Political savvy

kav

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Anyone else struggle with this at work? I get that it's a necessary thing, that office politics are neither good nor bad, they're just a neutral reality that you can use in a positive or negative way. My boss keeps telling me that at the level I'm at in the organisation I need to be more politically savvy, which as far as I can tell amounts to looking for the agenda in everything people say...

I'm a fairly straightforward person and have no interest in senior leadership (director and above) so don't really have the compulsion to spend much time on this stuff. Unfortunately it's true that once you reach a certain level of seniority in an organisation it's pretty much essential to have that awareness of people's motives and where they fit in in the scheme of things. So has anyone got any tips? :)

(Oh and I can use google, I'm not talking about "top ten tips for being politically savvy" from buzzfeed or whatever, I'm talking about knowledge from personal experience if possible.)

*Waits for IMBW to turn up and say "become a contractor".*
 
In my experience, working in a public sector organisation, internal politics is what the whole organisation runs on. I personally cannot stand it but being a middle manager i have to play a game, of sorts. I like to think of it as a game, because that is what it feels like.

To my mind this internal politics is about restricting information, i like to combat this by telling people the truth and everything i know about something. My staff and other teams praise me for the fact i can communicate to them and that i also provide an opinion, whilst allowing them to have theirs. Further to what i see, internal politics is only ever about personal gain and not for the greater good of the organisation.

The best way to play the game is to play it by your own rules, pick and choose the rules that are dictated upon you by others, because they are only trying to get you to play their game. Always keep in mind who the most important people are in life, i guarantee none of them are your boss or many of the people you work with, but also those you have a duty of care for. For example my wife and daughter and my staff are the most important people to me, my boss certainly isn't because his duty of care is to me not the other way around someone elses boss, in another department somewhere, certainly isn't someone i care about.
 
Most people either want Money, Status, or Recognition. Nobody cares about the company short of keeping it going while they further their own agenda. The lower down the ladder you go, the more people value recognition and have pride in their work. The higher you go and it's all about personal advancement at the expense of anyone else with people passing the blame down but taking the status for the work of those beneath them.
 
I always struggled with this mainly due to resentment that it always seemed I had to change myself to fit in with everyone else. A couple things changed for me which made life easier and I think make me better at this. First was I decided to be more content in my current role and not be actively looking for the next step. This was partly imposed on me since the company went to a much flatter structure meaning opportunities became a lot less and also partly since I decided I quite liked my work/life balance I currently enjoy. Another thing was looking at Myers Briggs personality types hence realising that it was nothing personal to me. This is because my 'type' was a lot different to most of the other people I work with. This caused a lot of the frustration and for me finding a cause meant I could handle it better. Reading up on emotional intelligence may also help you a little.
 
Myers Briggs is a good help especially if you know the types of the people around you.
 
I don't play office politics. Could say more but must dash as the Directors and their partners are here for a little soirée I organised and their glasses need refreshing before we play a few rounds of Bridge
 
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It's one of the reasons I quit and became an independent contractor. I didn't do two IT degrees to be worry about such banality :p
 
I personally experienced it and gave up :p That's my advice - free yourself from that and annual reviews. And in exchange? ££££ :D
 
So you already know :p
 
I learnt as a teenager, doing a Saturday job, you should never consider people you work with as friends. You should try to get on with your work colleagues, so be pleasant and have a laugh with them. However don’t put your trust in them; you're only giving them ammunition they'll use against you at a later date. Instead cover your back and always remember the most important thing, look after number one. That way when someone shits on you from a great height it won’t stick. I’ve never defined myself through work, I don’t like working but I need the money. As a result I’ve never had any attachment or loyalty to the organisations I’ve worked for or the people I’ve worked with. In this fast moving ever changing world, you and your colleagues are highly likely to have the rug pulled from under you and that's when the knives come out. Having a degree of detachment is a wise coping mechanism.
 
I learnt as a teenager, doing a Saturday job, you should never consider people you work with as friends. You should try to get on with your work colleagues, so be pleasant and have a laugh with them. However don’t put your trust in them; you're only giving them ammunition they'll use against you at a later date.

Wow - ouch! Some of my best friends in life are colleagues - I went to their weddings - I'm godfather to their children - I have to say that is one cynical view - even for me :p I don't see how you can work with people closely for 1/5/10/15 years still thinking 'yeah, act all friendly - one day you are going to stab me in the back'. Of course some colleagues will - I generally find it's pretty obvious from the get go which ones these are. Three buzz words and you're out.
 
