Power comes in many forms. In Influential Leadership I explored seven sources of power that people use to influence others. These need to be recognised in any group or individual that you wish to influence, because it will give you clues as to what will be most effective.
Here’s a little example.
Several years ago I was working with a large retail organisation. During workshops we could have a mix of senior managers learning how to be more influential, and exploring the sources of power.
Many came from the store environment. There, positional power was everything. If you were the store manager, you were almost omnipotent. Whatever you said, people did. These was little room for challenge or negotiation. If the boss asked you to do something, you did it. Good old fashioned command and control in action.
Do you think that was right or wrong?
Many people find that repugnant, abhorrent. That is not the modern way, empowering people and giving them responsibility for decisions. That’s how you get the best out of people isn’t it?
Well yes, and no. Because in some situations, you absolutely have to have someone calling the shots. Someone in authority who knows what needs to happen and hasn’t the time to debate about it.
Think military situations, crises and the like. These isn’t the time nor luxury to build consensus. Someone has to give the orders and they must be followed, otherwise people die. In the stores, it has to be that way because of the complexity of the operation, safety considerations and in this instance, keeping the shelves stocked with fresh food.
Another large contingent on these workshops were head office managers. Totally different environment for them. The way influence worked there was by the socialisation of ideas. It was not what you knew that matters, but who you knew. So networking was mission critical.
This type of power structure, based on relationships and connections is vital when there is no one right answer. Where there are lots of different initiatives that could improve the performance, often competing with each other. Here (one would hope) the best ideas will filter to the top and get the attention, and the backing.
To use command and control in this type of task or setting would be a disaster unless the top person had all the right ideas, knew exactly what needed to happen.
This is pretty straightforward and logical. Power structures need to be fit for purpose, and when they are not, groups will be less effective and performance will be at risk. This gets interesting when managers from each power structure are trying to influence each other.
When you mature within a command and control structure, you learn that is how the world works. You become accustomed to using your status, or ceding to others of higher rank. Conditioned that certain behaviours will get people jumping. So if you go to try to influence another group that has a different power structure, like head office, you’ll hit a brick wall.
The behaviours and tactics you are familiar with using no longer work. You get frustrated that people there don’t respect your position or rank. That they don’t defer to your opinion or views on what should happen.
This was brought to life by one store manager on a workshop who said, “The problem with head office is that when you ring up, you never know what grade someone is!” What he needed to know (from his conditioned approach to influence) was how to relate to the person on the other end of the phone. Was he higher or lower than that person. And a perfectly reasonable question to have in a command and control power structure.
It was also interesting to hear the plight of the head office managers when they went out to the stores attempting to influence. From their conditioning, what they would do was run around talking to all manner of people, collecting views, sharing ideas and generally attempting to build consensus.
However this was worth nothing whatsoever if the store manager wasn’t on-side, because over in the store, they reigned supreme. Again, another vivid example when a workshop participant complained, “I’ve been down to that store many times and they are still not doing what we need them to do. I’ve tried to get them excited about the process. Tried to leverage their sense of pride in customer service. Given examples of how other stores are doing it. But nothing seems to work.”
Because, she’s not got the boss on-board to tell everyone what to do. It would have been much more efficient to just focus on the store manager and do whatever it took to get them to agree. Then everyone else would just fall into line.
What this all boils down to is that if you wish to influence a group, or an individual, it is really helpful to know how they are used to being influenced. What sources of power are they most influenced by. When you have established that, you can then reflect on what you can do to present yourself and your ideas in ways that are going to get a good reception.
To explore more about the sources of power and how you can increase your influence, and make it happen faster, start with the Personal Power Profile. This will quickly establish where you get your power from, and then you can begin to use this knowledge to diagnose others and adapt your approach.
The Gautrey Influence Blog
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