It is an old warning with a lot of tradition to support it. The fact that tradition supports it, however, should be enough to make it suspect. Company politics has seen its evil days, and some organizations are still torn with it, but by and large the day when close-knit groups resented each other in general and all ambitious newcomers in particular is drawing to a close. As both the groups and the affected companies have learned in recent years, such intramural skill shining for prestige and influence did the groups no good while greatly impairing the productivity of the company.
When people get along together, production rises; when they don't, it falls. And when they do get along, you can be sure good company politics is behind it, just as you can be sure the opposite is true when hostility holds sway. In either case, politics good or bad is inescapable. When three people in the same car-pool discuss the company on the way to work, you have a caucus. At the drinking fountain, or during a coffee break, or at lunch, if people aren't talking about their work-playing politics -they just don't care, and that's bad.
Lift Your Horizon
Company politics is here to stay. To close your ears to it is not to remove yourself from politics but from the company. How else you know what is going on? And if you don't know what is going on in the company, how will you know where you're going?
Playing good company politics is easy, informative, and rewarding, and is covered by three simple rules.
- Say something interesting or constructive about your work.
- Say something good about your boss, supervisor, or company policy-with sincerity.
- Keep on doing a good job. If you can't do these after a month or two on the job-if your work is so dull and the company so uninteresting-you are in the wrong job.
Well, he had a long wait. Three years, in fact, before he came to me for assistance. Even then, I am sure; he didn't expect to find anything wrong in his attitude. He wanted me to tell him what was wrong with a company that refused to recognize his merits. Three interviews of an hour each had to take place before he was willing to concede that people who work together should get along together.
"You say you have been with the company three years, come next Wednesday" I said. "Who hired you?"
"The same boss I've got today. Except for a couple of cost-of-living raises, I haven't moved an inch," he replied.
Everyone in the plant had received "cost-of-living" raises, but the opportunity was there. "Go in and tell your boss next Wednesday that this is your third anniversary, and invite him out for a drink," I urged. "Thank him for hiring you, and thank him for the two raises. Let him know you are alive, and let him know you know he is a living person. Get some life into your job, even if it takes two drinks."
With some reservation Carl accepted my suggestion. Much to his surprise, he found his boss to be quite a likable person, and I am sure the boss was equally surprised to find Carl possessed some of the warming characteristics of a human being. Next Carl joined the department golf team, which he thoroughly disgraced in the company tournament, and found himself better liked as a human being for it. Six months later, when his boss was transferred to a new plant in Texas, Carl was named as the new chief. Politics? Of course. And where would he, or his boss, or the company be without it?
Being the realist I must be, I will admit that company politics can still reveal its evil side in some organizations. Tom Arlen was one such victim. After 23 years with his company, he had risen to the position of Assistant-to-the-President, and indeed functioned as president during "the old man's" frequent absences. Two sons, both ambitious, served as vice-presidents. Then came the cablegram notifying them that the "old man" had died of a heart attack in Jamaica. Instantly both sons moved to take over. Tom, a good negotiator, stayed neutral.
Tom felt that his responsibility - plus a deep feeling of loyalty to his late boss - was to keep the company going. He refused to take sides as the warring sons fought to line up executives and stockholders for the showdown that would turn the company over to one or the other. When the fratricidal activity was over, Tom was out no matter which son emerged as winner. He was fired for disloyalty by the victor when the actual charge should have been unwise impartiality.
That unhappy result of company politics had not gone unnoticed by rival concerns. Men of Tom's proven ability were scarce, and they were quick to bid for his services. Tom was in no condition to make up his mind. For 23 years-his entire professional life-he had given his undivided .loyalty to the company and its president, and that his reward should be dismissal because of company politics had left him stunned. His confidence shattered, he could feel only that if he hadn't made good in his old company, how could he expect to make good with a lot of strangers in a new job?
No man can stay aloof from company politics without feeling the effects, adversely. Such an attitude makes him unaware of the inroads politics can make in his career. Bad politics is based on greed, selfishness, power-seeking, and often prejudice that may be regional or racial in nature. Actually company politics is not the name for it, for the company will suffer irreparable damage in the long run. It is personal, or factional, or clique politics, played for the advancement of the few, and let the company go hang, as it frequently does. Yet it cannot be ignored. If it is to be counteracted intelligently, it must be recognized for what it is, from the lowest man subjected to its pressures to the president of the firm. If one is in no position to combat it-and Tom had felt it was not his right to participate in what was essentially a family quarrel-then one must know what it is all about for his own protection. One's personal success is not to be found where partisanship and bias have more influence than merit.
Once I was able to convince Tom of that fact, and that he could not have "pounded the two kids' heads together as their father would have done," he was ready to consider some of his job offers with more confidence. When he did make his choice, it was a bold one. From the New England company producing hard goods he moved to a South Carolina textile firm as vice president in charge of company relations. His parting words were, "I'm a Yankee going south for the first time to handle company politics, something I've always avoided. My Dynamic Success Factors say I can do it-that human relations factor was something I had taken for granted. And you know what I think of bad company politics. Well, if your theories don't work, you'll hear from me."
I've heard from him several times since, following each of his promotions. Recently he was named to the board of directors of his firm, still in charge of company relations, but of all five plants instead of one. I treasure his story particularly. Here was a man whose 23-year career had been wiped out by company politics, and yet in company politics he has found his greatest success.
