{"id":1455,"date":"2015-05-06T12:49:50","date_gmt":"2015-05-06T17:49:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/?p=1455"},"modified":"2015-04-25T14:52:44","modified_gmt":"2015-04-25T19:52:44","slug":"workplace-politics-kills-innovation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/workplace-politics-kills-innovation\/","title":{"rendered":"Workplace Politics Kills Innovation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"placeholder\" style=\"font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit;\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-1456\" src=\"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/corporate_politics-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"corporate_politics\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/corporate_politics-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/corporate_politics.jpg 555w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>As a manager in big companies I hated workplace politics. Among colleagues you compete for scarce budgets, scarce people and scarce promotion opportunities. This does not bring out the best in people, creating a lot of wrangling and maneuvering. Sometimes it even seems that internal competitors are more vicious than competitors in the market.\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"placeholder\" style=\"font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit;\">Individual agendas and self-interest are everywhere around you in the workplace. All the power play, games, gossip and rumors tired me out; you too?\u00a0<\/span>All the negative energy creates a corporate culture full of aggression, distrust and fear.<\/p>\n<p>Innovation will flourish in a culture of trust, collaboration and freedom, where you can make mistakes without &#8220;your head being chopped off&#8221;. Workplace politics kills innovation. What can you do?<\/p>\n<p><strong style=\"font-style: inherit;\">Stop Negative Politics from Spreading<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>To deal effectively with workplace politics you must first accept the reality of it. I tried to avoid it, but that didn&#8217;t work at all. When you don&#8217;t participate in the political game, you risk not having a say in what happens. I found\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.mindtools.com\/pages\/article\/newCDV_85.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">eight great standards<\/a>\u00a0you could apply yourself to stop negative politics from spreading.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit;\">Don&#8217;t pass on gossip, questionable judgments, spread rumors \u2013 when you hear something, take a day to consider how much credibility it has.<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit;\">Rise above interpersonal conflicts \u2013 do not get sucked into arguments.<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit;\">Maintain your integrity at all times \u2013 always remain professional, and always remember the organization&#8217;s interests.<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit;\">Be positive \u2013 avoid whining and complaining.<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit;\">Be confident and assertive but not aggressive.<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit;\">When voicing objections or criticism, make sure you take an organizational perspective not a personal one.<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit;\">Don&#8217;t rely on confidentiality \u2013 assume things will be disclosed and so decide what you should reveal accordingly.<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit;\">Be a model of integrity to your team, and discourage politics within it.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong style=\"font-style: inherit;\">Pick the Right Moment to Spark Innovation<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Once you can deal with the office politics, be sure to pick the right moment to start an innovation project. The right moment to get support for a breakthrough innovation project in a big political company is when doing nothing is a bigger risk. When the people &#8216;steering the tanker&#8217; know that they have to change course soon.<\/p>\n<p>These now-we-really-need-to-innovate moments often coincide with incidents, like:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit;\">Three continuous quarters without any growth in turnover;<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit;\">A competitor just introduced a great new product, that envies everyone;<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit;\">One of your biggest clients just left;<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit;\">A new competitor entered the market with a revolutionary business model;<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit;\">You just lost three tenders in a row for a big assignment.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>To be really effective as innovator, these are the moments you should wait for to get support for your breakthrough initiatives. An effective innovator in a large organization has to act with the patience of a hunter. You cannot wait too long though. You know completion of the innovation process in a big company takes at least 18-36 months from idea to market introduction.<\/p>\n<p>Remember you can only start an innovation project once for the first time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As a manager in big companies I hated workplace politics. Among colleagues you compete for scarce budgets, scarce people and scarce promotion opportunities. This does not bring out the best in people, creating a lot of wrangling and maneuvering. Sometimes it even seems that internal competitors are more vicious than competitors in the market.\u00a0Individual agendas&hellip;&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/workplace-politics-kills-innovation\/\" rel=\"bookmark\"><span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Workplace Politics Kills Innovation<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":1456,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[85],"tags":[748,2,749],"class_list":["post-1455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-organization","tag-corporate-politics","tag-innovation","tag-workplace-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1455"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1455\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1458,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1455\/revisions\/1458"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}