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Navigating
office politics
While
many techies do not have the stomach for office politics,
this does not preclude the prospect of them being at the receiving
end of political games played by co-workers, says MOHAN
BABU
A
topic most management courses and training sessions skim over
is the one that drains most of the energies out of employees
and managers: it is office politics. Not many of us are immune
to office politics, gossip and the “informal circuit,” and
individuals who spend eight or ten hours a day in a working
group tend to develop a subculture of their own. As part of
the subculture there is a need among individuals to be recognised,
bonding with peers, and of course looking forward to promotions,
kudos and brownie points from bosses. Individuals try to stand
out from their peers, sometimes using unorthodox means. Cartoonists
like Dilbert have generated a cult like following by evangelizing
office politics and the idiosyncrasies in the workplace.
Politics,
favouritism, sucking up to influential people is not something
alien to the working climate alone. Most of us get used to
it right from the school and college days where the “teachers
pet” always bags the higher scores, gets plum assignments
or the school bully who gets his way by coercion. The same
attitudes are carried to the work environments as individual
grow up and join organisations.
It
therefore comes as a surprise that a lot of techies don’t
have the stomach for office politics. However, this does not
preclude the possibility of them ending up at the receiving
end of political games played by colleagues and co-workers.
By remaining “geeky” they further alienate themselves from
the sub-culture around them. They tend to mistakenly think
that they will be recognised by burying their head in work
and consistently producing results. However, this is not the
case because of a number of complex factors. For instance,
many people tend to forget that managers and bosses are human
too and come with the same moods, idiosyncrasies and quirks
as the rest of us. Some of them are highly technical but many
survive mainly on their gift of gab. Managers sometimes tend
to succumb to the same smooth-talk and salesmanship by employees
who trying one-upmanship on their colleagues.
Office
politics takes different forms. The most common being the
rumour mill, a.k.a. water-cooler gossip where talk about impending
changes, discussion on hearsay, organisational changes, what
someone overheard, etc, are discussed in detail. No topic
is out of bounds in a rumour mill and it can range from work
related topics to personal gossip about affairs, delicate
issues and problems. Hardly anyone in an organisation is immune
to being the butt of gossip: from the CEO at the top, down
to the mailroom clerk, everyone is a fair target. Many organisations
have begun to realise the potential of such gossip circuits
existing in the organisation and try to leverage it to manage
informal communication and information dissemination.
Technology
has also contributed its bit to the sustenance of gossip circuits
in organisations. The practice of forwarding of e-mail containing
gossip, titbits on organisational issues or other personal
matters is widely prevalent across companies of all sizes.
Sometimes e-mail exchanged in “confidence” between two parties’
surfaces at inopportune times, causing acute embarrassment,
or even legal headaches. This is especially true of those
exchanging mail about a company’s confidential information
or gossip. A recent study conducted by IT research firm Gartner
found that at least 34 percent of business e-mail is unnecessary
and that 30 percent of the time business users spend managing
their e-mail is spent on messages that contain no business
value.
If
you can’t beat them, join them?
The
workplace is a social organisation. Therefore, it is hard
to fight the scourge of gossip and politics. Individuals need
to learn to live and work with it. Working with politics and
gossip means trying to understand the nuances of dealing with
people, learning to snap malicious gossip and actions at the
root and of course being a part of the gossip circuit to be
keenly aware of what is happening. This cannot be achieved
by ignoring politics, but by being aware of and in some instances,
a part of it. For instance, individuals need to realise that
they are accountable and will make mistakes on their road
to success.
Learning
from these mistakes is far more likely to happen when people
help each other out, and do so when they most need it. Individuals
can also try to build a culture that values everyone and places
them at the heart of the department, and company.
One
can begin by encouraging open and blame-free debate within
the immediate team, draw out everyone’s contributions, their
hopes, fears and ideas for the future. Some senior managers
try to get into such gossip circuits by practicing MBWA (Management
by Wandering Around) techniques where they chat with their
subordinates informally on all topics and try to get a “gut
feel” for the mood of the organisation.
As
organisations and workgroups become international, individuals
need to learn the subtleties of cross-cultural communication,
especially as the forms of informal communication across cultural
and national boundaries may vary. For instance, in the US,
gossip can take the form of small-talk as one waits of the
office elevator or a cup of coffee or as a filler during project
meetings.
Such
small-talk may contain loaded hints or information that one
could observe and use. For instance if the boss talks about
his impending week-long holiday, he is also hinting that there
will be an opportunity for someone to fill in his shoes when
he is away and is trying to find that temporary replacement.
The
bottomline is clear. Much as we loath office politics and
gossip, we need to learn to live with and even benefit from
it.
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