Study Finds Youths Do Not Follow Office Politics

CONCLUSION

Do you think that office politics are important to a person or an organization?

YES, office politics are important to us, especially for a worker in a company.

Most of the people think that office politics are only comprised negative issues to an organization. Office politics get bad names from the people who well known playing it. They said, office politics are the strategies that people play to gain benefit. The term has negative connotation, it states that people pursuit advantage at the expenditures of others.

Well, in fact office politics may bring positive impacts to an organization, for instance office politics can lead the employees to better and more effective relationships. It is because employees want to get attention from the superior, so they work harder to achieve it. Hence, the profits of an organization will be increased naturally. Other than that, the attitude of the workers will be improved since they pay their effort to get all works done. It has a greater understanding of individual agendas. Moreover, office politics also improves the connection among employees. Workers will be able to reflect themselves. It also maintains a balance of power between the pioneer and the young generation.

Well, here are some TIPS for you to MAKE POLITICS WORK FOR YOU.

1.       Remap the organizational chart

- Remap the organizational chart in terms of political power

● Who are the real influencers?

● Who has authority but doesn't exercise it?

● Who is respected?

● Who's "the brains behind the organization"?

2.       Understand the informal network

- Now you have to understand the social networks

● Who gets along with whom?

● Are there groups or cliques that have formed?

● Who is involved in interpersonal conflict?

● Who has the most trouble getting along with others?

● What is the basis for the interrelationship? Friendship, respect, manipulation?

● How does the influence flow between the parties?

3.       Build relationships

- Do not afraid of politically powerful people in the organization. Get to know them.

- Take time to get to know your colleagues and establish good relationship with them. Be open to see opportunities, and not challenges.

- Be collaborative, aid your colleagues when they need for help. They will also help you out.

- Be a part of multiple networks, this way you can keep your finger on the pulse of the organization..

4.       Listen carefully

- When you spend more time listening, you are less likely to say something that will come back to bite you later. Moreover, people like people who listen to them.

5.      Govern your own behavior

- Watch other people at work and identify successful behaviors that you can model.

● Don't pass on gossip, questionable judgments, spread rumors – when you hear something, take a day to consider how much credibility it has.

● Rise above interpersonal conflicts – do not get sucked into arguments.

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● Be positive to avoid whining and complaining.

Positive Effect of Office Politics --- Part 2

Self-assessment of workers

In the political environment, workers will be able to reflect themselves. Office politics force employee to face who they truly is, how they can conduct themselves in workplace, what position they can put themselves in the office. By asking themselves questions, employees usually can find their way of what they can do in the office and identify themselves to work in the position that suit them most. Of course that employee can’t have the thought of getting benefit by adjusting politics and disputes, yet as common sense that employees can learn from the mistakes that they have done and readjust their mind. After that they only can obtain the advantages of work, such as praise from boss and so on. 

In addition, office politics maintain a balance of power between the pioneer and the young generation. Whenever there is new superior of director on board, they will bring their team or best assistant to help them to get thing done faster to show their ability in work. They will also seek support from the organization’s members to achieve their job effectively. Without a supportive strong team, the new director or manager will face a challenge from the old senior. In most case, the new team of director or manager will be formed by partly of the existing management team and the team will communicate the change initiative to the whole organization. This situation can avoid the senior controlling the organization’s growth, and also increase the chances to promote more proficient young generation. The report shows that the majority of business leaders had developed their political skills through bitter experience. Nearly nine out of ten say that “ learning from mistakes” had been key and 85 per cent say the “experience of managing crisis” had been valuable. 

In an organization, there are some people that are very important to company, they always can give company useful advises or ideas when the company is facing risk. Not all of them are very professional, but some of their behavior will affect the employees, so the company will give those people more advantages in work. Here is where the office politics prevent the company losing their strategy resources and keep the company moving yet it is used in a positive way but not the ‘ugly’ office politics. 

 

Every workplace is political, even though a small office which only has two workers; it will also create the incident of tournament. To survive in this confusing situation, one must be positively accepting the fact and face the hard condition in the workplace by knowing the benefit and the determent of this issue. In fact, more and more businesses are using positive office politics to boost productivity, according to a new report and large number of people saying that they have witnessed a positive outcome after personally engaging in political behavior.  Office politics benefit the company growth will be the key issue that people would like to investigate. 

Positive Effect of Office Politics- Part 1

Increase the communication between workers 

A study of HR managers and professionals by Roffey Park has found that, just below a third of people pessimistically felt office politics could never be used constructively, more than 50 per cent of them had experience it being used for the better purpose. The survey shows that 61 per cent of the 856 people admitted having indulged in political behavior, but that it had led them to a positive outcome for their organization. 

When political behavior is used constructively, it can lead the employee to better and more effective relationships, a greater understanding of individual agendas, more “win-win” situations and people acting in a more principled way. Some of the organization use office politics to improve the connection among employees. Office politics allow employees at all level to move up, because employees will work hard and come up with more outstanding idea in order to get attention from the superior. In order to stop the apple-polisher, other employees will cooperate together withstand the dark power in the organization. It improves the positive connection among employees and affect the organization pay more attention at the behavior of apple-polisher. Therefore, the communication among employees and boss will increase; the barriers of lacking communication will be resolved automatically.

Furthermore, the report, The Power of Constructive Politics, also suggested political behavior can be used to unblock barriers to change, create greater “buy-in” on key projects, produce more organizational cohesion and speed up decision making. In a general way, office politics help manager to support the employees through acquiring the resources they need and get the job done easily. Manager also plays the role as a buffer between the employees and pressures from the boss. When the manager gets enough power, he can help the employees to require more employees preferential, such as yearly staff travel, increase of wages and so on. Office politics may also help the organization as a whole succeed since senior-level leaders use politics to support and enthusiasm for organization initiatives.  According to the news report, there are some companies use office politics to boost productivity. The report shows that nowadays, many businesses are changing the face of work based relationship by using political behavior to positive effect.

 

Can Office Politics Be a Good Thing?

When you hear the phrase “office politics”, what comes to mind first?

-Favoritism

--back-stabbing

---cronyism

----self-interest

-----rumors and etc. 

 It’s not a pretty list , isn’t it? Yet, whenever I talk with people about office politics, their viewpoint tend towards these types of words.

These words represent the dark side of human nature – what I call “people behaving badly” at work. Behaviors that produce these types of reactions are unproductive and harmful to workplace relationships, so it’s natural that we would take dim view of something that encourages these outcomes.  People always have bad impression of office politics, but office politics can be used in a positive way to benefit both employee and organization. Therefore, office politics is a double-edged sword as it may harm or benefit the company growth. To know the negative and positive sides of office politics are important that one can avoid creating barrier with others.  

Developing your political savvy -- POSITIVELY!  

In 2005, researchers at the University of Florida published a book called Political Skill at Work. It summarized nearly 15 years of intensive study of the mechanics of “political influence” in the workplace.

The university researchers identified four key competencies of the positively politically savvy. They are:

• Social astuteness
• Interpersonal influence 
• Networking ability 
• Sincerity

Do you see how these are positive qualities of human interaction? There is no back-stabbing or favoritism inherent in these competencies.

Here’s the good news: we can all do these things. These are all skills we can hone for ourselves and more importantly – model for others. 

We know how to network.  

We can be sincere. 

We can work on our interpersonal influence.

Conversely, people who are not politically skilled in these four traits come off as manipulative or self-serving. So you could say that people “behaving badly” are just unskilled in Positive Office Politics.