Sir, This is Apple-Polishing!

In an institution I once worked, there was an end-of-year staff soiree, where the Board Chair made the following announcement: ‘Don, you are the CEO of this subsidiary. Team, I’d entreat you all to give your new CEO the maximum support he needs. I’m still gonna have very high expectations of him and I assure it’s not gonna be easy…’

Don had been in acting capacity for a while and he seemed to have caught the Board’s attention.

With a wide almost ear-to-ear grin in his face, Don, awestruck, struggles to string a few words in a remark… ‘Errmm, I think I want to thank the Board for reposing such depth of confidence in me.’ ‘Thank you!’

There appeared to be cheers across the table, colleagues making faces, some silly ones, some obviously not too amused about the announcement.

In turn, colleagues began expressing words of solidarity in support of the new CEO. At my turn I said: ‘Don, congratulations!’

One manager, Patrick, rose and begun: ‘… oh, this is the doing of the Lord…praise be to Jehovah God Almighty…Don is a very good leader…I’m not surprised at all that the Board is saying he should be the CEO…As for me I will support him, I will make sure I do my work well so that Don doesn’t get into trouble.'

At this point I was getting a bit impatient, mixed feelings, worried, not too sure Patrick was properly screwed up in his mind. A few other colleagues felt same too. Don was however just watching and nodding away, then appeared to be basking in those unnecessary sycophantic praises.

Mulling over, I whispered to myself. ‘Don, can you not just discern that Patrick is so apple polishing you? Have you become naïve all of a sudden? Ouch! Sadly people cannot tell the difference when sycophants are on the floor.

Outside, after the drink-up, I got curious and asked: ‘Patrick, how long have you known Don, be it on the job or elsewhere… I see you have a lot of goodwill with him…’ Patrick chuckles, gets a bit fidgety and relates…Oh Louie, errmm I’ve not known Don for long -  less than a year, but in this organization if you must secure your job, you have got be nice to the big guys. And you have really got to do this openly so that the big guys will feel good. And Louie, you don’t have to assert yourself. Just tag along any decisions that are taken and you can be sure your job is protected for the long haul…’

I go like Patrick, are you serious? You have got to be kidding me big time! Musing…what does Patrick mean by job security? Whatever happened to performance, competence, delivery? Whatever happened to professionalism and self-assertiveness…Ok, ok! Survival in this environment depends on praise-singing and politics. No workplace policies?

Behaviour at every work place is quite infused with politics and this cannot be discounted. Work place politicking in itself is not an exactly bad idea.

Political behaviour is using the power at one’s disposal to get the desired outcome. For political behaviour to be effective, one has got to have some kind of power. Without this power, it is almost impossible to get the other person to do or give what is desired.

As a result there is positive and negative political behaviour.

Positive Politicking

Positive, because the organization may be the ultimate gainer of the outcome of political behaviour which results in a win-win situation.

Scenario – Bertha sends a directive by email to a colleague to get some tasks executed immediately. A week goes by and there is neither an acknowledgement of the mail, nor the performance of the task. No feedback. Bertha follows up with a telephone call to the colleague and there is a story. Bertha then, politically, sends a reminder to her colleague and this time, puts the General Manager (who has that reputation of terminating appointments of Staff who do not perform) in copy of the resent mail. The job gets done immediately and perfectly. The gainer is definitely the organization as well as Bertha whose directive has been effected. This is win-win.

Positive Political Behaviour Strategies

·         Forming coalitions of strong allies who can really connect to get results.

·         Building a network in and out of the organization to tap ideas from.

·         Pretending all colleagues are favourites, just so the work get done.

Negative Politicking

The beneficiary of the outcome of political behaviour is most likely NOT be the organization but an individual or group of persons who may have used their official status, resources and clout to reap undue benefit.

Scenario – in Gwen’s capacity as the final approving authority for procurement of capital items, she decides to put aside the quotations solicited and covertly obtains other quotations of bizarre values from unapproved sources (cronies) subsequently resulting in loss of value for money for the organization. Clearly in this scenario, the organization has lost and the staff gained.

Negative Political Tactics

·         Scape-goating – avoiding or minimizing outcomes of professional incompetence.

·         Information withholding or distortion in order to outperform work colleagues.

·         Taking undue credit for other colleagues’ accomplishments.

·         Making the superior feel good (ie apple polishing) in order to cover up for their inefficiencies.

·         Creating social debts or simply (threats of) blackmail - feeling you owe a favour.

All manner of employees, out of competition and the desire to out-perform colleagues regrettably engage in negative political behaviour which ultimately breeds disaffection and unhealthy rivalry among staff. This development can poison the work environment, nothing will get done and endless (paid) staff time would be used for conflicts resolution.