Office Politics

9 Key excerpts on "Office Politics"

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  Organizational Influence Processes

  • Robert W. Allen, Lyman W. Porter, H.L. Angle(Authors)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  An operationally useful definition of organization politics may include elements that Mayes and Allen (1977) called the management of influence. For them, organizational politics is a process that involves formulating political goals, decision strategies, and tactics. It entails executing those tactics and setting up feedback loops to ensure effective results. Organizational power politics is also defined in terms of a process of change (Coenen and Hofstra 1988). Defined in this way we can say that organizational politics is the essence of leadership.

  Organizational politics therefore includes actions taken to gain and use power to control organizational resources to achieve our preferred results instead of those of others. This definition places organizational politics in the classroom when a teacher “teaches.” It is in the home as a father asks his child to do something. It is in the office as the subordinate “manages” his or her boss by couching interaction upward in ways calculated to induce the boss to respond favorably. And it is present when the manager orders employees to adopt a new procedure.

  David Bell emphasizes the “talk” aspect of organizational politics (1975). He says traditional definitions of politics as who gets what, when, where, and how is not helpful. Getting control over needed resources can be, and often is, an intensely personal and private (even solitary) affair, not a public one. Talk, on the other hand, always involves others and more consistently conforms to the definition of politics. Talk affects others (Duke 1976), and to that extent it is power. To the widest extent possible, organizational politics concerns how people affect each other.

  Political Behavior

  Given our definition of organizational politics, it is a commonplace activity in organizations. Research by Madison (1980) and others supports the idea that organizational politics is fully a part of organizational life. Sixty percent of managers he surveyed averred that it was “frequently” or “very frequently” a part of organizational life. Most managers see organizational politics as a part of work life at the middle and upper management levels and less so at the lower levels.

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  Why People Don't Believe You…

  Building Credibility from the Inside Out

  • (Author)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Berrett-Koehler Publishers

    (Publisher)

  Isn’t that lovely? So noble and heartfelt—and so utterly misguided. Whenever you hear someone make a statement like that, what they’re really saying is, “I don’t want to be part of the politics of people regardless of the outcome.” At first blush that might sound diplomatic, but is it sensible?

  Let’s define Office Politics and see if that helps us. Finding a definition was more difficult than I thought. Merriam-Webster ’s definitions of playing politics include “to say or do things for political reasons instead of doing what is right or what is best for other people” and “political activities characterized by artful and often dishonest practices.”

  Well, at least now we know why most of us struggle mightily with the subject! We are trained to believe that all Office Politics are detrimental and cultivated by devious people. Further, it seems like those with the audacity to recognize and participate in Office Politics must have somehow sold their souls. But those are not the only interpretations out there. I like one of wiseGEEK’s definitions: “Office Politics is simply the playing out of interrelationships within office environments.”

  Often people blur the lines between the terms politics and principles. I suppose it’s easy to confuse the two, particularly for those who deplore Office Politics. Merriam-Webster defines principle as “a moral rule or belief that helps you know what is right and wrong and that influences your actions.”

  Can we agree that the “playing out of interrelationships in an office environment” does not have to include putting ourselves in conflict with the standards we set for our personal conduct? Rather than keep our heads down in the hope that Office Politics will not creep into our mental cubicle, I suggest that it’s wiser to prepare for the inevitable. That doesn’t mean selling out or being gossipy or manipulative, but rather preparing ourselves so that we can avoid the pain of being on the wrong side of interpersonal relationships.

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  How to Keep Your Job in a Tough Competitive Market

  • Michael J Kitson, Bob Calandra(Authors)
  • 2009(Publication Date)
  • Adams Media

    (Publisher)

  Part IV Master the Art of Office Politics

  T he very thought of Office Politics turns off many people. But the fact is, Office Politics can be a good thing. Political dynamics are the way business operates. It is the currency that gets things done in the workplace. It’s true that some Office Politics are destructive and dysfunctional. But contrary to what many people think, most Office Politics are above board and healthy. Whenever human beings form a group, there will always be a political dynamic. The challenge for employees is to understand how Office Politics work in their company. Once you do, you will be better prepared to engage, in a healthy way, and add value to your job. Plus, by participating you will learn about the destructive side of your office’s politics and be better able to avoid it.

