How to handle Toxicity & Politics at work

We often hear oh my work place is toxic or there is lot of politics at work place. Here are the ways I deal with these environments. Feel free to agree/disagree or add your thoughts.?

1) Always go with positive intent, assume there is no toxicity or politics

We often get bogged down with common talks about “Oh we have so much politics or toxicity”, human mind starts leaning towards what we keep hearing over and over again, It needs a strong mind and determination to teach yourself that there is no politics or no toxicity in the organisation (even if there is). Always start with positive intent, many people have tendency to think negative when they are approached by someone. Always take it with positive intent, for example training someone in your domain doesn’t make you redundant, instead it frees you up to learn something new, or Just because someone questioned you about why you did something in a particular way, doesn’t mean he/she is there to tell you that you are wrong, may be the person wants to understand your rationale behind doing something.?

2) Focus on your own success but don’t miss an opportunity to be part of others success

While its important for you to be successful in your own work, look for opportunities to help others be successful, go out of your way to help someone (expect nothing in return), these are investments you are making which will hopefully give you good returns when time comes, even if it doesn’t give you good returns, you will feel good about yourself. You also make best of friends at work with this attitude.

3) Demotivation due to lack of appreciation as against focussing on self improvement

Not everything you do can and will be appreciated, never ever do something and expect appreciation back, your competition is with you and you only, so as long as you are learning something new, doing something new, you are making progress, external appreciation is like a cool breeze, feels nice when it comes, but it is many times unpredictable. The want of appreciation makes you work or not work based on who will notice it.?

4) Look for lateral opportunities that will help you grow in your domain

One of the important aspect of life is learning something new, Main reason we get stagnant is because we stop learning, what other way to learn than to jump in a new role and learn at the same time? External training can only take you to certain level but your real expertise come only when you deep dive in the technology on the job. So never ever do the same work for more than 4 to 5 years, look for a change of work, (doesn’t mean new job, it means different role within organisation, take on some new responsibilities, train others etc etc)?

?5) Sharpen your skill, your competition is only with self.

Last but not the least, you are end product and employers are like customers, we buy products which are useful to us, well proven, has more features than others, right? Similarly for you to be marketable in the job market, you have to sharpen your skills, be thorough in your domain but be aware of what’s happening in the market, you have to be vertically deep in your domain but horizontal in other domains as well.

Remember this, there is plenty of negativity everywhere around us, but there is equal amount of positivity around us too, we attract what we look for, if you want to stay positive, energetic and excited, you will always find good things around you. So stay positive and stay happy.