Management And Operations 593: Organizational Politics. Managerial Leadership and Productivity: Lecture 6. [Ken Butterfield]

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1 Management And Operations 593: Organizational Politics Managerial Leadership and Productivity: Lecture 6 [Ken Butterfield] Slide #: 1 Slide Title: Organizational Politics Organizational Politics, Acquiring, developing, and using power Unit 6: Gaining Power and Influence. The textbook covers a lot of information about gaining power and influence, and this set of slides supplements that information by talking about the topic of organizational politics. Politics is closely related to power: it s the idea of acquiring, developing, and using power. Slide #: 2 Slide Title: Political Styles 1. Shotguns Refuse to take no for an answer Use legitimate and illegitimat4e tactics to achieve their ends 2. Tacticians Try to influence others through reason and logic 3. Ingratiators Rely on favors and flattery 4. Bystanders Try to avoid politics First, let s say something about individual differences in the world of politics. And here we have what are called political styles. One way of carving up the different styles of people might use is with the following typology. First have is what we call shotguns. These are people who refuse to take no for an answer, and those who are willing to use both legitimate and illegitimate tactics to achieve their ends. I think we can all probably think of people who fall into the shotgun category. You might recall our previous discussion about high mocks. Someone who is high in the mockelvarian category will certainly form the shotgun category. A shotgun is not necessarily a high mock, but a high mock is basically always going to be a shotgun. A second category would be tacticians, those who try to influence others in the workplace through reason and logic. You might think of people who might fall into the tactician category. Third, is ingratiators. Ingratiators are those who rely on favors and flattery in order to navigate the political world of an organization. And then number four are bystanders. Bystanders is essentially a lack of political style. Its people who are trying to avoid politics. Not always possible or easy in an organization. But we can all think of examples of people who at least try to act as bystanders. Slide #: 3 Slide Title: Legitimate Political Tactics Ingratiation: Giving compliments or doing favors for superiors or coworkers (builds social credits) Forming coalitions and networks: Befriending important people. Impression management: Being loyal, attractive, honest, sociable, etc. 1

2 Helping others get promoted: (builds social credits) Pursuing line responsibility: (adds power due to centrality, criticality, relevance, etc). Next, I want to say something about what we might call legitimate political tactics within an organization. This is as opposed to illegitimate political tactics, which would include things like rumor mongering or scheduling important meetings while rivals are out of town, you know, any number of things that might fall into that illegitimate category. What are some of the legitimate things people to try to acquire power in the workplace? One is ingratiation. Now I realize that not everybody is going to agree that ingratiation is a legitimate tactic, but I would imagine that most of us can agree that it s at least more legitimate than things like creating vicious rumors about people in order to get them fired. Ingratiation includes giving compliments or doing favors for superiors or coworkers. The idea of why ingratiation works is the concept of building social credits. You can think of a social credit as like money in the bank. If I can do some kind of favor for you today, my hope or expectation is that you ll do something for me in the future, presumably at a time when I really need it. Ingratiation can be a way to build those social credits. Now again, I want to try to point out here that I realize that to some degree ingratiation is not a desirable thing, it can be viewed as an illegitimate political tactic. On the other hand, I think we can all think of examples of people who are pretty good at ingratiation, who you know, who don t go over the line, they re not offensive or in people s face about it. But by doing a little bit perhaps of intentional ingratiation, they really end up developing their power base because of it. And so, in that sense, I think we can think of ingratiation as perhaps a legitimate political tactic. Second would be forming coalitions and networks. This is also called associative power building, and it s about befriending important people. It could be becoming more friends with a boss, supervisor, within the organization; it could be getting to know the big boss s secretary. But simply by becoming more connected to important people in the workplace, that has a rubbing off effect and allows us to develop our own power base. Third is impression management. Any organization is gonna have a series of behaviors that end up being virtuous, good desirable behaviors in that environment. In many organizations that would include things like being loyal, attractive, honest, sociable, having a good sense of humor, you know, any number of other desirable traits and behaviors within that organization. I think, not surprisingly, the more you can do of a positive job of impression management by being able to demonstrate those kinds of characteristics, the more likely you are to gain power. On the other side, if you do a poor job of impression management, and for example, show yourself to not be honest, that could be a quick way to lose power within the organization. Helping others get promoted is perhaps an interesting one that not everyone would have thought of. This again, has to do with the concept of building social credits. And it looks like this: let s imagine that today you have a promotion opportunity, but it s one that you aren t very interested in. What you would do, pursuing this tactic, would be to try to help someone else get promoted into that job. You know, maybe talk someone else up to the people in charge, do whatever you can to help them get promoted. And then once you ve done that, you now have a friend in a higher place of the organization, someone in a position of management in head of you who now perhaps owes you a favor and can help you get a promotion in the future when a promotion opportunity comes up that is more interesting to you. So, build social credits, right again like 2

