Stephen Billing’s Blog

The experience we have in organisations is the result of the interplay of conflicting intentions. We have less control than we think. But at the same time, our organisational experience is not random.

Your change efforts are inherently political, whether you intend them to be or not

The poor regard in which politics is held, and the view that it is bad to engage in politics are both indicative of a way of thinking in which it is implicit that people can either choose to engage in politics and therefore be labelled “bad” or they can choose not to engage in politics and be “good”.

Politics are also commonly seen as part of conflict, uncertainty and situations where the formal channels break down or are not effective.

However, I think that politics are an inevitable aspect of the social nature of being human and working in organisations.

I often hear people say "I don’t get involved in the politics." While this seems like an admirable aspiration, all humans are involved in politics because we all have intentions that we are trying to manifest in our organisational lives. The results of what happens in your organisation is a result of the interweaving of all the different intentions of the many people who are involved in the organisation. 

Hidden in the view of politics as the result of conflict, uncertainty and lack of effective formal communication channels, is the implication that people would not need to engage in political behaviour if there were no conflict, if the environment were predictable or if formal means of resolution were working effectively.

Like it or not, conflict, uncertainty and formal channels that break down are a part of human existence in organisations. It ain’t going to go away. Everything is political (or interpreted in a political way), including the actions of people who are not interested in organisational politics, or who think they are not being political.

I had a client who took up a new position as a manager in a new organisation. There was a significant change in the approach being used to achieve the group’s purpose and consequently the group was reorganised.

After a particularly difficult day filled with conflict he said to me "Do I atract this hostility?"

Another client after a bad day said to me enviously about another project manager I was working with "That project manager has a smooth running project and doesn’t have the kind of conflict going on in my project." Little did he know that the other project manager was dealing with a problem with a team member who was openly hostile, rude and not performing.

I pointed out to both these clients that these issues of conflict are going on all the time – they are the stuff of organisational life.

I have come to see that we are all in the process of negotiating with interdependent others as we try to go on together in a world where we have different, competing intentions. Conflict must inevitably arise when you are dependent on another and they are also dependent on you. Walking away is only an option if you are no longer to be involved with that project or organisation.

We are always negotiating conflict of some kind. But we tend to blame others and see them as the source of the conflict rather than accepting that as human beings in organisations conflict and power relating are inevitably a part.

This becomes especially noticeable in times of change when the conflicting intentions we have are highlighted.

And sometimes it seems like others don’t have it quite so hard as we do. But you never know what’s going on in the house next door…

What do you think?