This article is part of a series explaining the psychology behind office politics. If you haven’t yet, it’s best to start from the beginning and read the full series. 

If you’ve made it this far in this series, you now understand that people are not logical and rational. That means you have to work in the realm of emotions and with everyone’s unique work style to build better relationships and gain more influence at work. That’s what office politics is – who you can influence, and who you can’t. And, we’ve established that the easiest way to build the required relationships is to look to hand out as many wins as possible.

All of that work is a tall order! And that brings us to our last principle of office politics:

Office Politics Principle Five: Pick your battles.

Political capital at work is not finite – you’re never going to complete exhaust your supply with no hope of regaining it. However, it is fluid, just like a tank of gas that needs to be filled up when it’s running low before you can keep driving the car. If you use up all your influence fighting the battles that don’t matter at work, you might not have anything left in your tank when you really need it.

That’s why it’s so important to be mindful of how you are expending your political influence. Your personal goals are the only yardstick that matters – are your efforts making progress towards your goals or not?

First, it’s helpful to know which goals you’re shooting for:

• Which projects are your priorities?

• What wins do you want to be able to report to your boss in your next one-on-one?
• What are you expected to achieve to get rave marks on your performance reviews?
• What are you working on that will set you up for your next promotion?
• Which efforts are going to make the most impact on your broader team?

When it comes to goals, it’s quality over quantity. Once you use these questions to do a bit of brainstorming about what those goals should be, select a small quantity to really give your attention to. It’s important not to over-extend – when you’re trying to accomplish too many things you just end up making limited progress on all of them. And of course, things will always come up at work that must be accomplished that don’t align with your personal goals. That’s why it’s important to keep some flexibility in your schedule so you can focus on the big things as well as the day-to-day.

Thinking about goals in this way will help you to focus your energy and attention on the things that will have the most impact. Keep this laser focus on what you are trying to achieve with each email you send, each meeting you attend, and each closed-door conversation you have will help you avoid wading into battles that don’t contribute to your goals.

Everything going on around you outside of your goals is noise, and it’s up to you to make the decision to focus on the things that will help you rather than the things that will distract you. In other words, pick the battles that are the most important. Let everything else go. Remember, it’s not your job to worry about everything, so don’t make yourself a martyr to it. When you engage in the nonsense power battles at work, not only do you drain all of your political capital on things that don’t matter, but you also derail yourself from building positive momentum towards your goals.

Sometimes, the best thing to do is to keep your mouth shut.

One of the best pieces of advice I ever received came from a mentor I had as a young professional. I was passionate, driven, and always ready to go to battle when someone said something I didn’t like in a meeting! One day, we went through a 360 review exercise in the office and all of the critical feedback I received surrounded my fighting all the battles. I was indignant at first and dug in my heels declaring that anyone who gave me that feedback was just annoyed because I’m better at my job that they are at theirs. And it was in that moment that my mentor took me aside and said “Karlyn, you’re smart. Everyone knows that. But it’s not about being right – it’s about being effective.” In choosing to fight all of the little battles, I was actually losing the war because I didn’t have the help or support I needed to do the things that were really important.

Oftentimes, we get sucked into these things because we are incredibly passionate about what we’re doing. Passion for your work can be an incredible strength, but every strength that is overused can instantly become a weakness. When you find yourself getting heated, just take a beat and consider if the words about to come out of your mouth are directed at a battle that is worthy of your energy and focus. Will it help you move towards your goals, or will it detract from your ultimate success? If it doesn’t help you, just let it go. Live to fight another day, even if it means giving someone you can’t stand a win. This is not about fairness. It’s not about justice. It’s about building positive momentum towards your goals without letting the nonsense get in the way!

With great power comes great responsibility.

To wrap up this series about office politics, a few closing thoughts. You can use the information in these articles to help you move towards your goals more effectively and to create a better experience for yourself by building influence instead of getting caught up in interpersonal squabbles. But you could certainly also use it for the singular goal of gaining more personal power for power’s sake – people do it all the time. It’s your choice – to you want to play politics for good, or do you want to do it for evil? Do you want to lift people up, or push people down?

The world is a perfect place. It’s no perfect in that we get exactly what we want the minute we want it, but it is perfect in that we get exactly what we should expect to based on our contributions. So, what contribution will you make to your goals, your team, and your organization? Once you know the answer to that question, you have to make sure your actions align with what you say you want. Use office politics for good, and eventually, you’ll get back good in return. Use it for evil and you’ll get that too. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but the efforts we put out always come back to us one way or another. The choice is yours!