Corporate Politics

Unfortunately for much of the corporate world, the daily grind includes politics within the work group. Regardless of what level the company is on within the corporate world, when workers come together in a hierarchical system there are always those jockeying for position, which always falls to political competition.

In a corporate environment, there are extensive checks and balances to ensure proper work flow, and efficiency. These checks and balances are usually mandatory to the proper function of the company, but can in fact cause problems when the employees enforcing them become motivated by personal gain, as opposed to that of the work group. In most cases corporate politics become an innate property of the companies system of checks and balances. When this happens those in positions of authority are being pressed to retain their position, by those above them. In other words, the president of the company makes sure the vice president knows that if he doesn't perform to a certain standard, his position could be in jeopardy. By doing this, he places a level of pressure on the vice president, which in turn causes the vice president to do what it takes to retain his image of being the correct person for his position. To retain this image, whether or not a worker performs adequately to do so, the worker will often use political means.

A worker motivated by political means will typically take measures to make others look less adequate, such as making them hardly visible in the companies eye, or highlighting their mistakes, and covering up their successes. Unfortunately this behavior will almost certainly trickle down the hierarchy of authority to the lowest level.

As a solution to corporate politics it is best to do one of two things; either take a accordingly aggressive position, or an acceptably passive position. If you intend to surpass your boss you're going to have to outshine him. To do this you will have to be under the same eye that he is. In order to outshine your boss you will have to be more aggressive than he is, and ensure you never show flaw when checked upon, regardless of his glamorizing of your flaws. On the contrary if you have no intention of passing your boss, you should show absolutely no sign of being a competitor. By doing so you will show your boss that he has nothing to worry about, and thus will not pay your interests any more attention than as needed.