Book review: Good spin on office politics

"Enlightened Office Politics: Understanding, Coping With and Winning the Game -- Without Losing Your Soul"
By Michael and Deborah Dobson
AMACOM, 316 pages, May 31, 2001

By Porter Anderson
CNN Career

(CNN) -- "Playing politics" is a concept generally unhampered by honorable reputation.

This isn't lost on Michael and Deborah Dobson, who have come up with a book that all but sings the body-politic electric.

"While it's undeniably true that there are unprincipled players in the world of office politics and that there are tactics and strategies for office politics that can be downright immoral, it's also possible to be active and effective in your organization's political environment in ways that are principled and ethical."

Not just Missourians may be saying "show me" at this point.

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Dobson and Dobson set out to do just that.

If you like those books that have lots of blanks for you to fill in and exercises to go through, you may well enjoy "Enlightened Office Politics." It's nothing if not workbook-y. For example, under "Learning About Corporate Culture," you sharpen the old Number 2 Medium and answer questions including: "If the organization or department has a written mission, vision and values statement, write it here" and "What do you see as the real vision and values of the organization as practiced today? (Avoid cynicism.)"

OK, so we'll follow directions, avoid cynicism and just mention in the most even-toned way possible that not everyone enjoys opening a book that requires the reader to do the writing.

Nevertheless, many people are self-help fans -- hence the health of the how-to book lists at publishing houses -- and this one at least does everybody the service of going after some accommodation of workplace politics that's more positive than negative.

Power

Of course, many will want to turn right to that seductive Chapter 5: "How To Get ... and How To Use ... POWER." Surely, one realizes, the Dobsons aren't so sweetness-and-light about politics that they've forgotten what we all want from a job in addition to money.

But in fairness, the coauthors begin at the right beginning, explaining why you should care about office politics ("inevitable in every organization with three or more people in it") and they do go on to offer a lot of helpful lists to use in getting a few good principles (principled principles, of course) in mind. To wit, these five steps to "turning workplace foes into allies":

•  Show respect for the enemy's opinions and goals (which is not necessarily the same thing as agreeing with them)

•  Act in a trustworthy and honest fashion, even if your enemy doesn't

•  Listen empathetically to your enemy's point of view and demonstrate that you understand it

•  Take your enemy's objections seriously, and consider them in a thoughtful and appropriate way

•  Show that you keep your word, and do what you say

This is pretty not-bad stuff. And, similar to the effect of good therapy, this book's information arrives in your politics-beleaguered mind as a lot of things you knew already but somehow had lost track of.

Dobson

You're taken through "Knowing the Battlefield" -- who remembers to take the time to scope out "The Shape of the Political Terrain" properly? Then there's "What's Going on Here?" in which you can muse on the motivations and situations of your opponent-colleagues. Finally, the Dobsons get you onto the rifle range for "Tactical Politics" and then haul out the heavy artillery for "Strategic Office Politics -- Politics as Warfare."

And wisdom far beyond the Dobsons -- or most of us, no stones are being thrown here -- occasionally pops up in the form of a masterful comment from some of history's great political thinkers.

"How we live" -- the authors quote Niccoló Machiavelli in his 1532 "The Prince" -- "How we live is so far removed from how we ought to live, that he who abandons what is done for what ought to be done, will rather bring about his own ruin than his preservation."

Listomania

More good lists are here to ponder, again perhaps the book's strongest point. On "tactics that may be seen as underhanded or sneaky," the Dobsons -- consultants based in Chicago -- offer these cautions:

•  Avoid short-circuiting the chain of command

•  Avoid undercutting your opponent's position or motives behind his or her back

•  Don't use anger or negative emotions to influence outcomes

Going into some negotiations you really need to win? Take along the "walk-away alternative." As the Dobsons put it, "if you can achieve a certain level of outcome without negotiating, there's no point in accepting any less than that when you negotiate. It's your 'walk-away' alternative because if you can't do any better than that, you should get up and walk away from the negotiation."

And "Enlightened Office Politics" ends with "40 Rules of the Game," a sort of list-ultimo that's offered under this wry and graciously self-deprecating comment from Cardinal Richelieu's 1687 "Political Testament." "Nothing," wrote Richelieu, "is as dangerous for the state as those who would govern kingdoms with maxims found in books."

With that caveat firmly in pocket, consider if you'd like the 40 rules here that cap the Dobsons' effort -- "deliberately acquire power and influence" ... "develop your own intelligence network" ... "be honest, or be quiet."

Scheming with the best of them may just be honorable, after all. Happy plotting.