  Passage contains an image

  87. Make Office Politics Work for You

  Before you can save your job using your office’s political dynamic, you have to develop a keen self-awareness that not only allows you to understand what is going on, but to remain as balanced and objective as possible.

  For most employees, Office Politics and balance and objectivity are all but mutually exclusive ideas. Instead, most employees rush to judgment, pigeonholing the political dynamic in one of three categories— good, bad, or indifferent. The side they choose is good, which makes whoever is on the other side indifferent or bad.

  But the dynamic of Office Politics is much more involved and complex. To truly understand how it works, you must first be aware that during a bad business cycle the political dynamic becomes a free-for-all. Employees—let’s call them stakeholders— are all trying their best to do their best. But with each stakeholder reacting to the poor business climate by doing what he or she thinks is right and necessary to save the company, and oh by the way, his or her job, a confusion of personal strategies is let loose.

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  Relationships in Organizations

  A Work Psychology Perspective

  • R. Morrison, H. Cooper-Thomas, R. Morrison, H. Cooper-Thomas(Authors)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  Workplace politics is something that few admit they engage in at work, but everybody loves to talk about. While researchers often view politics as, at best, a necessary evil, most practitioners view it as the way things get done. Perhaps due to the negative connotations researchers have about the construct, there is often misunderstanding regarding the precise nature of politics in organizations. In order to more clearly discuss the topics throughout this chapter, we offer the following description of our key constructs.

  First, organizational politics, in general, is the use of power and social influence to affect organizational functioning, decision-making, and individual behavior while achieving goals in the face of uncertainty (Drory & Romm, 1988; Ferris et al., 2002; Ferris et al., 1989; Gandz & Murray, 1980; Pettigrew, 1973; Pfeffer et al., 1976). Although politics can be damaging and divisive (Gandz & Murray, 1980; Madison et al., 1980), Mintzberg (1983) asserted that it is ultimately just another system of influence that arises out of necessity as people seek to organize themselves to coordinated action, similar to authority or proscribed ideology. Organizational politics are more common in environments or situations that are ambiguous or have limited resources worth competing over. This is because goals and scarce resources are often obtained in such situations through the use of social influence behavior.

  In the workplace, social influence behaviors are typically referred to as political behaviors, and are actions that guide another individual’s thoughts or behaviors towards meeting one’s own self-serving or organization-serving ends (Ferris et al., 1989; Tedeschi & Melburg, 1984). When influencing others directly, political behaviors often take the form of influence tactics that engender in a target individual various levels of commitment to a particular task or behavior (Kipnis et al., 1980; Yukl & Tracey, 1992). For instance, inspiring a target to engage in a behavior by making it appear personally relevant may enhance a target’s commitment to a task or goal, while overtly pressuring them may cause resistance (Yukl et al., 1996). When seeking to affect others indirectly, however, political behavior may take the more subtle form of managing one’s impression in the eyes of others. Individuals may, for instance, render favors or give compliments in an effort to appear ingratiatory and thus likeable and deserving of favors, or may exemplify the ideal traits of an employee in their organization in an effort to appear devoted and thus deserving of trust and rewards (Jones & Pittman, 1982). While there are other, related forms of proactive and reactive political behavior (e.g. Tedeschi & Melburg, 1984), they all revolve around controlling the behavior of others to meet one’s own goals.

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  Organization Behaviour for Leisure Services

  • Darren Lee-Ross, Conrad Lashley(Authors)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Another definition is helpful because it suggests that politics is about achieving something effectively and efficiently. In addition, ‘cunning’ is a human trait which once again infers that politics is subjective but may have an additional and negative connotation (depending on who benefits from the act of cunning). Indeed, in a work-aday sense, individuals frequently talk of organizational politics in this way as a barrier to personal goal achievement, personal development and success.

