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Keep shoppingOrganizational Politics: Power, Coalitions, Influence [EN]
271 students
Organizational Politics: Power, Coalitions, Influence [EN]
organizational politics | power and influence | influence without authority | stakeholder management | coalitions | eq
Last updated 3/2026
English
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What you'll learn
- Read where authority formally sits and where decisions are actually made
- Work out what a matrix structure does to accountability and to your own position
- Get agreement from people who do not report to you and owe you nothing
- Build a coalition before a decision rather than argue after it
- Recognise personality type in a conversation, without asking anyone to take a test
- Notice your own reaction before it becomes the thing you say in a difficult room
- Make a message survive being retold by three people who were not in the room
- Handle an open clash of interests without either capitulating or escalating
- Learn alongside Mike's 1.6 million students from 185 countries
- Get the author's experience from Preply, Wargaming, iDeals and Alfa-Bank
Explore related topics
Course content
16 sections • 44 lectures • 25h 30m total length
Requirements
- A job where things get decided by several people with different interests
- No background in organisational design or psychology required
- Access to your company's org chart, even an out-of-date one
- English at intermediate level or above, since all lessons are in English
- Willingness to accept that politics happens whether or not you participate
Description
This course contains the use of artificial intelligence.
Office politics is not a character flaw that some people have. It is what happens automatically whenever decisions are made by several people with different interests and unequal authority. Which is every organisation.
The version most people believe
That good work speaks for itself, that the org chart describes who decides things, and that anyone who pays attention to alliances is being underhanded. All three are comfortable and none is true. The proposal that wins usually had three people already agreeing with it before the meeting, and the person who arranged that was not being manipulative — they were doing something the rest of us had decided was beneath us. I held that view for years and lost several arguments I was right about.
What this course actually covers
Six blocks, moving from the system to the person. First, the map: how a structure is designed, where formal authority separates from real authority, what a matrix does to accountability, the leadership cascade, and span of control as a signal of where attention actually goes. Second, ten lessons on the practice of influence without authority — entering a team you do not manage, the one-to-one, working with engagement, burnout, development and difficult people when you cannot instruct anyone. Third, reading people: six personality frameworks, including recognising type in conversation without a test. Fourth, your own signal — what you transmit in the seconds before you speak, and how to change it. Fifth, reach: getting a message past one room and measuring whether it arrived. Sixth, open conflict — escalation, prevention, political conflict named directly, and mediation.
A note on two of the blocks
Sixteen of the forty-four lessons come from a people-function frame: partnering with a business unit, and internal communications. That is deliberate. It is the most thoroughly documented practice of influencing without authority that exists, because the function has never had any. The mechanics transfer to anyone who owns an outcome and not the resources.
Who is teaching this
I am Mike Pritula. I built the people system at Preply as it became a unicorn, which meant influencing every function without formal authority over any of them, and I have worked at Wargaming, iDeals and Alfa-Bank. More than 1.6 million students have enrolled in my courses across 185 countries, and over 150,000 specialists have gone through my programmes. I hold PHRi and SHRM-CP certifications and represent HRCI in more than ten countries.
What is included
Lifetime access to all 44 lessons
Active instructor support in the Q&A section
A Udemy Certificate of Completion
Working material: the six design drivers, matrix power distribution, six personality frameworks, the one-to-one structure, audience personas and channel mix, the conflict resolution algorithm
Real organisational cases, including Wargaming and ArcelorMittal
Where to start
Take the last significant decision that affected your work and write down who actually agreed to it before it was announced. If you cannot reconstruct that list, that gap is the subject of this course. Enrol now and start today.
Who this course is for:
- Specialists whose good proposals lose to worse ones with better support
- Managers in a matrix, reporting to two people who want different things
- Function leads who depend on teams they have no authority over
- Project and programme leads who own an outcome and no resources
- People who dislike office politics and keep being affected by it anyway
- Newly promoted managers discovering that the org chart explains very little
- Anyone who found out about a decision after the people who mattered had agreed