IN AN OFFICE
23.02.2008
The study of workplace politics isn’t appreciated enough. Many writers of management books naïvely assume that if an organisation isn’t operating to its full potential, then it’s because the organisation lacks originality, driven employees, focus, vision, teamwork, et cetera. Even if politics is acknowledged as a source of grief, then its viewed as a side-show—a containable problem that’s practiced by a few unethical rogues who are sharking their way up a career ladder. The idealized hero-leader of business lore may have to “play rough” from time to time. But such leaders are expected to rise above the pettiness of the political fray. Their job is to stamp out politics and build the harmonious, happy kingdom. Western culture disdains the political realm within everyday life. We want our leaders and institutions to have an apolitical purity. Office politics is discussed in hushed tones within the workplace for this reason. Most management writers simply reflect this cultural bias.
The truth is that politics is everywhere. Very little within the workplace can be considered politically neutral; virtually everything favours some personal interest or ideology to some degree. This could be the content of communication … or the interpersonal dynamics within meetings … or the physical arrangement of the offices and cubicles. Politics can be expressed through such things as modes of dress, subtle gestures, and acts of kindness. And that means that everyone is a player in the political game, whether they like it or not, whether they realize it or not. There are no abstainers. And those who consider themselves to be abstainers can be particularly dangerous because they practice politics unknowingly.
Of course, there is a literature devoted to the subject of workplace politics, part of which is about the dark art and part of which is about the hard science.
The dark literature offers Machiavellian advice to would-be politicians. I say Machiavellian because most of these books are actually inspired by Nicolo Machiavelli’s The Prince. Obvious examples include Rubin’s annoying The Princessa (1998), Lichtenberg’s laughably unethical Work Would Be Great If It Weren’t for the People (1998), and Schrijvers’ even more laughably unethical The Way of the Rat (2004). These books suffer from the same problem as The Prince: they offer somewhat speculative advice about conniving stratagems and maneuvers that, in reality, can’t be applied in an off-the-shelf sort of way. In other words, calculating the vectors of interest and coming up with opportunistic moves is only a small part of the larger game. This is not chess. Deft execution involves more than moving a playing piece to a different square on the game board. Experience, ability, and luck are required to bring these canned strategies to fruition. These books have very little to say about that. Moreover, none of the authors of these books is as observant and clever as Mr. Machiavelli, which makes these books more dangerous to the reader than the reader’s opponents.
The hard literature takes a more detached and analytical look at how politics play out within organisations. That’s not to say that all of these books are disinterested. Many contain advice about what to do, although, for some reason, the authors are more likely to offer defensive guidance than lessons about offense. This literature also looks at the scientific and social-scientific evidence about what works. For example, there is a psychology literature documenting experiments related to impression management and ingratiation; that is, how to make people see you in a favourable light and like you. Despite its scholarly bend, this literature turns out to be more useful to the would-be politico. That’s because if something is straight-forward enough that it can be tested with rigorous empirical methods, then it can probably be implemented without much practice and guile. For example, it’s relatively easy to stand outside of the offices of a prospective employer to see how people in an organisation dress in order to dress in similar fashion when it’s time for the job interview. That’s an ingratiation tactic that works reliably because, whether people realise it or not, they prefer the company of others who are like themselves. These things are easy to test.
Kathleen Kelley Reardon’s new book It’s All Politics sits squarely in the dark literature. The book is organised around pithy axioms about gaining political advantage, hypothetical conversations between political rivals, and pat advice about what to do in difficult situations. It shares the same subject matter as her last book, The Secret Handshake (2000), except it aims to be a more comprehensive treatment of the subject. The inclusion of a broader array of topics, however, comes at the cost of detail. A few chapters are quite thin on substance and some of the advice is vague and repetitive. The truth is that It’s All Politics and The Secret Handshake are very similar books. The main difference is that the new book offers more advice about political awareness and persuasion, whereas the old book emphasizes political styles and relationship building. It’s sometimes hard to tell if this reflects a change in the author’s thinking or just a change in wording.
I’ll start with Reardon’s general view of workplace politics. She thinks that politics is in everything. The main difference between a true politician and a political blunderer is the presence of intuition and insight. Under intuition, Reardon talks mostly about: (a.) empathy and attentiveness to political signals given off by others; (b.) “gut checks” that are attuned to the emotional tenor of what others say and do; and (c.) resistance to routine, ritual, and script and, instead, engaging others in a more calculating way. Intuition involves not taking communication at its face value, being aware of local meanings and ways of doing things, and being alert to deception and exaggeration (including physical “tells”, giveaways, and fleeting “micro-expressions”). If intuition is mostly about being aware of the political terrain, insight is mostly about charting a path through the terrain. Savvy politicians know where the “choice points” are and creatively reframing matters in a memorable and persuasive way that influences others while avoiding (or circumventing) resistance. I’m not sure whether “intuition” and “insight” are the best labels but they do reflect Reardon’s treatment of political mindfulness as somewhat tacit and felt.
