Power is the ability to convince other people to do what you want. There are two kinds of power: charismatic and functional. Functional power causes others to do what you want due to implied threat. Charismatic power causes others to do what you want because they like you. Charismatic power is all about building relationships. A struggling manager asks:

Do you think there is any way to encourage a shift in structure in existing organizations? What do you think are the possible routes (if any) for encouraging change by those who are not in power? As a person who is not in a position of any significant power in my own organization, I find myself consistently frustrated because of how closely my situation mirrors the one you have described.

People all across the world wish that others would do things their way and operate in a way consistent with their own values and beliefs. Whether the scenario be in a home owners association, small business, major corporation, military division, government agency, or even amongst nations on the international stage, the problem is the same: A few lead and the rest are effectively helpless, and whether content or outraged, there isn’t much they can do about it.

People everywhere complain that the government should do this or that the company’s leadership should do that. They rant, they complain, and they grumble unhappily at the dinner table, and yet nothing changes. This is because the people doing the complaining lack power.

Therefore, your real question is, “How do I acquire power?”

In order to acquire power, you must first understand what power is. Then you can discover how to acquire power. Your last task is to learn how to effectively wield power once you have it so that your power is enhanced by the decisions you make. The last step is to understand what it is you will be doing to yourself if you ever acquire any real power, because those in power are often more powerless than anyone else from their own perspective.

What is Power?

Power is the ability to influence other people. Some people believe that power gives us the ability to force other people to do things. Those people are wrong. Even if you take a person in hand and push them around, you are not forcing them to move. You might be able to decide that they will be moved from one location to another, but you have not forced them to move due to their own choice. Remote control of other people is impossible.

Likewise, if you take their family members hostage, you might convince them to do what you want, but surprisingly, some people are so stubborn that even under the threat of killing their own family members, they will refuse to comply with your requests and become so hysterical that no threat of violence to them or others will convince them to behave as you wish. Or, they might be so resistant to being controlled that they commit suicide in the face of such control in order to feel fully in control of themselves and prove to you that you have no power.

These are extreme examples that prove the point: no one person ever has true control over another. The best we can hope for is influence over others. Those among us with true power have the ability to influence the behavior of others.

People who understand power recognize that we can only control ourselves, not others, and that influence is all we can ever hope to wield with other people.

The Acquisition of Power

Acquiring power is a matter of increasing the number of people with which you have influence and increasing the amount of influence you have with each of those people. It is a complex process with many variables, but I believe it comes down to relationships and networking.

Relationship building is the one and truly only method by which influence is increased. The ties that bind people together are stronger with people who have great influence over others. It is a popular myth that the people at the very top are lonely. In fact, the opposite is true. The people at the top of almost any organization have more friends who are more loyal than most other people. Networking and building relationships are keys to building influence, and it is the primary decision making factor in all hiring and promoting within human organizations. The ability to build relationships and recognize that power is granted by others is an essential skill.

Building relationships is not easy work and is very complicated. Some basic principles:

• Fit in. People like other people who are like them. If you wish increase your influence within a social construct such as a company, club, or neighborhood, then fit in. The more you dress, speak, walk, and act like other people, the more they will be drawn to you.
• Show interest in others. Listen, and choose your conversational topics so that you are speaking about things in which your colleagues have interest. If they like baseball, learn all about baseball.
• Control your emotions. People are drawn to others who seem less extreme and more controlled. Avoid outbursts of visible anger. Avoid overly dramatic outbursts of happiness as well. Try not to let others see you in a depressed state where you look upset and avoid contact with them. The more stable and consistent your behavior, the more others will come to trust and respect you.
• Frequent contact. The more often you speak to someone without needing something from them, the more your relationship grows.

Fitting in, showing a genuine interest in others, and controlling your emotions are essential to relationship building.

Humans are naturally repelled by what is different. We wish we were not like this, but we are. When we all wear white shirts, and you wear a bright red shirt, you single yourself out and our primitive psyches scream out to us “outsider” and “danger.” Our heightened awareness of your differentness draws the rest of us together - to talk about you behind your back. Fit in or accept that you will not be chosen to lead.

We like to talk about ourselves and things we are interested in. Parents like to discuss their children, pet owners like to talk about their dogs and call them their “children,” and sports fans like to discuss their favorite teams. Listen to other people and find out what interests them. Allow them to talk about those things while you listen instead of blabbing on and on about your own interests. Ask after their children, pets, and favorite sports teams when you see them. Remember these interests and note them in your contacts information. You can be self-focused if you want, but you must accept the consequences of this choice. The consequence will be a small circle of loyal friends.

Our ability to control ourselves is a major factor in our ability to influence others. Most people seem to be in denial about how other people react to their passionate emotions. They think that because others are laughing and are entertained that they are increasing their influence, but nothing could be farther from the truth. When one person becomes emotional, their ability to influence others diminishes greatly. Whether they lash out at others or simply sigh a lot and how how tired and exasperated they are, we tend to withdraw our support for people who lose control of themselves.

