Each office has its politics, and in order to secure your position at the office you have to learn and play the “politics game”. Not everyone knows how to play this game, but everyone plays this, even if they don’t admit it.
In order to play the game you need to set up your goals, this is the hardest task to find those goals that are important for your survival in the office and that will secure your position, the moment you set your goals, you are half way there. Now what is left is to find and get the support of others in the office to back you up in your path. In order to see if you are playing the game or not correctly there are few steps you need to do:
- As I wrote earlier you should write down your goals wish-list; remember to sort it from the most wanted to the least wanted. Write down your achievements in the past year and compare it to your wish list, do they match? If not you might be doing someone else wish-list without even knowing. Remember you have to be very clear about your goals, for example — if your supervisor seeks someone for a new position that you desire find out what your supervisor wants from you and what skills are needed in order to get this position.
- In order to reach your goals you need to build a personal network of colleagues that support you or minimum respect you. Colleagues attend to remember your acts if they don’t support nor respect you they can block you and this in long term is a bad thing as it won’t allow you to progress and accomplish your goals. In order to gain the respect of your colleagues you have to hear them up, offer a favor, don’t fly solo.
- Find the right colleagues to hock up with, don’t look upwards as sometimes colleagues below or equal to your position knows ways how to approach others.
- Look and listen, in order to use the politics in the office into your advantages look around and notice who got promoted, ignored, patted on back, etc…doing that allows you to learn the politics and the techniques to survive in the office as now you know who is being heard, who has the power and what are the different reward (or punishment) for different acts in the office.
- Focus on what you do best and hands off from work someone else does better, by doing this you are tactfully promotes yourself in the eyes of others. You don’t have to brag about it as the key is to show and not tell, this can be done for example if you have expertise in a specific field offer to do it in other department besides yours , offer to take other projects you have skills for ‚etc..
Remember playing the “politics game” doesn’t mean you have to lie, lick, or find dirt on someone at the office. This game is for two reasons only – securing your place in the office and allowing you to get promoted. Playing it correctly doesn’t suppose to downgrade your position in the office as it supposes to help you survive the politics that goes around and turn it into your advantages.
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