Singapore Expats

How to handle work place politics? I have never faced it before but recently it has started in my team and I hate working in such environment. I am sure most of the senior forum members would have faced the same.. Any advice on how to cope with it ?

Suck it up

Is all you can do

Or change job!!!

What is "work place politics" in your mind? Ranges from the petty to the seriously political. Are you getting f*cked with higher level management/different divisions?

Or are you having to put up with trivial subordinate bullshit?

Strong Eagle wrote:What is "work place politics" in your mind? Ranges from the petty to the seriously political. Are you getting f*cked with higher level management/different divisions?

Or are you having to put up with trivial subordinate bullshit?

It is more of bullshit by a teammate who has not got promotion for years . Now he has started playing dirty politics of bad mouthing, interfering in work I do. This creates a negative environment..Will have to suck it up...

sunbox wrote:

Strong Eagle wrote:What is "work place politics" in your mind? Ranges from the petty to the seriously political. Are you getting f*cked with higher level management/different divisions?

Or are you having to put up with trivial subordinate bullshit?

It is more of bullshit by a teammate who has not got promotion for years . Now he has started playing dirty politics of bad mouthing, interfering in work I do. This creates a negative environment..Will have to suck it up...

If it's a peer level teammate, then I'd probably drag him next to the water cooler and/or coffee machine, and say, "You bad mouth me one more time or interfere in anything I do, and I am going to f*ck you so badly you'll be lucky to have a job when I get done."

Then, if he doesn't stop, do it.

sunbox wrote: It is more of bullshit by a teammate who has not got promotion for years . Now he has started playing dirty politics of bad mouthing, interfering in work I do. This creates a negative environment..Will have to suck it up...

Is that your conjecture or did he reveal that to you ?

Just asking

On the same note, isn't it possible somebody played politics to keep him at the same level?

How big is your organization btw?

Strong Eagle wrote: If it's a peer level teammate, then I'd probably drag him next to the water cooler and/or coffee machine, and say, "You bad mouth me one more time or interfere in anything I do, and I am going to f*ck you so badly you'll be lucky to have a job when I get done."

A lame thought .. if OP is doing his job right, why get worried about XY or Z doing politics?

If OPs supervisors know OPs worth, threatening etc is not needed

My 2 cents psychology says so ..

Maybe I have worked in companies with a different culture

Threatening etc can really back fire ...

ecureilx wrote:A lame thought .. if OP is doing his job right, why get worried about XY or Z doing politics?
If OPs supervisors know OPs worth, threatening etc is not needed

My 2 cents psychology says so ..
Maybe I have worked in companies with a different culture
Threatening etc can really back fire ...

Because in places I've worked (banks) it can be very dog-eat-dog. I hated office politics with a passion, and never partook in it. But I remember one time being hauled in by the CFO and more or less interrogated re: whether I was bad-mouthing and undermining my manager. I was genuinely stunned they imagined it possible as it was so far from my style, but also I really liked and respected my manager! So, someone else was clearly trying to stitch him up...

The other trouble with someone playing this game is they might be trying to undermine more than one person. And you have to remember that in say banking, a very large part of your remuneration can be variable/bonus. And how your bonus is decided is down to many factors. One of which is called '360 degree peer review' (IIRC) - which entails 20+ random colleagues you work with, report to, or have reporting to you, giving you an annual score-card of their perception of your performance (it's 20+ questions, with 20+ white-boxes for additional comments). Now if someone's bad-mouthing you behind your back some other people are going to take that at face value, or perhaps be influenced by it, and come 360DPR time that's likely to hit you directly in the wallet.

I'm not sure if I would go to my supervisor or manager, not yet; one never quite knows how the hierarchy of political allegiances lie. I'd go to HR and ask them 'in confidence' for their advice. I would have thought they would be happy to try and help, and suggest what might be done (if anything).

JR8 wrote:I'm not sure if I would go to my supervisor or manager, not yet; one never quite knows how the hierarchy of political allegiances lie. I'd go to HR and ask them 'in confidence' for their advice. I would have thought they would be happy to try and help, and suggest what might be done (if anything).

before anybody starts telling I am throwing smoke through my A***, I have, by not my choice, worked for a few companies, in Singapore alone

Now, in 9 out of 10 companies, if you walk to HR, and talk in "CONFIDENCE", before you get back to your seat, the message would have been delivered to your immediate supervisor/dept head.

And when you fill in the free text in the Employee surveys, which encourages reporting of incidences that maybe detrimental to the organization's growth, the dept and division heads spent a lot of time trying to figure out who ratted them out. And in one case, a dept head went trying to ask one by one if any of his team members spoke too much.

After all, this is ASIA, and bypassing the bosses is not encouraged, even in a MNC with a European Top Management that's how HR behaved. Like the innovation programs, 'we want you to innovate, but FFS, don't over do it .. '

The only option was a few companies have Employee reporting system, which doesn't cover back stabbing/unscrupulous methods employed by Colleagues etc.

