ORGANISATIONAL POLITICS:

Politics is universal phenomenon in organized society. Politics relates to the ways people gain & use power in organizations. Political Behaviour is not limited to those who hold public positions. We expect political behaviour in every organization. Pfeiffer & Sherwood have commented that the who gets what (politics ) is endemic to every organization, regardless of size ,function , or character of ownership.Futhermore ,it is to be found at every level of the hierarchy, & it intensifies as the stakes become more important & the area of decision possibilities greater One survey of 400 managers provides the insight into their views towards organizational politics. To a larger extent, managers agreed that: 1. Politics is common in most organizations. 2. Managers must be good at politics to succeed. 3. Politics becomes more important at higher levels. 4. Politics can detract from organizational efficiency. Thus, it is necessary for managers to understand the dynamics of politics so that they can take suitable course of actions to minimize its dysfunctional consequences.

Concept of Politics:
It can be observed that every one plays some kind of politics at some point of time in the organization. We can find references that define politics as one or more of the following: Self serving behaviour: acquisition of power, Protection of ones own domain, building of support through group formation. In these cases politics involves acquisition of power or be around power & engage in self-serving behaviour. Therefore Politics can be referred to as actions for seizing, holding, extracting, & executing of power by individuals & groups for achieving personal goals. Because of organizational Politics, organizational decisions are affected in such a way that they contribute to personal goals rather than organizational goals. On the basis of the review of various definitions of organizational politics, Dory & Room have following definition of Organization politics. Organization politics refers to intentional behaviours that are designed to enhance or protect a persons influence & self-interest.

Essence of politics:
Politics, in general, is characterized by -- Disagreement , Diversity, Scarcity,& Interest.

If organizational members agreed all the time, there would be no politics. I n other words, the potential for political activity arises wherever disagreement exists. Core factor which can trigger disagreement is diversity. Complex organizations comprise sub-units are more powerful than others & each may have different goals can create conflict. For example software engineers may want to provide the organizations with a highly sophisticated & technologically advanced IT system .Line managers may simply want a design which enables them to communicate with one another. Scarcity can prompt political activity if there are competing claims upon resources. If department A requires 10 additional items & department B the same number ,if budget is sufficient for only 10 between them , then clearly scope for conflict exists. A central feature of politics is the notion of interest. Interests are defined as positions people want to protect or goals they seek to achieve. If no one cares whether company A is awarded a contract for supplies in Preference to company B, then there is no disagreement about the matter & potentially, no Politics. The Italian Philosopher, Nicola Machiavelli also advocated Political behaviour to acquire power. Popularly called Machiavellianism, the strategy calls for seizing & holding on to power, somehow. His guiding principles were: Never show humility: arrogance is for more effective in dealing with others. Morality & ethics are for the week: powerful, l people feel free to lie, cheat & deceive whenever it suits their purpose. It is much better to be feared than loved. In general, Machiavelli urged those who desired power to adapt a totally pragmatic approach to life .Let others be swayed by considerations of friendship, loyalty or fair play he suggested; a truly successful leader should always be above those factors. In short, he or she should be wiling to do whatever it takes to get his or her way!

Types of Political Activities:

Organizational behaviour experts have conveniently grouped all political activities into seven categories as discussed below:1] Attacking or blaming others= Perhaps, the most direct and nastiest form of organizational politics is attacking and blaming others. This includes giving rivals a bad image in the eyes of decision makers. Decision makers especially weaklings, have weakness for such diatribes. The weakness is further exploited by the political activists to further their interests. 2] Selectively distributing information= Information is a political tool as well as a source of power. People strategically manage the distribution of information to shape perceptions, limit the potential performance of rivals, or further enhance their power base. Information politics also involves hoarding information. Knowledge is power obviously; people do not desire to share the knowledge with others and thus erode their power base. 3] Controlling information channels= power enables an executive to control the interactions among subordinates as well as the topics of those discussions. The executive might discourage employees in different work units from talking directly to each other because this might threaten the executives power and job status. Similarly, committee leaders might organize meeting agendas to suit their personal interests. If leaders want to avoid a decision on a particular topic, they might place the issue near the bottom of the agenda so that the committee either does not get to it or devotes little time and attention to the issue. 4] Forming coalitions= A coalition is an informal group that attempts to influence people outside the group by pooling the resources and power of its members. Coalitions are often built around a trade off. Coalitions can be built through many levels in an organization, between various functions or divisions, and between important external or internal stakeholders. A coalition is a political tactic because it pools the power of several people towards a common objective that each member is unable to influence alone. 5] Increasing indispensability= One main political tactic that an individual or subunit can use to increase power is to become indispensable to the organization. Indispensability can be achieved through increasing nonsubstitutability or increasing centrality.

6] Associating with powerful line executives= another political tactic is by attaching oneself to powerful line executives. By supporting a powerful manager and making oneself indispensable to that person, it is possible to rise up the organizations ladder and grab power too. Top managers often become mentors to aspiring lower level managers because planning for the managerial succession is an important task of higher level managers. Coos typically promote their friends, not their enemies. Managers who have taken the initiative to develop skills that make them stand out from the crowd and who are central and non-substitutable have better chances of being selected as protgs by top managers who are seeing individuals to groom as their successors. 7] Managing impressions= Impression management is the practice of actively shaping ones public image. Many impression management activities are done routinely to satisfy the basic norms of social behaviour.