3 money in the bank, helping other people get promoted can actually be a legitimate political tactic. The other one I want to mention is what s known as pursuing line responsibility. This brings up the distinction of line verses staff, and let me just define that first. Somebody who has a line position is somebody who by executing their job is directly pursuing the organization s mission. So for example, if you are tightening lug nuts at Ford motor company, you are directly pursuing transportation and that would be consistent with the organization s mission. So that kind of person would have a line job at Ford even though they are relatively low in the organization s hierarchy. On the other hand, somebody who has a staff job, a staff job is one where somebody is providing some kind of advice, support to facilitate those who have a line position. So at Ford motor company, for example, people who are in accounting are in a staff position. They re not directly producing transportation, the mission of Ford, they are simply supporting those by doing good accounting work, they are supporting the line as the line positions attempt to accomplish the organization s mission. So why is this important? Well, I think it s actually very important because people who have line jobs tend to gain more power for a variety of reasons; some of which are talked about in your textbook. The concept of centrality has to do with being central in the organization s networks. Social networks develop in organizations in areas like friendship, sort of who is friends with whom in the organization. There are advice networks, who goes to whom for advice within an organization. In general, people who have a line job tend to be more central to those kinds of networks than those who have staff positions, those people tend to be more peripheral to the organization s important networks. Having a line job also ads power due to criticality. Criticality has to do with how critical a person is to the organization s work flows. So for example, if you don t show up on a given day, does the entire workplace shut down? Does the production, facility, or whatever the organization is doing really depend on you in order to function? If so, you have a very critical job within that organization. If, for example, you didn t show up for a couple of months and the organization didn t even notice, had no problem moving forward, you would have a job that would be viewed as less critical. So I think, not surprisingly, those who have a line job have more power because they are more critical to the organization s work flow. Relevance just has to do with how relevant a person s job is to the organization s mission. And so, by definition, somebody who has a line responsibility is more relevant. So for a lot of reasons, people who have a line job tend to have more power. And this is very important for people looking for a job, you might have some choices, you might have some different options out there as to whether you pursue a line job verses a staff job. And I want to encourage people to think about this as they make these kinds of choices. It s not uncommon to have maybe two job offers, one of which would be a line job that doesn t offer as much money as a staff job that offers more money. Well, that staff job might offer more money today, but it s typically going to be limited, it s going to be capped fairly quickly in terms of how far you can go in the organization because, you know, who ends up ultimately rising to the top of an organization to maybe even becoming CEO? That person is much more likely to come from a line. So line jobs may start off with relatively lower salaries at times, but typically the sky is the limit in terms of how far that person can rise compared to the staff person who might get capped off fairly quickly. So the point simply is just among the things you might consider as you look 3

4 for your next job. Salary, of course, is important, but it shouldn t be the only thing that you think about. You might also want to think about whether you are getting a line or staff job. If you are gonna be an accountant at Ford, you are going to be in the staff. If you are going to be an accountant at Deloitte Touche, then you are going to be part of a line, right that s an accounting company, and that s what they do is accounting. And so an accountant, right, can either find themselves in a line or staff position depending on what kind of organization they join. So I want to encourage you guys to at least think about trying to gain a line position because that tends you to allow you to gain much more power and ultimately rise up an organization s hierarchy more quickly. Slide #: 4 Slide Title: Political Blunders Violating the chain of command Go over your boss head Losing your cool Temper tantrums, aggressive behavior Saying no to top management Criticizing the boss (especially in public) Challenging cherished beliefs Cultural beliefs and values are often deeply held I d like to say something next about political blunders. So beyond of what we ve already talked about in terms of legitimate political tactics, what are some things that cause people to suffer politically? And this is only a partial list, but some of the things in this list would include violating the chain of command, going over your boss head. This is not an absolute; there are times you might feel like you have no choice but to go over your boss head. You know, for example, if your boss is doing something illegal or unethical, or someone is but your boss just won t listen to you, you might feel like you have no choice but to go over your boss head. And so I m not saying you should never do that, but what I am saying is that if you do go over your boss head, just be aware that you could find yourself suffering politically because of it. And in particular, if you have a boss who is from an older generation, older generations tend to have more difficulty with the concept of violating the chain of command than do some of the younger generations in today s workplace. Losing your cool, another quick way to lose, to suffer politically. Temper tantrums, aggressive behavior, this one seems kind of obvious, but I think we can all think of examples of people who made this mistake and lost their cool and ended up suffering politically because of it. Saying no to top management is another example of what we might call a political blunder. Once again, you might feel like have no choice at times but to say no to top managers, but if you do, just don t be surprised if you find yourself suffering politically because of it. Instead, why not realize that there s a reason why the top manager is coming to you, and not to someone else for this particular assignment, and you know, you can feel good about that. So try to find a way to say yes to any reasonable request being made by your top managers. Be aware of criticizing your boss. This is another one that seems obvious, but I can think of lots of examples where I ve heard people at restaurants or in the break room or even the restroom of an organization criticizing the boss and maybe not realizing that other people are listening. So 4

