Exploring perspective per, inter-group & inter-personal dynamics

Category: Power

rLiving Day 13: My CEO and his CEO (Power)

We had a visit from my boss’s boss’s boss’s boss’s boss, the top CEO, ‘Patrick’ today. He’s visited a number of times from his usual office in London. Every year he visits all 40 or so companies that the company owns to ‘meet the people’. I welcome his visits, and I appreciate his northern (England) charm, natural good humor and candor. He’s also been a good communicator over email through some tough times in the last couple of years. And most importantly he’s shown enormous trust in ‘Ethan’, our CEO.

Thankfully, Patrick holds a lot more power than I do. So do the other four people between me and him. And they’re welcome to it.

Relational Proximity Dimension #4 is Parity. The greater the asymmetry of power between me and someone else the greater the potential for difficult and strained relationships. This asymmetry can be real or perceived, and its affect on relationships can be more about the use and misuse of power than the mere existence of power disparity.

Power gets such a bad wrap these days. Power and control are spoken of as though they’re inherently evil. Except when it’s for us, our empowerment and autonomy. Then it’s absolutely glorious! We’re also a little hypocritical when we scream at regulators or companies or the rich for not doing stuff. “Doing stuff” presumes power to do.

Perhaps we just need a little more nuance in our talk of power. Power “for” maybe a way to talk about it. But even “power over” isn’t wholly wrong either. A voluntary, even if necessary, human organization of which I’m part has a purpose and a life bigger than my own, rightly or wrongly. So Ethan had the power – as much as I know he wished he didn’t have to exercise it – to eliminate a significant number of roles in the last 18 mths. There was no agreement by which anyone said, “I exercise my equal power to agree to lose my job!”. Ethan exercised power over us all because his power was “for” the organization as a whole. He also did it with grace and kindness because he had power “for” the individuals going and staying.

I’m not sure it’s possible, or even desirable, to avoid relations of power asymmetry. Knowing people like Ethan and Patrick are at the helm gives me great assurance and an ability just to get on with my job. Knowing my wife is wiser than me, that my daughter is weaker than me, that my friend is stronger than me and that my neighbor needs tech advice from me – these just create the web of rich interdependencies and trust that make good relationships what they are.

Clearly what needs to be avoided, among other things, is the misuse of power and equating power with value or status.

In my experience, Patrick, Ethan, and all the other bosses between me and them avoid those mistakes. The power they have “over” is exercised in such a way that feels genuinely “for”, me and for the organization. Within that, and the other constraints of working for a for-profit institution, I feel autonomous, empowered and of equal value with them all.

What experiences of healthy relationships within great power asymmetry do you have?

rLiving Day 4: Corporate Trust (Power)

This tweet just caught my eye, and had me wondering about the relational basis of trust:

The article by Stephen J. Gill, Ph.D includes this quote from Nick Sarillo, the owner of Nick’s Pizza and Pub, describing how performance and employee turnover was wrecked for a time because of a lack of trust:

Managers trained in command and control think it’s their responsibility to tell people what to do,” Sarillo says. “They like having that power. It gives them their sense of self-worth. But when you manage that way, people see it, and they start waiting for you to tell them what to do. You wind up with too much on your plate, and things fall through the cracks. It’s not efficient or effective. We want all the team members to feel responsible for the company’s success.”

Relational Proximity Dimension #4 is “Parity”. The greater the asymmetry of power between me and someone else the greater the potential for difficult and strained relationships. This asymmetry can be real or perceived, and its affect on relationships can be more about the use and misuse of power than the mere existence of power disparity.

The reality is that Sarillo and all his managers have power. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that. It’s what makes them managers, empowered to carry out their responsibilities and make decisions. Arguably, it’s their proper exercise of power that enables others to trust them and so get on with their own responsibilities. And command-and-control is not always in opposition to trust. The armed forces rely on it (not absolutely and not in all circumstances, however).

But a pizza company? The misuse of power and/or the identification of power with status – as in the quote above – resulted in gross mistrust. So in thinking about your relationships with others, to what extent does real or perceived power asymmetry make the relationship harder and erode trust? What can someone with power (whether it seniority, physical, monetary etc.) do to build trust without necessarily giving up that power? I’m 6’2″ and my daughter is 3’4″. How do I exercise my power in such a way that produces a flourishing relationship?

Notes:
1) Almost all the dimensions of Relational Proximity are important for trust. I’ll likely touch on other elements in future posts.
2) Neuroscience research is telling us more and more about ‘status’ and I’ll likely blog a lot more about that in the future. In fact, David Rock’s SCARF model reveals a lot of interesting neuroscience that I think confirms the Relational Proximity model.
3) Just a reminder: the Relational Proximity model is not mine, and I’ll say more about its origin and application after the 30 days.
4) For why I’m blogging all this, see the video on www.thirtydayproject.org and what the 30-day rLiving thing is about.