Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter explains how to answer the tricky interview question, “how do you manage office politics?”
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I want to talk with you today about 1 of those tough interview that are designed to baffle you, make you reveal things that you would prefer not revealing! Ooooooh!
So dramatic!
Today’s question is, “How do you handle office politics?“
Politics in the office usually translates into 2 people have different opinions about how to do something and the other person’s opinion was chosen. The other way is “credit grabbing.” Let me address both of these.
The 1st 1 with their 2 different opinions.
“I try not to get involved with office politics, but the fact of the matter is we all compete. For some people, office politics is that they lost the disagreement over how something should be done. It happens. My opinions are good, but sometimes, someone else’s are better. I have an opportunity to learn from what their thought process was and there is nothing to be bothered or troubled about.” You can then continue by saying, “But, sometimes, office politics can mean someone is credit grabbing Or trying to take control of the situation, that doesn’t really belong to them. There, I try to get support from management to sort things through. After all, we could argue and fight and, what’s the point of that? Management not as an idea of who they want to handle things. Maybe I didn’t understand my side, but maybe they didn’t understand their site. So let’s get that sorted out as quickly as possible before the office starts taking sides, before really becomes problematic.”
That’s how it address the kind of question. I don’t really think it’s that hard. I think it is pretty logical, but you have to address both situations in answering the question. So, again, in the 1st situation, you start off by saying, “Office politics often means 2 things. Number 1 is 2 people have a disagreement over which of their ideas is best. Management chooses the other person. Someone thinks it’s politics. I don’t see it that way. I see it as that. There were 2 good ideas. Management chose the one that they thought was best, and I have something I can learn from that.”
The 2nd one is, “I would try and sorted out with my colleague but, if I can’t, I go to management.”
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