It is strange
the feeling when we experience the whole world moving around you and you are
jammed at one point. This feeling of suffocation, asphyxiation is unbearable;
but the trouble starts when coping mechanisms start acting up and you actually
get comfortable contending to it.
It’s been long since I had any
meaningful conversation with myself to jot it down. It’s been a long busy time
at work, new place, new responsibilities, new people; and difficult decisions
at every step to make.
There are
times when we are accomplished and yet not satisfied, other times its almost
there and hence not slaked, and the most grievous of all are the times when we
are in lull, as if waiting for the bubble to burst but not wanting to do
anything apparent for it. Then there are some portions which are absolutely man-made,
purely synthetic in nature. All these many more such stuff have their own
brooking grounds. A person has to struggle through many more analytic and
synthetic circumstances. Wrangling and maneuvering at workplace had been an ancient tactic. Whether
you hate it, admire it, practice it or avoid it, office politics is a fact of
life in any organization.
In a recently read book, it
was very well articulated by the author, “it's more important now than ever
to ditch the good strategies you learned in nursery school and walk that thin
line, between being a squawk and an elf.” Workplace politics are the
strategies that people caper to gain advantage, personally or for a cause they
support. The term often has a negative connotation, in that it refers to
strategies people use to seek advantage at the expense of others or the greater
good. In this context, it often adversely affects the working environment and
relationships within it. Good "office politics", on the other hand,
help you fairly promote yourself and your cause, and is more often called
networking and stakeholder management. When you come to think about it, it
looks more like self-survival technique to most of us.
Positive or negative –
politics happens. The philosopher Plato said, "One of the penalties for
refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your
inferiors." And this hold true today in the workplace: If you don't
participate in the political game, you risk not having a say in what happens
and allowing people with less experience, skill or knowledge to influence the
decisions being made around you.
Office Politics are a fact
of life. Wise politicking will help you get what you want in the world of work
without compromising others in the process. Learn to use its power positively
while diffusing the efforts of those who abuse it.
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