Power & Politics
This may be the toughest of all areas within corporate life, dealing with power and politics. It can make or break a career, cause many sleepless nights, and often has very little to do with the actual job employee thought he was paid to do. Some companies are better or worse than others in the amount of political activity required in the job. In some companies, playing corporate politics is the only job you have time for. In the military, it is only marginally important. Usually, the larger the company, the more part the politics play in your ability to perform.
In order to be successful in the corporate world, people need power. The types of power available are formal power and informal power. Formal power is most easily recognized in our society: generals and presidents have formal position power. Informal power is less well understood, however, it is far stronger than formal power over the long term. The power of respect gained as a result of what we know and what we can do. It is important to consider the personality type of the target of influence when selecting a power strategy. In order to influence someone, several strategies may be used involvement, negotiation, direction, and enlistment. Building a Professional Network Outside used to be a less important issue than it is today, with mergers, acquisitions, down sizing and major companies restructuring almost daily. Many very successful and highly competent people have found themselves out of work due to the economy, industry changes, corporate politics or just plain bad luck. The true value of a professional network is combining people from with and individual work today, those worked with in the past, and those that work with in community or professional groups may be the differenc ...