To be successful in today’s evolving workplace, you need talent, hard work, good job performance, a share of good breaks, and political savvy. To some, political savvy means deceit, deception, and selfishness. However, think of political savvy as the ability to practice sensible and ethical office politics. The OPM ECQ 5, Building Coalitions identifies political savvy as a leadership competency. It is a strategy to sell ideas and influence the organization to achieve targeted results. Political savvy means ethically using office politics to your advantage. To gain a competitive edge, you need to know those underlying forces that account for the success of equally talented people. This 30-minute presentation examines 10 things about political savvy to consider to help you build coalitions and gain power.

TOC has been building coalitions for almost 80 years. This session is presented by the TOC historian, Dianne Floyd Sutton, author of Workplace Savvy. Dianne is a speaker, trainer, educator, author, coach, expert-witness, actor, and president of Sutton Enterprises. She has spent 30 years providing employee training and facilitation services – crafting her career as a pioneer and leader in human capital development. She has presented workshops and facilitated groups throughout the Federal government. Dianne is well-known for her humor, honesty and refreshingly down-to-earth messages. Dianne’s straightforward approach to career and employee management and her ability to engage her audiences have resulted in decades of requests to share her expertise both nationally and internationally.

Learning Objectives

• Learn tips and suggestions related to the competency Political Savvy
• Understand the connection of the competency Political Savvy to other leadership competencies
• Recognize that one has choices in how one conducts or presents oneself — that your choices may determine how far you go in your career

ECQ 5: Building Coalitions
This core qualification involves the ability to build coalitions internally and with other federal agencies, state and local governments, nonprofit and private sector organizations, foreign governments, or international organizations to achieve common goals.