Wow - ouch! Some of my best friends in life are colleagues - I went to their weddings - I'm godfather to their children - I have to say that is one cynical view - even for me :p I don't see how you can work with people closely for 1/5/10/15 years still thinking 'yeah, act all friendly - one day you are going to stab me in the back'. Of course some colleagues will - I generally find it's pretty obvious from the get go which ones these are. Three buzz words and you're out.
It's not cynicism it's a fact of working life. When you're faced with choosing between providing for your family or a friendship, for most people, the friendship is discarded like a shot. If you've managed to sustain friendships with work colleagues, I doubt you've been faced with a situation where, in competition with with your 'friends', you've had to apply for your own job, or been at risk of redundancy. Friendships outside of work can sometimes be tested but in an ordinary friendship, you'd never have to scramble over your friends back to keep a job. Unfortunately nowadays, more and more often to keep your job, never mind advance, many workers have had to develop sharp elbows.
 
I've never understood why people don't want to climb as high as they possibly can and be the best they can be.

If that involves a bit of politics then so be it. Play the game.
 
It's not cynicism it's a fact of working life. When you're faced with choosing between providing for your family or a friendship, for most people, the friendship is discarded like a shot. If you've managed to sustain friendships with work colleagues, I doubt you've been faced with a situation where, in competition with with your 'friends', you've had to apply for your own job, or been at risk of redundancy. Friendships outside of work can sometimes be tested but in an ordinary friendship, you'd never have to scramble over your friends back to keep a job. Unfortunately nowadays, more and more often to keep your job, never mind advance, many workers have had to develop sharp elbows.

Certainly have been at risk a number of times - the banking industry had many rounds of lay-offs after the old thing that happened there. I'm pleased to say that in a 15-year career thus far I don't recognise your sorry to say bitter view. I've generally formed a strong bond - more a band of brothers who work together and seek each other out and facilitate providing for families as we move through our careers. And we're stronger for it.
 
I've never understood why people don't want to climb as high as they possibly can and be the best they can be.

If that involves a bit of politics then so be it. Play the game.

Change the game - even better :thumbsup:
 
Certainly have been at risk a number of times - the banking industry had many rounds of lay-offs after the old thing that happened there. I'm pleased to say that in a 15-year career thus far I don't recognise your sorry to say bitter view. I've generally formed a strong bond - more a band of brothers who work together and seek each other out and facilitate providing for families as we move through our careers. And we're stronger for it.
I’ve not worked in the same industry for as long as that but have 11 years on you. I’m not sure what you mean by ‘band of brothers’ but it sounds like the old boys network, which doesn’t surprise me, the banking industry strikes me as being incestuous. It kind of makes sense why there are so many useless people working in banking if you get a job because your friend gives you a hand up rather than getting somewhere on your own merits. It also explains why bankers give themselves massive bonuses even when the businesses they’re working for are incompetent or failures. It also supports what I’m saying because in a competent industry where you have to prove yourself and compete with your colleagues you can’t afford to rely on friendship. In a failing industry you can work with your friends because it doesn’t matter if you fail because you’ve got your friends to watch your back.
 
I Am sorry for you :(
 
I've never understood why people don't want to climb as high as they possibly can and be the best they can be.

If that involves a bit of politics then so be it. Play the game.
Because elevation in role can take you away from the job you enjoy. Just because you move higher up in the organisation doesn't make you better or you the best at what you do. The way I think about it is I will do the best job I can in the role I am in. If I don't enjoy the job I will seek to improve the job for the benefit of the organisation, not myself. I don't expect reward, I don't ask for it. The reward I get is going home and cuddling my daughter and spending time with my family. The more time I spend working the less time I spend with them.


I’ve not worked in the same industry for as long as that but have 11 years on you. I’m not sure what you mean by ‘band of brothers’ but it sounds like the old boys network, which doesn’t surprise me, the banking industry strikes me as being incestuous. It kind of makes sense why there are so many useless people working in banking if you get a job because your friend gives you a hand up rather than getting somewhere on your own merits. It also explains why bankers give themselves massive bonuses even when the businesses they’re working for are incompetent or failures. It also supports what I’m saying because in a competent industry where you have to prove yourself and compete with your colleagues you can’t afford to rely on friendship. In a failing industry you can work with your friends because it doesn’t matter if you fail because you’ve got your friends to watch your back.
I am sorry that that is how you feel. Being ex military you can have the kind of relationship with colleagues that IMBW is talking about without it being incestuous 'old boys network'. The military taught me that no one is indespensible and that each individual operates as part of a larger machine and you have to rely and trust in your colleagues to achieve your aims. You all live together and socialise together and friendships are formed. You are rarely asked to compete against each other though.
 
I am sorry that that is how you feel. Being ex military you can have the kind of relationship with colleagues that IMBW is talking about without it being incestuous 'old boys network'. The military taught me that no one is indespensible and that each individual operates as part of a larger machine and you have to rely and trust in your colleagues to achieve your aims. You all live together and socialise together and friendships are formed. You are rarely asked to compete against each other though.

