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Power, Politics, and the
Human Resource Professional
Anthony Raia Anthony; Raia, Professor of Management with the
Graduate School of Management at the University; of California in
Los Angeles, spoke to the Conference
about the reality of organizational politics. He discussed ways to
recognize and
understand your particular power structure and make it work for you
and your
human resource function.
As Carlos indicated in his introduction to this session, I have been
involved
in Organizational Development programs and activities in a wide
variety of organizations throughout the U.S. and abroad. Almost all of
it involves working at all
levels with line managers and human resource professionals like
yourselves. In
recent years, I have become increasingly aware of and concerned that
too many
executives and line managers perceive human resource people as
either "second
class citizens" or as "staff weenies." At best, we are
often seen as soft, "touchiefeelies" who, at worst, are
irrelevant to what is really going on in the organization.
What disturbs me, however, is that some of us willingly accept those
perceptions and labels and play out our roles as though they were true.
How do we fall
into this trap?
To begin with, I believe that part of the answer has to do with what
might
be called political naivete, or our inability to understand and/or accept
the
political realities of organizational life. This may be due to the set of
humanistic