Beauty of Workplace Politics, Volume III

 Beauty of Workplace Politics, Volume III

Why does the subject matter continue to get more & more interesting is just because as much as someone is dogging those games & tactics, the fool continues to get more confident in their play thinking that no one is noticing it & they are getting away with no matter how Ugly that have made it for their targets.

For the ease of subject, we will name Tommy the one who plots & plays games & Marc who is Tommy's target.

At the end of the article we will give details  on the background of Tommy & Marc both which will make sense why Tommy had to do what he did & why Marc had to go through the episodes one after another.

Following are the plots & the tactics that can be seen, understood & realized being laid down by Tommy:

A) Delay, Tommy will delay everything within his capacity & profile to make sure that Marc remains deprived of basic tools & necessities to enable him perform his basic duties, be it an accommodation, office, laptop, printer or appointment of associates. 

B) Communication, Tommy will never acknowledge emails and meeting initiatives from Marc, so that once again Marc may not be able to get any clarity on the progress of the work, while will have to get other means of communication explored & deployed to get the job done.

C) Devalue the inputs, Marc on his own will be trying his level best to give some suggestions & remedies for pressing issues, that Tommy wont take into consideration & continue to work with his own pace & choice.

D) Beauty of the above three tactics, while everyone working under Tommy has taken note of his strategies, all the other associates & team members of Tommy's team unflinchingly deploys all tactics from their respective desks, that is delay, no acknowledgement of communication & ignore suggestions & recommendations from Marc & his entire team.

E) Avoid one on one interactions, Tommy will never call upon any meeting with Marc on either of the issues, all he will continue to do is to address the issues to an extent whereby his personal outlook does not get tainted & that too from a far distance.

F) When Tommy is on leave & Marc is relieving him for his duties, Tommy will continue to coordinate & communicate with his entire team from the back who is then reporting to Marc, but will never communicate or coordinate with Marc who is helping him with his own duties.

G) Not allowing to form any SOPs, Tommy will make sure that he will learn from the systems & policies that Marc has develop and deployed for his department, but at the same point in time Tommy will never form any Policies or SOPs that Marc needed from him to ease the part of the business that intercepts their respective profiles.

H) One Man show, Tommy is someone who runs his department with every aspect of the business tied down to him, that is if he isn't around nothing moves, likewise all of his team members also do enjoy the same because it not only relieves them of any  accountability, they are always under an obligation from Tommy. Marc on other hand manages his department with SOPs & policies that remain bringing about the most effective results no matter in which part of the world Marc may have been visiting.

I) Always a savior, Tommy never challenges, corrects or insists on anything from any of his team members, rather anything & everything that they do is being covered up in every sense. That is everything that his team did is absolutely right, needed & most suitable. That makes him the favorite amongst the managers, as he is always there for them irrespectively. Whereas Marc is exact opposite to all of it, he corrects anyone & everyone as & when needed, he empowers & delegates his team members with establishing accountability for all of their actions & inactions.

J) Non Prudent, Tommy follows a policy & principle of NO NEGOTIATION, every quotation, bill, price being offered is final for any & every assignment that is to be processed through his department, that eventually makes him the Messiah of everyone around, so no matter how much the Organization may end up losing while operating with this policy. On the other hand Marc is a practical business minded person, who never let go of any bill or quotation without vatting it & bargaining it for the right price, offering the Management right to win win solutions.

K) Coup, When the team members of Tommy's department continues to witness the efficiency & effectiveness of SOPs, policies & systems laid by Marc & his team for his own department, the distress in Tommy's body language will be easily picked by his team & department who will now begin a Coup in their own capacity to do & undo in every possible manner to overthrow Marc, they will make it a personal vendetta. 

M) Sanctions, If in any manner Tommy is in position to scrutinize Marc's team members, he will not leave any stone unturned to make sure that Marc's team members may feel helpless with the allegations, charges & sanctions that Tommy & his team members will try to impose. The same Tommy who will have not even ordered any inquiry on a daylight loot & conspiracy from either of his own team members may actually go ahead to leave every other important thing behind to run over a junior team member from Marc's team for pity issues.

