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Why OFFICE POLITICS is good, and how we could embrace it


In organizations and teams, when people perceive unfairness that leads to anger, a loss that leads to sadness, and a threat that leads to fear, the easiest thing for them to do is to externalize and do those things, and have those conversations that lead to something that is collectively perceived as politics!
Reasonably so, because it’s a challenge to articulate and find reasons for those emotional states, in a very complex organizational context. There are usually multiple events and conversations, over a period of time that could have led to their perceptions and emotions, and hence a state of perceived politics.

Hence office politics is just the symptom, and it’s not the problem in itself. And we know symptoms are important, because through them we will know the problems that need to be addressed and solved. We don’t attempt to solve politics, because we can’t, rather, we solve the problems underneath it.

By the way, anger, sadness, and fear are all natural emotions. They are not bad, but sometimes actions driven by them are!

Doing, thinking and feeling are the three realms in which people express themselves and contribute in organizations. While organizations usually have metrics and processes to measure the doing (tasks & results), and thinking (knowledge, ideas, POV’s, IP etc), there are usually no formal metrics, processes and systems to measure contribution through the realm of feeling. Hence in the absence of such systems, office politics becomes an informal, but a crucial metric to understand (and correlate with) the level of contribution from people. Lesser the politics, better is the contribution.
That’s why office politics is good, especially if you are a leader. Because it gives you very crucial information to determine course of action in the context of organizational effectiveness. Exploring, sensing and taking relevant actions is how you embrace politics – That’s top down. Bottom up actions are possible too.

Next time you bump into a conversation on office politics, or politics around you, desist from running away or getting succumbed to it. Rather, get a little curious. And when you do so, you will find answers, the kind of answers that lead to transformative actions on you and outside you.
Then you enable people (and yourself) to move towards celebration and engagement, perceiving a sense of satisfaction that leads to happiness (the fourth natural emotion).

And by the way, happiness in itself is not good, but sometimes action driven by it is!

Linda A Hill, in her book titled Being the Boss she talks about three levels of organization structure - Level 1: Organization structure on paper, Level 2: Organization structure based on relationships (the relationships structure), Level 3: Organization structure based on politics (political structure). Since level 2 and level 3 are representing the reality more, it high time we considering mastering and working with those.

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