Organisational Politics

Today’s assumption: Politics are inevitable in your organisation. The bigger the organisation, the more politics.

Politics in an organisation is when individuals pursue agendas that don’t match the wider organisation’s goals. They’re self-serving, and ultimately harmful to the company, though many individuals thrive as a result of their political endeavours.

Here’s the thing: politics are only possible when 2 things are true.

1. The direction and strategy of the organisation aren’t clear.
2. Information disparities exist.

If you want to remove politics, first be sure your organisation’s strategy (what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, and the actions necessary to achieve it) is crystal clear. It should be so clear and so clearly communicated that anybody in the organisation could cite it from memory. When everybody knows what they should be doing, it’s harder for people to do something different in the name of doing what’s good for the company.

Second, make it easy to access all the information in your company. You don’t know what your employees want to know. Knowledge is power. Those with knowledge are more powerful than those without. Every dark corner, every secret, every well-intentioned withholding of information spawns rumours. And wherever there are rumours, there are power games, and politics.

To remove politics from your organisation, embrace radical transparency. Like a lot of what I talk about here, it won’t be easy, but it will be better.