Running head: MANAGEMENT 1
MANAGEMENT 2
Management: Company Politics and Workaholics
Name
Institution
The Problem of Office/Company Politics
For a start, it is important for the Manager of Shire Pharmaceuticals to understand that office or company politics will always be there, therefore it is something that can never just be wished away like that. So the best thing to do in order to deal with this problem in the company is to ensure that he or she is well aware about the issues that are usually involved when it comes to company politics (Martin, 2016). There is no doubt that company politics has the potential of either ruining a company or taking it into the right direction. Managers often have an advantage of influencing the direction of the office politics.
So what is office politics? We can define office or company politics as the use of one’s assigned power within an employing organization with the main aim of obtaining some advantages that are beyond their own legitimate authority (Martin, 2016). For instance in this case of Shire Company, we can assume that there are some people who are probably playing office politics games against the manager. So why do people really engage in office or company politics. The main purpose for people engaging in office politics is to reap emotional, physical and even financial rewards.
Those individuals who engage in this political often want to meet their unmet needs such as the desire for power, the desire to achieve a specific agenda or the desire to forgo integrity and ethics just to get what they want (Martin, 2016). For the manager of Shire Company to effectively manage the current company politics, then it is important for him or her to first of all understand the human ritual of politicking as an essential element that drives the company. The manager can practice the following three tricks to help in the navigation of the tricky political waters in the company.
Playing Nice
The manager should try hard to show office etiquette, respect and politeness to the employees so that they can also do the same. The manager should encourage his coworkers and employees to show some kindness while at work.
Fighting fairly
As we all know, the game of office or company politics can turn out very nasty at the end. This something that can get the manager off-guard and it might not be that easy to get back in the ring. Therefore, the best thing for the manager to do is to ensure that he or she focuses on the main issue and not an individual person in the company (Martin, 2016). The manager should strive to always address the behaviors and not the individuals. The manager can achieve this by handling confrontations in a fair and private manner without any judgments.
Acquiesce
Lastly, it is important for the manager to accept the fact that office politics is there and will always be there in any workplace no matter what. The manager should therefore stop spending all his or her time worrying about water-cooler chatter. Worrying about office politics may deny the manager the time to attend to their own projects. Therefore, some degree of complacency will help the Shire company manager to remain sane.
Second Problem: Dealing with Workaholic Problem
Who is a workaholic? We can describe a workaholic as a person who tends to typically continue working to the point of exhaustion even when he or she is tired (Stoeber & Damian, 2016). Working to the point of exhaustion may end up making the manager to make mistakes that are not supposed to be made. Fixing these mistakes may even prove harder. Work holism can lead to a chronic cycle of obsessive goal-chasing which seems like the hamster trying run on the wheel. Such a wheel can lead to nowhere. The first step for the manager to solve this problem is to recognize workaholism as a compulsive behavioral disorder that must be fixed.
This will help the manager to realize that his lifestyle is actually out of balance and therefore it poses to him or her some very serious health risks. Some of the things that may be contributing to the manager’s workaholism are due to the unmet need for control, low self-esteem and also the feeling of perfectionism (Stoeber & Damian, 2016). It seems like the manager is working so much in order to avoid dealing with issue of company politics. This has now developed into a behavioral pattern that has become difficult to break. The following steps can be taken by the manager to solve the workaholic problem: Since workaholism is also just like any other addiction, it can be treated with various multipronged approaches which include: family intervention, counseling, lifestyle changes, hypnotherapy and behavior modification. Some of the tips that the manager can use to fight workaholism encompass the following:
· Scheduling Noncancelable Leisure Activities: The manager should put his or her movie nights, workouts and the other leisure activities in his/her calendar and consider them as part of appointments just the same as the client appointment (Stoeber & Damian, 2016).
· Getting to the source of the underlying issue: The issues being faced by the manager may be due to lack of confidence, the need to overachieve something, anxiety or low self esteem issues.
· Learning to delegate duties: Instead of doing all the work alone due to fear that the other people would not do the work the way it should be done, the manager should learn to believe in the capability of his staff. This strategy can help in freeing the manager from dysfunction of workaholism.
· Setting boundaries: The manager should learn to leave work early (5pm) and ensure he or she leaves all the office work at the office and avoid going with the work at home (Stoeber & Damian, 2016). However, this will require focused self-discipline.
References
Martin, N. A. (2016). Project Politics: A Systematic Approach to Managing Complex Relationships. Routledge.
Stoeber, J., & Damian, L. E. (2016). Perfectionism in employees: Work engagement, workaholism, and burnout. In Perfectionism, health, and well-being (pp. 265-283). Springer, Cham.