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The Make-or-Break Game of Office Politics
Bob Weinstein is a journalist who covers technology, project management, the workplace and career development.
Picture this all-too-common scenario: You just started a new PM job, and you want to make a great impression and fit in. Knowing how important those first couple of months are, you don’t want to make any mistakes. While everyone seems friendly and accepting, you notice that there are definite cliques. You see them in the company cafeteria and in the hallways.
There is probably no intent, but they make you feel like an outsider. And you’ve hardly been with the company a month. Although it may seem like you’re back in high school, what you’re experiencing is real. It’s office politics--a powerful force not to be ignored.
How do you become part of the team, someone your co-workers admire and accept? It’s not by merely doing a great job, but by playing office politics. For many people, the concept of office politics has a negative connotation. What they don’t realize is that there’s a right way to play the office politics game and win. So say Louellen Essex and Mitchell Kusy. Essex is an organization learning and development consultant and a professor at the University of Minnesota, and Kusy is a professor in AntiochUniversity’s Ph.D. program in leadership.
Office politics are not about popularity--they’re about power. In every office, there are organizational leaders: supervisors, managers …
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