Year: 2020

Group structure is defined as the layout of a group. It is a combination of group roles, norms, conformity, workplace behavior, status, reference groups, status, social loafing, cohorts, group demography and cohesiveness.

• Group Roles: The different roles a person plays as a part of the group.
• Norms: The typical standard set by the group collaboratively that every member has to follow.
• Conformity: The decisions or stand taken by majority in the group.
• Workplace behavior: The ethics that one needs to follow while working with an organization.
• Status: The designation of members in the group.
• Social Loafing: The phenomena where group members put less effort towards achieving a goal than they would have while working alone.
• Cohorts: Sharing common behavior in the group.
• Reference Groups: Other groups to which a group is compared to.
• Group Demography: Extent of sharing same behavior.
• Cohesiveness: Extent of belongingness towards each other in the group.

Roles

Roles are a set of expected behavior patterns associated to someone occupying a given position in a social unit. There are three broad types of roles people play in small groups:

• Task roles
• Building and maintenance roles
• Self-centered roles

(a) Task Roles

Task roles are roles that focus on completing group’s goal. The different task roles of a group are stated below:

• Coordinator: Links statements made by one group member to another. Example − “Gita’s comment relate well to what Ram was saying.”
• Energizer: Provokes group to take action. Example − “How many of you are willing to bring in a video on dispute for the next session?”
• Elaborator: Extends upon another’s ideas. Example − “I think what Niki and Anni are suggesting is that we first explain nonverbally before we turn to verbal communication.”
• Evaluator-critic: Evaluates the group’s work against higher standards. Example − “This is okay, but I think Shree needs to give more feedback.”
• Information-giver: Gives helpful information. Example − “Rohit has some books about conflict we could use.”
• Information-seeker: Questions for clarification. Example − “Richa or Trishala, could you please tell me what you said about disconfirming responses?”
• Recorder: Keeps notes regarding the meeting. Example − “Last session we did not get to A-P’s presentation. Rahul and Rohit had just finished theirs.”
• Procedural Technician: Takes accountability for tasks. Example − “I checked out the VCR for Nigaar and Neha’s presentations.”

(b) Group-Building / Maintenance Roles

It focuses on building interpersonal relationships and maintaining harmony. The various maintenance roles in a group are:

• Encourager: Gives positive feedback. Example − “I think what Shyam was saying was totally right.”
• Follower: Obtains ideas of others in the group. Example − “Let’s follow Adi’s plan—he had the right idea.”
• Compromiser: Attempts to reach a solution acceptable by everyone. Example − “Pratik, Sid, and Nimmi have offered three great solutions. Why don’t we integrate them?”
• Gatekeeper: Assists participation from everyone in the group. Example − “I don’t think we’ve heard from Madhuri yet.”
• Harmonizer: Limits conflict and tension. Example − “After that test, we deserve a free meal!”
• Observer: Examines group progress. Example − “I think we’ve learned a lot so far. Monica and Mona gave us great information.”

(c) Self-centered Roles

These roles aim to impede or disrupt the group from reaching its goals. The various self-centered roles in a group are as follows:

• Aggressor: Acts aggressively towards other group members and their ideas. Example − “Playing desert survival is the greatest idea I’ve ever heard.”
• Dominator: Dominates group speaking time. Example − Interrupting—“I’m going to tell you seven reasons why this is a great idea.”
• Blocker: Refuses to collaborate with other’s ideas. Example − “I refuse to play Family Swap.”
• Help-Seeker: Acts helpless to neglect work. Example − “I don’t think I can put together a summary. Why don’t you do it for me?”
• Loafer: Refrains from work. Example − “Why don’t we just go have coffee instead of finishing this project?”
• Special Interest Advocate: Presents own viewpoint and requirements. Example − “I can’t meet today. I need to sleep early and call my mom.”
• Self-confessor: Talks about the topics important to self and not the group. Example − “I really like tea. Yesterday I went to CCD. Their coffee is better than what you get elsewhere . . .”

Norms

Norms are the acceptable standards of behavior within a group that are shared by the group members. Every group develops its own customs, values, habits and expectations for how things need to be done.