No, I never bothered to report anybody including amusingly in a place, where out of 50 guys, though I had ZERO customer complaints, and 100% engagement marks, I was ranked at the bottom of the batch, for bonus/increment, and had nothing to hand over as I always shared all passwords and solutions (and that meant I was easy to be fired, vs those who hide all kinds of information and were probably seen as more valuable by the decision makers ) and was one of the first ones out of the door, when the culling started.

Heck, for a internal improvement program, I had presented 10 points, and considering the others couldn't clock more than 5 points, in my year end review suspiciously my presented points had been trimmed to 3, lest somebody had to promote me or give me a bigger bonus, such was the politics .. or so was a senior manager's sarcastic remarks and he went on to say 'somebody had to be at the bottom, and it wasnt' hard to put you there as you don't make too much drama .. '

I didn't bother, even though few of my colleagues from other departments did see what's going, and did inform me, because for me, I felt I will stoop down to the level of those political players, if I start reporting or playing their games.

If you cant' stand the heat, get out of the kitchen !!

No regrets, btw.

Office politics is everywhere. Doesnt matter if you work in Tahiti or SG. IMO those 360 appraisals tend to cut it out, perhaps its the fact that you rely on 3feedbacks from your someone above your pay grade, 3 people from your pay grade and 3 below your pay grade.

Here in SG in my American/British company, office politics is horrendous. In my own dept, there are at least 2 if not 3 plots going on simultaneously. And it is only a dept of 8. Then there's the other depts or the wider uber senior management team or those succession planning team that their sole preserve is not to rattle those china teacups. Queen and country, you know, after all, me yellow skin folks, where would we be without the Empire

Office gossips suck but unless you are:

1) sleeping with the boss, the colleague or the subordinate;
2) not performing well at work; or
3) doing something that worth the bad-mouthing (farting in office, pilfering, tardiness);

you should not be worried about it. Suck it up.

But if the person is DIRECTLY interfering with your work, do what Strong Eagle said and have it documented. And be prepared to march into HR or manager's office like a champ.

For the avoidance of doubt, when I’m talking about ‘office politics’ I’m talking about intentional back-stabbing, people spreading dishonest rumours, seeking to undermine others, for their own (indirect, potential) personal gain. I’m not talking about everyday office-gossip.

@WD40 [edit: maybe your post is now deleted?] what you’re referring to is more akin to ‘a*$e-licking’. IME (In my experience) it’s favoured by managers who themselves feel vulnerable. It doesn’t work from direct-reports to managers where the latter themselves are going places. They demand performance, rather than some smiley yes-man proxy for it. There is a difference between following orders, and never coming up with initiatives/ideas that will (genuinely) benefit the group/department/company/shareholders as a whole.

IME you don’t take an expat posting out here and then expect an easy ride; rather you do what’s required of you, regardless of what it is. If that means being available any day to be woken up at home at 6am by New York calling you, or 11pm by London, then that’s part and parcel of being expatted. (And ‘shouting at your manager’... surely that’s a death sentence in any job!?).

I’ve had good and bad managers. Amongst the latter, one that you couldn’t speak to before lunch because she was always boiling angry (really, literally, she had issues upstairs I’m quite sure), and some others where you never knew quite what was going on ‘above’ at more senior levels, and you just did what was requested. I’ve had great managers too, people who gave me latitude to do my things somewhat my way, or just given me a free rein, and it was with them my work really developed, evolved, cut costs for the department, etc (IMHO).

Thinking about it now, looking back, I think this is an inherent issue on ‘Wall Street’. People who are perpetually afraid for their livelihoods, as you often are working in a bank, tend to just do what’s required, rather than stick their heads above the parapet and take the risk of suggesting or making changes. 100% top-down. It is ironic that then every few years they tend[ed] to have campaigns to welcome ‘bringing efficiency ideas and savings’ from the bottom up. Maybe forcing this channel was the only way it was ever going to happen? .... hmmm

JR8 wrote:@WD40 [edit: maybe your post is now deleted?] what you’re referring to is more akin to ‘a*$e-licking’. IME (In my experience) it’s favoured by managers who themselves feel vulnerable. ..

where is WD40's post ??

ecureilx wrote:Now, in 9 out of 10 companies, if you walk to HR, and talk in "CONFIDENCE", before you get back to your seat, the message would have been delivered to your immediate supervisor/dept head.

Perhaps I'm lucky then. As places I've worked I could implicitly trust HR to field a concern in complete confidence. I'm not talking about everyday petty little things, but rather talking about 'mal-intent' and egregiously unacceptable corporate behaviour.

I mean there has to be a protected channel for 'whistle-blowers' right? There was at my place, and we were regularly reminded that there was.

p.s. Maybe WD felt that what he posted was a bit too 'close to home'. Understandable if he still works for them...

Sadly, WD has a history of doing just that, JR8. That is why he changed his nick and opened a new account the last time. I guess he'll disappear and resurface with another new nick until he let's his bulldog mouth overload his hummingbird a**e. Again.