Camouflage + Subterfuge = ... Camterfluge?

Tonight I delivered my first keynote on office politics... the "maiden voyage" of the presentation entitled "What do you mean, 'I started it'?"  It was well received, and I enjoyed presenting to this group of professionals.

During the presentation, I was talking about a part of the GUST process where the players need to strategize an approach for handling their office politics.  At some point, you need to decide how overt or covert you're going to be with the other players.  Do you want to be open and let them know that you are attempting to get your way, or do you use the sneak attack?  There's really no right answer.

I started thinking about camouflage.  Back in the day, there used to be only one kind of camouflage:  woodland camos with green, black, and brown.  Now, there are numerous kinds of camoflage to wear and to use to hide things:  urban camo, digital camo, ACUs, tiger stripe, desert.  The type of camo selected depends on the environment in which it will be used.  So it goes with office politics:  the type of approach and the level of cloak-and-dagger depends on the situation, the players, and what is at stake.

So, I'm curious... when you're playing office politics, how do you decide how much to share with others and how much to keep to yourself?  Intuition?  Trust level?  Seriously, I want to know how you generally approach your office politics strategies.

Comments

[Tom Haskins]

When faced with opposing stances or political battles, I usually disagree covertly with both sides. So it works for me to overtly agree with each side while slipping in a hint of the other side's validity. Irreconcilable differences become resolvable when the other's point of view comes into consideration. For example:
"I agree those employees appears like they are never going to change and should be terminated before they cost us any more dollars, except for the incident last month where they changed their approach, outgrew their old habit and learned a new method."
This way I combine over/covert without keeping a big secret or telling too much too soon. Some people catch on to the ending and some only hear my agreement with their side. I have not taken a positional stance in the battle. I'm exploring the reconciled future possibilities like the good little visionary leader that I am :-)