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Track Truss

Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010

Track Truss

Achieving Influence Beyond your Positional Power, Bill and Steveâs Story Part 1

Can you imagine having far more influence than your positional power would normally allow without manipulating, domineering or intimidating others? Can you imagine achieving this influence simply by acting with integrity and by the sheer force of your self awareness capacity to communicate? If you could exercise this level of influence in this way then you would earn the respect and admiration of your colleagues, and you would be highly appreciated by your boss, or if you are a boss by the people you lead.

However, for most of us this can only be a dream or something to fanaticise about. However effective capacity building tools make it possible for you and the majority of people to build the capacities to make this possible.

Let us tell you about how this would be possible for you through the story of Bill and Steve.

Bill and Steve are two technically competent people confronted by a dilemma on a building site. You Can read about how they dealt with the dilemma. You might think that the way they acted is typical of what goes on in workplaces all over the world all of the time. You may even think that if you had been in their place you might have acted in the same way.

Both Bill and Steve are hardworking and ambitious people and there is no question about their technical abilities. We want to suggest, however, that in terms of their awareness and communication capacities they both demonstrated some failings that led to a less than satisfactory incident. These failings are very widespread in the workplace â€“ indeed they might be failings that we all share if we are but honest enough to acknowledge them.

We want to use this story as a way of showing you why things can and do go wrong in the workplace, even when people are technically competent. These things go wrong not because people are technically incompetent but because of the way they manage their awareness and their capacity to communicate. These limitations are very widespread in the workplace not only among rank and file people, but right throughout the ranks of leadership.

You might think as you read the story that we are being a bit â€œpickyâ€ and that you as practical people have to get the work done, with time constraints and budgets to meet. We accept that if your awareness and communication capacities are in an untransformed state then this is a fair enough response. Our point is that if you take the time and trouble to transform your awareness and your capacity to communicate then you will not get yourselves and/or your organisations into the troubled territory that Bill and Steve found themselves in.

This is Bill and Steveâ€™s story:

Bill was a foreman on a construction site. Bill was required, with a team of men to erect a series of panels making up the exterior walls of a house. The panels were made of framing timber and plywood. The panels were prefabricated in a factory, then transported to the building site and erected on the foundation.

On this occasion the overall supervisor, Steve, was present, and he told Bill that the target was to get the panels erected that afternoon as the roof trusses were ordered for the following day and the momentum of the job had to be kept going. Each of the panels is about 2.4 metres square. They are quite heavy and it takes two or three men to lift them into position, and then fix them in place. If they were dropped on a worker serious injury would certainly result, if not death. They are very dangerous to handle in high winds.

Bill surveyed the weather signs and was quite worried by the signs. He knew that a strong north westerly was forecast. He knew that if the wind got up, erecting the panels was a potentially dangerous situation for him and the others in the gang.

As Steve the supervisor left he said to Bill that he knew the fine job Bill and his gang were doing and that he was sure they would get the panels up that afternoon. Steve also said that he knew the respect the men had for Bill, and he added "I know you won't let us down".

Yes said Bill in a confident tone. However, what was going on inside Bill was a different story. As he looked out at the signs of the weather, and the fact that the wind was getting up he became tense and worried. He was afraid that he wouldn't have the strength of character to shut the operation down, and avoid the potential of somebody being seriously injured. Bill wanted to succeed in an objective sense to meet the firm's targets, but also to look good in Steve's eyes. Bill was also concerned that he would have to deceive his gang about the dangers and letting them think it was safe to continue, even though he thought he might be pushing the operating limits.

The outcome was all too predictable. The wind became a gale. Bill compromised the safety of the men and his own safety by erecting the panels that afternoon. Bill felt that he had let his men down, and set a poor example for the safe operating limits. He received no satisfaction from the praise he received for keeping the job on schedule. Bill felt that he had manipulated his men and jeopardised their safety. He also felt that Steve had manipulated him and he resented this. He felt that his integrity as an honest and ethical person had been compromised.

