Tami Bui will tell you that no matter what her colleagues say, she is not an Asian-American expert.
Bui, 28, a region manager of local public affairs for Southern California Edison and a board member of Leadership Education for Asian Pacifics (LEAP), is different from most of her colleagues: She is younger than most, has fewer degrees than most, was an external hire and is a female Vietnamese American.
Bui manages public affairs in seven cities throughout Southern California, including Westminster, which has a large Vietnamese population. Her colleagues regularly imply that her ethnicity is the reason she got the job.
"Colleagues always want to know how I got here," says Bui. "That is the politics of trying to understand how someone like me could have gotten this job ... Frankly, I'm not an Asian-American expert and I don't only deal with Asian Americans. I deal with all of my cities."
The term "office politics" describes competition between coworkers. Office politics manifest in meetings when the boss seems to praise certain people, when only a select few are invited to after-work gatherings and when colleagues undermine each other, to name a few examples. In office politics, groups can align along age, gender, race, ethnicity and/or department. Senior officials have also been known to encourage office politics as a means of control.
Because office politics are pervasive in corporate America, employees must learn to deal with it effectively. Here are five suggestions:
Do your job first
Before concerning yourself with who the most popular players are, focus on doing your job to the best of your ability, says Janet Reid, managing partner Global Lead. "Focus on learning your job and making good first impressions based on the deliverables you were hired to accomplish," she says.
Office politics can be a distraction, and focusing on them instead of your work--especially when starting a new position--can slow your job performance. "If you get too focused on the politics, you'll wind up not being a good performer and the politics won't matter because you won't be there," says Reid. She suggests for new employees or employees in new positions to channel all energies on completing the tasks assigned.
Go out with everybody
When a person is new to a company or a department, veteran employees often ask them to go to lunch or to meet after work. The request is an effort to get to know the new person and to see in which office group they will fit, why they were hired and if the new person is a direct competitor. The veterans want to know if they can "include you or exclude you," says Reid.
"In those lunches or after work get-togethers, you will hear a lot, and it's very important for the new person to listen and not say what they've heard from others or what their negative impressions are," says Reid. "Be a sponge."
To endear herself to her colleagues, Bui attends the lunches and after-hours office activities. She suggests that everyone do the same.
"People say 'I don't want to go after work to hear them gossip' and that they don't like politics, but you can't not be involved," Bui cautions. "That's perceived as not wanting to play with others, and it's important to play with others."
But make sure you're playing with the right people. "It's important to be associated with certain others, too," says Bui. "You need to be part of the action whether or not you like it."
Learn the unwritten rules
Every organization is rife with unique work practices. They were developed through the interpersonal and interdepartmental encounters that have occurred throughout the life of the organization. Most times, those practices are not written in a pamphlet. An employee new to the organization or new to the department usually must be told by someone who knows what those practices are.
When Kim Spivey, director of diversity engagement and inclusion at Wachovia, No. 14 on The 2008 DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity® list, moved to a new department, she made it a point to find someone with whom she's comfortable and then asked for the unwritten rules. "'Is there anything that I could step into unknowingly that could trip me up?' I do this when I've moved to a new level or when I work with a new person," says Spivey.
Bui says mentors are helping her learn the unwritten rules. She not only has senior Asian-American-executive mentors but also white, Latino and Black senior-executive mentors. "You can learn things from a manual … but there is no way you can learn everything about the politics. Knowing who's who and how people make decisions and how those decisions will affect your work--those are things you learn from a mentor," says Bui.
Reid takes the idea of finding a mentor and builds it up to a group of executives she calls her personal board of directors. "When I say 'board of directors,' the board should be comprised of people who know you and have seen you in work situations for a while," says Reid. "It should include people who are in a different division from you, your peers and those who have advanced. With these people, you will have honest, direct relationships and can ask why you do or don't get chosen."
Remain calm
When facing office politics, it's easy to react without thinking first and then fall into a trap. When faced with a situation in which she feels she's being slighted by an ambitious coworker, Spivey says she takes a breath and privately assesses a situation before responding. Taking time to assess the situation is important because it calms the person who feels victimized and allows them to respond in a controlled, tactful manner.
"When I feel I'm in a situation where somebody might have shut me out of an opportunity or a conversation where I felt my efforts were being undermined, I've learned to pause, take a deep breath, find out what else might be going on and then engage the other individual," says Spivey, who has spent 24 years at Wachovia.
Spivey may address the situation later that day or another day. Regardless of when she does, she makes sure she's calm. Often, office politics can spiral out of control because of the "victim's" response.
"Stay above the fray and stay in candid conversations with colleagues and [senior leaders] when there is conflict," says Spivey.
She gives an example of what she might say in approaching someone about a slight: "'We were in that meeting the other day and I felt my ideas weren't being heard,'" Spivey suggests. "'I don't think that's what you intended, but that's what I felt. My contributions are important to this project. I need to make sure my ideas can be heard.'"
Watch how your career is handled by your boss and/or others
Listen to the middle part of your boss's critiques, Reid says. When critiquing, a common practice in corporate America is to start with the kudos, then give the critique, and then end with kudos.
"People always tell you something nice, then tell you the truth in the middle, and then they end on something else nice. So listen to the middle and make your decisions on what's said in the middle," says Reid.
Office politics are just part of the game, and people should know they can win at it, Reid adds. "Understand that it's not personal," says Reid. "Every player wants to win for him- or herself. If you know it's that, when you're being given a hard time, you know that it's that the other person wants to win. With that, you can take the personal affront out of it and you can play the game for what it is."