These patterns and expectations, or group norms as they’re called sometimes, direct the ways team members interact with each other.

Norms can help or block a group in achieving its goals.

Types of Norms

There are four different types of norms that exist in a group:

• Performance norms
• Appearance Norms
• Social arrangement norms
• Resource allocation norms

(a) Performance Norms

These are centered on how hard a person should work in a given group. They are informal clues that help a person understand how hard they should work and what type of output they should give.

For example: Team leader puts various posters in the firm to motivate employees to work efficiently and give their best performance.

(b) Appearance Norms

Appearance norms updates or guides us as to how we should look or what our physical appearance should be, like what fashion we should wear or how we should style our hair or any number of areas related to how we should look.

For example: There is a formal dress code we need to follow while working in a organization, we cannot wear a wedding gown to a board meeting.

(c) Social Arrangement Norms

This norm is basically centered on how we should behave in social settings. Again here, there are clues we need to pick up on when we are out with friends or at social events that help us fit in and get a closer connection to the group.

For Example: We cannot take our official work to a friend’s birthday party just for the sake of completing it.

(d) Resource Allocation Norms

This norm focusses on the allocation of resources in a business surrounding. This may include raw materials as well as working overtime or any other resource found or needed within an organization.

For Example: If the client needs the project by tomorrow then anyhow it has to be completed by using available resources or doing over time.

Conformity

Conformity can be stated as “accommodating to group pressures”. It is also called as the majority influence or we can say the group pressure.

It is widely used to indicate an agreement to the majority position, brought about either by a desire to fit-in or be liked or because of a desire to be correct, or simply to conform to a social role.

Types of Social Conformity

Three types of conformity can be identified:

• Normative Conformity
• Informational Conformity
• Ingratiational Conformity

(a) Normative Conformity

Yielding to group pressure because an individual wants to fit in with the group. Conforming usually takes place because the individual is scared of being rejected or neglected by the group.

This type of conformity usually includes compliance like where a person publicly accepts the views of a group but privately rejects them.

(b) Informational Conformity

This usually happens when a person lacks knowledge and looks to the group for guidance. Or when a person is not clear about a situation and socially compares one’s behavior with the group.

This type of conformity includes internalization like where a person accepts the views of the groups and adopts them as an individual.

(c) Ingratiational Conformity

Where a person conforms to gain a favor or acceptance from other people. It is relative to normative influence but is encouraged by the need for social rewards rather than the threat of being rejected.

In other words, group pressure is not always the reason to conform.

Harvard psychologist, Herbert Kelman, identified three different types of conformity:

• Compliance: Socially changing behavior in order to fit in with the group while disagreeing privately. In simple words, conforming to the mass, in spite of not really agreeing with them.
• Internalization: Socially changing behavior to fit in with the group and also agreeing with them privately.
• Identification: Agreeing to the expectations of a social role. It is similar to compliance, but there is no change in private opinion.

Reference groups

It is a group to which a person or another group is compared. Reference groups are used in order to examine and determine the nature of a person or other group’s features and sociological attributes.

It is the group to which a person relates or aspires to link himself or herself psychologically. It becomes the individual’s frame of reference and source to derive his or her experiences, perceptions, needs, and ideas of self.

These groups act as a benchmark and contrast needed for comparison and evaluation of group and personal characteristics.

Status

Status is a socially defined position or rank given to groups or group members by others. A group structure status includes group norms, culture, status equity. All these factors when combined presents the status of members of the group.

Social loafing

It is the phenomenon of people exerting less effort to achieve a goal when they work as a group than when they work alone.

This is one of the main reasons why groups are sometimes less productive than the combined performance of their members working as individuals, but should be recognized from the accidental coordination problems that groups sometimes experience.

Many of the causes of social loafing arise from an individual feeling that his or her effort will not matter to the group.

Cohorts & group demography

Individuals who, as a part of a group, share a common attribute are known as cohorts. Group demography is the level to which a member of a group can share a common demographic attribute with his fellow team members. Group demography is a successful ploy in increasing the efficiency of a team in the long run.

