OFFICE POLITICS - a boon or a bane

How can someone navigate office politics without compromising their integrity or alienating colleagues, especially in a highly competitive corporate environment?

We come across this pertinent question many a times during our professional life. Most of the times the questioner is a youngster who has joined a job with a lot of exuberance to establish his/her worth by making timely use of his/her academic talents and non-academic skills but is finding themselves caught in a rattrap after the probationary or apprentice period. The office or work experience that one actually goes through one's work span baffles the young mind to choose the right way or path to achieve one's goal o ambition. Needless to say that each and every employee wants to grow and get an appraisal which not only improves one's financial and social status but also substantiates one's being and self-respect.

The youngsters choose their path as per their perspective or belief. The chosen path could be that of a diligent and dedicated employee who works hard as per one's best capability and ability. The other path could be to work as smartly as possible as per the need of the hour and office. Then there are employees who don't walk the talk but do talk a lot about their consistency in work despite the work, health or family pressure they have to face in this pathetic corporate world. Flattery is one more skill that employees employ to achieve their goals. Every employee adopts the way which he/she thinks right and take the path which pleases his/her senses.

Each and every way is righteous if it helps one to achieve one's goal in stipulated time without any loss of self-respect and integrity. Employees do shift their path or point of view after walking on or practicing on it for an affordable duration of time. This change comes after analyzing the results of their office endeavor. Age and work experience has got nothing to do with this practical entrepreneurship period as every boss or management has a different mindset or theory and you know that "Boss is always right".

So, the question remains as it is and the saga continues...

[The first and foremost thing that someone has to do to get rid of office politics is to leave the very idea of navigating or directing or piloting the office politics. Office politics is not only quite a common practice in a highly competitive corporate world but also a favorite time-pass activity in which the flickering mind indulges quite passionately. This involvement in dirty office politics can be easily avoided by staying stoic. Any kind of active or passive participation in such unhealthy and unhygienic office politics has the power to make anyone at least an accomplice, if not a criminal, in conduction of a lucrative crime. Being a witness to such an unnecessary activity requires a lot of patience and skill. Just being an indifferent or dormant observer without any reaction or response whatsoever is a tremendous art of applied diplomacy which one acquires through deep meditation by applying self-control practices. This attitude might alienate one’s colleagues up to a certain extent or time but it would never compromise one’s integrity towards the organization or job.]

*A bibliophile shall very well understand the usage of parenthesis in the above article.

~ Manish Badkas alias Man_is Bad_kase

Man is bad case....isn't it?