How to decode your position of power

While we all know something about power, working in conflict or change management requires a clear understanding of power and how to decode and understand it. So what is power really and how is it constructed? Our world identifies certain individuals as 'having power' and then proceeds to make them more powerful by talking about them in the media. Politicians, high profile business leaders, characters from the entertainment industry and those frequently in the public eye are often said to examples of ‘powerful people’.

A useful way of decoding any phenomenon is to go beyond the 'what is it?' question and rather look at 'what does it do?'. In organisations, power can do many things. It can speed things up, slow things down, alter trajectory, transform our understanding of ‘what is going on’ and divert attention to something altogether different. We each have some measure of power and your position of power could be defined by:

• Knowing what you want – having a clear vision of where you are going

• The timeframes of your visions and strategies – how far into the future does your story go? (tip: a Long Timeframe contains a greater sense of power than than visions with short timeframes)
• The way you talk and think about yourself and your frustrations
• Your ability to learn & pay attention
• Authority over the way others perceive you and what they say about you
• Your choice of language and metaphors
• Control over the money and the PIN numbers
• Control over the story (are you in your own story or someone else’s story?)
• Ability to mete out brutality and violence in all its forms (such as exclusion / ostracising, disapproval, withholding sex and intimacy, firing, physical punishment, active / passive aggression etc..)
• Knowledge / Know-How
• Freedom of choice
• Your ability to sacrifice / let go / move on / forget the past
• Access to powerful, interesting people in positions of power (who are as smart or smarter than you are)
• Know-how to access to information that will help your get what you want
• The ability to tell a good story that arouses emotion on others
• Access to the internet and an interest in communication & networking technology
• Access to software tools that enable you to stay current and in touch with thought leadership from diverse fields
• Having a good story to tell
• Having interesting stimulating people with budgets whom you tell your story to
• Your preparedness to experiment and try new things
• The ability to network powerfully with the people with whom you desire to network
• The scary stories people tell about you, particularly tales of what you have done in the past / the mythologies of violence you have enacted
• The ability to make people uneasy or frightened and your ability to be unpredictable & ruthless (you might be able to do this better than you think!)
• Your ability to actively work and play with your own metaphors
• Keeping up with new metaphors, jargon
• The ability to say NO and to absolutely, positively mean it
• The ability to say YES and to absolutely, positively mean it
• Knowing about power and how it works

Steve Banhegyi steve@storytelling.co.za
used with permission from the Trans4mation Blog