For Example: Age, sex, religion, region, length of the service in the organization and the impact of this attribute on turnover.

Cohesiveness

Extent to which group members are attracted towards each other, and are encouraged to stay in the group. Group cohesion is the aggregate of all the factors causing members of a group to stay in the group or be attracted to the group. Group cohesion acts as the social glue that binds a group together. Some people think that work teams illustrating strong group cohesion will function and perform better in achieving work goals.

Group cohesion is not attributed to one single factor, but is the interaction of more than one factor. While group cohesion may have an impact on group performance, group performance may create or increase group cohesion. Thus, group cohesion can actually have a negative impact on group task performance.

The most influential factor that creates a positive relationship between group cohesion and group performance is the group members’ commitment towards the organization’s performance goals and norms.

Team effectiveness (also referred to as group effectiveness) is the capacity a team has to accomplish the goals or objectives administered by an authorized personnel or the organization. A team is a collection of individuals who are interdependent in their tasks, share responsibility for outcomes, and view themselves as a unit embedded in an institutional or organizational system which operates within the established boundaries of that system. Teams and groups have established a synonymous relationship within the confines of processes and research relating to their effectiveness (i.e. group cohesiveness, teamwork) while still maintaining their independence as two separate units, as groups and their members are independent of each other’s role, skill, knowledge or purpose versus teams and their members, who are interdependent upon each other’s role, skill, knowledge and purpose.

The evaluation of how effective a team is, is achieved with the aid of a variety of components derived from research and theories that help in creating a description of the multifaceted nature of team effectiveness. According to Hackman (1987), team effectiveness can be defined in terms of three criteria:

• Output: The final outputs produced by the team must meet or exceed the standards set by key constituents within the organization
• Social Processes: The internal social processes operating as the team interacts should enhance, or at least maintain, the group’s ability to work together in the future
• Learning: The experience of working in the team environment should act to satisfy rather than aggravate the personal needs of team members

Nature of Effective Teams

Rensis Likert and Douglas McGregor, were among the early writers who directed attention to the importance of team functioning. They identified some of the nature of well functioning effective teams.

McGregor’s lists of nature are as follows:

1. The atmosphere tends to be relaxed, comfortable and informal.
2. The team task is well understood and accepted by the members.
3. The members listen well to each other and there is a lot of task relevant discussion in which most members participate.
4. People express both their feelings and ideas.
5. Conflicts and disagreements are present but are centered around ideas and methods, not around personalities and people.
6. The group is self conscious about its own operations.
7. Decisions are usually based on consensus, not on majority votes.

When actions are decided upon, clear assignments are made and accepted by the members.

When all these nature are there, it means that the team is successfully accomplishing its mission and simultaneously satisfying the personal and interpersonal needs of the members.

In the later stages, a number of writers and researchers have built their work on the basis of the work of McGregor, Likert and others.

Glenn Parker developed a similar list of the nature of effective teams, following as its features:

1. Clear purpose (defined and accepted vision, mission, goal or task and an action plan.)
2. Informality (informal, comfortable and relaxed.)
3. Participation (discussion and every one encouraged to participate.)
4. Listening (members use effective listening techniques such as questioning, paraphrasing and summarizing.)
5. Civilized disagreement (team is comfortable with disagreement, does not avoid, smooth over or suppress conflict.)
6. Consensus decision making (substantial agreement through thorough discussion, avoidance of voting.)
7. Open communication (feelings are legitimate, few hidden agendas.)
8. Clear roles and work assignments (clear expectations and work evenly divided.)
9. Shared leadership (While there is a formal leader everyone shares in effective leadership behaviour.)
10. External relations (the team pays attention to developing outside relationships, resources, credibility etc.)
11. Style diversity (team has broad spectrum of group process and task skills.)
12. Self assessment (the team periodically stops to examine how well it is functioning.)

All the above nature contribute in making an effective team. We can further distinguish between effective teams and high performance teams. High performance teams have the same nature but to a higher degree. Katzenbach and Smith say that strong personal commitment to each other, commitment to the organizational growth and success, distinguishes high performance teams from effective teams.

