook the value of political awareness and skill. Political savvy, when combined with the right values, can be advantageous to you, your team and your organization.

To become politically savvy and build your power base:

1. Map the political terrain. First, identify all stakeholders – anyone who has an interest in, or who would be affected by, your idea – and how they will react. Some resistance is inevitable. You must anticipate others’ reactions, identify allies and resisters, analyze their goals and understand their agendas.

When you face objections, don’t go to individuals’ bosses or peers to undercut their arguments. Instead, ask them questions to determine their goals. Stakeholders may:

• Share your goal, but not your implementation approach

• Disagree with your goal, but share your approach to change

• Share neither

• Share both

You can identify potential allies and resisters with direct questioning.

2. Get them on your side. Build your coalition – a politically mobilized group committed to implementing your idea because doing so will generate valued benefits.

Creating coalitions is the most critical step in exercising your political competence. How do you win support? You need to be credible. You communicate credibility by letting potential allies and resisters know about your expertise, demonstrating personal integrity, and showing that you have access to important people and information.

3. Make thing happen through leverage. You must win others’ buy-in by making it clear there’s a payoff for supporting your efforts and drawbacks for refusing to join your coalition. Show how implementing your idea will ease stakeholders’ workload, increase their visibility within the organization or help them cut departmental costs.

Once you’ve persuaded others to join your coalition, you’ve established a base that will legitimize your idea. Coalition members will then use their networks to evangelize for you.

Getting others to make changes and do things your way is risky and fraught with personal peril. Making your organization a better place is often at odds with personal advancement.

You can’t do it without power. Just be sure to create power in and with others, as opposed to using power over others.

By: Patsi Krakoff, Psy. D.

About the Author:

marketing a business

Perspectives on politics vary. There is the negative view, which sees politics as the exercise of personal power used for personal gain and at the other end of the spectrum the positive view, that sees politics as a social power used to create motivation or to accomplish group goals.

Nevertheless whether you are aware of it or not, and regardless of whether you understand it or not, in corporate life (and especially in the UK – where I live and work) the political dimension is all-important.

The higher your contacts are up the ladder, within an organisation, the greater the extent to which the political dimension is important.

At director level, in all large organisations, the political dimension can shape the decision making process very considerably and will often be the major determining factor.

Personal power in an organisational context can be described as the ability to influence another person to do what you want, when and how you want them to do it without having to alter your own behaviour in ways you don’t want to.

Symbols of political power and influence include things such as: early access to critical and “insider” information; being sought out for an opinion by senior people; getting favoured people into jobs; exercising control of key resources and influencing an agenda.

Sources of power cover a wide spectrum: legitimate power – based on position, appointment and contract; coercive power – the means to force someone to do something; referent power – based on charisma and the power of personality; expert power – based on knowledge and specialist expertise; and information power – as the source of critical information.

Influence can be described as the process of changing in some way the thoughts, perspective, behaviour and feelings of another person.

Politics in an organisational context is the use of power and influence. It has been said that politics is simply how power gets worked out on a practical day-to-day basis.

Understand the political self-interest of the individuals and groups you are dealing with is therefore essential in implementing change, as at its most fundamental level effective change management involves trade-offs in order to be lasting.

How to deal with resistance created or exacerbated by political factors

(1) Get ahead of the game by undertaking some form of early political assessment as part of your cultural analysis and mapping of informal personal networks

(2) Do not wait until a political issue becomes critical, as this point it will have gained momentum, and it is probably going to be too late.

(3) Do not take action to quash resistance but only to accomplish a positive goal. This may of course mean sidelining, removing or replacing deeply resistant individuals. This is a serious and important point, as there will always be people who will resist change to the death. The tendency is to expend a lot of energy trying to get them on side. John Kotter says: “Forget it, get rid of them, no matter who they are in terms of power or relationship to you because if you let them inside the tent they will do so much damage they will undermine the change.”

Here are some practical “hands on” strategies for dealing with politics in resistance to change management

(a) Focus on the specifics and details of the transactional aspects of the work. When people are focused on actually doing the work, they have far less time and energy for engaging in politics.

(b) Focus your attention on the “bread and butter” basic, standard transactional aspects that do not involve “specials” and “exceptions”. This will mean that you do not need to involve the “expert” assistance or knowledge of the “queen bee” political movers and shakers.

(c) Isolate and group together all your “specials”, “exceptions”, work-arounds and non-standard transactions for the attention of “special ones” those you have identified as political movers and shakers – or as they like to see themselves – the “queen bees”.

(d) Take advantage of the increased opportunities to build relationships and communicate with people as you engage with them on the specifics and details of the transactional aspects of actually doing the work.

