“When organizations institute positive, virtuous practices they achieve significantly higher levels of organizational effectiveness — including financial performance, customer satisfaction, and productivity.” – Kim Cameron, William Russell Kelly Professor of Management and Organizations; Ross School of Business, University of Michigan
Despite almost everyone you ask swearing they hate them, office politics have become synonymous with work. From Mad Men’s dramatic Madison Avenue ad firm Sterling Cooper Pryce to the Dunder Mifflin Paper Company of The Office fame, to Grey-Sloan Memorial Hospital (Grey’s Anatomy), fiction reflects what many of us already suspect: Very political workplaces are everywhere, inescapable no matter your title or job description. As much as you might want to run away and avoid the topic entirely, sidestepping office politics is borderline impossible. However, you don’t have to “play the game” by backstabbing and conniving; you can and should do it positively. If you’re successful, you can discover the opportunities concealed within a highly political workplace, and so turn the tides in your favor.
Manage Your Expectations
One of the easiest ways to reduce your anxiety centered around workplace politics is to face facts and align your expectations with reality. If you are still expecting that the “ostrich approach” will work, know that burying your head in the metaphorical sand not only won’t make the issue disappear but being blind to what’s going on around you can and may hurt you. “The question,” as well-known authors Lee Bolman and Terrence Deal elaborate in their foundational text, Reframing Organizations: Artistry, Choice, and Leadership, “is not whether organizations will have politics but rather what kind of politics they will have.”
You probably won’t be able to find a work environment that’s entirely devoid of politics, and there’s no sense in pretending you might. But you can select other factors that play into the type of workplace politics and relationship management you’ll encounter at your workplace, like communication and collaboration styles, organizational structure, and more. That will let you find an organization with politics that are in alignment with how you like to operate and will play to your strengths.
There’s another opportunity here, too. As David Frankel, managing partner for consultant firm Slingstone Group, identifies: “Everyone comes to the table with their own personal goals, egos, aspirations, and agendas, and in order for someone to get what they want, there is always going to be some level of compromise, negotiation, and politicking.” Just as your coworkers and leadership have their own agendas, it’s understood and almost expected that you might have your own — and with compromise as the operative word, those who show up mentally prepared to “play the game” hold a considerable advantage.