Scarred by office politics, how do we move on?

Dear Office Politics,

I have been unemployed for a year. I was laid off, but in reality lost my job because of an office mobbing. My opinion is that office politics is not a game. It has real consequences.

I worked for a company that “laid-off” four key personnel who had 48 years total with the company. I had been marginalized by two women in the company who were not my superiors and they fed information to the operations manager. She was overwhelmed and did not give me the opportunity to defend myself. They also led a whisper campaign that I was not aware of. I was excelling with the company and had a very good relationship with the CEO until they set their trap. These two women decided to send an email to the CEO. The got the operations manager to sign it. Two co-workers refused to sign it. I was laid off 3 months later.

An employee of mine tends to play office politics

Dear Office Politics,

I have noticed an employee of mine tends to play office politics. She seems to be a work “avoider” and not quite yet a team player, yet clamors for a promotion within a few months. She seems to take a shine to certain people and is overall very friendly, but seems to have favorites.

Because of this, she tends to get herself involved in conversations and somehow finds out information that is none of her business – i.e. she knows who is getting promoted before any of us managers do. She has nosed in on conversations she doesn’t belong in (finding out how much someone else makes). She has exceptional technical ability which is great, but I need to channel this negative energy somewhere else.

Can you change your spots in 2010?

BY JENNIFER GLUECK BEZOZA

February is already next week!… how are those resolutions coming along? If you haven’t yet made great strides yet, there is no need to be discouraged. You may just need a little insight into the Six Stages of Change to kick-start your action plan.

Developed by James Prochaska, a highly esteemed Professor from University of Rhode Island and author of the book, Changing for Good, the “stages of change” model is commonly applied to behavioral changes, such as diet and/or addictions, but can be applied broadly to any type of individual change. After losing his own father to alcoholism, researcher Prochaska studied ordinary individuals who were able to stop bad habits and/or instill new patterns in their life; he found that all changers, irrespective of the type of change, passed through six stages and used similar types of strategies at each respective stage. Therefore, what is great about this model is that offers a language to reflect on where you are in your own change process (and/or to muse on where someone else is), and to match appropriate forwarding strategies based on stage.