"Love Cat" and "FBLI" tools for Positive Organisational Politics

[Avi Liran]

"Put two loving people together and you have three opinions and five complains - it is called marriage. Put more than two and you get office politics" .

Office politics can be a war zone of Positive. (click to watch the clip)

Natural organisational politics is unavoidable. Climbing up the organisational pyramid is highly competitive. When the culture is great, climbing up is based on merit, management skills and support of the network that you had build within the organisation. Similar to real life politics , most of the time, you need to get noticed and to build your support base.

When politics become negative and toxic usually derives from uncertainty such as unclear job definitions or what it takes to be promoted, culture that favours bottom line at all cost, emotional insecurities, scarcity of resources and more. 

Responding to politics with anxiousness and retaliation not only can bounce back and create enemies, but will also take a toll on your personal well-being affecting negatively your health.  Here are two alternative approaches to enhance your Positive Politics skills.

Love Cat: In his book "Love is the killer app", Tim Sanders suggests the "Love Cat Way" 

to build a strong support base for your organisational politics.  The secret of positive politics is building relationships. Sanders suggests that you become helpful to others, consistently and reliably. Read a lot, become a source of new knowledge that adds value beyond what is available internally. Share your accumulated new knowledge. Add value with meaningful information and concepts. Cultivate and enlarge your network of people. Practice compassion and build meaningful relationships. 

Once they see you as a great source of ideas, information, quality ideas, and you are connecting with high emotional intelligence, you will be more valuable and sought-after.

FBLI:Positive politics networking is combining Facebook and LinkedIn together in real life. What do you do on-line to increase your network? How do you get decision makers to be part of your network? Also look at peers and workers. How do you get their support? How do you cultivate your network with meaningful information to them? How do you interact with them?

Good performance and skills are given but insufficient in highly competitive environments.  If you want to increase your success in positive politics, building meaningful positive relationships is a key. At the"Joy-Care" Leadership program, managers get to experience, feel , then rationalize new tools to connect and cultivate positive relationships.