Surviving Office Politics (Part 2)

Continued from Part 1...

I know a lot about office politics from my own direct and painful experience, similar to the worst case scenario described in Part 1 of this article. When I experienced my own career trainwreck, it was the direct result of a worst case office politics situation. In my case, new management was brought in and new rules were established that I was too idealistic to understand at the time.



In my story, we originally had a Vice President who was the best boss I had ever known in my career. He was experienced, smart, and wonderful with people. He gave his professionals lots of discretion and room to move. And, when a problem was simply too big for our pay grade, he always offered up a solution drawn from his much wider scope of reference and information. To clarify that last statement, he would appropriately use his senior level of authority to bring greater resources to the table when required. Sigh... those were a GREAT four years in my career, and we accomplished AMAZING things during that time.

Unfortunately for me, this wonderful boss was promoted and moved to another location. When the new boss came in, I had no reason to change my business behaviors which had served the organization well for the prior four years. I continued to be proactive, decisive and outspoken on the things I believed needed to be done. Yikes! No one had told me the new boss required maximum control of everything in order to insure that he could control the appearance of every outcome! He soon considered me to be unreliable in relation to his goal of making all outcomes look a certain way, regardless of the reality.

Throughout these initial months, my idealism prevented me from understanding why my normal work efforts seemed to be going wrong so often now. In addition, I hated his band of minions, brought in when he arrived, who acted in what appeared to be such wrong and odd ways. Needless to say, I was soon relieved of my significant level of responsibility and put into a corner where I couldn't interfere with the primary work of the organization. To end this story on a lighter note, although I ended up leaving that company eventually, I did go on to a much bigger, better and happier job situation.

So here's my personal advice on office politics -- take it for what it's worth. A very political organization really may be bigger than any one employee, and it may be very, very difficult for you to succeed in an organization where tough politics drive the important decisions and players. If you think you might be in this type of office, you should honestly assess your answer to the following questions about your current job:

1. What is the primary goal of your Big Boss (the highest level person still involved in daily operational decisions)? Is it to grow value for the stakeholders (shareholders, employees, community) or for himself? Don't be confused when you answer this question -- all bosses must appear to do the business of the organization. But where is your Big Boss' true heart -- does he generally act to help others or mostly to help himself?

2. What is the likelihood that the Big Boss will be around for a shorter vs. a longer period of time? And, if he were to leave tomorrow, how entrenched are his politics throughout the organization?

3. How comfortable are you to exist within the level of politics surrounding you? Perhaps it doesn't bother you, or maybe your job is performed on the sidelines and can continue without being greatly interrupted by the politics around you.

Once you've answered these three questions, you'll want to honestly evaluate if it might be time to look for a new job before you end up on the wrong side of the political fence. If the politics don't bother you or don't interfere with your daily activities, then you can choose to ignore whatever nonsense goes on around you. If you're sufficiently bothered or affected by office politics, and there doesn't seem to be any big organizational changes on the horizon, then it might be time to look for a better place where you can work more happily. You may even find that you can transfer to another department within your company where you can escape the influence of the Big Boss.

Finally, here's the upside to the whole question of working within a political vs. an entrepreneurial environment. While we know that it can be really uncomfortable and disagreeable to work within a strongly political environment, it's actually quite great to work within an entrepreneurial climate! You'll love your workday experience again! So if politics are getting you down and ruining your work environment, just realize that there will be another place for you that offers independence, authority, support, success, and involvement. You'll just need to make a little effort to find it.