Cranfield Knowledge Interchange

Constructive Approach to Organisational Politics Dr Martin Clarke SM Increasing turbulence as a result of the recession in organisations is causing many organisations to experience increased political activity. Now this is the subject we are going to have a look at today with Dr Martin Clarke. Martin is an expert both in politics � and he has written a book about this � and putting this into practice within organisations and what this means for organisations. Now Martin, have you seen an increase in politics in organisations? MC Yes. I think politics are an inevitable part of organisational life, they reflect strong opinions; differences of opinion. The issue is, of course, that what recession does is to, if you like, draw these differences of opinion to the surface because people will have different views about what is right or wrong � whether we should be closing a branch, whether we should be increasing marketing spend, reducing training and development; whatever it is. These are all legitimate ideas. The extra difficulty comes in so much that recession tends to decrease people�s tolerance for actually working with those differences of opinion. So how can you gain agreement? How can you get some committed action when the stakes are high and differences are rife? SM So it sounds like you define politics in a very certain way; one has to say a lot of people would see politics in really quite a negative light. MC If we think about politics in a governmental sense, what is it about? It is about the competitive positioning of causes. So the Labour Party, the Green Movement, the gay lobby are all positioning their causes. If we think about what we do all day long as managers, it�s exactly that. We are fighting for time, we are fighting for ideas, resources, people, money, ideas � all sorts of things. So whether we like it or not, we are all politicians. We have choices though about the way we make those political decisions. So for example, if you were finding that there is some pressure to reduce headcount in your department, a constructive political politician would of course go about trying to argue the case that that would be a bad thing, to lobby for support, to benchmark the value they had against other organisational activities. What you have got to be able to do is to demonstrate balanced motives; to be able to say that what you are doing is for the benefit of others and that the means are judged to be acceptable by others. The difficultly is, as we have said, of course that when you start to position your ideas about serving your department, people see what you are doing as being divisive or somehow self interested. Dr Martin Clarke SM Some people would say you are either a born politician or you are not. I take it that, I would imagine, that you say there is something beyond that, that you can actually learn and do something about it? MC The starting point, if you like, may seem a bit perverse or contradictory. What you have to be able to do in order to work with that political dissention is to actually embrace the constructive nature of politics. So what does that mean in practice? Well the first starting point is perhaps, if you like, to be aware of the political zeitgeist, if you like, in any organisation; to be able to read other people�s agendas; to be able to see the critical business issues; to be able to understand the important timeframes. And once having got that understanding, you are then in a position to decide how to use that in recession. SM Can I just stop you there? How actually do you get hold of this? Assuming some people are very good at it, but the ability to actually read the subtleties and nuances of politics seems to me quite difficult. MC It�s about increasing your interpersonal awareness and lifting your head above the task. It is something, I think, of a mindset shift if you like to recognise that do we work on the premise that all organisations are neatly aligned places with people rowing in the same direction, singing off the same hymn sheet? Or in fact are they places of a multitude of interests, that actually are important to the survival of organisations? SM If I just look at the situation then � I have sussed it, I have looked at it � what should managers then do? MC Well, having equipped yourself with that understanding you are then in a position to decide, if you like, when is debate about an important issue going to enable the organisation or disable it, by sucking up too much management time and attention. You would be better placed to decide well when might a short term compromise enable you to get an expedient solution to move debate along. Or perhaps when it is important to force a decision through, because you have to kill debate in order to get people to arrive at a conclusion very quickly. Or sometimes of course, even to roll over and to decide well actually I won�t pursue this any more, what I will do is quietly further Plan B. In fact, I will give you an example of that with an organisation I am working with at the moment. It�s a successful business, but one business unit is losing a lot of money, and the person that I have been working with has been trying to raise the level of debate about this issue, but unsuccessfully so far, because of those differing agendas. So what she has decided to do � because she realises that it is in fact disabling the organisation; it�s creating too much focus on these areas, distracting people from other value adding activities during recession � what she has decided to do is go ahead to secure a more short term, expedient solution that enables, if you like, the log jam to be Page 2 Dr Martin Clarke freed. Now what she is going to do is take a longer term view about that and see how she can come back to it in the future. Her ability to do this has been dependent on the way she has been able to read the political situation in the business at this time. SM I am interested in finding out what people gauge themselves to be-political or not political. Assuming that we have to go ahead with this, politics is a reality; would you expect to do this day in day out? Would you expect to practise this and it becomes part and parcel of your repertoire? MC Absolutely. Politics is not something you do on Friday afternoon; you have got to recognise it as a legitimate organisational activity. And build a mindset and a way of working around it and that includes, as I have said, the central idea that actually in order to be able to reduce some political dissention you have to embrace politics as a positive activity; to reduce the negative self serving aspects of politics-which for example we can see in government circles at the moment through the expenses furore-has actually been a result of people seeing politicians focusing only on self interest. If you can focus your activities on things which are of value to others, whilst at the same time they may be valuable to you, it helps people see that what you are doing is legitimate. And what flows from that is the importance of being able to build relationships, to lobby your ideas, to be interested in what other people have to say, be interested in other people�s politics in order to secure collective agreement at the appropriate time. SM Martin, thank you. MC Thank you. For further details on the programme go to click here. Page 3

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Gaining Agreement:
A Constructive Approach to Organisational Politics
10.07.09. (7:42) Martin Clarke discusses the role of politics in organisational life. For further details on relevant programmes click here

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