Power_ Why Some People Have Itand Others Don't - Jeffrey Pfeffer [61]
SPEAKING POWERFULLY
The language people use and how they construct presentations and arguments help determine their power. Great orators move masses—Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech and the speeches of Barack Obama in his campaign for the presidency being two notable examples. But power gets created in private interactions and small meetings, not just on a huge stage. There are some well-established principles that can help you subtly obtain more influence as you speak with power.
INTERRUPTION
One source of power in every interaction is interruption. Those with power interrupt, those with less power get interrupted. In conversation, interrupting others, although not polite, can indicate power and be an effective power move, something noted by scholars in a field called conversation analysis. Men interrupt others more frequently than women, and doctors seldom listen to their patients for very long without interrupting. In each instance, patterns of conversation reinforce differences in power and status derived from other sources such as general social expectations and expert authority.
Watching the Oliver North and Donald Kennedy hearings illustrates this phenomenon. North on one occasion stops an interrogator’s anticipated interruption by holding up his finger and saying, “Let me finish.” He refuses to be interrupted and in several other instances talks over the lawyers and legislators questioning him. By contrast, at one point Donald Kennedy requests permission to continue speaking, asking, “Can I continue?” and thanks the congressman when permission is granted.
CONTEST THE PREMISES OF THE DISCUSSION
In analyzing the Watergate hearings, sociologists Harvey Molotch and Deidre Boden note that there are three faces of power. The first is the ability to win in direct contests: Whose point of view prevails? The second is more subtle: Who sets the agenda, and in the process determines whether a specific issue will even be discussed or debated at all? And the third form of power is more subtle still: Who determines the rules for interpersonal interactions through which agendas and outcomes are determined?23
For interaction to take place at all, we must share at least some common understandings or we could never proceed. Molotch and Boden discovered that one way in which someone in a dominant position can leverage that influence is to question and challenge the basic assumptions that underlie another person’s account. This is also a strategy to obtain power in an interaction.
For example, John Dean, counsel to President Nixon, was the organizer of the cover-up that followed the Watergate break-in and the arrest of its perpetrators. In the hearings, he had the best opportunity to cast a damaging light on the president’s involvement because he had firsthand knowledge of what Nixon had said and done. Republican senator Edward Gurney attempted to damage Dean’s credibility by denying him access to such typical conversational conventions as assertion of motive or recollection of impressions, insisting instead that Dean stick to “the facts.” Dean remarked that the president had expressed appreciation of what he’d been doing, which implicitly meant that the president had to know what he had been doing about the cover-up—after all, how can you thank someone if you don’t know what you are thanking them for? Gurney challenged this interpretation, noting that there was never any explicit conversation about the cover-up particulars.
I have observed similar ploys used to gain power in business meetings. In most companies, the strategy and market dynamics are taken for granted.