Interviews with experienced managers show that most believe political behavior is a major part of organizational life. Many managers report some use of political behavior is ethical, as long as it doesn’t directly harm anyone else. Organizations have individuals and groups with different values, goals, and interests. This sets up the potential for conflict over the allocation of limited resources, such as budgets, work space, and salary and bonus pools. If resources were abundant, all constituencies within an organization could satisfy their goals.

Maybe the most important factor leading to politics is the realization that most of the facts used to allocate resources are open to interpretation. When allocating pay based on performance, for instance, what is good performance? Because most decisions have to be made in a climate of ambiguity—where facts are rarely objective and thus open to interpretation—people within organizations will use whatever influence they can to support their goals and interests.

For an organization to be politics-free, all members of that organization should hold the same goals and interests, organizational resources must not be scarce, and performance outcomes must be completely clear and objective. But that doesn’t describe the organizational world in which most of us live.