There is no doubt that the complexities and geopolitics of this era are impacting everyday life, whether at dinner tables, public spaces or in the workplace. Even for those who avoid conversations that can get heated, the polarization and politicization of the times has wormed its way into everyday life. Though uncomfortable at times, this is in many ways a good thing. We need to (re)learn how to speak to each other across differences and create positive ripples of change for those that are willing to bridge divides and accept the inevitable messiness on the road to transformation. How do we navigate this hyper-political era? A recent opportunity to reflect on this gave me some food for thought that I share further here.
In my field of leadership and organization development, there has always been questions, and even reluctance, in dealing with conflict and politics. Organization Development (OD) is by definition a developmental field, grounded in the applied behavioural and social sciences, with espoused values such as openness, collaboration, individual dignity, democracy, and power-equalization. This creates an inherent bias toward leveraging the positive aspects of power and politics that are seen as more aligned with developmental approaches to change and transformation. This also means a move away from addressing dynamics that unfold from the self-interested competition for resource allocation or power attainment. Many will say that the OD practitioner must engage a system that is ready and willing to work on its positive potential and that when negative dynamics and competition that leads to dysfunctions are too high, that is a sign that the system and its leadership are not yet ready for change. In those circumstances, OD practitioners might enter a system, conduct a diagnosis and on determining that the dysfunctions may be too high for developmental work, we often say in the field, it may be time to “fire” the client. But what happens when that is not an option? What happens when you are inexorably a part of the system? When you are responsible and accountable for change? Or in times like now when it is painfully obvious that none of us can escape because every subsystem we inhabit is a fractal of the larger social dynamics we are living in and through. In these circumstances, we are all responsible for change and that requires more engagement than simply diagnosing team dynamics and (dys)functions and then exiting the system.
I have often argued that developmental work must include the capacity to move a system from dysfunction to function as well as from a status quo baseline to optimal potential and the next level of high performance. But doing so when power, politics, dysfunctions and organizational trauma are in the way has never been easy. I have spent time exploring this intersection in my scholarship and practice, working in and through organizational trauma scenarios to find doorways to healing and supporting systems to find transformative access to its positive potential.
- What’s Trauma Got to Do With it? Facilitating our Giant Leap through Resonant Transformation and Trauma-Informed Appreciative Inquiry. Organization Development Review, 54 (1), 20-28
- Transformation after Trauma: The Power of Resonance. Peter Lang Publishers.
That work prepared me in many ways for these times. It taught be to listen, ask deeper questions and co-create ways forward grounded in what resonates for a collective system, not just for some. I however, like many in the field, did not consciously integrate an organizational politics lens or tended to minimize it in my work. In this context, it was very helpful to return to some fundamentals in Organization Behaviour and Organization Development and Change, to write an entry on Organizational Politics and Impact on Change for The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Leadership and Organizational Change. The entry gave me an opportunity to reflect on the fact that there continues to be limited integration of an organizational politics lens in mainstream Organization Development and Change practice. Yet on the other hand, organizational politics is inherent and even inevitable as a natural outcome of social systems….and certainly inherent to the times we are living in. I reviewed and was reminded of some fundamentals from those Organization Development and Change scholars and scholar-practitioners who have ventured into this arena as follows:
- Every organization is a political system and the change practitioner’s role must include shaping the political dynamics of change to manage the transition toward desired outcomes. David A. Nadler in the book Champions of Change: How CEOs and Their Companies Are Mastering the Skills of Radical Change.
- Change resistance is merely politically motivated self-interest of various parties, which can be understood and leveraged to help advance desired change outcomes. Maurer R. Resistance and change in organizations. In: Jones BB, Brazzel M (eds) The NTL handbook of organization development and change: Principles, practices, and perspectives.
- In conducting organizational analysis in complex times, a multi-dimensional and multi-prong lens is essential and at a minimum must entail the 4 frames of looking at an organization through its structural frame, human resource frame, political frame, and symbolic frame. This lens calls for recognizing that the political frame holds the inevitability of power and conflict dynamics that may often be toxic but that could also be the source of creativity and innovation. Joan V Gallos in Reframing Complexity: A Four-Dimensional Approach to Organizational Diagnosis, Development, and Change.
- We must move beyond overt processes to examine and unpack the covert processes at work in our organizations, recognizing however that some of those processes are necessarily hidden or in the unconscious and unknown realms of systems consciousness. This is because to surface the political issues would mean raising undiscussables which are hard to see and/or manage, However it is precisely the ability to do so appropriately that will increase the effectiveness of changemaking that would otherwise fail because of covert processes intended to keep issues hidden and/or in the system’s unconscious. Robert Marshak on Covert Processes at Work (originally developed with Judith Katz).
- The most effective way to navigate through organization politics to achieve change goals is to have a clear and effective planned change process (diagnostic approach to change), while having the ambidexterity and mastery to understand when and how to oscillate and integrate deep system listening (synonymous with dialogic approaches to change). This is a perspective I have championed for some time, and it was great to locate more empirical evidence that validates the link between change management and organizational effectiveness even in the context of organizational politics. Kulikowska-Pawlak M (2018) Organizational politics and change: a conceptual model and empirical testing.
The bottom line from this perspective is that to be an effective change leader or change agent, you must 1. Develop greater political acumen rather than ignore the political mindfield; 2. Understand the sources of political power in your context/organization and 3. Actively account for addressing political interests in your changemaking.
The benefit of leaning into becoming more politically astute in organizational life is that in our fractal world, doing so also develops you for navigating every other arena of your life and the systems you inhabit. This is necessary for us all as we (re)learn what it means to live in diverse communities and (re)make a world that holds our collective realities and needs.