Reardon talks at length about anticipating and preparing in order to avoid being blind-sided (“advanced work”), being intellectually nimble so as to conversationally joust with an opponent (“thinking on your feet”), and acting in socially astute ways (to gain the conversational “high ground”, among other intermediate goals). It’s difficult to disagree with that. This is where she talks about the subject of impression management, currying favour, and the role of ingratiation. Unfortunately, I don’t think Reardon did enough of her own “advanced work” before writing this section given the size of the literature that can be drawn from. I strongly recommend Giacalone et al’s Impression Management in Organizations (1995) for a more thorough discussion. Given Reardon’s emphasis on protective responses, it’s strange that she doesn’t include advice about preemptive blame-avoidance (e.g. disclaimers and self-handicapping) and remedial techniques other than apology (e.g. excuses and justifications).
The weakest chapter is the one about power, which is a foundational concept I’d have thought wouldn’t be left until page 140. The reason for this neglect is that, early on, Reardon makes a distinction between persuasion and power and claims that persuasion is where all of the real action is. (This is a shift in thinking since her last book, where she labels power as “the heart of politics.”) When she gets around to power, much of it is a discussion of “using words in powerful ways”, keeping up appearances of power, and “managing your reputation as a powerful person.” In other words, she reverts back to a discussion of perception and persuasiveness using a bit of the vocabulary of power. There’s no discussion of hard forms of power (e.g., withholding or granting resources in order to manipulate others) versus soft forms (e.g., subtle methods of influence). There’s no discussion of positive power (creating and enabling) and negative power (destructive and controlling). There’s no discussion of the specific mechanisms by which power is wielded other than vapid discussions about dependency and the structures of power (passages mostly about networking that have been more-or-less plucked from her previous book). In fact, Reardon doesn’t even say what she thinks the notion of power really is. Perception and persuasion have a lot to do with power but I get the sense that Reardon thinks there’s nothing much else besides. I recommend Greene’s 480-page book The 48 Laws of Power (2000) to get an inkling of how much Reardon leaves out.
Most of It’s All Politics revolves around repartee and persuasion. Unfortunately, I think this discussion is riddled with errors of omission too. Reardon argues that persuasiveness results from appeals to appropriateness, consistency, or effectiveness. In other words, you can convince someone of a course of action because (a.) that’s how others do it, (b.) that’s how someone like you would do it, or (c.) that’s how you get your way. This taxonomy seems woefully incomplete. What about an appeal to a higher principle (this course of action conforms to a cherished value, moral, or principle)? Or an appeal to factual accuracy (this course of action is backed up by rigorous empirical evidence)? Indeed, for a book about politics, I’m surprised that there is no discussion of such things as fear mongering and pandering to bias as a means of persuasion. Much of Reardon’s discussion revolves around making claims memorable and paying attention to how a conversation plays out in terms of incremental gains and losses.
Reardon does better when itemizing specific political predicaments, strategies, and tactics. She touches on the crafty use of peace gestures, warning shots, apologies, locally understood code words (“emblems”), the withholding of information, favours, defamation, conceding minor points to score major points, diverting attention, consolidating gains during negotiations, giving others enough room to discredit themselves, buying time, conversational comebacks, probative questioning, conciliatory conversational tones, and flattering others by seeking their guidance. These gambits are sprinkled throughout the early chapters. The final chapter itemizes a number of predicaments, such as being on the wrong end of scapegoating, unmerited credit-claiming, rumour mongering, and spying. Unfortunately, only one or two paragraphs of advice are devoted to each predicament and the advice mostly amounts to: don’t over-react or act impulsively.
All told, It’s All Politics is a chatty introduction to organisational politics that contains too many errors of omission to be considered a proper manual. Perhaps Reardon should have written a book focused on the conversational gambits she seems so intrigued by. When I think about the organizational politics books I like—such as Annette Simmon’s Territorial Games (1998) about workplace turf-wars—I am reminded of what makes them so good: conceptual tidiness and insightfulness, decent research, and an attempt to cover a tightly defined topic comprehensively without being dryly encyclopedic. Reardon’s book reads more like a rag-bag of insights she picked up while consulting for companies. That’s not to say that some her advice isn’t compelling. If you often find yourself bullied during meetings, there are a few chapters that you will probably find very useful. Unfortunately, the author falls far short of offering a wide-ranging primer on organisational politics.
Review by Peter Stoyko
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