The words reek of unfairness and are almost always used to refer to the underbelly of the workplace.

There are a couple problems with this, though.

This viewpoint of office politics is incompleteand avoiding them can actually hurt your career.

It happened to me.

I was naive about the relationships and exposure I needed to get support for my work.

So, I spent a lot of time complaining about how unfair things were.

Notice the neutrality of the definition.

How these efforts areemployedis what makes them good or bad.

Interpersonal influence:A convincing ability to affect how and what other people think by understanding them.

Networking ability:The capacity to form mutually beneficial relationships with a wide range of diverse people.

Apparent sincerity:Seeming to be honest and open, which inspires support and trust.

This is key: Its not enough tobehonest.

Researchers have found that high performance in these dimensions can make or break someones effectiveness at work.

Knowing the skills needed is the first step.

The second step is to start practicing them.

The easiest place to start is by building relationships with a wide range of people.

Start within your own department and progressively expand across department silos.

Having someone provide guidance as you flex the new skills is even better.

Plan to interact with people who only associate politics as something bad.

Youll be the first to educate them.

Dont ask for most powerful or influential or even the one most politically savvy.

The people associated with those terms may be more closely aligned with the bad, instead of the good.

Often, these folks have the abilities that demonstrate healthy political skills.

As much as we would all like to ignore or avoid office politics, we cant.

They are here to stay.

They are a natural part of humans working together.

The choice is in how to play them, for the good or for the bad.

Start practicing the skills and partner with those most respected.

Youll find that its really all about establishing and nurturing positive workplace relationships.