The Politics You're Already In

I hear it all the time, "I don't do politics."It's one of the most common things people say at work. Usually with a slight shake of the head, as if distancing themselves from something grubby. I get it, 100%.When most people picture organisational politics, they picture manipulation & backstabbing. People saying one thing in a meeting and another in the corridor.But here's what I've noticed across nearly four decades of working in large organisations: The people who say they don't do politics are almost always doing politics. They've just convinced themselves they aren't.What We Actually Mean by PoliticsOrganisational politics gets a bad name because we conflate two very different things. There's manipulation, which is using people as instruments for your own gain. And there's navigation, which is understanding how your organisation actually works and operating accordingly.If you read last week's piece on why good ideas don't always win, you'll recognise the gap. The best idea in the…