Office politics and turf wars seem to hit a nerve with people. The thing is that it’s all so unnecessary and can be easily eliminated if companies realized what a toll it’s having on the organization. Here’s what I think is causing office politics in the first place.
- Executives are creating their strategic plans but not properly communicating those plans down the line.
- Thus workers are confused as to what exactly they should be doing.
- So they make up an answer and proceed to do whatever they think is best.
- Which leads them to compete with people who also think that they have responsibility for the same thing.
- So they compete for resources, budget, attention, whatever is necessary.
- And they frequently end up duplicating efforts.
- Wasting resources,
- And pissing off customers who retreat confused.
The poor schlub who sits at the bottom of the chain spends his life (notice that I said ‘his’ because schlubs are never female) battling turf wars. The thing about turf wars is that they are impossible to win. You’ll always be fighting a rear-guard action against the enemy trying to encroach upon your turf.
Of course I turned to Sun Tzu to hear what he had to say about turf wars: “The good fighters of old first put themselves beyond the possibility of defeat, and then waited for an opportunity of defeating the enemy.”
Good old Sun Tzu. Always something pithy and apropos to quote so the writer can seem erudite, well read, and intelligent.