DrContrarian

Societies that are homogeneous will tend to mediocrity. Conversely, the tensions caused by differences between groups of people in multicultural societies, is the force for growth and improvement. Ergo: multiculturalism might be the tough option, but it is the good option.

The contrarian's view of winning at office politics. Rule 1 : Make friends and shape that into a network. You need them to help you win the war. No individual can beat the whole system. (S)He with the most friends win - no matter what stunt the other person pulls. Rule 2: Make friends by GIVING and sharing and helping without an expectation of anything in return. (A paradox, I know, but that is how you do it.) You may be cynical about this, but your connections are what keep you 'connected' to the system - to state the bleeding obvious. Rule 3: Good defense will win the day. Office politics is not about being able to trample allover someone else, but more importantly it is about protecting your own turf. This is often a cliched football analogy, but it is really true: good defense wins the game. And for fun guide to OFFICE POLITICS - check this out.

Part 5 in this short series. (Who knows how long it will be? J ). Initially I thought I’d stick to the fundamental, root causes only, but the reality is that most people will only read titbits, and not necessarily in one go, so I will simply highlight these reasons as they come to mind; whether it is primary or secondary cause… Inability to influence. Managers spend more than half their time influencing other people would be my guesstimate. Some time to do own work and some unproductive time etc. but the bulk of productive time is spent influencing people. The difference between a good manager and a poor one is directly correlated to their ability to influence others. Failure is usually a result of an inability to influence – especially an inability to exert upward influence. It is something we learnt as children, but many of us lose the knack for making people with more power do the stuff we want them, or rather need them to do. The psychology of influence is fascinating. But ...

There are a host of reasons. I have studies enough, learned enough and failed enough to have some compelling arguments as to why managers fail… Over time I’ll explore a few of those. The obvious one is incompetence – but I will ignore that as a reason. Arguably that is the error of the manager’s manager more than anything, but most importantly; I don’t believe that people reading this would fall into that category. And if you are incompetent – at managing only of course - The number one reason – without any doubt in my mind is misunderstanding or underestimating the nature of POWER. Do you have power? Do you know who (else) has power? Do you know what you derive it from? Do you know why you have it? Do you know how to use it? Do you know when to use it? Do you know how it is used against you? Are you super aware of how it ebbs and flows on a daily basis, from meeting to meeting, from person to person? Are you using power ‘prem...

Managing conflict Had an opportunity to do some coaching today. Now it is not my natural/ day job, but I quite enjoyed the experience. The topic du jour was as per this blog title. Later I saw a vlog ( http://blogs.bnet.com/intercom/?p=434 ) on office politics, which referred to the fact that managers spend 42% of their time on this activity (managing conflict) – but no reference to how to actually do it. So here goes the d price methodology: The pre-requisites are: 1. Is it my conflict to solve? If you are fighting someone else’s battle, you are bound to lose it. Don’t go into bat for someone else in the office. You may think you are helping, but you are trespassing. 2. Take a positive view of the conflict. Don’t see it as a negative/battle, see it as an opportunity to clear the air and to rectify misconceptions or clarify an issue. You may well be wrong so you might just learn something. It will also help reduce the tension - before you start. Then stepping into the act...

I have had cause recently to contemplate what constitutes a toxic workplace – and in particular which factor is the biggest driver of creating such a workplace. There are many obvious contenders, but I’ll reference the front runners only: Highly politicised Politics (of the corporate kind) is often seen to be and made to be ‘bad’, but I think that it is a very good mechanism for keeping people on their toes and equipping them with the communications and observational skills necessary to progress in the corporate world. Being able to play the game is a skill needed when you are the CEO/ Chairman/ MD and you operate in a sphere where everything is the proverbial grey. What better training ground than middle management? Bureaucratic Also much despised is the overly bureaucratic environment, but again it should be - for any half-decent manager – a relative cinch to operate freely in that environment. Learning which rules to break and where to go in order to get things done actually ...

Tomorrow is my first time voting as a citizen of Australia. 1. I think the Greens will have a massive gain - surprising everyone - and not for the reason everybody thinks (climate change). 2. Is Australia a democracy if voting is compulsory?