Saturday, January 21, 2006
I'm a slave for you...(or not) (Part 1)
Dear all,
From now on, I will be offering my advises free of charge after witnessing how people can get affected due to dire mismanagements of their work lifes, which ultimately create obnoxious attitudes within their own personal behaviours, thus affecting also people around them, misjudging their good intentions with the intent of causing impairments.
The first topic I would like to touch on is: Power and Politics.
In terms of getting things done in an organisation, it definitely helps when you have power. Employees are constantly trying to increase others’ dependencies on them while at the same time mimimising their own reliances on others. What is the end result? You have power. You might say, “How to? It not as easy as it is? I’m confined, controlled and restricted. How can I manipulate?”
If the answer is as simple as ABC, there wouldn’t be a status quo. Although there are loads of ways to achieve monopoly over co-workers, even to your boss, I’ll leave that to you lot but I will drop pointers here.
Few employees would relish being powerless in their jobs within organisations. It is true to say, when employees are difficult, argumentative and temperamental (i.e. even to the extend of portraying these negative values outside work), it may be because they are in positions of powerlessness; positions in which I would define as correlating to performance expectations placed on them far exceeding their own resources and capabilities.
There are ways to change. Certain power attributes like Expert (e.g., if you have something to offer which no one in the organisation could give), referent (i.e. the ability to manipulate co-workers, superiors with cold hard facts which they couldn’t disagree on), charismatic (i.e. not applicable to most here as only a certain few possessed this valuable attribute). These are some examples of personal qualities which you could tap into so as to maximise your influence on others, thus gaining power.
Be someone within the organisation whom people would respect or admire because you have certain qualities that are not general in nature (e.g., power playing).
The power of your boss may also play a role in determining your job satisfaction. One reason why many of us work for and with people who are more powerful is that generally, they are more pleasant, not because they’re Mr. Nice guys or Miss happy; but the fact that reputation and the reality of being in power permitted them to delegate others, working towards what they want with your efforts. (Notice why most bosses smile at you when you work so hard for them?)
Here are my tips:
First off, you would have to accept and observe the political nature in your organisation (e.g. Boss is a say-all-I-want but no show and co-workers working so hard till their insides turned (read previous paragraph)). By assessing behaviours using a political framework, there will be better predictions to the actions of others. Use this information to formulate political strategies that would eventually reap rewards.
Some people can be said to be more “politically astute” than others. I can honestly tell you why. Those who are good at playing politics can be expected to have better appraisals, hence huge salary increments and promotions faster than the speed of light than the politically naïve or inept people which I referred to as the Yes man/woman (“Don’t fire me, I promise to do and serve like a slave”). The politically astute individuals are more satisfied at work (ever notice how your boss would praise an arsehole who does no work?).
There is never a situation where you are in a handicapped position (e.g. I’m a new guy, it’s my first job, my boss is too cunning, I’M JUST TOO LAZY TO DO ANYTHING!).
It’s never bad to start playing “dirty” early in your career, notice why those key position holders are such bastards? It takes practice from young. In order to climb and to enjoy benefits that are for only the selected few eventually, the key is to being ruthless, as Genghis Khan cited, to win this war, I will take down my own sons even if it cost me their lives.
For those of you who are unwilling to play the politics game, there would thus be lower job satisfaction and self performances, which would increase anxieties (even after work) and the ultimate ending of you quitting your job.
Go think creativity, there are loopholes everywhere you could exploit, all it matters is whether you would want to take that risk, hey, and anyway you’re going sack yourself as an end result.
I thank you for your time
Stay Tune
The Masterpiece
XxX,
Mr_Mimosa at 03:51