Like it or not, office politics is a fact of life in any work place. It is something that you need to understand and learn how to deal with in order to achieve success in your organization. If you learn how to master office politics, then you can be sure that you will climb the corporate ladder faster than your coworkers.
You cannot make everyone in the office like you or at least like your work style. There will be some people who will admire you or really like working with you and some who thinks you don’t belong to that organization and would like to see you fired. Well, you can always try to change the ideas of those people in the 2nd group and try to make them like working with you. However, changing the opinions of people is very hard especially if they already made up their mind about you. The worst part is if they really don’t want to work with you, sometimes they can do plans behind your back to get you laid off. Below is what you can do in order to prevent them and keep your job at the same time:
- Find coworkers who like working with you especially at managerial/senior/executive level. If you really do your job well and show your real personal brand, then there will be people in the organization who can support you in case of a conflict. You should know who these people are and always stay in touch with them.
- Once you find those senior level employees, let them know that you enjoy working with them and would be very happy if they give you a role in their projects/departments. If you stay close to your supporters, your chances of getting promoted increases.
- If you are not interested in working any of the projects/tasks of your supporters, then don’t ask for a permanent role but let them know that you are always here to help them in case there is a staff shortage. Also, whenever you have some availability at work, ask them if they need help. This will help you stay in touch with them and remind yourself.
- Try open communication. If those people who don’t like your work really start bothering you, then ask them what they don’t like about you or how you should change it. Make sure to stay calm and polite when they are criticizing you.
- Finally, be very careful about your emails. Emails are written and have a timestamp so they can be used as evidence. If they criticize you through email and you reply them in a very inappropriate language, then they can use that email against you. Therefore, always read twice when you are sending an email especially to someone who you have conflicts with.
