Dealing With Organizational Politics

Here's a post from a person who wishes to remain anonymous. It is part of a homework assignment in our Leadership Skills program where she was examining an area for improvement in her leadership skills. It is reprinted with permission.

"The trait that causes me the most difficulty in performing my job is the ability to cope well with organizational politics. I have never been good at this one. I believe that organizational politics can often be traced back to ego issues.

"In the company I work for, there are many strong willed, intelligent males. Prior to my promotion, most of the female supervisors seemed very mousy. I have rarely seen them fight for their ideas or campaign for other females' ideas. I don't believe it's intentional; it's just a pattern of behavior that has been quietly instilled in them.

"I, however, am the aggressive advocate for good ideas, no matter who came up with them. I have a very strong personality and don't back down when I believe in my position on an issue. As you can imagine, this has created hardships for me and has made me wildly unpopular with some members of management. Mainly because I believe that respect should be commanded and not demanded. On the flip side of that, many of the associates appreciate my candor and have told management that it's actually why they like me. I am listing this as an area for improvement because I am painfully aware that a leadership skill is not only about managing down, but also about managing up.

"Over the past several months I have had ample time to decide and implement changes in my behavior with regard to organizational politics. I am working on being a more effective listener. Rather than jumping to conclusions, I let management finish their thoughts before I discuss mine. I also give myself a 3 second reaction time. If I feel that I may over-react, I wait 3 seconds before responding. This allows me to filter my responses allowing the member of management to feel heard and respected.

"I have also begun to create relationships outside the day to day business. I ask them about their day and their families and offer compliments if they are appropriate. This allows me to have another facet to the relationship.

"The final thing that I have tried (and am working on daily) is to try to remember that the members of management were also once non-management people. At one time, they did my job or one similar to it. They did earn their stripes and deserve to be respected."

Thanks very much for the insights Anonymous. Good points for us to consider. Especially the last one.

About me: Dan Pelley is an educator specializing in management training and development programs for supervisors and other first-line managers in Connecticut (CT), Massachusetts (MA) and Rhode Island (RI). The issue recited above came from a participant in one of his supervisory management development programs.

Copyright © 2009 Daniel W. Pelley
All rights reserved.

Tuition Increase

I've held the line as long as I could. My last price increase for the supervision series programs was in January, 2002. Nearly eight years ago! Effective October 15, 2009 the price for each of our 16-hour open enrollment supervisory management development programs was increased from $345.00 to $395.00 (less than 15%).

If you compare the content and format of my programs with those offered by anyone else, I know you'll conclude that dollar for dollar and hour for hour my programs offer the best value for your education dollar. And you save even more when you bring the program into your company with 15 or more participants.

About me: Dan Pelley offers a series of five programs leading to a Certificate in Supervisory Management. The five programs are "Managing People,: "Leadership Skills," "Managing For Results," "Proactive Leadership," and "Participative Management." 139 companies in Connecticut (CT), Rhode Island (RI), Massachusetts (MA) and New York have one or more people who earned this certificate.

Copyright © 2009 Daniel W. Pelley
All rights reserved.

Pride of Authorship

It's a truism in human nature - most people do not like to make changes and will resist change whenever they possibly can. And that's true even for people who make their living making changes.

For may years I was a management consultant. Recommending and implementing change is pretty much what consultants do. Yet, even though they are agents of change, consultants are also prone to avoiding changes, other than those they've recommended. The phenomenon is so pronounced among consultants that some people have labeled it as "Pride of Authorship."

While consultants spend time and effort getting you to accept and adopt their ideas for change, those consultants caught in "Pride of Authorship" have great difficulty accepting any modifications or changes to their recommendations. They believe their ideas were well thought out and will work successfully and do represent the best alternative. Otherwise they wouldn't have made the recommendation in the first place. Because of this, they fiercely defend against any changes to their change.

Now I don't mean to imply that all or even most consultants have "Pride of Authorship." Nor are consultants the only people who develop recommendations for change and therefore run the risk of being caught in that trap. But I do want suggest that everyone who develops ideas for change consider this fact: it's a very rare person who can develop the best idea for change in a vacuum; that is, without the advice and counsel of others, especially those people who will be impacted by the change.

About me: Dan Pelley conducts seminars and teaches programs on topics of interest to managers. Recent additions to his offerings are a six hour seminar titled "Thriving on Change" and a sixteen hour program titled "Leadership in a Changing Environment."

Copyright © 2009 Daniel W. Pelley
All rights reserved.