Games At Work: How to Recognize and Reduce Office Politics -- Contents -- Foreword -- Introduction -- The Marginalize Game -- Games: An Under-the-Radar Problem -- What This Book Will Tell You and How It Will Tell It -- Who This Book Is for and How to Use It -- Chapter 1: Let the Games Begin -- The Theory and Practice of Games -- The Traits: Signs and Symptoms That a Game Is Being Played -- The Names of the Games: What They Are, How They're Played, and Why They're Harmful -- A Range of Attitudes: Game Consciousness -- Chapter 2: Playing to Lose -- A Finger-Pointing Environment -- The Four Effects of Unmanaged Game Playing -- Games-a Dirty Little Corporate Secret -- Effect on Specific Leadership Functions and Tasks -- Self-Assessment -- Chapter 3: Fertile Ground -- Coping Mechanism: A Response to Uncertainty -- Internal and External Factors Foster Game Playing -- Portrait of a Game-Playing Team -- Assess the Impact of Trends and Events on Your Group's Games -- Chapter 4: Eyes Wide Shut -- Four Reasons Not to Confront Games -- Why Aren't You Confronting Games at Work? -- Bad Reasons, Good Excuses: Challenge Your Assumptions -- Chapter 5: An Eye-Opening Experience -- Sleeping Beauty: A Trance-Like State -- Warning Signs: Interpreting What Game Players in a Trance Are Really Saying -- Feeling Alarmed -- Seizing the Opportunity: Accepting and Moving Forward -- Chapter 6: Count Me Out -- Needs, Anxiety, and Choice -- To Play or Not to Play: That Is the Question -- To Play: Opportunistic, Rationalizing, Internalizing -- Not to Play: Exit or Choose Intimacy -- A Choice You Make from Your Gut as Much as from Your Mind -- Getting Ready for the Choice: Authenticity and Courage -- Chapter 7: Game, Interrupted -- Positive and Negative Forces: Increase One, Decrease the Other -- Interrupting: Knowing the Points Where You Can Intervene.

The Steps for Interrupting a Game -- The Steps Toward Open and Ongoing Dialogue -- Chapter 8: Interconnections -- The Invisible Links Between Connected Games -- Identifying Your Game Ecology -- A Diagnostic for the Game-Playing Aspect of a Culture -- Organizational Games DNA -- Chapter 9: The Challenge of Change -- A Dual Negative Impact -- Anatomy of a Change: An Example of Games DNA in Action -- Overcoming Games DNA and Inertia -- A Games-Conscious Model of Transformation -- Chapter 10: Games at the Top -- Why CEOs Play Games -- A More Pragmatic Approach -- A New CEO Responsibility: Maintaining a Low-Game Environment -- Chapter 11: A Sustainable Goal -- The Evolution of Composite Corporation -- Five Principles to Keep in Mind -- Appendix: List of Games -- References -- Acknowledgments -- About the Authors -- Index.