Power_ Why Some People Have Itand Others Don't - Jeffrey Pfeffer [97]
Most people I talk to think they don’t have enough power and would love to become more effective at wielding influence. There are many, many jobs—project or product manager would be one good example—where people have tasks to accomplish that require the cooperation of others but do not have the formal authority to order, reward, or punish those whose cooperation they need. A product manager seeking to introduce a new version may need the help of engineering or research and development to design the new product, manufacturing to get it produced, and sales attention for distributing it into the market. But in many consumer products companies, product managers do not have line authority over any of these critical functions. Similarly, implementing a new information technology system, such as an enterprise resource planning application, often led by a project manager from IT, requires the assistance of those from the operating units who will need to provide data and also use the system and the cooperation of the finance function, although IT people do not have line authority over either operations or finance. Simply put, responsibility and authority don’t always coincide. As organizations have become more matrixed, with overlapping and dotted-line chains of command, employ more task forces and teams to bring disparate expertise together to solve problems, and face greater demands for speed, the premium for execution is going up.
Getting things done under circumstances where you lack direct line authority requires influence and political skills—a knowledge of organizational dynamics—not just technical skills and knowledge. Zia Yusuf, the senior SAP executive described in chapter 3, has been extremely successful in working across organizational boundaries—something he had to do in his roles as leader of the internal strategy consulting team and as head of the SAP ecosystems unit. In describing how he has been able to implement ideas even without a technical background and as an outsider to the company, at least initially, Yusuf emphasized two things: first, do excellent quality work, which entails hiring and effectively leading outstanding talent. And second, understand the organizational dynamics—how different people perceive things, what their interests are, how to make a persuasive case, and how to get along with people and build effective personal relationships.
POLITICAL INFLUENCE VERSUS HIERARCHY IN DECISION MAKING
A fourth way to think about the issue of whether political dynamics are good for organizations is to contrast them with the most common and seemingly preferred alternative—hierarchical decision making with its control, discipline, and orderliness. We seem to like markets and democracies for societies, but prefer more dictatorial arrangements inside organizations. Much has been written about the imperial CEO with ever-increasing salaries and perquisites and unchecked authority, including the power to stifle dissent.17 Senior executives, and even board members who don’t support the CEO, are often ousted.
The political contests for power and influence and lobbying for support for one’s ideas that constitute power dynamics in companies can appear messy and chaotic. But maybe there are some useful parallels between countries and the organizations that reside within them. As Winston Churchill noted, “It is said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.”18 Although people take it as axiomatic that regardless of its faults, a democratic system, complete with campaigns designed to influence voter choice, equal weight for everyone’s vote, and politicking to affect decisions, is a great way to make societal-level choices, inside companies democracy is the exception. In spite of many studies showing the superior performance achieved through delegating decision-making authority, little devolution of power has occurred inside companies in the last 50 years. “The idea that…organizations can be governed as democratic political systems is alien to mainstream management