Have you ever felt as if you were being framed? Have you been accused falsely of organizational negligence or evil-doing by someone who knows well that the accusation is false? last time we explored how framers use communications to construct frames. Here are some other strategies framers use.
- Spin
- Using communication through multiple channels, framers ask about and report various incidents, slanting their reports to serve their aims. They might use face-to-face communication, telephone, and the entire array of electronic formats, but they prefer private and unrecorded channels, because of the risk of having their misrepresentations revealed. They portray their targets as intentional, hypocritical, or malicious; their allies as enthusiastic, honest, and public; and themselves as innocent, pure, and sympathetic.
- As the target, you can't control how the framer uses spin, but you can control what you say and do. When you have to speak about topics that are already in play, speak before multiple witnesses, on the record. Anticipate what might be spun, and explicitly close those opportunities. For instance, if you're accused of assassinating President Lincoln, you can say, "Yes, in the third grade, I did learn that Lincoln was assassinated 120 years before I was born. A sad day."
- Misled proxies
- Sometimes framers enlist proxies to construct frames. Some proxies have the same goals as the framer, but often they're simply misled by the framers' fabrications.
- Targets understandably tend to feel attacked and hurt when people repeat false accusations. Because some attackers are misled, targets fare better when they distinguish between the misled and the malevolent. Asking clarifying questions is one approach. For instance, in private: "Are you aware that I wasn't even born when Lincoln was assassinated?" When you can expose misleading statements of the framer, you disable the proxies, and perhaps rescue your relationships. Proxies who exhibit little interest in facts are probably internally motivated, rather than misled.
- Multiple-front assaults
- Sophisticated framers To targets, countering a frame
can feel like blowing out a
cakeful of trick birthday candlesknow that spin and fabrication are not durable. To maintain the frame, they work several fronts simultaneously, possibly with different parts of the audience. If audience segments interact weakly, as one might find in a dispersed or global organization, the framer can deploy the same fabrication at different times in different audience segments. To targets, this can feel like a game of whac-a-mole, or like blowing out a cakeful of trick birthday candles. - Counter the multiple-front assault with communication. Do what you can to open communications, becoming visible to all audience segments. Form personal relationships with important members of the audience. Create a sense that "My goodness, Linda couldn't possibly have said that."
Even if you effectively counter a frame, recognize that you reside in a culture where framers do succeed. Another frame is probably just over the horizon. First issue in this series Top Next Issue
Is every other day a tense, anxious, angry misery as you watch people around you, who couldn't even think their way through a game of Jacks, win at workplace politics and steal the credit and glory for just about everyone's best work including yours? Read 303 Secrets of Workplace Politics, filled with tips and techniques for succeeding in workplace politics. More info
For a discussion of the connection between false accusations and confirmation bias, see "Confirmation Bias: Workplace Consequences: I," Point Lookout for November 23, 2011.
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Related articles
More articles on Workplace Politics:
- Workplace Politics Is Not a Game
- We often think about "playing the game" — either with relish or repugnance. Whatever
your level of skill or interest, you'll do better if you see workplace politics as it is. It is not a game.
- The Advantages of Political Attack: III
- In workplace politics, attackers have significant advantages that explain, in part, their surprising
success rate. In this third part of our series on political attacks, we examine the psychological advantages
of attackers.
- When You're the Least of the Best: II
- Many professions have entry-level roles that combine education with practice. Although these "newbies"
have unique opportunities to learn from veterans, the role's relatively low status sometimes conflicts
with the self-image of the new practitioner. Comfort in the role makes learning its lessons easier.
- Rope-A-Dope in Organizational Politics
- Mohammed Ali's strategy of "rope-a-dope" has wide application. Here's an example of applying
it to workplace politics at the organizational scale.
- The Discontinuity Effect: What and Why
- Counterproductive competition is more likely in group-group interactions than in one-to-one or one-to-group
interactions. Why does counterproductive competition happen?
See also Workplace Politics and Workplace Politics for more related articles.
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Beware any resource that speaks of "winning" at workplace politics or "defeating" it. You can benefit or not, but there is no score-keeping, and it isn't a game.
- Wikipedia has a nice article with a list of additional resources
- Some public libraries offer collections. Here's an example from Saskatoon.
- Check my own links collection
- LinkedIn's Office Politics discussion group