  Having read through the chapters in this book, you will realize that organizations are an extension of the human psyche; that is:

  • they are irrational and fraught with contradictions and frailties
  • the workplace lives and breathes, contains paradoxes and conflicts because of the individuals who inhabit them
  • in a service context this metaphor is particularly appropriate because of the role members play in service delivery (for example, see Chapter 4 )
  • indeed, many writers consider that organizational politics exists and thrives because of the differences between the goals and aspirations of individual members (in addition to contextual matters).

  Thus, by way of summary, both Robbins’s (2001) and McShane and Travaglione’s (2003) definitions seem wholly appropriate for the purpose of this chapter: ‘Activities that are not required as part of an individual’s formal role in the organization, but that influence, or attempt to influence, the distribution of advantages and disadvantages within the organization’ (Robbins, 2001: 362); ‘The attempts to influence others using discretionary behaviours to promote personal objectives’ or ‘It [organizational politics] is the exercise of power to get one’s own way, including acquisition of more power, often at the expense of others’ (McShane and Travaglione, 2003: 411).

  Key point 3.1

  Organizational politics concerns more than simply acknowledging models of political rule; rather, it is about understanding the infinite complexities and interplay between organizational members for their personal gain.

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  Organizational Public Relations

  A Political Perspective

  • Christopher Spicer(Author)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Drory and Beaty (1991) suggested that organizational politics is increasingly recognized as the vehicle through which individuals and groups achieve their goals and needs. Politics, as Conrad (1994) succinctly reminded us, is “the overt communication of power” (p. 283). Or, as Pfeffer (1981b) also more than aptly noted, “Power is the property of the system at rest; politics is the study of power in action” (p. 7). In that power and politics go hand-in-glove, it is necessary to first come to an understanding of the notion of organizational power before turning our attention to politics and the public relations function.

  Until recently, both the concepts of power and politics have been treated as conceptual lepers by scholars of organizational theory, management, and communication. Bolman and Deal (1991) wrote that it is “extremely disquieting to see political forces corrupting organizational decision making” (p. 185). Organizational politics, as Morgan (1986) noted, “is seen as a dirty word” (p. 142). And, power, Kanter (1979) suggested, “is America’s last dirty word. It is easier to talk about money—and much easier to talk about sex—than it is to talk about power” (p. 65).

  However distasteful organizational politics is as a theoretical concept or a practical experience, organizational politics exists and influences how power is used to make decisions. The results of a survey of manager’s perceptions about workplace politics (Gandz & Murray, 1980, and Table 6.1 ) indicated that 93.2% of their respondents agreed with the statement that “the existence of workplace politics is common to most organizations ” (italics added). Fully 89% of the managers agreed that “successful executives must be good politicians .” And, 69.8% of the respondents agreed that “you have to be political to get ahead in organizations ” (from Gandz & Murray; Table 6.1

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  What it Means to be Human

  An intimate story of what it means to be human

  • Robert Rowland Smith(Author)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Fourth Estate

    (Publisher)

  The same goes for the group’s other members. Everybody has an interest in their own self-interest, as it were. The consequence is that we find ourselves competing. Sometimes the competition is subtle. At other times it’s blatant. But whatever else they might be, groups are competitive environments in which the members seek to maintain, improve or prevent a falling-off in their position. The aggregate of tactics deployed during that jostling for position is what we know as politics. ‘Politics’ I define as the practice of calculated self-interest within a group. In a work organisation, which is the focus of this chapter, the politics are no less active than in social groups. Indeed, work organisations tend to be more political altogether. Yet work organisations are ostensibly in business to compete with other work organisations, not with themselves. Everybody should be pulling together like the crew of a rowing boat. Instead the behaviour often resembles that of passengers on a cruise ship, sizing each other up. The political manoeuvring that goes on within an organisation threatens to impair the organisation’s performance against its competitors without. Intramural competition takes energy away from competing beyond the organisational walls. There are conflicting currents, as shown in the diagram overleaf. The big arrow of the organisation points one way. The small arrows, representing individuals, jockey with each other for advantage. They point in multiple directions. If enough of the small arrows swim against the direction of the big arrow, the organisation as a whole will capsize. But while most organisations have their mutineers, that scenario is exceptional. Internal disorder tends to hover beneath the level of the overall order maintained by the enterprise. All that fissiparous activity among the little arrows is contained by the big arrow. Homeostasis ensues. An image for it could be that of a cloud of gnats dancing beneath a pine tree

