“Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren’t.”

   Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance? (2003) Louis Gerstner “Fixing IBM was all about execution. We had to stop looking for people to blame, stop tweaking the internal structure and systems. I wanted no excuses.”

3

Power and politics often have negative connotations because people associate them with attempts to use organizational resources for personal advantage and to achieve personal goals at the expense of other goals.

 Power, formal authority, and obedience.

•   The Milgram experiments.

Designed to determine the extent to which people obey the commands of an authority figure, even under the belief of life-threatening conditions.

The results indicated that the majority of the experimental subjects would obey the commands of the authority figure.

 Raised concerns about compliance and obedience.

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 15 6

Zone of Indifference -

the range in which attempts to influence a person will be perceived as legitimate & will be acted on without a great deal of thought

Zone of Indifference

Managers strive to expand the zone of indifference

Z o n e o f I n d i f f e r e n c e

Power -

person the ability to influence another person

Influence -

thoughts, behavior, & feelings of another person

Authority -

the process of affecting the the right to influence another

Reward Power Referent Power Expert Power -

agent’s ability to control the rewards that the target wants

Coercive Power -

agent’s ability to cause an unpleasant experience for a target

Legitimate Power -

agent and target agree that agent has influential rights, based on position and mutual agreement based on interpersonal attraction- timing matters agent has knowledge target needs

Sources of Power

Expert Power Referent Power Legitimate Power Reward Power Coercive Power

Consequences of Power

Commitment Compliance Resistance

(Continued)

Expert Power!

   Strong relationship to performance & satisfaction Transfers vital skills, abilities, and knowledge within the organization Employees internalize what they observe & learn from managers they consider “experts”

Information Power -

access to and control over important information  Formal/informal position in communication network  Interpreting information when passing it on

Does the behavior produce a good outcome for people both inside and outside the organization?

Does the behavior respect the rights of all parties?

Does the behavior treat all parties equitably and fairly?

Personal Power

 used for personal gain

Social Power

 used to create motivation  used to accomplish group goals

   Have high need for

social

power Approach relationships with a communal orientation Focus on needs and interests of others belief in the authority system preference for work & discipline belief in justice altruism

   Control of critical resources Control of

strategic contingencies -

activities that other groups need to complete their tasks Ways groups hold power over other groups • • • Ability to reduce uncertainty High centrality - functionality central to organization’s success Nonsubstitutability - group’s activities are difficult to replace

Organizational Power

Coercive Power -

influence through threat of punishment, fear, or intimidation

Utilitarian Power -

rewards and benefits influence through

Normative Power -

influence through knowledge of belonging, doing the right thing

Organizational Membership

Alienative Membership -

members feel hostile, negative, do not want to be there

Calculative Membership -

members weigh benefits and limitations of belonging

Moral Membership -

members have positive organizational feelings; will deny own needs

Coercive Utilitarian Normative

Type of Membership

Alienative Calculative Moral SOURCE: Adapted from Amitai Etzioni,

Modern Organizations (Upper “Saddle River, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, 1964), 59-61

Ability to intercede for someone in trouble Ability to get placements for favored employees Exceeding budget limitations Procuring above-average raises for employees Getting items on the agenda at meetings Access to early information Having top managers seek out their opinion

Top Executives

• budget cuts • punishing behaviors • top-down communications

Managers

• assign external attribution blame others or environment

Staff Professionals

• resistance to change • turf protection

First-line Supervisors

• overly close supervision • inflexible adherence to rules • do job rather than train

 Authority to make decisions without having to first get approval.

 Giving Power and Authority Away  Carries Risk and Reward  How does it enhance innovation and why does it work?

Organizational Politics -

the use of power and influence in organizations

Political Behavior -

actions not officially sanctioned by an organization that are taken to influence others in order to meet one’s personal goals

  How to be a Star at Work 1999 Robert E Kelley “What average performers think it is: The talent for brownnosing and schmoozing in the workplace to help me get noticed by the right people. What start performers know it to be: A work strategy that enabled me to navigate the competing interests in an organization to promote cooperation, address conflicts and get things done.”

   How to win Friends and Influence People Dale Carnegie 1998 “Always make the other person feel important…and do it sincerely. Please, thank you and Would you mind?...”

(Continued)

(Continued)

 A Final Word on Power and Politics authenticity (Continued)

11

 Recognize that power and politics influence all behavior in organizations and that it is necessary to develop the skills to be able to understand and manage them.

 Analyze the sources of power in the function, division, and organization in which you work to identify powerful people and the organization’s power structure.

 To influence organizational decision making and your chances of promotion, try to develop a personal power base to increase your visibility and individual power.

Questions