There are two ways to play the game. One leads to greater efficiency and benefits for consumers while the other promotes a culture of bullying and backbiting

One of the really great things about working for myself, by myself, is the complete absence of office politics. When I had a proper job, such politics drove me mad. They seemed to be a distraction from our real jobs, and I used to think that if everyone invested the time, energy and brainpower in their work that they expended on politicking, we'd have a more successful business or we could take half the week off.

A decade on, I experience office politics vicariously, which is much more pleasant. I feel variously bemused, amused and outraged by the increasingly Byzantine intricacies that my friends and family have to negotiate in order to do their jobs. I wonder if they are all either paranoid or need to master some political skills themselves.

Well, duh, said a couple of experts. Aryanne Oade, a psychologist and author of a new book, Managing Politics at Work, told me: "Politics are a fact of organisational life, so you need to be politically savvy if you want to get on." Rob Yeung, another business psychologist, agreed. "Play the game or get left behind," he advised.

Yeung categorises people as either "players" or "purists". The purists are "nice", he says—good at their jobs, honest and diligent. "But nice," he adds, "often ends up meaning loser."

It seems a cynical view. But you've only to look at the people around you whose importance and salary seem to be in inverse proportion to their talent to recognise the truth in it. They are the ones who understand that few decisions are rational and based on meritocracy, but clinched through the wiring that lies behind the official decision-making structures. They work hard all right... but at getting themselves noticed.

Perhaps part of the problem we purists have with the notion of having to "play politics" is its pejorative associations. We think of it as devious, manipulative, underhand behaviour designed to advance a personal agenda and career, usually at the expense of others, rather than to further the interests of the team or the organisation as a whole.

But the most effective workplace politicians are skilled people managers with the emotional intelligence to be able to understand and appreciate different perspectives and harness them for everyone's benefit, not least the customers'. And as organisations grow more complex, global and networked, these persuasion and influencing skills will become increasingly important.

So if, as it seems, there are good office politics and bad office politics, individuals need to become better at the former and organisations should discourage the latter.

Yeung argues that politicking delivers results. Maybe, but those results are rarely positive for the organisation as a whole, and could end up backfiring on the perpetrators, too. Imagine the manipulative behaviours at work in firms such as Northern Rock and Royal Bank of Scotland, as Messrs Applegarth, Goodwin et al sought to steamroller their ultimately destructive plans through the governance structures designed to regulate them.

It is at times of pressure and stress that the fundamental human frailties, such as ego, fear, insecurity and ambition, which give rise to politics in any group from cabinet committees to mothers at the school gate, become more pronounced. They may even tip over into dangerous dark-side behaviours, such as denying inconvenient truths, rejecting challenge and succumbing to safe group think.

To counter the danger, organisations need the kind of balanced teams that can ask themselves honestly where they are at risk and what they can do about it. The kind of diverse thinking required comes not from ticking boxes on gender, ethnicity and sexual preferences, but from encouraging challenge and embracing different perspectives.

Politics, at its best, is about getting things done in the most expedient way. At its worst, it's about bullying, backbiting and blocking progress. Organisations must ensure that their culture, processes and procedures encourage the former and discourage the latter. If they don't, growing numbers of people will leave to set up on their own, because the best way of getting things done is often to do them yourself.