<em>This is part of a series of posts organized and arranged by <a title="Jane Perdue on Twitter" href="http://twitter.com/thehrgoddess" target="_blank">Jane Perdue</a>. You can find the introduction <a title="Politics are Necessary, but not Necessarily Evil" href="http://getyourbigon.com/leadbigblog/playing-office-politics/" target="_blank">here</a> and the post on <a title="Networking Inside the Company Walls" href="http://jennifervmiller.com/networking-inside-the-company-walls/" target="_blank">networking</a> by <a title="Jennifer Miller on Twitter" href="http://twitter.com/jennifervmiller" target="_blank">Jennifer V. Miller</a> at her blog <a title="The People Equation" href="http://jennifervmiller.com" target="_blank">The People Equation</a>. I also posted on <a title="Sincerity and Office Politics at Lead Change Group Blog" href="/sincerity-office-politics" target="_self">Sincerity and Office Politics</a>.  This week, we'll discuss <a title="Susan Mazza on Twitter" href="http://twitter.com/SusanMazza" target="_blank">Susan Mazza</a>'s great post on the political side of agendas at <a title="Susan Mazza's blog Random Acts of Leadership" href="http://randomactsofleadership.com" target="_blank">Random Acts of Leadership</a>. </em>

Do you consider your motivations objectively?  What about those of others?  Are you able to accurately discern what motivates people in your organization to do what they do?  Could they have... <em>an Agenda?</em>

Susan's post, titled <em>What's Your Agenda?</em> asks the question in light of generally accepted thought around the balance between leadership and office politics.  Agenda's are a good thing if we have to have meetings, agendas keep us on task and schedule.  And we all have motivations for what we do.  But when we have private, or <em>personal</em> agendas, we increase the Office Politics Quotient (#OPQ on Twitter).  Susan makes some interesting distinctions and contrasts between positive and negative agendas.

Check out Susan's post and leave her a comment.  Let's stamp out office politics in our lifetime! The first step is to expose it and keep the awareness up.