{"id":157,"date":"2010-06-29T20:00:13","date_gmt":"2010-06-30T03:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/angryweasel.com\/blog\/?p=157"},"modified":"2010-06-29T20:00:13","modified_gmt":"2010-06-30T03:00:13","slug":"politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/angryweasel.com\/blog\/politics\/","title":{"rendered":"Politics"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019d like to announce my candidacy for\u2026no \u2013 not that kind of politics, I thought I\u2019d drop a few comments on office <\/em>politics.<\/p>\n

Too often, people see \u201cpolitics\u201d as the evil underbelly of the corporate world, and that competency in office politics requires that you can backstab your coworkers with no remorse, find a variety of ways to undermine your colleagues, and take credit for the work of anyone who won\u2019t fight your claims. This definition from dictionary.com covers it well:<\/p>\n

\n

to deal with people in an opportunistic, manipulative, or devious way, as for job advancement.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

But to me, that\u2019s a cynical, shallow, and completely unhelpful view of what politics really are in the workplace. However, I do like the first four words – \u201cTo Deal With People\u201d \u2013 in my happy rose colored view, that\u2019s the part of the politic game that everyone<\/u> has to play. I think that long term success in any workplace requires that you can deal with people. If you want influence, you\u2019re going to need to have allies. If you attempt a difficult change, you may also annoy or disappoint some people. That\u2019s all fine, as long as you find a way to talk, listen, or do whatever it takes to keep the wheels moving. I\u2019m not saying that you have to kiss everyone\u2019s ass, but if you want to be a leader \u2013 someone who can influence people to change, improve, or flat out take a chance on something that you<\/em> want to do, you\u2019re going to need to find a way to deal with them.<\/p>\n

There may be people in the world that you don\u2019t like or respect. That\u2019s ok \u2013we all know those people. Those of you who are politically savvy know that you probably still need to be able to communicate with them occasionally, so you don\u2019t burn bridges. Who knows \u2013 you may need those people as an ally someday, and if you flipped the bit on them (and told them that you flipped the bit as well), all I can say is good luck getting that next \u201cbig idea\u201d to fly. <\/p>\n

More importantly, you need to be able to influence the people who can help<\/em> you. Chances are good that you have more great ideas than you can take care of yourself. That\u2019s ok, because great leaders take pride in making those around them better, and your great ideas are probably the thing that will make all of your colleagues better.<\/p>\n

As long as they\u2019ll listen to you.<\/p>\n

And they will listen to you, as long as you are worth listening to.<\/u> So build credibility, help them in their own projects, give them credit, and raise them up any way you can. In other words, use politics<\/em> (the good kind) to get your way\u2026and become a leader.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019d like to announce my candidacy for\u2026no \u2013 not that kind of politics, I thought I\u2019d drop a few comments on office politics. Too often, people see \u201cpolitics\u201d as the evil underbelly of the corporate world, and that competency in office politics requires that you can backstab your coworkers with no remorse, find a variety…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-allposts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/angryweasel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/angryweasel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/angryweasel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/angryweasel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/angryweasel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/angryweasel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/angryweasel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/angryweasel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/angryweasel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}