Hey Ambitious Professionals! It's Linda
Raynier of lindaraynier.com guiding you
to a career and life you'll truly enjoy
and in today's video I'm going to share
with you four key strategies on how to
deal with difficult people at work and
office politics so that you can be
happier and more productive at work
without the drama
as a career strategist I've had the
honour of being able to help numerous
professionals land their dream job
offers and if this is something that
you're interested in working with me
one-on-one I can give you details about
that at the end of this video
as much as we don't want to believe that
office politics exists in many
workplaces unfortunately they do and it
comes with the territory of working in
most organizations so just to clarify
what our office politics now I'm sure
you have your own definition of what
office politics is but essentially the
apprentice is all about the idea of
using one's relationships one's
connections for their own personal game
meaning they there's a lot of schmoozing
happening there's a lot of side
conversations that are happening and
people are being able to get
opportunities are able to move ahead not
necessarily based on the quality of
their work but more so based on who they
know and who they've been able to
develop relationships with and so
there's a bit of favoring that happens
amongst the team's certain managers
prefer certain people over others and so
that creates drama and negativity and
gossip and so overall I would say that
that's what office politics most people
can agree with that's what it entails so
if you're someone who seems to be
struggling in an environment where
office politics seem to be rampant then
this video is for you
here are my four key strategies on how
to deal with office politics now before
I go into full detail into these
strategies the first thing I want you to
understand is the underlying message
behind all of them and that is in order
to truly navigate office politics
successfully you have to set yourself
apart setting yourself apart means
developing a strong personal brand and
when you can set yourself apart from
others in your organization and really
stand out from the crowd
what's going to happen is it's going to
give you an opportunity in space to
still continue to grow in your
organization and not get lost in the
drama strategy number one is to
demonstrate high value high quality work
daily a great way to stay away from
drama and conflict at the office is to
be a superstar at the work that you do
now why is that because
if you're known to be someone who
delivers consistently high quality work
then you'll be trusted by your managers
and senior managers to do your work
you'll be given more autonomy and
independence which means that you won't
be as closely intertwined and working
with those who like to stir up drama as
often because you're not going to be on
the same level as them essentially you
are physically setting yourself apart
from the rest of the crowd in a good way
so go ahead and start shining strategy
number two become the expert at your job
now this ties in to demonstrating high
quality work but part of navigating
office politics and making sure that
you're immune to it as much as possible
is to become someone who is
irreplaceable in your company ideally
what this means is that you want to
specialize in a certain area in your
company or organization that is crucial
to the business for example let's say
that you work in a large bank and you
happen to work in a specialized area
such as risk management compliance
social entrepreneurship or supply chain
management then you want to really know
the work that you do and you really want
to know that specialized area and become
the go-to expert or advisor or knowledge
champion in your company for this
specialization and this is all because
becoming the expert gives you immunity
from the drama
yet you still have opportunity to grow
in advance in your company because you
happen to be one of the very few key
employees in your organization who are
truly really needed because you're the
expert and so like I said you'll be
immune from the office politics immune
from the drama as much as you can be and
still be able to move up strategy number
three engage in important conflicts but
avoid the petty ones many people think
that avoiding office politics means you
have to avoid all types of conflict
entirely and just stay away from it but
actually I don't feel this is true if
you truly want to be someone who can
demonstrate your value your influence
your brand and your level of importance
in your organization then you can't go
into work every day covering your eyes
and ears there are two
types of conflicts professional ones and
personal ones I say that you should
engage in the professional conflicts
professional conflicts of course there
are a time and place for you to engage
in them but they're basically instances
where there are disagreements between
you and let's say your boss or someone
on your team on how certain processes
are being run if they're going to be
inefficient if they're costing the
company time and money if it hinders you
from being able to do your job in the
most effective way then those are the
types of professional conflicts that you
should stand up for you should politely
disagree with senior management if
they're making decisions that are
limiting you from being able to
successfully perform your job and that
have an overall negative impact on the
organization and its customers for
example let's just say that you work in
a bank and they are discussing a
potential new rule or policy that's
going to hinder you from really
successfully helping your customers in
an efficient way if that's the case then
feel free to raise your voice and make
your stance but don't make it sound as
though it's a complaint you have to have
a backed up evidence based solution on
what they can do differently and suggest
that so you're gonna politely disagree
but you're going to offer a solution as
well but you can see that these
professional conflicts are way different
from those petty personal conflicts that
a lot of people get into with their
co-workers you do not want to be around
those drama-filled employees stay away
from them and this leads me into
strategy number four which is stay away
from the stalkers but be friendly and
courteous so for example Suzy the office
gossiper even though you know that she
knows everything about everyone in the
office you don't necessarily have to
become enemies with her you could still
be friendly and courteous just don't get
too close to her or Joe the male version
of the female gossiper in the office he
likes to also talk a lot you can still
be friendly and courteous and polite but
just don't get too close to him either
the key here is that you still want to
be friendly courteous light and
to all your co-workers in your company
and if they decide that they want to
tell you things or ask you specific
types of questions want to try to find
out information just don't give it to
them just be very short and sweet with
your conversations and walk away so here
is an inspiring quote that I think wraps
up my message nicely you will never
influence the world by trying to be like
it so there you have it my four key
strategies on how to navigate office
politics and still get ahead in your
company without being tied to the drama
now if you're at a point in your career
where you're ready for a new move and
you've been trying to look but you
haven't landed many interviews or you
haven't landed the job offer you've been
wanting and you realize that you need
that one-on-one professional guidance
then feel free to reach out to me head
on over to lindaraynier.com/standoutgethired
read through my page fill
out the application form and if I think
that we're a match then either I or a
member of my team will reach out to you
directly if you like this video then
please give it a thumbs up subscribe
share it with your friends thank you so
much for watching and I will see you
next time