Everyone have a negative feeling about office politics. But do you know that office politics can be advantages for your career move. There are no good or bad about office politics, it exists no matter how big or how small is your organization. It depends on how we perceive it and handle it. Let us explore the benefit of office politics
Get thing done faster
Everyone knows that you can get thing done faster by knowing who you should contact before the approver. You may treat this as office politics, but actually it is the use of power and influence in the organization to get thing done and maintain a healthy atmosphere in the organization. Can you imagine in a R&D center where you have more than 100 world class experts in the team, and you want to get consensus on some R&D policy, do you think you will get thing done faster by seeking approval from few influencer in the team or sending out a survey and get the feedback? I believe you know the answer.
Maintain a balance of power between the pioneer and young generation
Whenever there is a new CEO or Director on board, they will bring in their team or best assistant to help them to get thing done faster. It also forms a support foundation to turnaround the company to new direction. Whenever an organization parachute a new chief in the company, the business owner expect the chief turn around the business or transform the business to a new industry. Without a strong support team, the change initiative will be a failure with the strong resistance from the senior. With the emerging technology and trend, most corporations are willing to cut the pain to the shortest period to maximize their business gain. I’m not indicating there will be a fight between the existing employee and the new CEO team, in most case, the CEO support team will be form by partly of the existing management team and the team will communicate the change initiative to the whole organization.
Disaster prevention
In some organization, there are some key peoples which are very important to the company strategy. Without them, the company may not able to sustain their business. Not all of them will be very professional; some of them may have very strange behaviors. Here is where office politics prevent the company losing their strategic resources and keep the company moving.
I had share 3 benefits of office politics. It may not apply to you, but let think again how Microsoft, Apple, Nokia, Amazon, Ebay, or GE run their business. Do you think there is no office politics in these organizations? Sure there are. It is just how you want to make use of it to further growth your business hence growth your career. Good luck!