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Surviving the game of office politics Date published: 10/5/2006
By KAFIA HOSH nce you enter the workforce, the games begin. Whether you choose to play or not, office politics is an unavoidable aspect of the workplace. "A lot of people don't play because they don't like it," says Robert Sarmiento, a Houston-based psychologist and career counselor. "You're really playing the game, you're just not doing a good job at it." Instead of sitting the game out, "the solution to that is to realize you can do it in a professional or ethical way," Sarmiento said. To play effectively, you should know just what office politics entails. There are two definitions of office politics, says Larry W. Penwell, chair of the business administration department at the University of Mary Washington and a business and psychology professor. Office politics can involve an employee who wants to advance his own interests, even if it is at the expense of his coworkers. "That's sort of the dirtiest level of the politics," Penwell said. Office politics are also the corporate culture of a certain business. It is "the day-to-day etiquette of how things are done, the methods and the procedures, the information structures that are needed for an organization to do its work," Penwell said. "It's a cultural thing within a company," said Bonita Coats, president-elect of the Fredericksburg Society of Human Resource Managers. "That's the determining factor." Office politics involves a gamut of behaviors and character types, including bullying, intimidation, difficult co-workers and of course, gossip. The corporate grapevine is pervasive in some offices. It can be difficult to avoid gossip or banter for an employee making his way through the cubicle maze for a simple coffee break. Rumors can damage an employee's professional character when the information being tossed around is mean-spirited. "There are nasty rumors that affect people's ability to do their job," Penwell said. "It interferes with the people they're talking about." To control office gossip, management should "have some access to the grapevine," Penwell noted. "Because sometimes the rumors are really wrong and you need to intervene and correct them." One way to stifle a rumor is to "put out information that contradicts it," Penwell suggested. James Smith, a 41-year-old federal government worker, said gossip at his office is mainly work-related and harmless.
Date published: 10/5/2006
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