N) Bypassing Marc, Whenever there is any need for Tommy to communicate with Marc's department, rather than directly coordinating & communicating with Marc, he will instead choose to coordinate & communicate with juniors working under Marc & make them feel important & try to show them a picture of larger than life.

O) Biased Resource sharing, when two departments are working together with codependent functions than the resources of the organization must have to be judiciously deployed to make sure that the business interest remains a top priority, but instead Tommy will make sure that all the available resources are optimally available or even left redundant rather than to be shared with Marcs department.

P) Partiality in priority, Once again when all the hands are on deck for the collective efforts & results, Tommy will go an extra mile to make sure that his own department objectives forms clear priority over Marcs department, contrary Tommy will unapologetically set priorities such that Marcs objectives remains second & attended to only after all of his objectives are met.  

Q) Obvious prejudice, Every third party in the Organization will be able to see, understand & conclude that Tommy is doing everything in his capacity & power to hit back hard on Marc, so much so obvious that Tommy will literally leave behind critical tasks & deliverables of his own department & take time to dig into the business of Marcs department.

R) Replicates, All the ideas, innovations, strategies that Marc has introduced tried & succeeded, Tommy will replicate them all without making it obvious that it was adapted from model of Marcs department, instead will make it look like he was doing it on his own & have known them since time immemorial.

S) Old school & Lone Star, It is not that Marc is the only rival Tommy has taken on, every other team member of the Organization that is having some potential to get ahead & do better is going to taste that game of politics from Tommy.

So now these all bring us to the basics, why is Tommy doing so & why Marc & others may have to go through these non profitable, unwarranted personal quests of Tommy?

That is because Tommy was born & brought up in the same Organization, he is the baby of that very Organization who has been there for over two or more decades and is not going anywhere.

While on the other hand Marc is a learned, educated professional who has worked across many different industries & profiles and was appointed with a higher designation & salary compared to Tommy.

Funny enough now everything makes sense right?

And that brings us to the next question, what right does any employee have against the Management decisions? Especially when Management may have done their own due diligence, interviewed 10 to 15 different candidates before selecting & appointing one.

No one actually has any right, but yet every Organization has their baby of the system, that is giving them results best within the peers, of course it might not necessarily be the best in the industry or segment, but still if the baby of the system is able to deliver as much it is something to let him be happy playing some games here & there, as long as there are not major collateral damages caused by such games.

Besides every newcomer is going to face all these that Marc had to face, it is now Marc's responsibility to beat the odds & set new standards for himself & all the other Marcs that may come after him.

So now when Tommy is the baby of the Organization, then what is he afraid of? Let any number of Marcs come & flourish, the baby that he is might not make any difference to his citizenship in the Organization, right?

But unfortunately it doesn't work like that, because the matter of fact that Tommy is so heavily invested with his plots, tactics & game is evident to his insecurities, Tommy knows that while he was born & grown up to be the biggest frog in that very Organization (well), Marc is having experience of different wells, ponds, lakes, rivers & even oceans, so here Tommy's insecurities are real, because the Organization has hired a professional who is better then him in every aspect & that alone becomes a trigger for him to not only continue to keep performing & getting better in his own profile, but it will also intimidate him to play the ugliest possible politics to keep Marc limited in his stature & growth within that Organization.

So whenever someone is joining any new Organization, they can expect one or more Tommy's around, while at the same point in time they too may feel exactly like how Tommy is feeling when they may see any Marc joining the Organization. And these kinds of politics may continue, the Marc of today may become Tommy of tomorrow.

The beauty of this Politics is that if Marc is able to survive & sustain his position in the Organization for over a year or so, then Tommy has already been defeated, because there are more chances of Tommy succeeding in instigating the Management to do away with every Marc that will appear to be a serious threat to the baby of the Organization within few weeks or month of Marcs joining.

And fortunately enough not all the Marcs may fall victim to Tommy's plots, some may continue to flourish with their integrity, straightforwardness, dedication, commitment & finally help the investors get better realizations for their investments. As they are not invested like Tommy in using Organizational resources to run over other team members.

BEST OF LUCK Marcs & try to remain upgraded with your skills & knowledge, let your learning & unlearning game be top notch, so that when any another Marc is being appointed by your Organization you do not have to think & act like Tommy, instead the new Marc must be able to look up to you and want to become like you.