Surviving The Office | 7 tips for climbing the corporate ladder in a charged climate
While office politics are commonly regarded quite negatively as a culture rife with back stabbing, gossiping, and brown nosing, it also has a very strong upside. The key to successfully navigating your way through the propaganda lies with making the system ‘for' you rather than against you, as is often the case.
Here are some simple tips to keep you and your career moving in the right direction:
1. Over-Communicate. Keep others apprised of what you are planning or currently working on. Organizations hate to be surprised and often, when they are, it creates a blueprint for failure — personal or for the project, itself. In many companies this can mean taking meetings with people you may not like or respect, but chalk that up to life in the fast lane.
2. Mentors. These individuals are still the best way to get an objective handle on what’s really going on in an organization as they can better see the forest through the trees. “Company insider” mentors can give you a fast understanding of the company’s culture. But, a mentor need not be within the organization, as outside mentors can provide a new, fresh and completely unbiased perspective on both your personal style — what it is and what it “should” be - and how your company’s politics are working in general.
3. Open-ended Questions. Ask a lot of questions to different people in different sides of the company. And then shut up. When you hear the perspectives of people in departments or operations other than yours, it helps you to see the world as they see it and understand what they deem important.
4. Review Constantly. Seek constant feedback from others. Talk about what just took place in that meeting you just attended, what the last message from the corporate office “really” said, how you did in a recent presentation, what is driving decisions and directives. Many great managers fail because they believe that what’s right is what is going to succeed, which all too often is not the case.
5. Get Buy In. It’s important to ensure that everyone who may be influenced by your programs or initiatives is aware of what’s going to happen and feels like they’ve been involved — or, at least, were able to weigh in with their opinions or recommendations. Ideally they’ll be supportive of what you are doing, but at the very least it may reduce friction that could derail your ultimate, longer-term success.
6. Give — And Take —Due Credit. OK, it’s true: guys are credit hogs, which gets old and can come back to bite them over time. On the other hand, gals can go too far the other way — giving the rest of the team so much credit that they don’t get the respect from upper management they deserve. Credit those on your team who deserve it, but don’t miss an opportunity to take credit for your work as well.
7. Style: It still Counts. How you present yourself to others — your external façade — can make a big difference in how you are perceived. While this is seemingly common sense advice, all too often we mistakenly think our presentation — our outward appearance, our use of PowerPoint, our buzzwords and jargon — will be universally accepted.
John McKee is the author of “Career Wisdom — 101 Proven Strategies to Ensure Workplace Success” and “21 Ways Women in Management Shoot Themselves in the Foot.”
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