Approach office politics as a project

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Project managers must understand that team cohesion is the foundation of project success. This means that interpersonal tension, conflict, and office politics should be viewed as a serious threat to your overall project. Project managers must have the skills to individualize not only to determine who works best in what role, but also who works best together and who does not. Create an environment where conflict is less likely to occur.

When assigning tasks, consider contingency plans; if John and Mimi are on the same team but spend more time arguing than coding, it might be time to assign them tasks that are independent of each other.

Consider using the issue management features of project management software to treat interpersonal issues as solvable, trackable, and timed. For example, project managers can use Zoho to assign severity, due dates, history, comments, and resolutions to each interpersonal issue.

Take steps to make your office a place where office politics investor database are not welcome. Offer regular performance reviews and provide strengths- based rewards to communicate that your office is focused on praising and rewarding high performers, not necessarily good charmers.

Don't be seduced by office politics.
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And finally, don't let power-seeking and attention-seeking completely control your attention. While it's difficult to juggle an active relationship and project management, sometimes these conflicts are best resolved in peace.

Gwen Moran writes for Entrepreneur: “When your people come to you with minor disagreements or conflicts, don’t reward their behavior by jumping in right away… instead, instruct employees to come together and find a way to resolve the conflict themselves.” Of course, this isn’t an option if a customer is directly involved or if these people have had a chronic conflict problem, but for new problems, sometimes it’s best to just sit back and let them work it out on their own.

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Using risk management to solve office politics is probably how Frank Underwood would have approached the problem of employee squabbles if he hadn't been so consumed by his own politics. What approaches did you take? What advice would you give to project managers struggling with this problem? Leave your thoughts in the comments below!

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