Unit_4___Office_Politics.doc

Unit 4 Office Politics Office Politics ：Survival of the savvy By Barb McEwen Political savvy is a vital competence for any executive, but it’s not taught in leader-ship or grad school courses. In fact, the term “office politics” has received a bad rap. (Words like “Machiavellian” , “manipulative” and?computational” com to mind .) Tales of political sabotage, power plays and turf wars are part of any organization’s history. Nonetheless, political competence is the one skill everyone wishes to have more of - but no one talks about it. When you ask people how they achieve results within their organizations, they cite market analysis, strategic planning and brainstorming. They never mention politics. Until recently, few books explained how to use political competence to build one’s career, improve a team’s results or boost the company’s bottom line. Samuel B. Bacharach, director of Cornell University’s Institute for Workplace studies, recently published Get Them on Your Side. Rick Brandon and Marty Selman have written Survival of the savvy: High-Integrity Political Tactics for Career and Company Success. Art Kleiner Weighs in with Who Really Matters: The Core Group Theory of Power, Privilege, and Success. These books shed light on this crucial competency, which every leader needs to master, Political competence is the “ability to understand what you can and cannot control, when to take action, who is going to resist your agenda, and whom you need side. It’s about knowing how to map the political terrain and get others on your side, as well as lead coalitions,” according to Prof. Bacharach. Many individuals have good ideas that, if implemented, could yield positive results for their companies. Sometimes, these ideas fall flat because the leaders who propose them can-not gain support from key people. They are unsuccessful in building a coalition to bring an idea into practical use. A corporate version of survival of survival of the fitt