Ever wonder how to survive the office politics or rhetoric? Here are 20 great tips on what to do to survive in the office environment. Having worked in an office all my life I can say that almost all of these are really good tips. How does the most useless person survive or better yet, get promoted?

The one thing that has confused me over my career is how does the “slacker” or “floater” always survive? Demonstrating a total lack of skills, efficiency, ability to get things done or produce results, has always won over the hard working individual looking for affirmation from their boss. It seems to me that the survival mode is defined by “laying low”. Don’t look for frequent encounters with your boss, it brings too many opportunities to give you more work or provide negative feedback. If your satisfied with where you are in the organization, then don’t stand out or be noticed, stay down and let all the frantic activity happen over your head. Maybe by the time management figures you out it’s too late, you have too much tenure to fire you so they continue to let you wonder around doing whatever, they don’t even know what you do. It’s too embarrassing for them to go to Human Resources to fire you because the first question is, how long has this been going on? And of course, it’s been going on for years, so why would H/R support a huge financial package because you, the boss, were asleep at the wheel.

I’ve seen this scenario happen over and over again, especially at large fortune 500 companies. Management is too busy trying to climb the ladder to care what you are doing. Only problem is, once they have climbed that elite mountain and get to the top, they usually fail. Someone down the road figures out that they are incompetent and never should have been promoted in the first place. You see, what these people tend to forget or not realize is this, it’s not you performing the job that matters, it’s your TEAM. If you build a strong team around you, and don’t care or get consumed with the reward system or spotlight, it will come in time on it’s own. Hire good, strong people who are dedicated to you and you will succeed. Create enthusiasm, lead your staff, manage processes, communicate regularly, drive for results and everybody wins.