define('DISALLOW_FILE_MODS', true);{"id":456,"date":"2009-08-21T13:32:18","date_gmt":"2009-08-21T13:32:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.herdioflo.com\/?p=456"},"modified":"2010-02-05T06:04:25","modified_gmt":"2010-02-05T06:04:25","slug":"office-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.herdioflo.com\/?p=456","title":{"rendered":"Office Politics"},"content":{"rendered":"

What is Office Politics?<\/strong>
\nAround 1936, Dale Carnegie defined office politics as, \u201ca skill in human engineering\u201d as being one of the prime factors for business success.\u00a0 Office politics is also called, \u201cmanipulation, ambition, aggression, harassment or human nature.\u201d\u00a0 Office politics to a certain extent can involve money whereas studies of the National Organization for Women (NOW) calculated that there will be approx $1 billion dollars of lawsuits that will be settled in the next five years.\u00a0 This means companies will need to consider office politics as a significant contribution to its operations when money is involved.<\/p>\n

Office politics is not always negative, as it is stated that in order to advance in your career you must also be politically aware as it is important for you to be able to sell your ideas, promote your credibility as well as exposing your skills.<\/p>\n

Being in an office environment, people will build relationships with one another as bad office politics scenarios are caused by, \u201cinsecurity, immaturity, personalities, ambition, and human nature.\u201d\u00a0 As stated by Prof Arthur Brief, people go to work to, \u201csatisfy higher psychological needs such as, achievement, power, affiliation, autonomy, esteem, safety, security, equity, and self actualization.\u201d<\/p>\n

When groups of people work together, with many levels of hierarchy, there will be conflicts that take place between people.\u00a0 These problems are due to things such as poor communication, failure to listen, and withholding information as ignoring these issues will only crumble an organization.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Here are some tips that leaders can do to manage office politics:<\/strong><\/p>\n

1)\u00a0Don\u2019t ignore problems and hope they\u2019ll go away.
\n2)\u00a0Do not leave employees in the dark with information (mushroom theory of management, overcommunicate \u2013 meetings, memos, newsletters, etc.)
\n3)\u00a0Compliment in memo form.
\n4)\u00a0Hire self-confident people.
\n5)\u00a0Manage conflict with patience, listening, weighing the issues, avoiding defensiveness, remain objective & cooperative, admitting mistakes, accepting valid reason & evidence and lastly to avoid assumptions (spell out details, agreements in writing & summarize progress).
\n6)\u00a0Managers should follow the same rules imposed to subordinates\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
\n7) Promote based on performance.<\/p>\n

In conclusion, companies are born to make money where as human organization defined through individuals working in offices all seek expression (socially, economically, part of a belonging, respect, friends, etc.). Leaders create the culture of an organization in which office politics are reflected on corporate culture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"