Office Politics: The Best Way To Ruin Your Performance

"I don't at all like knowing what people are saying of me behind my back.  It makes me far too conceited."

~Oscar Wilde

"The person who says 'I'm not political' is in great danger.....only the fittest will survive, and the fittest will be the ones who understan their office's politics"

~Jean Hollands

"In politics, stupidity is not a handicap"

~Napoleon Bonaparte

No matter how focused you might want the workplace to be on job skills and performance, many aspects of going to work have more to do with personalities rather than abilities.

Relationships form the foundation for effective teams — people working with other people. The resulting relationships bond people by commonalities. When positive, this establishes a unique and dynamic blending of individuals and personalities that makes the team as a whole more than just the sum of its parts. The negative flip side is competitive divisions, and sometimes “enemy camps,” that polarize and often immobilize the work group.

A sort of “relationship language” evolves after a time. People learn to get what they want from each other through indirect methods. These tactics have a give-and-take nature that causes us who are in Management to view them as “playing games.” In the workplace, we call them office politics. The motivations they reflect are personal — a desire for individual gain, a need for individual attention, a longing for recognition and reward. Because satisfying the motivation often comes at the expense of someone else, we tend to perceive these behaviors as manipulative and self-serving.

Office politics — those intersections between whom you know, how much you support the ideas and pet projects of others, what relationships you cultivate and which ones you discourage — often play into promotion decisions, at least minimally. A leadership personality is important for a manager, and that encompasses the ability to schmooze. Job skills matter too, of course. But it's important to make sure the right people know your thoughts and see you shine. Although we all profess to abhor office politics, everyone who works with other people becomes engaged in them to some extent.

At work, everybody wants something — money, status, power. Most people want to come to work and do a good job. They expect recognition, reward, and responsibility. Seems straightforward enough — so why is this such a problem? 

Because people are human. They are naturally competitive. They may do a good job, but they worry that someone else is doing better or receiving misplaced credit. This gives rise to that little bit of manipulation that will maybe assure that others notice their contributions.

The various faces of such manipulation are familiar to all managers. An employee might drop in on the manager, alone, and casually mention a specific achievement or ask for advice on some work in progress. This self-gratification doesn't usually hurt anyone else unless the person is taking credit for work someone else did.

A more damaging variation on this theme is the employee who uses the forum of a meeting to ask another employee an embarrassing question, putting the person on the spot.

More insidious still is the employee who requests a confidential meeting with the manager to, out of sincere dedication and as much as he hates to have to do this, alert the manager to certain people who are not pulling their share of the workload or are incompetent or are overqualified or who need remedial help, etc...etc....

And then there's the employee who consistently ignores assignments her manager gives her, but gushes, “Gosh, I wish someone had suggested this to me earlier!” when her manager's boss assigns the same project or asks why no one is doing the work.

And then there is the perennial favorite, the person I call the "shoe shiner", who is harmless to others initially but, if left unchecked, will foster feelings of resentment and result in unproductive employees ("Why do I have to try and do a good job when all I have to do is offer to mow the lawn of the V.P.'s while he's away on holidays?"). 

Technology gives people new ways to polish the apples they want others to notice. An employee can send out a grandstanding e-mail — one that gives the impression she is managing the project instead of the team member who really is — and copy everyone in the department or (oops!) the entire company. E-mail has become the latest weapon in political agendas, replacing drinks after work and standing outside in the rain to grab a smoke as the ideal venue for pitching an idea or shining shoes. Who gets copied in and who is left off the list is the ultimate political move.

Few employee behaviors are as frustrating to managers as the perpetuation of politics. Work place politics can undermine morale and productivity far faster than any genuine bad news. To shut down the political machine that exists in most companies, some managers use a system similar to a suggestion box. Employees can deposit their questions, obserations, ideas, praise of fellow employees and complaints anonymously and the manager then investigates and posts responses on a bulletin board or e-mail them to employees. Other managers appoint an employee committee to handle these activities. But above all, Managers must keep themselves above and aloof from the politics;  it will either distract you from what you're supposed to be doing (i.e. Managing) or destroy your credibility if you are swayed by the politicos and shoe shiners which will result in you not being able to lead effectively.

Perhaps there is nothing that can really be done to halt the workplace politics, the jostling for increased group status or personal gain.  Perhaps all we can do is mitigate it by actively discouraging the worse offenders and by re-focusing our teams on what the expectations are.  Holding them to a higher standard (one which we ourselves as Leaders should be aspiring to as well) is a good place to start. 

So is reminding ourselves and the people who lead our employees of the following truth:  An underperforming employee is usually someone who will, in order to obfuscate their failings, talk to you about others;  a Manager who spends more time managing their career than his duties is usually someone who will talk to you about themselves; but a brilliant Manager is someone who will talk to you about yourself.

Which one do you aspire to be?

If you have any suggestions or topics you'd like to see covered, or if you'd like help with an issue you're currently experiencing, please drop me a line at gbossinakis@live.com. 
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