From Michael Wood, Woodconsulting@bigpond.com:

Australians, culturally, believe in equality the same way that they believe in the ocean. It is just there. Not only do Australians believe that you are equal to them, but that they are equal to you. This is a stunningly unique view of the world, alien beyond belief to most cultures. The Americans, for example, embrace freedom, not equality (just look at the race for President). For many cultures status and position are critical. You have to acknowledge this belief system, even if you don’t follow it. You also have to understand that you may be sending signals that are making others uncomfortable, and you might have to take the effort to explain them. For hierarchical societies, having you boss act like your best mate at a social function can be a nightmare. Who knows what the consequences might be?

And as part of the belief in equality, there is an underlying belief in fairness. There are many people in the world who simply don’t believe in the Australian concept of fairness (many Australians included, but we are talking about culture, not individuals). This can lead to a whole range of possible conflicts in the workplace. If you have put a lot of effort into undermining, backstabbing and politics, only to see the most competent person promoted, this can be very disconcerting. Not that I have seen a lot of this mind you, but we are talking about cultural ideals.

Quote:

If you have put a lot of effort into undermining, backstabbing and politics, only to see the most competent person promoted, this can be very disconcerting.

It often works the other way around.  Those who are quiet, efficient and get on with their work are often left behind, while those who are loud, backstabbing and understand company politics get promoted.

But there is an underlying fairness in Australia, although many new Australians find it difficult to embrace, coming from countries where the strongest survive at any cost.

mantra - often seems the more "political" workers are promoted (or promote themselves) more quickly.
irregardless of their productivity

Management is a political role. If someone is highly productive but doesn't have a good grasp of office politics then it would probably be best for everyone if they stayed where they can be productive, rather than filling out OH&S forms.

not at all
politics have no place at work
management is a productivity/people job

A monkey could fill out a OH@S form.

Working with people is a political role. Working with people's productivity is a political role. If you ignore the politics you will fail. You can't take politics out of a work place. As soon as you have more than one person involved, there will be politics.

A monkey could fill out a OH@S form

Exactly, so why get your most productive worker doing monkey work?

freediver wrote on Apr 11^th, 2008 at 8:48am:

Working with people is a political role. Working with people's productivity is a political role. If you ignore the politics you will fail. You can't take politics out of a work place. As soon as you have more than one person involved, there will be politics. A monkey could fill out a OH@S form Exactly, so why get your most productive worker doing monkey work?

I deal with issues by depersonalizing them to some extent. When it comes to the stage that two people are at each others throats, it's time to do a fault tree analysis and determine what the real causes are. Keep the personalities out of it and stick to the facts. I never take sides, but I often apply the principles of cognitive psychology.

If you're just filling out OH&S forms without learning how to avoid incidents from recurring, you're wasting resources. In my workplace, our last Lost Time Incident was over 3 years ago. I work for a medium sized company.  That has been achieved through improving ownership of safety throughout the company, and by acting on anything that could cause an incident immediately. That also sends a clear message that management are serious about safety.  It takes a certain ruthless spirit, but I believe all workplace incidents can be prevented.

Good on you muso - you sound like a good boss.

The WPOS in my workplace is .... overruled by the mentality of blame shifting there.
people get very good at it.

Faulty tree analysis?????? Man I've never done one of those and I'm a troubel shooter. I fix team morale and productivity.