Reasons for Organizational Politics:

Organizational politics is a natural phenomenon of every human group or organization. When the group or the organization works for certain time, it tends to generate political behaviour. There may be several reasons for this. Some more prominent factors which contribute to political behaviour are as follows:1] Competition for power= Political behaviour emerges because people want to serve power, that is, over and above the authority delegated to them formally. They want to acquire power because it is satisfying to them. Since amount of power like other resources is limited, often there is competition for acquiring power. In this process, people feel it rational to manoeuvre the things in such a way that it gives them more power n consequently use of more resources than others. Thus, their behaviour becomes dysfunctional from organization point of view. 2] Discretionary authority= Organizations provide positions with discretionary authority to use such powers in the case of special needs like emergency in organizations. Such authority is used based on individual judgement. For example, a production manager may be given discretionary authority to appoint personnel of certain category in the case of emergency without

making reference to personnel department. Such discretionary authority, then, becomes the basis for organizational politics. Normally, those in discretionary positions seek to maintain power at least equal to or greater then their dependence on organizational members. If their discretionary power is less, they will try to form coalition to achieve more power. This will result into political behaviour. 3] Ambiguity in organization= Ambiguity in organization, particularly of roles and authority, generates politics. The more ambiguous the formal roles and authority of organizational members, the more developed will be the internal system of political competition. Ambiguity puts people to settle their roles through mutual interactions. In these interactions, people may try to enact their roles most suited to them so that they can show better performance leads to more incentives and rewards. However, roles enacted in such a way may not be functional for the organization. 4] Subjective evaluation of performance= Subjective evaluation of performance may also lead to political behaviour. In many cases, performance evaluation cannot be based on any concrete achievement, and it is the judgement of a superior which is taken as the basis for performance evaluation. This may happen where performance cannot be measured quantitatively, for example, the job of a personnel manager or research and development manager. When subjective evaluation of performance is taken a members may think some bias in superiors evaluation, they may be forced into dysfunctional political behaviour. For example, in such a case, a subordinate may like to be closer to his superior by providing him personal satisfaction rather then organizational performance. Therefore, the lesser the objectivity in defining and measuring performance evaluation criteria, the greater is the room for the individuals to engage in dysfunctional behaviour. 5] Saturation in promotion= People have a feeling that they have reached saturation level of promotion. When they reach the maximum level as per their talent and skills, they resort to political behaviour. This is what Peter Principle describes, that is, in a Hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to the levels of incompetence and he will have no other business than to engage in politics that has undesirable consequences. However, this may not be true for all the persons. Some persons may emphasis work achievement more than positional achievement and may not involve in politics. 6] Joint decision making= Large organizations emphasis on joint decision making to solve common problems faced by various units. Joint decision making generates conflict and politics. In order to get favourable decision, people involve in politics by forming coalitions and associations through which they will be able to achieve their objectives. Thus, in an organization, various such groups are formed for mutual benefits.

Consequences of political behaviour:

Political behaviour, in general, is dysfunctional, through in some case, it can be functional. If, in acting, in his own self-interest, a member behaves in ways that are computable with the best interest of the organization, such behaviour is functional. This may happen specially wham management tries to safeguard its own interest along with the interest of other parties associated with the organization. Political behaviour is dysfunctional if self-interest hinders the organization from achieving its goals. When organization and individuals interest interact, there may be some portion in which case both interests may be similar while other portion may represent conflict between two interests. Since an individual tries to achieve his own goals, it may be at the cost of the organization.Thus, higher the degree of incongruence between two goals, higher the chance for political behaviour being dysfunctional.

Management of organizational Politics:

Politics is a feature of every organization because it arises for serving individual needs. Any discussion of managing organizational politics must e prefaced with the statement that efforts to restrict politics in organization will largely be futile. The best way can do is to minimise the dysfunctional effects of self-serving behaviour .Bellow are some of it. 1. Much of the political behaviour is caused because of lack of clarity in job definitions, roles, rules, procedures and authority.Therefore, by prescribing these things clearly, some dysfunctional behaviour can be checked. Clarity in these aspects helps in minimizing unfairness, nepotism and opportunity for people to advance themselves at the expense of others and of the organization. 2. Highly dysfunctional forms of political behaviour can flourish only when supported directly or indirectly by top management personnel.Normaly politics begins at the top and percolates throughout the organization. People at the lower level look to their superior for standards of acceptable behavior.Top management should not only indulge in dysfunctional politics but should also discourage it by clearly stating that such behaviour is to be penalized.

3. Management can take direct action to curb political behavior.When politics deters the organization from the pursuit of its objectives, management action is required. When people play the politics of being indifferent to the decisions made by them, they should be held personally responsible for the decisions. As a result, decision makers cannot avoid the responsibility of bad decisions and cannot pass the buck. 4. As far as possible, there should be objective criteria for setting objectives for individuals and departments, and rewarding of individuals should be solely on attainment of these objectives. When objectives are clearly specified, any deviation from it will be obvious and it will be easier to control. If inefficiency goes unnoticed and unrealised and rewards are given to those who are near the boss and who look to be busy without any contribution, such patterns of behaviour will be adopted by others also. By penalizing negative behaviour and rewarding positive behavior, members can be motivated to engage in positive behaviour. All the guidelines suggested above are long-term course of action.Therefore, unless there is suitable and conducive work climate in the organization, these actions are likely to succeed. Organizational climate is largely setup by top management.Therefore; it is the top management which can take lead in curbing dysfunctional aspects of organizational politics.