You cannot avoid enemies unless you are completely ineffectual. You cannot avoid becoming involved in the political rivalries and factions. To get ahead you cannot entirely avoid using other people. To think that you can, or should, remain aloof from the political arena, as some would recommend, is nonsense. To try to do so is to resign yourself to a position less than your probable worth; it can occasionally be suicidal. This is true whether you are the right material for management status or not.
It is also true, however, that your major efforts should be made in the areas of producing, planning, analysis, growth, etc.-that is, in everything else we have discussed. Playing politics without these other things gives you a poor foundation for endurance and may cause you to lose respect for yourself. But to avoid politics can destroy everything good you have to offer.
You must study the political patterns in your company and examine the games people play. You must play some of these games too. Occasionally, you must bluff as in poker. Sometimes, you must bear in and fight with punches to the head and midsection, but you should hit with facts and results. Other times you must duck and side-step-that is, you must vary your approaches. Often you should con the competition-through methods of persuasion discussed previously, for instance, to get them on your side. Once in a while, the right approach is to sit and wait, to do nothing and let conflicts resolve themselves.
Moreover, you should play the game with style and showmanship. Avoid the petty reactions. Keep your cool. You can often win a round by merely turning a seeming loss into a victory by joining the victor for the sake of the corporation.
Do everything possible to avoid the situation in which you must be involved in a conflict of wills. In such a clash, the man who loses may become a bitter enemy. If you win, you probably have not convinced him that you are right. You ha\e merely won a battle, not the war. It is true that you can have clash after clash without ill effect, but it is better to find other, more diplomatic ways to gain ground.
You will have to use people in your push toward success: those who work for you, your associates, your bosses, your friends and acquaintances. Because they are different and all have different relationships with you, you must use each in a different way. Using everyone in the same way is obvious and stupid politics.
You can use people for numerous purposes. You can gather ideas or improvements on ideas from some. From others, you can get reactions, both objective and subjective. From even others, you can obtain help of many different kinds. Another way to use people is by observing their methods, both good and bad, and learning from them.
For future security and for future self-respect, the using of people must be accomplished without deliberate harm to them. This is one of the most important qualifications to the political approach.
Another important taboo in politics is smearing the competition either by statement or inuendo. It is taboo primarily because so many mediocre people do it-especially those who feel insecure-and because your refusal to join such an exchange weakens their position and strengthens yours. It earns respect for you both from your friends and from your enemies.
Learn to recognize the political undercurrents in your company, use them when you must, but never become obsessed with them.
Experts on Office Politics
You must know, then, that there are two methods of fighting, the one by law, the other by force: the first method is that of men, the second of beasts; but as the first method is often insufficient, one must have recourse to the second. It is therefore necessary for a prince to know well how to use both the beast and the man. Machiavelli
In modern business it is not the crook who is to be feared most, it is the honest man who doesn't know what he is doing. Owen D. Young
Concentrating on doing your work imaginatively and well will also free you to become a pro in one of the biggest, most exciting games that human beings engage in. It is a game that requires your total professional involvement and a considerable share of your personal involvement. Henry Ford n
It takes more than just business ability to make an executive. Once a company reaches a certain size it becomes a social institution with a definite responsibility. It cannot fulfill this responsibility unless it is operated by a management educated for this task. Fowler McCormick
Business is a great game, I play it very hard and in as sportsmanlike a way as I know how, and I feel that at the end of the day I have got the fullest reward. I am an enthusiast in business. H. Gordon Selfridge
Politics is like a race horse. A good jockey must know how to fall with the least possible damage. Edouard Herriot
If you succeed in life, you must do it in spite of the efforts of others to pull you down. There is nothing in the idea that people are willing to help those who help themselves. People are willing to help a man who can't help himself, but as soon as a man is able to help himself, and does it, they join in making his life as uncomfortable as possible. Edward Howe
Every now and then one meets a successful businessman who has conveniently forgotten the small or large deceptions that he practiced on his way to fortune. "God gave me my money," old John D. Rockefeller once piously told a Sunday school class. It would be a rare tycoon in our time who would risk the horse laugh with which such a remark would be greeted. In the last third of the twentieth century even children are aware that if a man has become prosperous in business, he has sometimes departed from the strict truth in order to overcome obstacles or has practiced the more subtle deceptions of the half-truth or the misleading omission. Whatever the form of bluff, it is an integral part of the game, and the executive who does not master its techniques is not likely to accumulate much money or power. Albert Z. Carr
It must be clearly understood that the road to success cannot be traveled without using other people. You must maintain one moral trait, and that is to avoid deliberately harming other individuals. But you must also be able to use people to your own advantage without harming them. And you must compensate for using them, for if you do not, you ultimately will lose self-respect. Nicolas Darvas
In order to have an enemy, one must be somebody. One must be a force before he can be resisted by another force. A malicious enemy is better than a clumsy friend. Madame Swetchine
It's great to have high ideals, but don't be a damn fool. Anon.
The lovely thing about patience is that it annoys the person who is annoying you. Irish Proverb
Ideas to Remember
- Learn to understand different people's needs.
- Handle each person differently.
- Don't get involved in the pettiness of the insecure man.
- Don't depend solely on the support of one leader.
- If you use a prospective leader to aid your own climb, be prepared for all possibilities-including the loss of his support.
- Don't be a yes-man.
- Study the political patterns of your company.
