AS LONG AS PEOPLE HAVE WORKED together, they have engaged in political games. Motivated by short-term gains–promotions, funding for a project, budget increases, status with the boss–people misuse their time and energy. Today, when many organizations are fighting for their lives and scarce resources there is increased stress and anxiety, and employees are engaging in games more intensely than ever before.
Organizational experts Mauricio Goldstein and Philip Read argue that office games–those manipulative behaviors that distract employees from achieving their mission–are both conscious and unconscious. They can and should be effectively minimized. In Games at Work, the authors offer tools to diagnose the most common games that people play and outline a three-step process to effectively deal with them. Some of the games they explore include:
* GOTCHA: identifying and communicating others’ mistakes in an effort to win points from higher-ups
* GOSSIP: engaging in the classic rumor mill to gain political advantage
* SANDBAGGING: purposely low-balling sales forecasts as a negotiating ploy
* GRAY ZONE: deliberately fostering ambiguity or lack of clarity about who should do what to avoid accountability
Filled with real-world, entertaining examples of games in action, Games at Work is an invaluable resource for managers and all professionals who want to substitute straight talk for games in their organizations and boost productivity, commitment, innovation, and–ultimately–the bottom line.
Table of Content
Foreword ix
Kevin Cashman
Introduction 1
1 LET THE GAMES BEGIN
What Games Are and How They Are Played in Organizations 11
2 PLAYING TO LOSE
The Negative Impact of Games on Core Business Activities 46
3 FERTILE GROUND
Why Games Are So Pervasive in Modern Corporations 65
4 EYES WIDE SHUT
Why People Don’t Deal with Games at Work 83
5 AN EYE-OPENING EXPERIENCE
Awakening to Games 95
6 COUNT ME OUT
Choosing Not to Play 108
7 GAME, INTERRUPTED
Executing Your Choice 125
8 INTERCONNECTIONS
How Games Are Linked In to an Ecology 147
9 THE CHALLENGE OF CHANGE
Toward a Games-Conscious Model of Transformation 164
10 GAMES AT THE TOP
The Impact of Playing in the Executive Suite 179
11 A SUSTAINABLE GOAL
Transforming Organizations in Small but Significant Ways 198
Appendix: List of Games 206
References 224
Acknowledgments 226
About the Authors 228
Index 230
About the author
Mauricio Goldstein is the founder of Pulsus Consulting Group. His passion is to catalyze organizational transformations by creating a deeper connection of people and organizations to their essence. Mauricio has applied his innovative approach to a number of Fortune 500 companies, such as Astra Zeneca, Cargill, J&J, Nestlé, Pepsi Co, Sodexo, and Schering-Plough, in Latin America, North America, Europe, and Africa.
Philip Read has worked in a number of senior roles in human resources for Fortune 100 companies over the last twenty-two years. He has lived and worked in the United Kingdom, the United States, China, Switzerland, Germany, and Spain. Philip has won a number of awards for his work, including the Price Waterhouse Coopers and Linkage, Inc. ‘Most Innovative HR Department’ award as part of the leadership team of HR for Dow Chemical.
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