Tag Archives: power

Getting Clear (or not) and Exerting Power (or not)

My first inclination was to name this entry “Failing at Homework,” but I stopped myself because I’ve just read Eugene’s piece about power dynamics and just watched Amy Cuddy’s TED talk, and they both remind me of how I disempower myself before anybody else can even take a stab at it.

My plan this week was to determine how I wanted to contribute to the project at hand, and not wait for my role to be completely dictated by someone else. As Eugene pointed out to me, the first step was to get clear with myself what I want my role to be, and – sure enough – I never got there. In the meantime, the universe decided to pitch in; a critical person on the project is very ill and unable to continue working on it, and my efforts are more necessary than ever. Not that this defines exactly what I’ll do, which is still fuzzy, but it ensures my participation. I’ve had so much competing work thrown at me recently that I wasn’t even taking that for granted.

So what’s my barrier to deciding what I’d like to do and requesting it? Why do I have such trouble exerting power? It sounds like the beginning of a long therapy session, but no doubt it has to do with gender dynamics, childhood upbringing, fear of failure, and karmic lessons. I’m tempted to start faking it, as Amy Cuddy suggests, but I also fear becoming obnoxious. I guess I associate power with strident, cocky, unlikeable people. Surely there are exceptions, but now I realize that there’s not much I admire about the exertion of power.

Perhaps there’s a quiet, gentle power that would be more my style than what I’m envisioning, and perhaps that’s what I need to explore. The type exerted in Twelve Angry Men is certainly not it!

Observations on Power Dynamics

Last week’s workout was about group dynamics and about power. I was particularly excited about this workout because, to me, the essence of group work is about 1. being intentional about the work you’re trying to accomplish; and 2. finding ways to maximize the power of the group as a whole. Shifting groups requires understanding the existing power dynamics (many of which are invisible), and skillfully finding ways to guide them.

How do you learn to do that? You guessed it — practice. It’s the only way. Power dynamics are complex and multilayered, with many potential touchpoints. Most of us are already attuned to certain kinds of power dynamics. However, broadening that frame and finding ways to guide those dynamics in the moment can only happen with practice.

We started the workout by reflecting on times when we ourselves felt powerful. I wanted participants to understand their own relationship to power, both to find practices for enhancing their own sense of power and also to understand the biases of their lenses.

Coincidentally, my friend, Amy Wu, shared Amy Cuddy’s TED talk with me yesterday. It’s a simple yet insightful explanation of how our physical posture biologically affects how powerful we feel:

One other interesting observation from last week’s workout were my bootcampers’ reactions to a scene from 12 Angry Men, the classic Henry Fonda movie about a jury deliberating on the guilt of a teenager on trial for murdering his father. I asked them a number of questions about the dynamics they saw in the scene, then I asked if the dynamic was healthy. The response was unilaterally no.

I disagreed with that assessment. There were definitely some unhealthy micro-dynamics in that scene, but as a whole, it amounted to a healthy, if delicate balance. (Of course, that’s the point of the movie, which masterfully, yet subtly celebrates this country’s tradition of our right to be judged by a jury of our peers.)

I thought it was interesting that my bootcampers — all of whom are women — reacted so negatively to this scene of 12, well, angry men interacting, whereas I — a man — saw something very different. It once again speaks to the importance of understanding your own lens in how you interpret the dynamics in a room, and the difficulty of knowing what’s healthy and valuable for any particular group.