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Of EQ Quotient & Office Politics



Some people play office politics so effortlessly it seems like second nature. We can debate back & forth on this subject to no end as some posit that there are pros and cons to the phenomenon.

Ultimately there are personality factors that predisposes us to taking a position where this subject is concerned.

When you look closely you find that persons with predominantly ‘Complaint/Conscientious’ behavioral styles [#DISC] struggle the most to grapple with the office politics concept. With this behavioral style, affected persons on account of their practical orientation, task directed mindsets, authenticity & productivity postures really struggle to decipher why for instance a colleague would choose to withhold vital information that has grave implication for business outcomes just for the sole purpose of ‘pulling their weight’ or playing some ‘I matter around here game’. Again, such persons come under enormous weight of #stress brought about by political systems that require that they suck-up to those who play these games as opposed to really expending energy on productive work. But thrive they must & herein lie the quest to first; be aware of their default configuration & second to know that it’ll be an effort in futility (in the short term that is) to change the behavior of persons who they consider ‘productively dysfunctional’.

In my opinion, it is much more realistic for these category of persons to choose to modify their own behavior in order to achieve their objectives. How? By stretching to increase their relational quotient. Since these persons are more task focused, they would need to put effort in extending their relational capabilities perhaps beyond the #workplace? They might also need to do more vis-a-vis assisting others way beyond the call of duty thus building their emotional credit score with others. This makes it much more easier for them to gain cooperation from people whom they’ve even tagged as ‘political’. And since political games are played even beyond the walls of the #workplace, then gaining relational capabilities may be way more important than we could possibly imagine.

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