(e) As a guiding principle, always remember that politics is a practice – it’s all about reaching mature compromises, developing relationships and getting results; always draw a distinction between the people and the problem; focus on interests, not positions; always seek options for mutual gain; and always apply objective criteria.

By: Stephen Warrilow

About the Author:

Marketing Strategy

Skeptical? Don’t blame you. Bad politics can devour an organization through lost productivity from infighting and the critical absence of truth. Usually, one thinks of credit-stealing backstabbing gossipers who wreck havoc on innocent employees’ careers. In fact, so much so, that some decent people won’t risk the climb on the corporate ladder because they don’t want their character corrupted. Others try to duck political issues by staying invisible and out of the crossfire.

But, is there such a thing as ethical politics? Can one maintain respect while battling against disgusting behavior in the corporate hallways? Is it possible to get in the fray without getting dirty?

Yes. According to the book GUST: The Tale Wind of Office Politics, author Tim Johnson asserts that engaging in office politics doesn’t require a mean spirit or loss of integrity. Instead, he believes that it’s a matter of being able to recognize what resources are being manipulated (e.g. time, money, power structures or labor), then discreetly discerning how to satisfy the needs of the manipulator without compromising the best interest of the organization or sacrificing one’s own principles.

Help the manipulator get what they want? That seems like a tricky new twist on the old game of politics, but Mr. Johnson explains that people are motivated to engage in bad politicking by six different factors. Negative actions might be spurred by the need to form a more powerful alliance with like-minded colleagues. Or, the misbehavior could be driven by a desire to stop a threatening activity, avoid change, protect information, or an impulse to diminish another’s credibility in order to enhance personal standing. Once we understand that most of the issues are caused by emotional insecurities, then we can become more adept at dealing with the politics in a constructive manner.

For example, ever confront a sneaky corporate snake – the kind that undermines and blindsides? Your strategy is not to sink to that belly-crawling level or self-righteously point out their forked tongues. Instead, there are other techniques that will better serve your interests. This might mean covering one’s tail by tactfully documenting actions, requests or agreements through cordial follow-up emails. By focusing on facts and data, one can avoid the emotional snakebite of confrontational issues, especially those that involve false assertions.

It’s not easy to take the high road in politicking. In fact, one of the hardest things to do is put aside our own egos in order to better understand the challenges that the antagonist may face. But, by doing so, we are better equipped to diffuse political bombshells. For instance, if our adversaries fear losing control, then perhaps some simple reassurances or easy concessions are needed. Or, maybe they have legitimate questions about the impact a project could have on the company’s reputation or profitability. It might be worthwhile to reflect on those before proceeding further. In other words, being an ethical political warrior requires us to objectively look beyond our own needs to that of others. By first analyzing the motivation behind the others’ behavior, one can take appropriate political steps to safeguard his career and protect the interest of the company’s stakeholders – all without the loss of honor.

The ethics of office politics

By Shannon Warren, Founder of the Oklahoma Business Ethics Consortium

By: Shannon Warren

About the Author:

Marketing Strategy

It’s hard to imagine the office with out Office Politics. This social game is a in every office, and can be narrowed down from corporate to an individual element. There is no such thing with out life with out office politics. Even if participation is indirect or direct both factors produce a role.

Some respond to office politics in quiet mode. They usually sit back to see who reacts and what actions to take. They never put anyone on the spot to move ahead. Observers basically sit back and let them loose credibility until they can jump in at the right moment. Most people just jump the gun and end up hurting the opportunity. Quietly Observers listen and usually don’t speak until spoken to. Timing is everything.

People have learned to find a quality or trait to mimic or to steer clear from. Everyone has dominant traits. Sifting through the traits that can help you grow as a professional. Learn how identify a mentor and you will be successful. It does work; you could be promoted ahead of many other people in your position. How would you like to be promoted six months early? You can get to that point by acting like superiors and studying their work ethic.

From observing you may have been able to shape your style! To be honest office politics are so ridiculous that at times things turn into a dog and pony show. You can mimic anyone to get ahead or you can be yourself.

Mimic, and adapt traits and qualities that are good. It is a good thing to do for anyone. Office Politics can be a little extreme but there is so much productivity lost when the politics game starts rolling in and gets out of hand. Business relationships must be maintained. There are certain things you just don’t do such as: Make your boss look like a fool. The professional thing to do if you have an issue or would like to point out a flaw is to do so tactfully and with professionalism, keeping the bosses feelings inside. If you talk to him like a person he/she will more likely be personable with you instead of making an example out of you in front of others.

By: Nathan E Peterson

About the Author:

Marketing Strategies