How to Play Office Politics
Hey guys,
Have a few years of experience, currently in a Masters program. Have always heard of office politics, xyz plays them really well. Can anyone share exactly what that is? Is that having good relationships being nice to seniors/ those you work under/making sure no one takes your work product as their own, etc? I honestly don't know exactly what office politics are and if anyone can share examples of how someone played them well or not and in general what it entails?
I was in a sales role where it didn't play too much and another role where it played a little bit but I've never learned how to play politics well and really don't know what it means or entails.
Work hard, be kind to people, be as honest as you can be, be as discretionary as you need to be, and learn when and how to do people favors. People hate assholes, people hate liars, people hate blabber mouths, and people hate those who always ask for favors and never give any. It's only politics if you are being decent for personal gain and not because it's the right thing to do. In my experience, people will occasionally take credit for your work and that’s part of the game. The key to that not being an issue is to always do great work. If a senior always takes credit for something and never credits their team, it’s not a great look to their supervisor. It’s not realistic to expect to get credit for everything you do. I tend to take the positive outlook on this because the negative outlook leads to worse productivity. If you are constantly paranoid about this, it’s not helping. If you are consistently good, you will get credit eventually or leave.
Honestly, I just try to be nice to everyone and make an effort to speak with my coworkers. Like I’m a football fan but now I have to diligently watch the eagles games so I can chat about it next morning with my VP who is obsessed with the eagles. Like every Monday morning we’ll talk about the eagles for like an hour and I could just see how excited he gets when we talk about it. And now I have a great relationship with him when I thought I started out rough.
"Office Politics", like others have said, is just being liked. Some people have the mindset (myself included when I started my career) that they want to go to work, do a good job, keep their head down, and go home at the end of the day to see their friends/family/etc.. It's hard for bosses and coworkers to like you if you never talk to them or seem stand-offish. The reason this is so important is, while everyone appreciates you doing good work and it being on time, there are quite literally hundreds of thousands if not millions of people that can put numbers into an excel spreadsheet and send an email to their boss with the results. The way to be promoted or given a raise is to take on more responsibility and be liked. Let's be honest, the executives of the firm don't really care who the analysts are as long as the work is correct and on time, but they do care about the people they have to interact with all day (Directors and VP's) so they want to like them. They are going to promote people that they like (and obviously that do a good job) since they will be around them more often and can trust them.
Best ways to be liked is to not annoy people by trying too hard, be polite, be honest, and be yourself while making sure there is enough of a filter to remain professional. They don't have to be your best friends to like you, so don't take all this to mean that you need to be close personally with your bosses to "play the game". And while it's great to have your direct boss like you, the "playing the game" aspect of this is making sure the right people like you. Who cares if you're in acquisitions and someone in marketing or accounting doesn't like you (can't please everyone anyways), the people that need to like you are the people that are in acquisitions or people that choose promotions and raises for you.
I want to push back a bit on what the others have said. Doing a good job, being kind and honest, etc. is a good standard for being a good colleague, but office politics is something a bit different.
Part of it certainly is making sure your boss likes you, but it's more about making sure that you are playing the power structures appropriately, as that's all that politics is, the maneuvering of power. Having your bosses like you is a pretty big source of power, but it's also about making yourself relevant to the conversation. That means ensuring that you get credit for your work, that your boss's boss is aware of your existence, getting to know other branches of the firm so if you need an ally you have the relationship, etc. A lot of it is simply being in the room/on the agenda. It's an underrated aspect of power, but being able to control who is in the room and what is on the agenda is a big part of exercising soft power.
If you are the guy who goes into "office politics" looking to "play" them, you are inevitably going to be comically obvious and lose hard.
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