One of the things that leaders are often pondering is the performance and relationships of their team. Performance indicators show that effective teams will almost always outperform people working individually, particularly in high-pressure situations or when multiple skillsets are needed.

This shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, as most organizations are recognizing the importance of team building and are trying to foster it in the workplace. However, building effective teams requires more than an abstract commitment to teamwork; it requires input from managers to foster it.

Without team building skills, a manager risks limiting the productivity of their employees to what each member can do on their own, whereas if you foster team building you can unite your team around a common goal, which will raise productivity as a result.

So here are five steps to building a productive and effective team this year:

Step 1: Establish leadership

If your employees trust your judgement, they will work effectively even when you’re not around. Before you can start team building, you need to develop the right kind of leadership skills. This doesn’t mean asserting authority, instead try to foster trust through honesty and transparency.  Especially in larger organizations, managers can’t be everywhere at once, but if your employees trust your judgements they will work effectively even when you’re not around.

Step 2: Establish relationships with each of your employees

Try to learn more about each member of your team, their skill sets, how they are motivated and their likes and dislikes. This knowledge is invaluable to leaders, as it allows them to match each employee’s expertise and competencies to specific problems, which will help increase their productivity and job satisfaction.

As well as this, try to include your employees in the decision making process where possible. Instead of delegating tasks, give your team’s open-ended projects and allow them to determine the best solution. This will encourage them to cooperate and develop problem solving skills.

Step 3: Build relationships between your employees

As your team starts to cooperate more, examine the way they work together and take steps to improve communication, cooperation and trust amongst the team. If there are any conflicts, try to resolve them amicably. Listen to both sides of the argument and act as a mediator. One way to do this is to brainstorm solutions, which helps to empower your employees and may lead to new solutions to the problem.

Step 4: Foster teamwork

Once you have established relations with and between your employees, it’s time to help them work together effectively. Encourage your team to share information, both amongst themselves and within the wider organisation.  Also, try to communicate more with your team. This goes beyond simply holding meetings, and includes things like being open to suggestions and concerns, asking about each team member’s work and offering assistance where necessary, and doing everything you can to communicate clearly and honestly with your team.

Step 5: Set ground rules for the team

Finally, you can begin officially establishing your team through creating team values and goals, as well as evaluating team performance alongside individual performance. Be sure to include your team in this process, so they know what’s required and agree with it.

Team building is one of the most important responsibilities a manager has. It isn’t something that can be achieved in a short time and then forgotten. It is an ongoing organic process that you a will have to facilitate and guide. As this process unfolds, however, your team members will begin to trust and support one another and share their skill sets and effort in order to more effectively complete your organization’s goals.

If you want to succeed, you need to set goals. Without goals you lack focus and direction. Goal setting not only allows you to take control of your life’s direction; it also provides you a benchmark for determining whether you are actually succeeding. Think about it: having a million dollars in the bank is only proof of success if one of your goals is to amass riches. If your goal is to practice acts of charity, then keeping the money for yourself is suddenly contrary to how you would define success.

To accomplish your goals, however, you need to know how to set them. You can’t simply say, “I want” and expect it to happen. Goal setting is a process that starts with careful consideration of what you want to achieve, and ends with a lot of hard work to actually do it. In between, there are some very well-defined steps that transcend the specifics of each goal. Knowing these steps will allow you to formulate goals that you can accomplish.

Here are our five golden rules of goal setting

The Five Golden Rules

1. Set Goals That Motivate You

When you set goals for yourself, it is important that they motivate you: this means making sure that they are important to you, and that there is value in achieving them. If you have little interest in the outcome, or they are irrelevant given the larger picture, then the chances of you putting in the work to make them happen are slim. Motivation is key to achieving goals.

Set goals that relate to the high priorities in your life. Without this type of focus, you can end up with far too many goals, leaving you too little time to devote to each one. Goal achievement requires commitment, so to maximize the likelihood of success, you need to feel a sense of urgency and have an “I must do this” attitude. When you don’t have this, you risk putting off what you need to do to make the goal a reality. This in turn leaves you feeling disappointed and frustrated with yourself, both of which are de-motivating. And you can end up in a very destructive “I can’t do anything or be successful at anything” frame of mind.