5 just be aware that if you are going to criticize your boss, even if your boss isn t standing around, people know people, and even if your boss isn t listening, it could well get back to him or her and you could suffer the consequences. So just be aware of criticizing the boss is an example of a political blunder. And then finally, the idea of challenging cherished beliefs. Most organizations have strongly held cultural beliefs and values, things that the organization really cares about, and if you, as an organizational member, step on those beliefs, challenges them in some meaningful way, people, in general, are not going to appreciate that, not going to like that and that can cost you from a political standpoint. So these are just examples of what we might call political blunders, but the consequences of engaging in a political blunder can range from relatively mild, maybe losing a bit of credibility, all the way up to what is sometimes referred to as political suicide, where you might have spent months or even years building yourself up as a good member of this organization, well-respected and it can all come tumbling down if you engage in a significant political blunder. So just please be aware that political blunders can rise to a very significant level that we call political suicide, where a person is basically finished in that organization. Slide #: 5 Slide Title: Reducing Inappropriate Political Behavior 1. Set an example Be a role model of good behavior Don t tolerate political game-playing 2. Give clear job assignments Ambiguity is asking for political behavior 3. Eliminate coalitions and cliques that are detrimental to organizational performance 4. Confront game players Challenge inappropriate behavior in public (e.g., why are you telling me this? ) And then, a couple of thoughts about reducing inappropriate political behavior. So what can you do as a manger to try to reduce, as much as possible, whatever inappropriate behavior, political behavior is going on. The biggest one that is covered in this literature is the idea of setting an example. As we ve discussed in previous sections, you as a manager are a role model, and people will look to you for signals as to what kind of behavior is appropriate or inappropriate. And so, if you are a role model of good behavior, if you show yourself to somebody who doesn t tolerate political game playing, you can expect that it will be less likely, then, in a case where you re not setting a good example. If you as a manager are engaging in political game playing yourself, or if you re tolerating it, you are implicitly rewarding it in that work environment, and you should not be surprised if you end up having a lot of political behavior. So, a lot of this starts with you. As a manger, try to set a good example, and in doing so, you can often go a long way toward reducing inappropriate political behavior. A second tip has to do with giving clear job assignments. One of the primary drivers of political behavior in the workplace is ambiguity and uncertainty. When people are unclear about what their job is, what their goals are, if they re unclear about almost anything in the organization, that s just asking for political behavior. And in particular in the world of job assignments, if a person doesn t quite know where their responsibilities begin and end, it becomes relatively easy for somebody else to try to grab those responsibilities away from them, which is another way of describing a power grab, where someone is trying to gain more power by taking away someone 5

6 else s job assignments. So, the tip here is that one way in trying to reduce that inappropriate political behavior is to give people very clear job assignments, to make it well-known and clear where people s job assignments do begin and end. Now, please keep in mind that if you give clear job assignments, there s a downside. If you give clear job assignments it can tend to reduce creativity on people s part because they feel like there s such a clear delineation of where their job begins and ends, that they don t apply a whole lot of creativity to try to accomplish things in the company. It can also reduce what s known as pro-social behavior. And pro-social behavior is basically people going above and beyond their job description, and for those who have done some managing, I m sure you can relate to the idea that pro-social behavior is absolute gold inside a company. It s what you want as a manager is employees who are willing to go beyond their job description. And so if you give people very clear job assignments, don t be surprised if people aren t willing to go beyond them, and you lose something very important, and that s prosocial behavior. But the tip here is that if your goal really is to get rid of political behavior, or at least reduce or minimize it, giving clear job assignments is one way to accomplish that, just be aware of the downside. Number three, this is not always possible or easy, but to the degree that you can, try to eliminate those coalitions and cliques inside the company that are detrimental to the company s performance. So if you have groups of people that are just clearly engaging in political behavior, maybe even encouraging it on a part of others in the organization, sometimes just by breaking those people up, maybe by transferring people, moving cubicles, etcetera, you can at least go some way in reducing some of that political behavior by just splitting people up. And then number four is a return to a tip that I gave in a previous talk, where we talked about punishing people in public at least in certain cases. Again, the tip you typically get as a manger is to never punish people in public. Well, I would stop a little bit short of saying never. There are times when a little bit of public punishment can work and can be very effective, and a good example is when you are trying to get rid of inappropriate political behavior. If you ve got game players, who are for example, doing things like spreading rumors about people, inappropriate, inaccurate, just lies about people, it s a good time to challenge that inappropriate behavior in public, and saying, why are you telling me this? And doing that in a public manner, challenging that behavior. When you do, it tends to reduce the likelihood of that behavior happening in the future simply because that person has, to some degree, been embarrassed by being punished in public. So please be aware that you want to use public punishment very sparingly, it can be very embarrassing and cause people to feel like they ve lost face when they ve been punished in public. But in terms of getting rid of behavior, it can be a very powerful way of doing so. So confronting those game players publically can be an effective way of reducing inappropriate political behavior. With that, we have concluded Unit 6: Gaining Power and Influence. 6