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It can be very difficult to figure out how to survive office politics sometimes. There are so many different types of personalities you will encounter and each person will have unique motives and desires that they can get from the job they do. You have several options, but you generally want to be genuine in the end. Some choose to pander to each different type of person, but that will catch up to them in the end. Besides, you don’t want to have to be fake just to please other people do you? That is certainly an option, but it usually comes around and bites you because you will slip up sooner or later.

One of the easiest ways to avoid annoying people and getting under their skin is to ask a lot of questions. When you talk to someone on a coffee break, don’t tell them about what you did over the weekend or about that crazy dream you had. They really don’t care about that anyway. Ask them questions about what they did and what they’ve got planned for the rest of the week. By getting people to talk about themselves, you are satisfying their need to be heard and making them feel like you are a good listener. The best part is that they will appreciate your interest and you really didn’t have to say much at all.

If the burden is on you to start the conversation then talk about the weather. The weather probably the most neutral topic there is. No one will get offended by any type of talk about the weather, regardless of what type of person they are. Of course, that still leaves open the possibility that someone may decide to gossip/backbite to you about another colleague. So what can you do in that case?

The best thing to do when negative talk about another is going on is to just listen – that’s if you can’t change the subject or walk away. Just take the time to listen to what they have to say without adding anything; you will have successfully avoided back stabbing another co-worker. This is the best thing to do because no one will accuse you of ever saying anything behind another person’s back.

The last tip on how to survive office politics is about avoiding playing favourites. If you are in a position of any sort of power or responsibility, you will have to deal with this type of thing constantly. Just think about it in terms of you protecting your own hide and integrity. Co-workers will know who you like the best, so if you even think about giving them an advantage in the workplace it will be obvious. Avoid this at all costs by giving promotions and praise to those that deserve it. This is a smarter idea anyway because you want the best person for the job doing whatever task is at hand.

So no matter what situation you come across in the office, there is a good way to handle it, and fortunately that sometimes means you just listening to what people have to say. You can get much farther ahead by listening to the concerns of others and not saying anything bad about anyone than you could by joining in and becoming part of the everyday office politics.

You can download this article in PDF format by clicking on the link below:

Surviving Office Politics (241)

Every project manager would like to see his or her project win acclaim as a great success. Nobody sets out to fail, but some projects do go down in flames. When this happens, it’s tempting to push the dead-on-arrival project under the carpet and hurry on, but it’s smarter to take a careful look at the project and figure out what went wrong so similar problems can be avoided in the future. There are several factors that can kill a project faster than arsenic poisoning.

Poor communication/Poor leadership
It’s the leader’s job to make sure senior management and team members are all on board with the project and that all know their responsibilities. However, a leader may make vague assignments and not follow up with the team again until the project is almost due. That’s a sure-fire recipe for failure.

Micromanagement
You may know exactly what you’re doing to guide your project team to victory. The problem is, your boss doesn’t know, and he or she keeps popping up with impractical orders and changes that don’t make sense. Trying to please a micromanaging boss is a common reason projects fail.

Vague Objectives
A project can’t succeed if you don’t know exactly what its objective is. Objectives should be quantifiable so that anyone evaluating the project can easily see whether or not it met its goals. For instance, instead of “make customers happy” an objective goal might be, “improve customer service satisfaction by ten percent.”

The project grows too big and unwieldy
This is also known as the “creep” syndrome and the “oh, by the way” syndrome. We’ve all been there. A project starts out with a clear objective such as keep track of client spending trends. Then another manager suggests that the project should encompass the company’s buying trends as well. Before long, another manager wants it to keep track of client credit ratings. Soon the revised project looks nothing like the one that was initially conceived, the project manager has lost control, and failure is imminent.

The team is wrong
Sometimes the team selected for a project simply don’t have the knowledge and skills necessary to complete it, even with strong leadership.  Being able to evaluate the team at periodical intervals and replacing people that continue to underperform or don’t have the necessary people skills to lead others will ensure the job is done more efficiently.

Summary
A final reason projects fail is that the bosses ignore early warning signals. Projects don’t fly high one moment and come crashing down around you the next. There are always early signs that something isn’t right, such as being over budget or failing to meet deadlines. The good manager catches these problems early, addresses them, and starts planning to save the project. The poor manager ignores warning signals until the project is beyond hope.

There are many reasons why a project may fail, but a strong leader can help avoid many of these pitfalls and lead his or her project to success.

You can download this article in PDF format by clicking on the link below:

Why do Projects Fail? (192)

Below you will find my presentation at the “Desktop Virtualisation Summit” held over at BrightTalk.