Labour politics and work

Davies Ndumiso Sibanda
MANY workers fail probation despite having the right qualifications and experience due to failure to read organisational politics and poor human relations skills.

All those who are successful in their jobs spend eighty percent of their time doing work and twenty percent of the time smartly handling organisational politics while threading good human relations into everything they do.

For those starting new jobs, there is a need to fully understand the requirements of the job, organisation culture, politics, history and strategic direction of the organisation. Ignoring or misreading any one of these can lead to failure in settling into the organisation.

Peter joined a beverage organisation where his job involved a lot of travelling and as such he spent very little time in the office and had very limited time to interact with colleagues. He was in the habit of being blunt when making contributions in meetings to the extent that colleagues got irritated and slowed down support services he needed in the market. His sales dropped and eventually he lost his job. He forgot that he was only the face of a team and his success depended on others.

Mary, the new receptionist could not survive probation because of the way she handled incoming calls and messages. She did not find out how reception was handled and when people complained of her service, she did not listen or make an effort to change. Towards the end of her probation there were numerous complaints thus she could not be confirmed. She wondered why after over 10 years working as a receptionist, the answer was simple, she could not fit her style to the culture of the organisation. She tried to force change on the organisation and did not take time to understand the image that the organisation wanted to project and many others.

Steven the new engineer was given his job description and probation programme. He went about doing his work and resisted any guidance and at the end of probation he had not met the targets as agreed with management. He could not blame anybody for his failure to meet targets. On analysing reasons for his failure, it was established that his failure was caused by inability to read organisation politics and failure to relate with opinion leaders who were critical for his success.

Very little literature has been written on organisation politics, however it is one important thing that every manager or worker has to understand and be able to thread into his daily work if he is to succeed.

-Davies Ndumiso Sibanda can be contacted on: Email: [email protected]