Need a boost at work to give you an edge? Don't buy a shotgun or pay the life coach, study The Art of Office War! http://www.theartofofficewar.com Mon, 06 Sep 2010 16:51:07 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.2 http://www.theartofofficewar.com/images/M_images/joomla_rss.png http://www.theartofofficewar.com Need a boost at work to give you an edge? Don't buy a shotgun or pay the life coach, study The Art of Office War! http://www.theartofofficewar.com/content/view/67/ The first impressions of an office are comforting: a warm welcome, an important but not too imposing title, a nice ergonomically adjustable chair and desk conforming to some workplace health and safety specification, and lastly, friendly colleagues. It is a stable and rewarding environment, the fruit of modernity and equality, and all that you need to make an effort and contribute to society is at your fingertips. Over a third of the workforce in the West is employed within the knowledge economy so they spend their days in the humble office. In relation to working elsewhere this environment is a relaxing place to be, but for all the comfort there are flipsides – it is not exactly a gravy train to an easy life. Beneath the gentle hum of productivity, social chit-chat and civility runs a vicious undercurrent of conduct, competitiveness, reward and status. At stake is your weekly wage, power, and a sense of worth and purpose in a world and time where nothing is certain. You can get left behind just for saying the ‘right’ things. News - Latest News Mon, 11 Feb 2008 22:58:28 +0100 http://www.theartofofficewar.com/content/view/68/ Staff need to be Knowledge Warriors. Knowledge is not about coming up with answers to brain teasers and winning the pub quiz. Knowledge stretches from the abstract and to the definitive and all encompassing; you know how to do this, you know about that, you know how to change this and interpret that into something we can use. You work with knowledge and the target or outcome becomes a blinding source of inspiration and reward. It sounds fun and functional, yet it involves tapping endlessly at keyboards, swallowing cold and lumpy feedback, and absorbing what your manager has to enlighten you with. Some complain it’s akin to slavery but it doesn’t really compare to breaking your whipped-back building a pyramid for a Sun God. The reason we are slaving away for knowledge is simple: an office job is comfortable; you have to use your brain, and fit into the deal: the larger plan. An office is the brain of an organisation (i.e. a business, a government, a Martian Invasion Force) and is valued for the specific knowledge it puts out to the organisation and how the organisation performs in the wider competitive environment. Without knowledge, an office sinks (so too does its parent organisation), so it is continually sourcing, evaluating and generating knowledge for the benefit of the organisation. Even though technology has become more sophisticated at gathering information, it is still people that interpret the data and carve it up into something useful. At this tipping point, knowledge becomes a valuable and a hard-won currency. The organisation recognises that someone needs to prove that they can be trusted with the responsibility and status to use this valuable knowledge for the organisation’s gain and thus extract their reward: money, responsibility, status, and eventually a long liquid lunch with an eye-popping bar tab. News - Latest News Mon, 11 Feb 2008 23:00:15 +0100 http://www.theartofofficewar.com/content/view/69/ Are some office antics too hard to follow or swallow but your wage and respect is at stake? Then read Tips from The Art of Office War to understand what really happens and why.The Art of Office War is the work of Simon Drake. “A job is not for life and now more competitive. You need to learn how to be effective, successful and not only avoid office politics, but master it. The office is where you make or break it, it’s a competitive environment and the stakes are high, but conflict is sugar coated in politeness. The defining points in your career will be when you’re in a conflict, and because the product of the office is knowledge, it’ll be your idea verses someone else, and the prize isn’t just a promotion, a pay rise or peer approval, think of confidence, self-respect and that feeling that for one day you actually did something out of the banal normal. And, you have to behave yourself at the same time. The world doesn’t get simpler, it gets more complicated, and in work, you have to evolve to keep up ”To keep the average office worker on track, there are some basic tips to follow – not facts to be memorised before every career-changing events, but simple things to remember. News - Latest News Mon, 11 Feb 2008 23:31:13 +0100 http://www.theartofofficewar.com/content/view/71/ True knowledge, worldly experience and higher intelligence, is never sufficiently remunerated, but what we are paid to know – our own expertise and prime reason for employment – has to be defended, rewarded, capitalised upon and armed like a battleship in order to show those responsible for our wages or business that we are worthy of it, and also that they are worthy of us providing it for them. There’s always someone who can take your place, so the knowledge you’re paid for becomes the legs on which you stand, and can easily be kicked from under you. When the shit hits the fan people normally ask:Who knew it would happen? (responsibility)Who could have acted on it? (accountability)Who knew but didn’t act? (responsibility + accountability)Why didn’t they act? (knowledge war has begun – who knows best) It was you! (time to defend yourself)OK, so who then? (blame someone else) News - Latest News Mon, 11 Feb 2008 23:38:12 +0100 http://www.theartofofficewar.com/content/view/72/ There are thousands of ways to get to know your colleagues, some fun, and some mundane, some forced, some purely sporadic. In reality, very few of us have the real time and patience to get to really know our colleagues, having to work with them is taxing enough, so learn to classify people, and fast, because like it or not they’ve already done it to you. Also come to understand the dynamics or lack of them between two types of colleagues. As an example, take Permanent Staff vs. Temporary Staff (including contingent and contractors). They work well together, are complimentary, and exist in a strange paradox: Each envies the benefits of the other, but given the chance to swap they would choose to remain in their respective slots. It’s a case of job security vs. it’s my time: a sacrifice of one or the other depending on the side of the fence you work on.Permanents seem to have a better deal: they are harder to dismiss, can receive holiday, sick and severance pay and bonuses, and promotions, but they have to abide by employers’ conditions. Conditions equals restrictions, causing resentment, so it’s no time that permanents are likely to work the system. Meanwhile, temporary staff are paid by the hour to do the work the permanents have learnt to tactfully avoid. Temporary staff are the safest option for all the demanding and/or banal jobs; temps are easy to hire (except for the expensive and their expertise), are malleable to tasks, and if they aren’t of any use, dismissible in a matter of minutes, proof that slavery is far from extinct, it has simply evolved into a lucrative business re-branded as ‘recruitment’. In the office permanents are probably there for the long run, until retirement with all its benefits, whereas temps are there for the day, and if they tow the line, they may work tomorrow. However, permanent staff, though smugly enjoying their job security (thanks to new laws they’re not so dismissible as in yesteryear, hence it’s safer to hire disposable temps), are restricted to a fixed amount of holiday time per year based on their status. In retaliation, some permanents treat their job as a second holiday; tasks can be stretched out to fill the time available until some higher authority kicks them in the shins. Permanents have the time and mental space to play political in the workplace for the long run, until of course, the higher authority instigates a purging of the dead wood. Now call in the temps to carry the load. News - Latest News Mon, 11 Feb 2008 23:42:33 +0100