Do you Play Positive Politics?

Have you have heard the expression positive politics? Yes, politics in the work environment can be positive!

By Marsha Egan

How many of you have heard the expression positive politics? This is the opposite negative politics and I believe you can see a shift in political positioning and behavior as your move to the higher levels in just about any organization.

As you go up the corporate ladder, or any organizational structural ladder, you’re going to find that the people who are higher to the top are rarely engaged in what I consider to be negative politicking. Negative politicking is where the overt “back stabbing” occurs. That’s where people drop hints about peoples’ shortcomings or mistakes. That’s where people corner others in meetings, without warning. People who are inexperienced in organizational dynamics have not yet learned the risk of tattle tailing, or talking someone down. They mistakenly believe that by knocking their competition down, they will rise. Oh, how untrue.

The people who rise have learned the skill of positive promotion. In other words, they don’t find things wrong with people any more. That’s what the people at the lower levels of the organizations do. Instead, they work at collaboration and doing positive things for others who are deserving.

What I’m talking about is positive politicking. You can recognize it when you see it. As an example, in a group a people who are working together, a valuable project comes available. And all of a sudden, one of those people is given the project by another person that they’ve worked with. This visible project is not only a reward for excellent prior work, it can be the result of collaborative relationships built with the leader of the group.

This is a reality in organizational America, whether it’s corporate or not. What we want to get ourselves in position to do is to award that kind of positive visibility to other people, and we will ultimately be a beneficiary of it as well.

We want to position ourselves to make positive opportunities available to people within our organizations. We want to do this regularly. We want to hand things off instead of keeping it selfishly for ourselves. These kinds things come back tenfold for people who do it.

This strategy is not only project based, it can be as simple as complimenting a job well done to senior executives. Sincere, unselfish and altruistic behaviors are noticed, and most times rewarded.

We rarely forget the time we were uncomfortably cornered and embarrassed in an organizational setting. It breeds a long term reluctance to help that person. The converse is true. I’m sure every one of you can think about a time when somebody did something positive for you and your career and how appreciative you were. And since that time, if that person asks you to do just about anything, you’ll do it for them. Well, this is the way positive politicking works. And this is how we can create our own luck within our organizational structures.

So, out with negative politicking, we don’t want to rat out people for things that they’ve done wrong. That behavior actually makes the “rat” look even worse than “victim.” That behavior happens with the people at the lower end of their organizations.

What we want to do is do positive things for other people. And this is the way that we can further the aims of the organization, and find some luck in it for ourselves. Because, most good deeds are returned.

Marsha Egan, CPCU, PCC is CEO of The Egan Group, Inc., a Reading, PA based professional coaching firm. She is a certified executive coach and professional speaker, specializing in leadership development and can be reached at marsha@marshaegan.com or visit http://www.marshaegan.com .

Business Email Culture: Manage It or Watch Your Profits Slide Away

Have you ever stopped to examine how do your employees use their email? How do they manage it, send it, and save it? The habits they adopt, both good and bad, can be contagious. Learn certain practices you can instill into your employees to create a positive email culture.

By Marsha Egan

Every time you let your email interrupt your productive work, it takes you an average of 4 minutes to get back on track. If in one day you let 15 emails derail you, you’ve just lost an hour of billable, productive time. Multiply that by every employee every day and you can see how office-wide unproductive email use can be an enormous drain on your profits.

Have you ever stopped to examine how do your employees use their email? How do they manage it, send it, and save it? The habits they adopt, both good and bad, can be contagious. Since email touches all of us several times a day, an office email culture evolves quickly.

Here is an example. A boss calls a meeting with 3 of his department managers. He sends an urgent email, needing a response within 15 minutes. One manager, who is working on an important project, does not have his email on, misses the request, and angers his boss.

This manager has just now learned that he cannot turn off his email, ever. But it doesn’t stop there; it rolls down the corporate ladder. All three managers now have “permission” to use email as an URGENT delivery system. They use it in their departments, and very quickly, the entire organization is infected. No one can turn off his or her email for fear of missing something vital. Employees become slaves to the “brinnng” and stop productive work anytime an email comes in.

This is just one example of email mis-use that plagues businesses. Think of the practices of copying everyone under the sun, just so you don’t miss someone. Or how about using email as a chat room with multiple recipients to resolve dilemmas? Or the slippery slope of using email to critique someone’s performance? One person does it, others do it. Culture is changed.

There are, however, certain practices you can instill into your employees to create a positive email culture. It requires strong leadership and change management efforts, but by following these methods, you and your employees will be able to reclaim more time, and improve your bottom line:

1. NEVER use email as an urgent delivery system. If the matter is urgent, pick up the phone or walk down the hall.

2. Have everyone turn off “Automatic Send/Receive” and set “Receive intervals” to a minimum of 90 minutes. If someone is expecting an email, he or she can always hit receive manually.

3. Move everything OUT OF your inbox. Your employees can manage their work better by putting emails in appropriate folders for easy reference later.

4. Make Subject Lines be VERY specific. By including details in subject lines, you will help others sort and prioritize their work.

5. Copy only the people who REALLY need to receive the email. Each superfluous cc will have to open and read the email, adding unnecessary tasks to their already full days.

Marsha Egan,CPCU,PCC, CEO of the Egan Group,Inc., Reading PA. An ICF Certified Professional Coach, she is an authority on email productivity. She works with forward thinking organizations who want a profit-rich email culture. She is the author of Inbox Detox and the Habit of Email Excellence,available on her website and Amazon.com.The last week in January is International Clean Out Your Inbox Week at http://EganEmailSolutions.com/inboxweek.html