How to Wield Power

Once you have influence with others, there are quite a few principles identified by many writers previously as to how to best exercise that power such that it grows like an investment rather than being spent like coins burning a hole in your pocket. There are some links at the bottom of this article to books I have read about power. They can be very enlightening and very depressing all at the same time. We like to believe we live in a world of altruistic goodness, but the reality is that we do not. Human beings, even when doing the most good they ever do, still have at the very core of their motives their own enlightened self-interest.

Power, like electricity, is a dangerous thing. When we exercise our ability to influence others, we are always in danger of causing others to fear our growing ability to influence. Once so intimidated, their good will will evaporate. Therefore, power must be exercised judiciously and with caution.

There are times when we make too great a display of our power and inspire others to resist us. There are also times that we should bring the hammer down and yet we fail to do so — presenting weakness that encourages our enemies to move in for the kill. The wielding of power is a delicate thing, and the consequences of using it or not using it can be very complicated and require consideration.

The Cost of Power

There is a golden rule of wealth: the more you have to lose, the more risk averse you become. The same is true of power, though power and wealth tend to be correlated with one another. The more influence you have over others, the more you might feel as though you are cornered and unable to exercise that influence without risking losing it.

Politicians have suffered this problem since the beginnings of government. A young prince has daring plans for his kingdom after the previous generation steps down or dies off, but when he finds himself crowned, suddenly those plans seem impossible to actually execute. He finds that he cannot simply order people about, for to do so would be to invite them to attempt to assassinate him or form a coalition and overthrow him. No, a king, a congressman, a parliamentarian, a senator, and a president are all constrained by the fact that their many entangling relationships which served to give them power also tie their hands and force them to make some rather mediocre decisions more designed to avoid trouble than to accomplish anything.

This brings up a contradiction - the more power we have, the more dangerous it becomes to wield, and the more likely we could take an action that will result in our losing power.

As a result, there is the issue of rationalizing our need to keep power because with it we can achieve something good, and then finding ourselves unwittingly committing acts of evil in order to achieve an end result using questionable means. Politicians do this regularly. “I need the big, evil special interest lobbyist to fund me or someone worse than me will win this office next time.” Such reasoning has justified an entire human history filled with leaders who allowed all sorts of horrible things to happen on their watch - some of them even committed the horrible acts themselves. All of this is for some great good - in their minds.

Before we judge such people, we should consider that having and wielding power is much more difficult than not having it, and the having of it creates moral ambiguity and exposes us to greater risk in terms of feeling powerless to do good in the world.

The more you have, the more you have to lose. The more you have to lose, the more afraid you are of angering others who might try to take what is yours or stop providing you with what you need. Political expediency is the order of the day for all human beings in the White House, the Capitol, grocery stores, banks, bookstores, jails, and even on the streets homeless. Politics equals power, and without influence with others, we social creatures who need others to survive will die.

Question Answered

Getting back to the original question of how can someone at the very bottom of the food chain in an organization effect change in that organization, the answer is easy and brutal: You cannot.

Without power, you are completely helpless and can effect nothing. Without power, you can do nothing. Thus, your short term options are simple: eat what they serve or leave.

Your long-term options are wider. You can start networking and relationship building with the other people in your organization, and slowly and carefully begin widening your circle of influence (a circle around you that includes your friends and expands as you build new friendships and shrinks as you destroy them) by making deposits in other people’s emotional bank accounts. You can remember their birthdays, remember their children’s names, ask after their spouses by name, and stay in touch with them via regular phone calls and by making yourself a very visible person who has the relationships, image, and self-control of someone in power.

Eventually, over time, and with great effort on your part, it is possible that later on you will find yourself sitting in the big chair yourself, scared to death to do anything about the problems that used to bother you so much, knowing that if you try to steer the ship too courageously in a new direction, your enemies will coalesce and your friends who live off that system will be intimidated and frightened and withdraw their support - thereby rendering you powerless.

It could almost be said that moving up in human organizations is more of an act of surrender than it is one of conquest. So many have misunderstood this and have sought power in organizations only to reach the top and be completely disillusioned by their inability to work effectively and efficiently using raw power alone. Instead, they find themselves carefully lining up their allies like chess pieces, trading this for that, comprimising a little here and a little there, until they are brokering deals every time they attempt anything.

This is how the world works, everyone.

The concepts in this article are found in some really great sources:

» The Prince by Machiavelli is the classic work on power in human organizations. A must-read to avoid the naive assumption that everyone around you is working in your best interest or that you can rampage through the halls of your workplace without consequences. Pure strategy - no morality.

» The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene is like Machiavelli on steroids. This amoral text describes directly how power is acquired and used in human organizations. A must read for anyone operating in any organization to succeed. More pure strategy without morals.

» Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People contains the description of the circle of influence and the concept of the emotional bank account. A must-read and a good first-read for aspiring leaders.

» Manager-Tools is Mark Horstman and Mike Auzenne’s answer to feeding your addiction to food, clothing, and shelter. Corporate boot camp for the naive idealist. Go there. Listen. Get promoted.