2. Set SMART Goals

You have probably heard of SMART goals already. But do you always apply the rule? The simple fact is that for goals to be powerful, they should be designed to be SMART. There are many variations of what SMART stands for, but the essence is this – goals should be:

• Set Specific Goals: Your goal must be clear and well defined. Vague or generalized goals are unhelpful because they don’t provide sufficient direction. Remember, you need goals to show you the way. Make it as easy as you can to get where you want to go by defining precisely where you want to end up.
• Set Measurable Goals: Include precise amounts, dates, and so on in your goals so you can measure your degree of success. If your goal is simply defined as “To reduce expenses” how will you know when you have been successful? In one month’s time if you have a 1 percent reduction or in two years’ time when you have a 10 percent reduction? Without a way to measure your success you miss out on the celebration that comes with knowing you have actually achieved something.
• Set Attainable Goals: Make sure that it’s possible to achieve the goals you set. If you set a goal that you have no hope of achieving, you will only demoralize yourself and erode your confidence. However, resist the urge to set goals that are too easy. Accomplishing a goal that you didn’t have to work hard for can be anticlimactic at best, and can also make you fear setting future goals that carry a risk of non-achievement. By setting realistic yet challenging goals, you hit the balance you need. These are the types of goals that require you to “raise the bar” and they bring the greatest personal satisfaction.
• Set Relevant Goals: Goals should be relevant to the direction you want your life and career to take. By keeping goals aligned with this, you’ll develop the focus you need to get ahead and do what you want. Set widely scattered and inconsistent goals, and you’ll fritter your time – and your life – away.
• Set Time-Bound Goals: Your goals must have a deadline. Again, this means that you know when you can celebrate success. When you are working on a deadline, your sense of urgency increases and achievement will come that much quicker.

3. Set Goals in Writing

The physical act of writing down a goal makes it real and tangible. You have no excuse for forgetting about it. As you write, use the word “will” instead of “would like to” or “might.” For example, “I will reduce my operating expenses by 10 percent this year,” not “I would like to reduce my operating expenses by 10 percent this year.” The first goal statement has power and you can “see” yourself reducing expenses, the second lacks passion and gives you an excuse if you get sidetracked.

Post your goals in visible places to remind yourself every day of what it is you intend to do. Put them on your walls, desk, computer monitor, bathroom mirror or refrigerator as a constant reminder.

4. Make an Action Plan

This step is often missed in the process of goal setting. You get so focused on the outcome that you forget to plan all of the steps that are needed along the way. By writing out the individual steps, and then crossing each one off as you complete it, you’ll realize that you are making progress towards your ultimate goal. This is especially important if your goal is big and demanding, or long-term. Read our article on Action Plans  for more on how to do this.

5. Stick With It!

Remember, goal setting is an ongoing activity, not just a means to an end. Build in reminders to keep yourself on track, and make regular time-slots available to review your goals. Your end destination may remain quite similar over the long term, but the action plan you set for yourself along the way can change significantly. Make sure the relevance, value, and necessity remain high.

Organizations are made up of individuals that exercise greater or lesser degrees of power. Sometimes, authority stems from a person’s title in the organization, or from specialized knowledge and expertise. Others may exercise power through interpersonal relationships or the force of their personality. And still others gain influence through an ability to grant access to important resources.

Legitimate or Positional Power

Legitimate power is also known as positional power. It’s derived from the position a person holds in an organization’s hierarchy. Job descriptions, for example, require junior workers to report to managers and give managers the power to assign duties to their juniors.

For positional power to be exercised effectively, the person wielding it must be deemed to have earned it legitimately. An example of legitimate power is that held by a company’s CEO.

Expert Power Derived from Possessing Knowledge

Knowledge is power. Expert power is derived from possessing knowledge or expertise in a particular area. Such people are highly valued by organizations for their problem solving skills. People who have expert power perform critical tasks and are therefore deemed indispensable.

