To quote the article, rather than OP: > Kraken despises office politics (i.e., activities associated with the use of influence tactics to improve personal inte

To quote the article, rather than OP: > Kraken despises office politics (i.e., activities associated with the use of influence tactics to improve personal interests). If you have worked in a big company environment in your past (even if it was years ago), you may want to reflect on what behaviors, tendencies, or habits you have been exposed to (or have unintentionally learned) and make a point to not do those things here. Yes, so being diplomatic rather than manipulative is still political, so "no politics" doesn't make a lot of sense. And by "improve personal interests", a big "at the benefit of the interests of everyone else" is surely implied, since there's nothing bad about about improving your personal interests at no cost. The wording is simplistic, so nitpicking aside: perhaps grouping all manipulative influence tactics as "office politics" is a way to strike down on bullying through in-group hierarchies and aggressive behavior. I don't know if having a document that says "Don't bully!" prevents bullying; a proactive counter-culture does.