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  Organizational Behavior, International Adaptation

  • Mary Uhl-Bien, Ronald F. Piccolo, John R. Schermerhorn(Authors)
  • 2023(Publication Date)
  • Wiley

    (Publisher)

  9 Power and Politics

  Power helps you pave your own path.

  Learning Objectives

  By the end of this chapter, you will be able to:

  • Explain the concept of power in organizations.
  • Describe how to build bases of power.
  • List methods for navigating the political landscape in organizations.
  • Understand the concept of organizational justice.

  What’s Inside?

  • Be a Critical Thinker: Don’t Be Governed by Inferiors
  • Checking Ethics in OB: Coercive Power in The Devil Wears Prada
  • OB in the World: The Cancel Culture: Speaking Truth to Power?
  • OB in the World: Perception Alert! Is Wealth Due to Good Connections or Hard Work?
  • OB at Work: Struggling to Gain Influence? Tap into the Science of Persuading
  • Research Insights: Power Trips: When Managers Sabotage Their Subordinates—and Themselves
  • Worth Considering or Best Avoided?: Removing Another’s Power: Would You Blow the Whistle?

  Power and politics are some of the most important yet least understood concepts in organizational behavior. Many people disavow the idea of power and avoid any form of political maneuvering in the workplace. Some see the use of power and political gamesmanship as unethical or “dirty” activities. Yet, though some trepidation is justified, power and politics are ever present in organizations. They serve as critical currencies for getting things done and, without power to command attention or exert influence, people can lack the ability to speak up or manage what happens to them. With power, people are more likely to be heard, enhance their presence in organizations, and act as influential players and partners in the organizational arena.

  In this chapter, we explain what power is and why it is central in many organizational activities. We discuss how bases of power are built, how power is gained and lost, and why having the confidence and skill to navigate political environments is essential for success.

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  Changing Change Management

  Strategy, Power and Resistance

  • Darren McCabe(Author)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  The next section reviews the literature on OP and introduces four political discourses. We then return to the case of Copperdale to see how these discourses apply in an empirical setting before drawing out the main arguments in the conclusion. The Discourses and Meaning of Organisational Politics There are many different ways we can understand OP, which is notoriously ‘difficult to define’ (Kacmar and Carlson, 1997: 639). According to Pfeffer (1992) politics is ‘the exercise or use of power, with power being defined as potential force’ (op cit: 14). This understanding limits and equates politics to Lukes (1974) second dimension of power, which refers to the use of coercion and manipulation. Lukes (1974) third dimension of power, the ‘radical’ or ‘social’, fits better with the approach adopted towards politics in this chapter hence his third dimension points towards exercises of power that are less obvious or visible. Lukes (1974) presented power in a propertied way as something that ‘A’ possesses to ‘repress’ the real interests of ‘B’ and, as explained in Chapter 3, this is not how power is understood in this book, which follows a more ‘relational’ and ‘productive’ understanding of power (Foucault, 1977). A ‘relational’ approach towards power can help us to understand OP in the sense of multiple individuals and groups simultaneously jostling for power so as to advance or maintain their interests, though these ‘interests’ may not be consciously thought through or known to them. Politics can be understood as an attempt to exercise power, which is bound up with securing one’s sense of self, career and economic livelihood

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