Oh, jeez. Office politics. If you've been in an office where two sides are battling it out, undermining each other, and making everyone else take sides, you know what I'm talking about. Is there any office without them?
Some people love office politics - like the way some people love state and federal politics. And some offices encourage political battles as the primary problem solving tactic. At highly political organizations, business decisions are made on the basis of relationships and power - the business case usually has little to do with it. Not much fun for the people caught in the middle.
But politics doesn't have to have a bad connotation - there is a positive side to politics. Politics is about the use of relationships and power to accomplish goals. I'm all for establishing and nurturing professional relationships in the office. It's important to meet and communicate with a wide variety of co-workers, even if you don't want anything from them at the moment. And power in the office comes from a variety of sources: it might come from your title, but it can also come from your accomplishments or your expertise. So highly accomplished people who are recognized as experts in their domain who have relationships throughout the company could be considered master politicians - and that isn't necessarily bad.
When most people talk about office politics, they usually mean the back-biting, backstabbing , power-hungry guys (and gals) who would do anything to advance their agendas at the expense of anyone who disagrees with them. How do you deal with those folks?
Let's divide the problem into two categories: where the power struggle is going on above you and you're in the middle, and where you are one of the combatants.
