Some misguided people believe that ‘playing politics’ is an acceptable strategy for achieving a response or reaction, arising from some personal agenda. The actual results being sought, by engaging in this poisonous practice, usually, have to do with a perceived grievance against a particular individual or group, the acquisition of personal power or just plain self-aggrandizement. It is, best, described as a pursuit of the inadequate, who seek to gain an advantage, in some shared endeavour, but do not have the necessary leadership skills, ability to motivate people or just plain character to achieve their goals, by fair means. Nonetheless, these people regard ‘playing politics’ as the ultimate game. But that is all it is – a destructive game.
How can you recognise when the game is being played?
- Being kept, deliberately, ‘out of the loop’. Withheld information.
- Deliberately, changing information, instructions etc.
- Being left out of meetings.
- Colleague ‘alliancing’.
- Criticizing you, to your boss. Going ‘over your head’.
- Expressing an adverse opinion to the team, when passing on your instructions.
- Briefing against you with other departments.
- Initiating and spreading false information.
How can you neutralize a ‘politician’?
- Do not become paranoid and start seeing plots that do not exist.
- Never ‘fight fire with fire’. Do not engage in the same sordid tactics as the ‘politician’.
- Be sure that the ‘politician’ is the originator of the mischief. If you have incontrovertible proof, confront him with the facts. (‘I understand that you…..’)
- Encourage the open exchange of information, within the team and keep its members informed on any matter that will affect them, directly.
- If information or instructions could be open to different interpretation, communicate the data to the team yourself.
- And, if a genuine reason occurs (and I mean genuine) that warrants terminating the politician’s employment; no second chances – ‘fire his ass!’
“Confound their politics. Frustrate their knavish tricks.”
(Richard Carew 1555-1620)