1. Power and Influence in the Workplace

2. Goals Managing people over whom you have no formal authority
Start visualizing power dynamics at work
How to exercise influence
The limits of formal power

3. Mike Morgan Kay Sunderland Content Development Director, Attain
Account Director, Attain Learning

4. John Chama (COO, Attain)
Juan Nunez (CLO, Gramen)
John Chama (COO, Attain)

6. Action Alternatives Action Pros Cons
- Leave Morgan immediate message: Don’t call again!
- Morgan: Come see me
- Get more information?
- Involve Chama?
- Push or Pull Morgan?
- Which currency to use?

7. Sources of Power
Legitimate – This comes from the belief that a person has the right to make demands, and expect compliance and obedience from others.
Reward – This results from one person's ability to compensate another for compliance.
Expert – This is based on a person's superior skill and knowledge.
Referent – This is the result of a person's perceived attractiveness, worthiness, and right to respect from others.
Coercive – This comes from the belief that a person can punish others for noncompliance.

8. Determinants of Power at Work
Sources of positional power:
Formal authority – position in hierarchy and prescribed responsibilities
Relevance – relationship between task and organizational objectives
Centrality – position in key networks
Autonomy – amount of discretion in a position
Visibility – degree to which performance can be seen by others
Sources of personal power:
Expertise – relevant knowledge and skills
Track record – relevant experience
Attractiveness – attributes that others find appealing and identify with
Effort – expenditure of time and energy
©Whetton and Cameron, Developing Management Skills: Gaining Power and Influence, New York, Harper Collins Publishers 1993

9. Exchange Currencies
Inspiration-related: provide meaning to others’ work
Task-related: provide assistance directly connected to getting the job done
Position-related: enhance others’ position in the organization
Relationship-related: strengthen the relationship
Personal: enhance others’ sense of self
©Cohen and Bradford, Influence without Authority, New York: Wiley and Sons, 1990

10. Key Elements of a Good Action Plan
Analysis/diagnosis
Identify assumptions and what-ifs
Periodically reassess in light of latest info.
Have you defined objectives long-term and short-term?
Have you developed a strategy?
Is action plan feasible given constraints/opportunities and sources of power?
Assess the likely impact of your plan
Aware of tradeoffs? Direct and indirect consequences
Carefully documented the stakes and risks involved?
Taken important contingencies into account? What’s probability of success at each stage? Alternative contingency plan/s?
Easy to have goal displacement– reevaluate periodically

11. Goals Risks Context Client Responsiveness Lose/piss off client
Preserve/enhance
relation with Morgan
Morgan quits/complaints
Alienate Morgan’s minions
Context
Tough Economy
Managing “creatives”
Culture: in transition from entp to profesional
Gramen needs fast turnaround
High stakes project
Sunderland
Morgan
Nunez
- High stakes account
- ??
- High stakes; long term
-MBA, sales past at IBM
- Loves entrep. culture
- CLO Landscape/ag. Manufacturing co.
- Push style of influence
-Push with Kay; Pull with others?
- Push?
-Good track record; appointed to proj. by Chama
- Sole content developer; key to the “technical core”; understaffed
- Pet project:
-Brought in to professionalize
- Has to get clients to take risks; and protect staff
- Pressure from boss?

15. Power Play Power: the ability to get things done [your way]..
Why people shy away from power:
The just world belief
The (bullshit) leadership literature on authentic leaders, etc.
Self-handicapping
Make your peace with power
You need: substantive business knowledge so you know what to do and political skills to know how to get it done

16. Power Play (Pfeffer) The exercise of power: Mete out resources
Shape behaviors through reward and punishment
Advance on multiple fronts
Surprise! Make the first move
Co-opt antagonists
Remove rivals
Don’t draw unnecessary fire
Use personal touch
Persist
Make important relationships work
Make the vision compelling

17. Scenario 1
After 10 years of working hard, you have finally been promoted to the position of department head at a firm that specializes in creating custom kitchens for rich clients. Before your promotion, there were many good ideas you had that never seemed to get the attention they deserved. When you would make suggestions at meetings, you would often be ignored; but when the same suggestion was made by your boss, people would pay attention and it would seem like it was your boss, not you, who came up with the idea. Moreover, when you wanted to get your colleagues to do something, you would have to beg for their help and assistance– what else could you do as you had no formal power over your peers. All the power was in the hand of the boss, it seemed. All that would change, you thought, once you became the boss. Finally, you would have the necessary authority to compel people to act. No longer would you need to beg for others’ cooperation (which was often not forthcoming anyway because your peers seemed to often think of you as a potential rival, bucking for the position of department head). And yet, six months into the job, however, you discovered that whereas people were certainly willing to assent to your directives, they rarely seemed to do much more than pay lip service to your directives. You are frustrated and wondering: how can I influence people so that they show genuine commitment rather than shallow compliance.

18. The Limits of Formal Authority
Don’t depend on formal authority
People want more than a formal authority based relation: do you care about me? Do you want to help me grow?
They disagree with you
They think other things are more important
They don’t understand what you want: impossible to give instructions that are so explicit as to obviate need for judgment
Circumstances may change, robbing your directive of force.
Many hate being bossed around.
No compliance because of confusion
Cannot generate genuine commitment or change or elicit others’ knowledge
Being the sole boss places an impossible burden: now you have to be right all the time.

19. How and When to Use Formal Authority…
How to use authority:
As a two-way relationship: give and take
Apply ethical judgment
Use authority sparingly
Involve others; act transparently; delegate authority
When to use authority:
When swiftness of decision is needed/emergencies
When group members cannot reach agreement
To maintain group standards and norms
To set useful boundaries (use goals; emphasize group standards; budgets; policies)
To focus peoples’ attention on what’s really important

20. Your Feedback Style When giving feedback to another person, I…
Focus my comments on specific, job-related behaviors
Keep my comments descriptive rather than evaluative
Prefer to save up my comments so they can be presented and discussed in detail during the person’s annual performance review.
Ensure that my feedback is clearly understood.
Supplement criticism with suggestions for what the person can do to improve.
Tailor the type of feedback to reflect the person’s past performance and future potential.

21. Skills for Obtaining Feedback
Take initiative and ask for feedback.
Don’t be defensive.
Check your understanding by offering a summary of what you heard the other say.
Ask questions to clarify… but don’t try to mount a defense…

23. Cialdini’s book “Influence”
Given the propensity towards fixed action responses…
Weapons of Influence:
Reciprocity– e.g., the “rejection then retreat” technique.
Commitment (active, public, effortful) and consistency– e.g., Festinger and Carlsmith.
Social proof: action correct if others are doing it.
Liking (attractiveness, homophily, flattery)
Authority
Scarcity
For summary of book, see:

24. Similarity and Liking
We tend to prefer images of our face as they appear to us (mirror images); whereas our friends prefer non-reversed images