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Office Politics Survival Activity Book, manuscript cover

Workplace influence

Office Politics Survival Activity Book

Coloring Scenes and Worksheets for Influence Without Losing Yourself

By Jon Orozco

An honest, non-cynical guide to credibility, alliances, and timing.

In development

This title is being developed. The sample below introduces the current manuscript; release details may change.

Try a sample situation

Who this is for

Office workers, new leaders, and anyone who just realized the org chart is not the real map.

Good work is not enough and nobody explains how influence really works.

The current manuscript includes 20 practice situations, reflective coloring plates, and 16 practical tools.

The practice inside

  1. 01Read the Real Map

    Before you try to influence anything, learn who actually moves things. This part teaches you to see the second org chart, and to notice when it changes.

  2. 02Earn Your Pull

    Pull is earned slowly and lost quickly. This part is about credibility, favors without a ledger, and being the same person in every room.

  3. 03Work the Room

    Good ideas die when the right people hear about them too late. This part teaches you to find who matters to a decision and to meet each one honestly.

  4. 04Win Without Losing Yourself

    Influence you could not explain out loud is not influence you want. This part is about credit, honesty, losing well, and leaving the place a little healthier.

A situation from the manuscript

The meeting before the meeting

You present your plan at the staff meeting. Everyone nods. Two days later it is approved with changes you never heard discussed. Someone says, 'We talked about it at lunch.'

What do you do first?

  1. Decide the process is rigged and stop caring.
  2. Ask who was consulted, and notice who the lunch table seems to include.
  3. Email everyone to demand a fair hearing.
Make your call, then read the field note

When the real talk happens outside the meeting, the meeting is for show. Do not get angry. Get curious, and learn who gets asked early.

Try this next: After the next decision, write down who was consulted before the meeting.

Practice with fictional details. This excerpt offers general education, not legal, financial, or clinical advice. Use approved workplace processes and qualified support for real cases.

Tools you can return to

  • Your 90-day influence plan
  • Who really moves things
  • The honest audit
  • Who decides, and who really decides
  • Before the big meeting
  • Who a project touches
  • Influence or manipulation?
  • Office politics bingo
  • The political risk check
  • Political risk table
  • Ask for the honest read
  • Weekly influence log
  • Network gaps
  • Twelve weeks of better habits
  • Where are you on the ladder?
  • Your influence year

Put the practice to work

Use one situation for individual reflection or a manager discussion. Compare your first response with the field note, then choose one change to try in the following week.

Discuss a team learning session →

A book supports practice. For an active workplace issue, follow your organization’s process and seek appropriate professional guidance.

Keep exploring

Write It Down

Write a factual record someone else can understand, with the employee’s account and a clear next step.

Solo HR

Triage competing cases, make the queue visible, and give each next action an owner and a date.

Promoted Over Your Peers

Practice the shift from coworker to supervisor without turning friendship into favoritism.