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Glite Dictionary
to navigate office politics

to navigate office politics

7.7
To handle people and power at work to get support and avoid trouble
  • phrasal verb
translation icon : navegar la política de oficina
  • In order to succeed in her career, she had to learn how to navigate office politics effectively.

Examples

  • I'm still learning to navigate office politics and how to negotiate for what I want at work.

    Blog text (15)

  • The first two-thirds are largely spent navigating office politics or detailing Linnet's love of horse riding, with short bursts of action in between.

    Blog text (19)

  • Understanding how to navigate office politics at her new job helped her build strong relationships with her colleagues.

  • He quickly realized that to get promoted, he needed to navigate office politics without stepping on anyone's toes.

How Diplomatic

to navigate office politics
7.7
to manage
239 2.3
to get by
121 3.1

Surface Forms

navigate office politics infinitive
navigated office politics past
navigated office politics past participle
navigating office politics present participle
navigates office politics third person singular

Morphology

navigate + office + politics

The verb 'navigate' (manage or find a path through situations) combined with the clearly compositional noun phrase 'office politics' (maneuvering for influence within a workplace) yields a directly inferable meaning: manage workplace power dynamics. This combination follows ordinary compositional patterns and exists cross-linguistically, so a B1 learner who knows the constituent words can reasonably derive the MWE's meaning.

Etymology

The phrase navigate office politics gives a simple picture: to navigate is like finding a safe path through a crowded room, and office politics are the quiet rules and power between people at work. So, it means 'to manage and deal with' those tricky relationships and power in the workplace.