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Overcome Departmental Politics In Your Workplace

By Vijayalakshmi

Everybody likes to play safe, be it the politicians who rule the country or self proclaimed politicians whom we find in our very own workplace. 'Playing games' is also one of the famous phrases that we all hear once we start our career in the big bad corporate world.

People tend to assume that office politics is just related to the cold war between two or more companies. Interestingly, office politics can also happen within the workplace, especially the departments. Departmental politics is also been in existence from quite a long time, but is generally kept under wraps in order to keep up the reputation of an organisation.

But with the increasing competition to build a career, departmental politics is now becoming public at workplace. The differences between people, opinions, conflicts of interests are often manifested as departmental politics. This will eventually take a toll on human communications and relationships.

What-so-ever it may be, everybody needs to play devils-advocate at one point of time in order to get hold of a strong position at the workplace. Here, we give you some tips to overcome the workplace politics safely!

Overcome Departmental Politics In Your Workplace

Praise your team's work

Not that team work is not appreciated when it is deserved. But when the team accomplishes their work make sure the other departments know what you have achieved your target. Try and cultivate the art of bragging or blowing your own trumpet which could be of a great help.

Get your plans worked

Planning is crucial for all the departments at the workplace in order to meet their targets. While planning make sure that the team members are on the same page, and are capable of reaching the targets. Once the team lead and the workers are in sync, people in the other departments look up at the leadership to see how they act. At the same time, act the way you want your staff to act, and they will follow you.

Act diplomatic

Sometimes team members indulge in unhealthy office gossips not bothered about the future consequences. And it becomes a two-edged knife situation for the department lead as it could give negative reputation. In order to whisk away the problem, try changing the subject by shifting to another topic. Or you could simply respond to your co-workers with a smile and a tongue-in-cheek, diplomatic answers so that the situation does not go out of control.

Get your job done

Knowing the game inside out is the key to winning it. Do not hesitate to approach the boss to ask some key questions, suggestions, evaluations and opinions. These answers to these questions should give you a good sense of the culture of your organisation. But it will also make your department pretty famous around the top-notch circles.

These are some of the tricks to overcome office politics.

Story first published: Tuesday, February 26, 2013, 18:55 [IST]
Read more about: work life personality politics