Office politics: What are the signs to watch out for?

By politics, we do not mean people running for president or having your colleagues form a senate. Do you remember in grade school when you had classmates who you've never seen study, and yet are always in the honor roll every year?  You then hear stories that classmate being the child of some of the most active members of the Parents-Teachers Association, or teachers getting presents from them regularly, not just on special occasions. Sorry to inform you: your workplace may not exactly be a politics-free zone.

You will eventually feel that "“ the sensation that even though you like going to work every day, the interactions among employees feel like they're coming from an episode of Game of Thrones. This is not exactly an ideal scenario, which is why we're advising you to take notice of some things happening at work, so you can exercise caution instead of walking around like a lame duck, fresh graduate.

Here are some things to get a feel of in your office:

The existence of factions and their interactions (or lack of)

It is inevitable that an office is made up of factions. After all, even one department can be composed of various teams or units. For example, an HR department, (which obviously is separate from finance or IT departments) can be made up of a learning and development team, an employee engagement team, and a compensation and benefits team. Marketing can be made up of a B2B team, a B2C team, and a social media and content marketing team. We're not denying the existence or their autonomy from each other. After all, each department, which can be broken down into each team, has their own responsibilities, job scopes, and specialties that other teams and departments may not necessarily need to interact or collaborate with. What you need to observe are the personal interactions of these team members. These weird interactions can range from sudden awkward silences when another team passes by to management flagrantly favoring projects or initiatives of one team or department over another. Unfortunately, you are witness to an ugly side of office politics.

By the way, take note: factions can exist even in one team. You may wonder how a team member can seem ostracized from the rest when they should be working together. Yes, unfortunately, personality differences or preferences do play a big role in politics, even and especially in a professional setting. Come to think of it, it is exactly personality clashes that give rise to office politics. In an ideal work environment, only professionalism and objectivity should be allowed. Alas, when company culture gives leeway to too much individuality and personal attitudes, office politics are inevitable.

'Have you heard?'

Gossip, oh how people love to talk! This is especially true when there are opportunities to talk about other people behind their backs. You might wonder how a group of people can talk about some people when they don't actually have that much interaction with them because, (a) they avoid them like a plague or (b) there is just not a lot of need to interact. That's what exactly worsens the situation - because of a lack of information, people tend to speculate and add tidbits to make their conversations of other people in the office juicier.  Moreover, cliques have this mentality that they won't be accused of coming up with stories or fanning rumors because they can easily deny by saying, "We don't even talk with these people, so how can we know things about them?" But then, that's exactly the anatomy of a rumor "“ various stories that are unfounded and have no solid proof that are passed from one person to another. There's really no requirement for a person to be close to another person so the former can spread rumors about the latter.

And yes, these stories do not actually have documentary evidence. No memos, no recording, no documents, just conjectures, opinions, and "from what I've heard" statements that most of the time are not even related to the job.  This brings us to the third manifestation of office politics.

Up close and personal

When you get introduced to a person in the office and then immediately you are asked, "How do you find him / her," that is most likely a politically-motivated question. How would you have an opinion of a person you just met? Besides, shouldn't you be in working relationships with these people? Personalities and "how you find them" should take a backseat behind work performance. People who asked you the question are most likely fishing for information on you, particularly on where your supposed "loyalties" are. It is best to answer this question with generic and non-committal answers.

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