The Office Politics Game | Office-Politics.
High-integrity people often think they aren't (or shouldn't be ) "political" -- assuming that to be poitical means to be conniving, inauthentic or self-serving.
But if you think of politics as an acknowledgement of the simple fact that we all live in a huge web of influence, where everyone is, on one level or another, hoping to directly or indirectly impact situations and outcomes -- then you realize that 1) politics is unavoidable (like gravity) and 2) it would be good to learn to operate in that web in a skillful, honest and reasonably mutually beneficial way.
I'll do a more in-depth review later, but I just wanted to mention and link to this useful and insightful book-and-game, recently out from Franke James. I am pleased and honored to count Franke as a friend and colleague, and I think she's done a wonderful thing here: addressed the topic of office politics with wit and humor, and offered a way for people to improve their poltical acumen while retaining their principles.
It's fun, too -- check it out.
I've always tried to be that high integrity person. And I've never been adept at office politics. When I was younger, I took the latter as proof of the former. Obviously, the reason I was getting blindsided was that I was the moral, straight-shooting truth-teller.
That worked pretty well as a rationalization until I met Jim. Jim is my father-in-law. He was very successful in the corporate world. He is good at office politics. But there has never on God's earth ever been a more moral, straight-shooting truth-teller.
Office politics is a skill-set. As with most skill-sets, some people are more naturally gifted than others, but that doesn't mean that most of us can't learn the basics.
Posted by: Wally Bock | July 11, 2009 at 04:09 PM
Wally -
Great story! Perfectly illustrates the point. I've known folks like that too, who really changed my (self-righteous) view of office politics...
Erika
Posted by: Erika Andersen | July 12, 2009 at 09:50 AM