Impact and tactics with analysis

 Organizational politics is a political dynamic of an organization,

other than the set of beliefs, principles and governance these
office politics attempt to improve status or to increase power of
people in the organization or the organization as a whole
(Cameron, 2019). The word politics itself has a bad reputation
but organizational politics isn’t all that bad as it creates mutual
understanding between the employees and superiors, the power
and interest come together to the decisions the organization
makes plus the actions it will take.

 The politics in an organization is inevitable and may arise due to

different factors, uncertainty can be a reason, unstructured
decision and complexity in the organization may call for politics,
another reason for politics to take place is the competition
between employees within the organization. The reason for such
competition is to gain attention, appreciation and show
importance.
 There are many factors due to which the political behavior arise, Jean-
Francois explains four factors that can drive that political behavior in an
organization. These four factors are personal drivers, decisional drivers,
structural drivers and organizational change drivers.

 Personal Drivers
 one of the biggest reason that politics occurs is due to the personal needs.
Organizations search for people with an ambition not just ambition but the
clever mind that is willing to use power and engage in political behavior, this
doesn’t mean that the organization is at some sort of risk but they use this
potential to improve both personal and organizational
 interests. This basically creates the need of power as David McClelland
explains, it’s the desire to make an impact on others, control people and
events to make a difference. Another motive that drives is Machiavellianism
which is basically just a cunning personality using deceit in interpersonal
relations and having the experience to examine and view the nature of other
people. Locus control is the faith of an individual about self-control and
external control by others, involving risk is a trait itself that organizations
look for.
 This occurs when politics intervene in the
decision-making process, even though the
decision is structured or unstructured politics
may occur.
 if the decision is unstructured that creates a
problem as it is bigger decisions involving
more people of the organization. When more
managers of different departments are
involved then politics is used as everyone has
their own opinion where agreements and
disagreement are common.
 By structure it means the formation of something,
here it’s the formation of the organization which
includes all the offices, departments, sections, units
etc.
 When a lot is involved its obvious that political
behavior will occur. Even though all the departments
are working together for one goal, there are always
some differences as different sections have different
priorities where one department wants less cost, one
department wants less work high reward, different
departments have a different way to approach the
same goal thus involving agreements and
disagreements as this is when politics takes place.
 This is somewhat connected to the decision
driver as decision making is the part of the
process when making strategic changes,
whenever there is an organizational change
there will always be unstructured decisions
that might take place that will encourage
politics.
 People with high experience and political
knowledge will be involved in this decision.
 Organizational politics provides a comprehensive
understanding of the informal procedures of contentions
and corporation in an organization.

 Politically skilled individuals help improve organizations

succeed and encourage authoritative changes and help
adapt the new evolving trends.

 Positive political behaviour serves in the best interest for

organization as they work in accordance with its vision and
goals, which helps develop ethical and balanced employee
collaboration.

 Organizational politics is seen as a mean of working

through conflicts in an organization.
 However, negative organizational politics can lower
the output of the employees as it may be a result of
injustice and unfairness which results in increased
demotivation and result in low efficiency level.

 Employees fail to complete their tasks in the given

timeframe and results in work delays.

 Due to increased organizational politics, employees

can feel threatened by the uncertainty, ambiguity and
self-interest actions and behaviours

 results in increased stress, demotivation and conflicts

at workplace.
 Politics is referred to a skill/ variety of activities
possessed/done by an individual in order to improve
organizational or personal interests. Office politics is
a frowned upon skill which involves of gaining
advantage through unfair means.

 Managers in Zappos tend to use political tactics when

decisions are unstructured, there are not any clear
rules, when uncertainty is present and where there is
a lot of competition.

 Politics impact individuals, teams and their

performances in many ways, negative politics can
decrease the productivity of the employees in an
organization by lowering the outputs of individuals .
 Zappos employing 1,500 individuals make sure that
politics is prevented as much as possible. The
organization gives employees a voice when hiring them to
determine if the individual is fit for their culture or not.

 Zappos is also known to offer employees $2,000 if they

leave this assures the employees that they are not trapped
in the organization and the bonus acts as a security if they
decide to look for another job.

 They also build smaller teams which makes sure that

everyone is interacting with each other and getting to
know the team on a personal level. Setting goals for the
entire team promotes transparency and improves
teamwork.