Organizational Politics Quotes

In any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: those who work to further the actual goals of the organization, and those who work for the organization itself. Examples in education would be teachers who work and sacrifice to teach children, vs. union representative who work to protect any teacher including the most incompetent. The Iron Law states that in all cases, the second type of person will always gain control of the organization, and will always write the rules under which the organization functions.

Remember: your bosses prefer to keep you in dependent positions. It is in their interest that you do not become self-reliant, and so they will tend to hoard information. You must secretly work against this and seize this information for yourself.

We are told the Republican party is a machine. Yes. A government is a machine.... the school system of the State of New York is a machine; a political party is a machine.

All managers are losers, they are the most expendable pieces of furniture on the face of the Earth.

The deliberate introduction of distortion and fuzziness to improve the competitive position of one's own agency or division is an unavoidable and dominant feature of the bureaucratic landscape

Why did the generals who have been so ready to term me a complaisant and incompetent yes-man fail to secure my removal? Was that all that difficult? No, that wasn't it; the truth was that nobody would have been ready to replace me, because each one knew that he would end up just as much a wreck as I.

Aggression is the most common behavior used by many organizations, a nearly invisible medium that influences all decisions and actions.

As such people achieve influence within the organization, whenever there is a conflict between their own interest and the interest of the organization, their interests will win out.

Politics exist in the boardroom, as well.

The Red Sox are a curious thing because so much here is media driven. You can't go fire half your scouts here because they are all friends with the local reporters. Your life is going to hell in the papers.

All important persons have about them someone in a subordinate position who has their ear. These dependents are very susceptible to slights, and, when they are not treated as they think they should be, will by well-directed shafts, constantly repeated, poison the minds of their patrons against those who have provoked their animosity. It is well to keep in with them.

It's a sad situation when you have to talk crap about other organizations that you know your paths are never going to cross competitively.

Great organizations demand a high level of commitment by the people involved. Eliminate politics, by giving everybody the same message. Keep a flat organization in which all issues are discussed openly. Empower teams to do their own things.

In my experience and observation, senior appointments are rarely based entirely on merit.

There were internal critics, sharp critics, who were very opposed to [Malcolm X], and who were very - some of them were members of Elijah Mohammad's family, such as Herbert Mohammad, Raymond Shareef, who was the head of the Fruit of Islam, the brother-in-law of - the son-in-law of Elijah Mohammad. They isolated Malcolm X and kept him out of the newspaper of the organization Mohammad Speaks for over a year, which is kind of curious.

Ideas really do matter. But in any organization a good idea will only go so far unless its proponents are willing to fight the political games to get the idea adopted.

At any given moment, there is always a line representing what your boss will believe. If you step over it, you will not get your budget. Go as close to that line as you can.

Management is the set of skills that can help get things done. Unfortunately, its practice is too often a bag of manipulative tricks to advance someone's own interests, which creates cynicism.

The little people will get even, which is one of a thousand reasons why they are not little people at all. If you're a jerk as a leader, you will be torpedoed. And usually it won't be by your vice presidents; it will be on the loading dock at 3am when no supervisors are around.

I understand that bureaucracy, hierarchy and managing politics is not easy.

The people at the very top could fall by and grace you with their presence and give you a little largesse, and you'd be "Oh, I'm so beloved." In a way, it was kind of like flattery. The middle managers didn't quite have that cachet, but at the same time, they had to seem like they were of that caliber. So there's a little bit of loneliness at the heart of those with a little bit of power.

If you want to kill an idea without being identified as the assassin, suggest that the legal department take a look at it.

Rules of Order state that ... No minority has a right to block a majority from conducting the legal business of the organisation .... but No majority has a right to prevent a minority from peacefully attempting to become the majority.

Malcolm's X objective was actually to reingratiate himself within the Nation of Islam, that because he had emerged by the early 1960s as a very prominent figure outside of the N.O.I., there were critics within the organization that were saying to the patriarch of the N.O.I., the Honorable Elijah Mohammad, that Malcolm planned to take over the organization, which was not true.

Top-down authority structures turn employees into bootlickers, breed pointless struggles for political advantage, and discourage dissent.