Large organizations are constantly trying to decide what to do and how to do it. It does this by consuming information at every level of the hierarchy making d

Large organizations are constantly trying to decide what to do and how to do it. It does this by consuming information at every level of the hierarchy making decisions and then pushing that information up and down the hierarchy. (Obviously lots of information is translated along different lines than the written down org chat) Politics is how every organization makes decisions. It's understanding the information flow, the decision making process, people incentives, and how to influence these to get the outcome you want. Managing up is about altering decisions made above your level (info moving up) and managing down is about taking those decisions made above your level translating them into decisions that affect your team. i.e. Managing is very much about politics.