Sunday, November 8, 2009

My enemy's enemy is my friend

I was watching Robin Hood season three and above was the title of the eleventh episode. This is a line said by Guy of Gisborne to the fellow Robin Hood men when they question his motive of joining them. This made me wonder how this becomes true in a Corporate platform as well.

There are many instances in corporate politics where those who play politcs become friends with people whom they feel are undermined by their 'political' foes. Again this happens at a peer and subordinate level.

Let me explain the first scenario,

At a peer a level say at department head level, lets assume that Head of Department A has some professional issues with Head of Department B. Let us assume that A is a guy who plays corporate politics and B does not.

To confront B, A might start getting extra friendly with C,D, E & F who are fellow depatment heads. He might increasingly start spending more time with them building relationships both during and after office hours. With all on his side A might launch his attack on B which could have a severe impact on B.

Scenario two is where A uses a close subordinate of B to get at him. Lets assume X was a close confidante of B and since of late due to few mistakes on X's part or various other circumstances B has been critical of X. It is one of those passages in employement where X will have negative impressions about B. A siezes opportunity and becomes friendly with X and uses him to build a case against B.

I'm sure many of the readers must be familiar with these scenarios. Sometimes you would have used such tactics to your own advatge while some others would have been victims of such tactics or would have been pray and drawn to such political game play.

Those who are part of the corporate world and specially those who have just started out in their corporate lives need to be very concious of this fact. One needs to be minful of the motives of others.

While this does not mean that you refuse any type of friendship offered to you by a colleague of yours just be mindful when your new found friend(s) attempt to undemine a third party. Remember this does not happen bluntly. Be on the look out for patterns of discussions which slowly but surely targets individuals.

You might be draged on to Corporate Politics by those who cherish on such game play. More often than not until you are deeply in it, you just don't know it.

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