The opinions, ideas and decisions of people with expert power are held in high regard by other employees and hence greatly influence their actions. Possession of expert power is normally a stepping stone to other sources of power such as legitimate power. For example, a person who holds expert power can be promoted to senior management, thereby giving him legitimate power.

Referent Power Derived from Interpersonal Relationships

Referent power is derived from the interpersonal relationships that a person cultivates with other people in the organization. People possess reference power when others respect and like them. Referent power arises from charisma, as the charismatic person influences others via the admiration, respect and trust others have for her.

Referent power is also derived from personal connections that a person has with key people in the organization’s hierarchy, such as the CEO. It’s the perception of the personal relationships that she has that generates her power over others.

Coercive Power Derived from Ability to Influence Others

Coercive power is derived from a person’s ability to influence others via threats, punishments or sanctions. A junior staff member may work late to meet a deadline to avoid disciplinary action from his boss. Coercive power is, therefore, a person’s ability to punish, fire or reprimand another employee. Coercive power helps control the behavior of employees by ensuring that they adhere to the organization’s policies and norms.

Reward Power and Ability to Influence Allocation of Incentives

Reward power arises from the ability of a person to influence the allocation of incentives in an organization. These incentives include salary increments, positive appraisals and promotions. In an organization, people who wield reward power tend to influence the actions of other employees.

Reward power, if used well, greatly motivates employees. But if it’s applied through favoritism, reward power can greatly demoralize employees and diminish their output.

According to Max Weber (1947), power is ‘the probability that one actor within a social relationship will be in a position to carry out his own will despite resistance, regardless of the basis on which this probability rests’.

He further writes, positions of power can ’emerge from social relations in drawing room as well as in the market, from the rostrum of lecture hall as well as the command post of a regiment, from an erotic or charitable relationship as well as from scholarly discussion or athletics’. It plays a part in family (husband and wife) and school (teacher and the taught) relationship also.

Thus, for Weber, power is the chance of a man or a number of men to realize their own will in a communal action even against the resistance of others who are participating in the action. Alvin Genldner (1970) noted that power is, among other things, the ability to enforce one’s moral claims. The powerful can thus conventionalize their moral defaults.

Celebrated sociologist Anthony Giddens (1997) sees, ‘power as the ability to make a difference, to change things from what they would otherwise have been, as he puts it “transformative” capacity’. Power can be defined by saying that ‘A exercises power over B when A affects B in a manner contrary to B’s interests’. According to Steven Lukes (2005), power has three dimensions or faces:

• Decision-making
• Non-decision-making
• Shaping desires.

Types of Power

Max Weber (1958) believed that there are three (not one) independent and equally important orders of power as under.

1. Economic power

For Marx, economic power is the basis of all power, including political power. It is based upon an objective relationship to the modes of production, a group’s condition in the labour market, and its chances. Economic power refers to the measurement of the ability to control events by virtue of material advantage.

2. Social power

It is based upon informal community opinion, family position, honour, prestige and patterns of consumption and lifestyles. Weber placed special emphasis on the importance of social power, which often takes priority over economic interests. Contemporary sociologists have also given importance to social status so much so that they sometimes seem to have underestimated the importance of political power.

3. Political power

It is based upon the relationships to the legal structure, party affiliation and extensive bureaucracy. Political power is institutionalized in the form of large-scale government bureaucracies. One of the persistent ideas has been that they are controlled by elites, that is, small, select, privileged groups.

Political power concerns the activities of the states which is not confined to national boundaries. The networks of political power can stretch across countries and across the globe. Political power involves the power to tax and power to distribute resources to the citizens.

Besides, Weber’s types of power, there are a few other types also which are as under:

4. Knowledge power

To Foucault (1969), power is intimately linked with knowledge. Power and knowledge produce one another. He saw knowledge as a means of ‘keeping tabs’ on people and controlling them.

5. Military power

It involves the use of physical coercion. Warfare has always played a major role in politics. Modem mass military systems developed into bureaucratic organiza­tions and significantly changed the nature of organizing and fighting wars. According to Weber, few groups in society base their power purely on force or military might.

