This blog was prompted by speaking to a number of company founders and big company leadership teams.
Here is the worst kept secret no-one wants to discuss at the moment:
Office Politics Is Optional.
It might feel like they are not.
It might feel like your organisation is set up to reward the political, the people who play games, or play the game.
In truth most businesses do not have a company culture that is set up to allow non political behaviour to win.
Management teams rarely gain feedback around office politics and do not work with teams to remove this.
So yes, unfortunately, companies reward people playing the game because they are often unaware of stuck in a game of political chess.
However there is hope, if you are a leader step up, if not you can step up and collaborate!
Leaders, It’s Time To Lead!
If you are in a position to influence and change this, call out this bad behaviour.
Call out when people are playing the game, using situations for personal gain or hoarding clout.
The only way to improve the office environment and company culture is to address known issues and bad behaviour.
It’s Time To Join Forces
If you feel you are not in the position to call out office politics directly, speak to colleagues and collate a number of examples of office politics and when they happen and take it collectively to your management teams and HR team and work proactively with these managers to step up and remove office politics.
Q4 2020 and early 2021 is the time businesses are going to:
- Have to proactively collaborate, identify the behaviours they want to start, stop and continue
- Have to address bad work practises
- Improve internal communications
- It is the time businesses have to step up and remove bad working environments
And - As importantly leaders are going to have to step up and lead!
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