Office politics is like dancing

Office politics exists at all levels of the organization and the turbulence is stronger the higher you are. Navigating office politics is just like dancing. You need to perform the right dance moves on the dance floor to survive. Here are some dance moves and their equivalent in office politics.

The Robot Dance was created by Michael Jackson. The dance is stiff, with edgy moves and with isolated locking movements. In the office, this is when the center-of-power & abusive boss dictates everything that Associates must do. This forces you to just say “Yes!” and then comply. Some people survive this by “sucking up” to the boss just to get promoted even if others are more qualified. If you do not, then you may end up getting bullied, miss career opportunities and not part of the “cool kids”.

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The Twist was the first worldwide dance craze where you just twist your hips and feet while keeping both arms extended with very little extra variations. In the office, this is having a hard policy to follow old procedures and no one is allowed to share their suggestions or insights to improve the process. Its lazy bosses following the concept of “why fix it if it is not broken”.

Teach Me How to Dougie is a popular dance that is more cool as a group. The foot step goes “right - left - right - right… Then, left - right - left - left” and each of you can do your own style with your hand, shoulder and head movements. In the office, this signifies how Associates are encouraged to culture-add and culture-change to help improve and grow the organization.

The key to office politics is for you to keep your values of excellence and doing the right thing very strong no matter what.

The Moonwalk or backslide popularized by Michael Jackson is a dance technique that looks like the dancer is sliding across the dance floor backwards. The technique to perform this dance is not in sliding backwards but pushing one of your foot forward, then it makes the other foot slide backwards. In the office, this is the illusion made by a “smooth operator” who is very nice in front of you, but will easily betray you to save her/his own neck or stab you in the back via gossips, manipulation and stealing ideas.

*About the video
I have personally experience being bullied by office politics throughout my career. My secret weapon to survive all these negativity and atrocity against me is my family, my gorgeous wife Prudence and my God. They give me the super strength to keep on going, continue to share positivity and do the right thing.

This video is me and my gorgeous wife Prudence dancing the swing at home while chilling with our 4 awesome kids waiting for Christmas last December 2018.

*No copyright infringement intended.
This beautiful song, “Last Dance”, was sung by the amazing Donna Summers last 1978. Thank you, Donna.