+1 :)

I personally don't think the military can be compared to any other organisation in civvy street for these very reasons. I met an ex-Royal Marine earlier this year, who was a delivery driver, dropping parts to me for a project I was on. We met on 3 seperate (very brief) occasions. By day 2, he'd given me his phone number, and told me that if I'm ever in his neck of the woods, to give him a bell, as he had spare rooms at his house that I could sleep at! Now, that's never going to happen between 2 civvy strangers as long as I've got a hole in my proverbial!...

FWIW, I've started to move 'up the greasy pole' in my organisation, and whilst I've never thought that I would be any good at office politics, I'm finding out from people that I look up to and respect just how the game is played. It's all new to me, but I sincerely hope that I am never in a position where I'm hiding facts or information from people that need it, or stabbing people in the back. I'm too good a person for that crap.
 
I am sorry that that is how you feel. Being ex military you can have the kind of relationship with colleagues that IMBW is talking about without it being incestuous 'old boys network'. The military taught me that no one is indespensible and that each individual operates as part of a larger machine and you have to rely and trust in your colleagues to achieve your aims. You all live together and socialise together and friendships are formed.
That’s what I understand from the term ‘Band of Brother’s’ but I don’t get that from IMBW comment when he says ‘more a band of brothers who work together and seek each other out and facilitate providing for families as we move through our careers’. I recognise what you say because most of the jobs I’ve had involved working as part of a team, where you had your own specialism or task to perform and everyone relied on each other to deliver the overall project. When I was in a position to select who I worked with on projects I always selected people who were very good at what they did, were reliable, conscientious and as hardworking as each other. Many of these situations were where we were all on the same level, so in managing a project I couldn’t make people do anything and had to rely on my ‘people skills’ to ensure everyone pulled their weight.


You are rarely asked to compete against each other though.
Precisely. I also notice you didn’t mention having lasting friendships with the people you served with. I have relatives who served in NI during most of the 1980’s but when they left the army they didn’t keep in touch with their army colleagues. My older brother developed a lasting friendship but that was only because he moved to a town and one of his former colleagues lived in the same neighbourhood and they met by accident. Prior to that they hadn’t seen each other for almost 15 years. In contrast I see almost all the friends I made at Uni several times a year and have done so every year since we left Uni in 1988.


Finally nobody needs to feel sorry for me, despite my comments I’m not bitter, I wouldn’t even consider myself a cynic because I always try to see the best in everyone. I like people and get on with everyone in every situation. I’m only making observations made having worked in more than a dozen organisations from the massive to the micro, in every sector. All I’m saying is at the end of the day your work colleagues will always look out for themselves when there’s no choice in the matter. Such behaviour is understandable because we all have bills to pay.
 
+1 :)

I personally don't think the military can be compared to any other organisation in civvy street for these very reasons. I met an ex-Royal Marine earlier this year, who was a delivery driver, dropping parts to me for a project I was on. We met on 3 seperate (very brief) occasions. By day 2, he'd given me his phone number, and told me that if I'm ever in his neck of the woods, to give him a bell, as he had spare rooms at his house that I could sleep at! Now, that's never going to happen between 2 civvy strangers as long as I've got a hole in my proverbial!...
A ex-marine gives you his number, offers you a bed for the night and what was that you said about your 'proverbial hole'?
 
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I’m not sure what you mean by ‘band of brothers’

No that's clear. To give an example a colleague of mine a few years ago was frustrated with their role and wanted to move towards doing a similar job to me, but couldn't get the training etc. So over a period of a couple of weeks I trained him in the evenings after work to the point where he was pretty confident. Then he applied across and came into my department. Later he left the firm and is now running a large unit for another firm in Beijing using those skills. You would probably say it was suicide to help another employee who I was 'competing' against but I'm afraid your view on operating in the workplace sounds more like The Running Man than any environment I recognise. (If it helps I've also work in IT consulting; bio tech; oil and gas; chemicals, academia and the MOD).

As for your tired old ill informed comments about the banking industry, and the idea we prefer to work with incompetent fiends rather than competent professionals, well I can see how it would be frustrating to think that was going on.
 
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Office politics, bane of a lot of peoples life's.

I see it a lot, very very large company (fortune 500), you get to a certain level and if you don't "play the game" someone will shit on you to move past you. I know more that a dozen people personally that turned down management positions because the couldn't be basically a prick and in a funny way they would have made less salary in the short to medium term. But a great company (salary/training wise) and if you are ruthless you can literally go on to be CEO (after a fair few years).

But people that were friends, that have moved up the ladder, 90% have turned into dicks, which I understand if I was trying to get their job lol.

In the end I look at my work-time off-salary-bonus situation and decide if I wanted to move to management (which would be for me a country product segment position, unless it was one of the bigger countries US/Canada/China/Indonesia etc where there is more than one centre).
 

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