“My life, my rules!”, does that really work in corporate culture? “Oh, there is too much politics in this company, our managers can beat politicians!”, don’t you think its too naïve to expect a politics free organization? Well I may sound sarcastic but lets face the truth people, workplace politics is something none of us can avoid or get away with. No business school can ever teach theirs students to deal with the manipulations and mind-games that almost define our so-called corporate culture. There is a notion that people who crib most about workplace politics are those who have played but lost the game, but I don’t think it is true in every case. I have seen so many people who are good souls but simply do not posses the political quality that is required to win the “game”. There are people who are too involved in their work to look around and play according to the workplace politics rules. I have been a sufferer and survivor of this very game, I don’t remember winning any of the workplace politics battles ever but I have survived many by drawing levels. At the very beginning of my career, workplace politics depressed me, made me feel like a loser but over the years I have grown into a tough woman who fights it with mind and survives (most of the time!).
Can anyone ever define the root causes of workplace politics? The answer is, I guess, “No”! After every battle I went through I tried to analyze and find out the “why”, all these analysis have led me to one conclusion, may be there are no defined causes but certainly there are behavioral patterns, like “sexism”, “feeling of insecurity”, “nepotism”, “inferiority or superiority complex”, “ego”, “favoritism”, “greed”, “jealousy”, “lack of interest in hard work”, “overpraising”, etc. Next section of this article is devoted to a few of those interesting personalities who possessed some of these behavioral patterns so strongly that they eventually became their weaknesses.
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I relate an incidence where i was the victim of pretty politics in office during my stay in Mumbai. Notwithstanding i lost the battle,i never fought with them as i resisted my temptation to wash dirty linen in public. As a consequence i left that organization.There are myriad reasons that incubate dirty politics in organization. The maggot of dirty politics in organization can be effectively controlled by adopting policy which discourages the proliferation of nasty politics.It is difficult to completely get rid of but to control it to such a level where it encourages conducive situation thereby enhancing productivity of an organization.
I faced ‘sexism’, “inferiority or superiority complex”,“favoritism”, “greed”, “jealousy” and I survive every battle. But, its true sometimes I have to struggle. Politics is everywhere – home to office. If you can enjoy the game, its sure you will survive.