BE A MAESTRO OF CORPORATE POLITICS

Politics and organisations seem to go hand in hand – work in an organisation, handle the politics. And each night worry about it and about getting ahead. Reality check: the higher you go, the more serious the political game.

There is logic to this – people have different agendas, corporate and personal, noble and ignoble and these will inevitably conflict with those of other people. So politics is part of the reality of working in organisations, and is not going away. The only issue is whether you have the capacity to deal with it and whether the organisation is pathologically political or acceptably political.

Politics is the art of getting things done and reaping the benefits; it provides the power to get things done against opposition.

Here’s the good news – being politically smart is not a trait; rather it is a skill that can be mastered. You probably already have a natural political style, forged in the family and at school which you put into practice in the world of work. This natural style can be made more effective and efficient if you understand the game better.

For convenience, let’s divide people into four types. There is the “Purist” who naively believes that one can get ahead by doing well and will not pursue personal advancement at the expense of others. Purists only survive and thrive in minimally political organisations. In decades of consulting to large and small organisations, for profit and non profit, I have not yet met a Purist at the top. It doesn’t mean they don’t exist, I just haven’t met one.

The next political style is the “Team Player”. His or her approach is to get ahead by working well with others and they never put personal needs above the needs of the group. They work within the parameters of the sanctioned rules, formal and informal, share information freely, and are willing to trade favours.

The character that most people associate with politics in organisations is the “Street Fighter”. In fact, however, he or she is only one of the four types of political beings in an organisation. This person is an individualist who believes that the only way to get ahead, is through rough tactics. They push their own goals hard and are slow to trust others which is why they spend so much time watching their backs. They actually enjoy intrigue and derive personal gratification from ‘working the system’. While they are go getters who would run over their own grandmother to get the results they desire, they are not out to get others as much as they are out “not to be gotten”.

The last of our four political types is the ‘Manoeuvrer’. He or she is an individualist, just like the street fighter, but who in contrast gets ahead by playing political games unobtrusively and skilfully. Manoeuvrers are quite uninhibited about using politics but they prefer to do so in a deniable way. They can be friendly and caring because they are smooth operators who are not averse to starting fires and then putting them out and thereby becoming the hero.

So what is your natural political style?

How easily you can exercise this style is contextual, so let us now look at the contextual issues. There is no such thing as a non political organisation that just doesn’t exist, so we will divide organisations into four political types. The first and easiest for anyone to function in is the “minimally politicised” organisation. Here the atmosphere is amicable and issues are resolved without pain or deceit.

We also have the moderately politicised organisation where politics operates on generally understood, formally sanctioned rules and unsanctioned means are unusual. Such environments enjoy being able to convey the impression of a context in which rules apply. In their best form, conflict in these organisations is of short duration and not pervasive. In the worst forms they have a type of schizophrenia prevailing, where they profess a desire for A, but reward B. For example, a university might state that it requires of its professors to be great teachers, but rewards them for producing academic publications.

Both the minimally and moderately politicised organisations can be considered normal environments in which people of goodwill can survive and thrive. Clearly, the more the denizens understand their environment and the agendas of the people in them, the more effective they will be in achieving the results they desire.

Once we move out of the realm of the functional, we encounter two types of political environments that are essentially dysfunctional. The first is the ‘Highly Politicised’ organisation. Here conflict is frequent and pervasive and rules are only invoked when convenient. There is no shortage of topics that are undiscussable and woe betide the ignorant who raises these! To survive, one needs to know what these are and avoid them. In organisations that are highly politicised, competence is not recognised nearly as much as ‘whom you know’. If you’re not part of the in group these organisations are highly stressful places in which to work. If you are unfortunate enough to work in such an organisation you cannot take solace in the hope of a quick fix as soon as there is a change of regime or some other opportunity this type of organisation is really fixed quickly.

The most dysfunctional organisation is the one we call the ‘Pathologically Politicised’. Here conflict is long lasting, and the organisation is easily recognised by the manner in which the powerful are flattered and the powerless are abused. Information is always massaged and reality rarely seeps through the dense fog of political dysfunction. It is not unusual for people to poison their own wells in organisations like these, and to fabricate the most pernicious rumours about people. Gossip and verbal backstabbing rise to an art form as does the “fake left, go right” strategies of a boxer. Everyone in these organisations is considered to be dispensable, and everyone is made to feel that way. To survive requires being obsequious but it is never quite clear towards whom exactly.

It is not uncommon to find any combination of the four political environments existing in the same organisation, even in organisations that are small.

I quite deliberately called the last two types of organisations dysfunctional because with time, both will prove incapable of functioning. Peter Drucker spoke these immortal words: “Those whom the gods wish to curse, they first give a decade of fabulous results!” It is for this reason that so many believe that the pathologically or a highly politicised environments are acceptable – (How bad can we be? Our results are excellent!) But as night follows day, sooner or later these organisations will fail.

Cold comfort for the abused – a warning to the abuser Ian Mann is a management consultant and avid student of business. He has featured on radio and TV and conducted seminars for a number of corporate giants.

This article was published in the December issue of HR Future magazine 2007.



BE A MAESTRO OF CORPORATE POLITICS - To learn more about this author, visit Alan Hosking's Website.

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