Chapter 7: Management-Level Office Politics

Overview

It is good to recognize when political games are being played, but that doesn’t mean you should join in. If you want to play games, pick a sport.
—Gina Dias, Corporate Controller, NVT, Inc.

The trouble with the game of management-level office politics is that it is not at all like a game. There are no rules, no referees, no time-outs—only winners and losers.

This version of office politics is cultural, a style of communication and evaluation that is used by and in organizations. Office politics at the management level is different from peer-level office politics. It is much less “junior high school” and much more serious—the stakes are higher, and recovery from a political blunder may be difficult or impossible. Political maneuvering is much more pronounced in the senior ranks, where much of the manager’s performance evaluation is based on subjective measures rather than tangible results; therefore, the participants in management-level politics typically focus only on the professional success end of the success/fulfillment grid.

In my corporate days, I moved up through the ranks to management by playing the game. At first I did not play it well: I showed support for unpopular subordinates who I thought had potential for growth; I spoke up when I disagreed with opinions, assumptions, or initiatives; and I refused to follow the “in crowd” in their padding of expense reports (passed on to clients). My behavior was the political equivalent of running with scissors.

Then I decided to “play,” and play I did. I dressed like them, talked like them, shunned those people who were on the “outside,” and cavorted with those people who were “in”; I always agreed with the “right” people, and I voiced my objections or concerns only to people who “didn’t matter.” And I could not stand myself.

This was the point in my career when I realized that I just could not be this way. I did not want to be a cruel, gossipy (albeit well-dressed) political conspirator, and then go home to my 10-year-old son and teach him about kindness and integrity. Something had to change.

During my early days of coaching, I identified and came to understand my own personal values, and I realized just how different my values were from those espoused by my then-employer. I also woke up to the theory of personal needs and realized that I had attempted to participate in the political mumbo-jumbo in order to be accepted as part of the group. When I really got the idea that management-level office politics was all about power, I could see that my peers and I were simply jockeying for position in a nasty political arena. Then I was able to let it go.