Having hard time understanding the actual word meaning
In: 3
basically it refers to the difference and conflicts that arise when different people want <insert thing here> to go in different directions.
in the real world, “politics” often refer to what people’s “political views” are and what “direction” they want the country to go in, ie what laws and such they want passed. do they want abortion laws? do they not want abortion laws? do they want stronger/weaker immigration laws? illegal immigration? etc.
in the office, when talking of company/office politics, it typically refers to the same thing. people tend to want to do things that make themselves look good, so they can get a promotion. and when two people both want to make themselves look good, but the thing they want to do is not mutually exclusive, there will be conflict. for example, people who steal credit from coworkers, or people who create a group of like minded individuals and consolidate power over a team/group/division and collude to only promote those they like, etc.
Politics is what happens in any group of more than 2 people. Spoken and unspoken moves made by every member of the group and how they impact what the group does. Someone who actively plays office politics would behave very differently depending on the office. They might make a point to lay the small talk on extra thick with the boss around evaluation time or some such
Politics basically means the governing of interpersonal relationships.
The word comes from Ancient Greek –
Aristotle famously said that man is a ‘zoion politikon’ which translates to ‘social animal’ – so politikon more or less means social. It’s from here that we get our modern day English word ‘politics’.
The answers I’ve seen so far are Politics with a capital P. That’s your beliefs in a political system. Left wing Vs right wing etc.
Being political in an office or a government is more about working the social structure to reach an end goal. Game of Thrones is a great example of it. The politics of your office might be that there are a few big bears who run everything, even if they’re not the most senior people. So as a newcomer you’d do well to align yourself with one of them, support them, play along with their games, even if you don’t fundamentally agree with their outlook. And hey, maybe the opportunity will present itself to turn your back on them for a big personal gain? Classic politics
Office politics might have to do with who likes working together, or who gets to be in charge of what project, or which projects get funded (or cancelled). Basically, there are decisions to be made, and those decisions affect the people working there. Getting a good project launched might earn you a promotion, but not if your project gets cancelled in favor of a rival effort. Who makes the decision? Who does that person listen to? If you’re trying to change how things are done, whose support do you need?
(No, this doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with “politics” in the sense of political parties or elections or regulation or policy.)
Politics…… From the word “poly” meaning “many” and “tics” which are blood sucking parasites.
🙂
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