[jeremybeckham]

My recommendation is to go to your team lead/manager and tell them what you wrote in the first two paragraphs. Ask them for help in developing those skills.

My experience has been that learning office politics is more about having a trusted mentor that is good at doing this. You are looking for a mentor that would bring you to meetings and into conversations where you can observe what they do, what the other people do, and take notes. Have a debriefing session afterwards to discuss why you believe each person behaved or said the things they did. What you will gain by this is experience in looking at interactions from multiple viewpoints.

Once you can start predicting those reactions by anticipating other people's viewpoints, then social interaction becomes much easier. You aren't caught off guard nearly as much, and the level of anxiety goes down significantly.

[twoquestions]

That sounds like a wonderful way to get backstabbed, and suddenly be the one responsible for all the company's failures before you're fired.