6. Ideological power

It involves power over ideas and beliefs, for example, are communism, fascism and some varieties of nationalism. These types of ideologies are frequently oppositional to dominant institutions and play an important role in the organi­zation of devotees into sects and parties. According to Michael Mann (1986), there are two types of power, viz., distributional and collective.

7. Distributional power

It is a power over others. It is the ability of individuals to get others to help them pursue their own goals. It is held by individuals.

8. Collective power

It is exercised by social groups. It may be exercised by one social group over another.

Politicking in organizations occurs for a variety of reasons, only one of which is the human tendency to be mischievous on occasions. Here are just some of the causes of political behaviour that is commonplace in businesses and organizations of all types and size and at all levels. With this in mind, we must accept that organizational politics may well be inevitable. If this is so, developing political intelligence becomes essential to managing your performance and your future.

Causes of Organizational Politics are:

1. Never-ending change

The modern manager is faced with a constant barrage of initiatives, such as the pursuit of quality, continuous improvement and business process re-engineering. When combined with rapid technological advances, the result is a climate of constant change.

Change is unsettling and often results in winners and losers. When this is the case, it is hardly surprising that more extreme subtle, underhand, covert or just downright devious behaviours surface. Individuals start to position themselves in advance of the change. Simply preserving the status quo can often generate such behaviour or even sabotage. It is little wonder that so many change initiatives fail.

2. Rationing of resources

Whatever your business, in today’s ‘global economy’ you are likely to face competition from many competitors, not just locally but from thousands of miles away.

Not surprisingly, when businesses set budgets to drive down costs and end prices to the customer, there is enormous pressure to hold down expenditure and investment. Consequently, department heads have to compete with colleagues for a share of a pot that is rarely large enough. Finance Directors who make these allocations will find themselves on the receiving end of bribes, threats, propositions, sales pitches, gifts, violence and affection – except, of course, we don’t call it that, we call it politics. Relationships may become strained, perhaps even permanently damaged, within a group of people who are supposed to collaborate with each other to best effect on a daily basis.

3. Promotions are less plentiful

Cuts in the cost base often reduce opportunities for promotion. The result is more aggressive behaviour on the part of ambitious individuals, who are driven to get ahead of colleagues if they are to obtain the scarce senior roles they aspire to. Aggressive does not mean using fists, but it does entail competing against other members of staff who just happen to be in the same team.

There is nothing underhand in this. Everyone ‘knows the score’, which only serves to perpetuate a climate of suspicion, rumour and gossip to the detriment of getting the job done. Unfortunately, staying out of the fray simply isn’t an option if you want to succeed.

4. A lack of clarity

The very speed at which businesses move these days requires that roles are frequently amended and job descriptions often lag behind the new way of doing things. Matrix structures and an orientation to project teams often result in ambiguity over who is responsible for what. Objectives set at the start of the year quickly become overtaken by events, which leads to confusion and vagueness between colleagues.

The outcome is often marked by a lack of trust, accusations of exceeding authority and territorial infighting. The rumour mill cranks up and soon individuals are swayed by all manner of perceptions and assumptions that have no basis in fact, but everything to do with the way we choose to interpret others’ behaviour.

5. Imperfect reward systems

Consider the remuneration system that operates in the sales function in your organization. Do salespeople willingly share information on how products and services can best be sold? Or, given that they are effectively competing against each other to win the trip abroad or the bonus for highest numbers in the period, do they keep to themselves any technique that they believe gives them an advantage?

Similarly, ‘performance-related rewards’ overlook the simple fact that most jobs entail teamwork. Why should colleagues allow themselves to be distracted from their own objectives in order to collaborate in helping others to achieve theirs?

6. Changes higher up

One of the major catalysts of perceived political behaviour in organizations occurs when there has been a new appointment at a senior level. Individuals get busy brushing up their credentials to benefit from any promotions, appointments or restructures.

Where the activity is open and above board it is probably healthy and acceptable. However, when the activities include bad-mouthing colleagues, questioning abilities or reputations, starting rumours and generally creating unrest, it is usually on account of certain individuals who see an opportunity to get ahead of others by foul means.