Do You Play “Positive Politics?”
How many of you have heard the expression “positive politics?” This is the opposite negative politics, which we’ll describe below.
As you go up the corporate ladder, or any organizational structural ladder, you’re going to find that the people who are higher to the top are rarely engaged in what I consider to be negative politicking.
Negative politicking is where the overt “back stabbing” occurs. That’s where people drop hints about peoples’ shortcomings or mistakes. That’s where people corner others in meetings, without warning. People who are inexperienced in organizational dynamics have not yet learned the risk of tattle tailing, or talking someone down. They mistakenly believe that by knocking their competition down, they will rise. Oh, how untrue.
The people who rise have learned the skill of positive promotion. In other words, they don’t find things wrong with people any more. That’s what the people at the lower levels of the organizations do. Instead, they work at collaboration and doing positive things for others who are deservant.
What I’m talking about is positive politicking. You can recognize it when you see it. As an example, in a group a people who are working together, a valuable project comes available. And all of a sudden, one of those people is given the project by another person who they’ve worked with. This visible project is not only a reward for excellent prior work, it can be the result of collaborative relationships built among the members of a group.
This is a reality in organizational America, whether it’s corporate or not. Being in position to award positive visibility to other people, and we will ultimately be a beneficiary of it as well.
We want to position ourselves to make positive opportunities available to people within our organizations. We want to do this regularly. We want to hand things off instead of keeping it selfishly for ourselves. These kinds things come back tenfold for people who do it.
This strategy is not only project based, it can be as simple as complimenting a job well done to senior executives. Sincere, unselfish and altruistic behaviors are noticed, and many times rewarded.
Once thrown under the bus… We rarely forget the time we were uncomfortably cornered and embarrassed in an organizational setting. It breeds a long term reluctance to help that person.
The converse is true. I’m sure every one of you can think about a time when somebody did something positive for you and your career and how appreciative you were. And since that time, if that person asks you to do just about anything, you’ll do it for them. Well, this is the way positive politicking works. And this is how we can create our own luck within our organizational structures.
So, out with negative politicking, we don’t want to rat out people for things that they’ve done wrong. That behavior actually makes the “rat” look even worse than “victim.” That behavior happens with the people at the lower end of their organizations.
The right strategy is to do positive things for other people. And this is the way that we can further the aims of the organization, and find some luck in it for ourselves.
