Office politics can be found in almost every office, and we can’t really completely remove it. However, there is such a thing as excessive politicking, and it’s bad for your career personally and professionally. Engineers from the company Facebook know this well. For them, instead of scheming for promotions or undermining officemates, they prefer to keep focused on building great products. Jay Parikh, Facebook’s global head of engineering and infrastructure shared some tips on how to eliminate office politics.
#1 Don’t Hire Self-Centered People.
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Even if there were a hundred how-to’s, tips, and tricks on how to solve office politics but your team is made up of self-centered and social climbing beings, then you can’t really solve this problem. So Facebook’s suggests, don’t hire them in the first place. Parikh suggests that you use these questions in the interview:
“Describe your responsibilities as a leader.”
“Can you tell me about four people whose careers you have fundamentally improved?”
“What did you do on your very best day at work?”
“Describe a few of your peers at your company and what type of relationship you have with each of them.”
“What does office politics mean to you, and do you see politics as your job?”
“Tell me about a project that you led that failed. Why did it fail and what did you learn?”
“Successful candidates should clearly demonstrate that their priorities are company, team, and self–in that order,” he said.
#2 Offer Other Goals.
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Many employees have set their goals on getting into management. But if you make getting into management as the ultimate career prize, many people will fight to get into management. At Facebook, they make management a career option, NOT a status symbol.
According to Parikh, “At Facebook, moving into management is not a promotion. It’s a lateral move, a parallel track. Managers are there to support people and to remove barriers to getting things done. They are put in those positions because of their strong people skills.”
By offering other career challenges and opportunities outside of being managers, employees will have more choices for their career growth.
#3 Train Managers to Handle This
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Parikh says that training managers to defuse politics “may be the hardest thing to do, but it’s probably the most important.” Many employees blame “politics” when they’re frustrated, even if it really isn’t the problem.
According to Parikh, “When someone does cite politics as the cause of an issue, our managers dig in and try to find out what’s really going on. Simply asking, ‘What do you mean by that?’ or ‘Can you tell me about the specifics of the situation?’ is often a good place to start. We’ve found digging in and asking for specifics on what the person is seeing and feeling usually will help get to the root of the issue–and it’s usually not politics.”
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