The incidents that we have described are typical of what goes on in many workplaces and it was probably fortunate that there was no accident and someone was not seriously hurt if not killed. A windblown panel could be a lethal object. Many people would say that this is the way of the workplace and nothing can really be done about it except have strict rules of operation and enforce them. We want to suggest that there is another way that is far superior that results in improved productivity and where there is a high level of trust and solidarity.

Bill experienced misgivings during his conversation with Steve but he could not reconcile these concerns in any conclusive way that would have allowed him to deal with them at the time. Bill was unable to make the connection between the events in the external world with what was going on inside his mental life. He felt uneasy but could not articulate his feelings with the responsibility that he felt, for the safety of the construction team and for keeping to the schedule for the job. His feelings and emotions were clouded and he was unable to separate the reasons behind his feelings and the feelings he was experiencing.

Bill was also unable to deal effectively with his boss, Steveâ€™s manipulative form of conversation even though Bill resented being manipulated and this was also likely to have contributed to his frustrations. Manipulative forms of conversation by bosses are very common in the workplace. They are a standard means of coordinating activities but they come at a price, as we will show shortly. How can workers counter the positional power of the boss, when the boss places them in a vulnerable position like Bill was placed in?

Had there been an accident Bill would have been held responsible. Bill would experience the guilt of being responsible for someoneâ€™s injury or worse. He had enough misgivings after the event as it was. An accident would also have been registered as a blemish on Billâ€™s work record and could affect his future career prospects. Bill would also have lost the respect of the construction team, something that he valued. Bill would have found it difficult to shift the responsibility to Steve who used his superior power in the organisation to manipulate Bill to get the job done even in spite of the dangers of the gale.

Letâ€™s examine Steveâ€™s role in this event. Steve was responsible for the overall coordination of the building work for the company, not just on this job but on other companyâ€™s jobs. He was charged with the responsibility of making sure that the work proceeded in accordance with the schedule and in accordance with the budget for the job. Profit margins were tight and keeping the job on schedule was an important business imperative.

Steve used manipulation to achieve his purposes, and this was probably Steveâ€™s stock in trade for keeping the jobs on track. Steve probably understood himself as an efficient operator and he would do what it took to keep things on track, even if it meant a little subtle persuasion, which is how he would interpret his manipulation. It is likely that Steve would use domination and intimidation if he thought that would work. It is likely that Steve would have felt quite smug at exploiting Billâ€™s vulnerability.

However Steveâ€™s tactics would almost certainly create resentment and animosity within the organisation, not just within Billâ€™s team. This type of resentment has important implications for both Steve and his career and for the organisation as it undermines trust and solidarity. If there had been an accident Steve would almost certainly shift the responsibility to Bill, even though Steve would have been far from free of blame had something gone wrong.

If there had been an accident it is likely that the company would have been prosecuted for operating an unsafe workplace. This would rebound back on the company in having people such as Bill and Steve who are very competent at the core technical tasks of building, but who were unable to act with awareness in critical areas of their responsibility.

Itâ€™s likely that the company would in most situations condone Steveâ€™s use of manipulation and whatever else Steve decided to do in order to keep the jobs on schedule. They would also applaud Billâ€™s technical skills in completing the panel erection in the face of the gale. Itâ€™s our experience that organisations would prefer to have solidarity and trust in their workplace, and to also operate safe workplaces, but they are also under pressure to maintain deadlines and budgets. Deadlines and budgets are the pressures that lead to condoning and tacitly approving manipulation, bullying and intimidation, and cutting safety corners. Managements in many organisations seem largely unaware that they can in fact achieve greater productivity and at the same time maintain trust and solidarity, as well as operate safe workplaces, if they and their people are able to act with greater awareness and to communicate that awareness with skill.

W can see that there are many things that were far from ideal. The important issue is whether anything can be done to overcome the weaknesses that we have observed or is this just the way things are in organisational life. We suspect that most people would say that this is just human nature and leave it at that. We want to disagree as strongly as we can with this point of view.

In order to deal with the issues we have highlighted it is important that people change their behaviour. How is the change in behaviour to be brought about?

Changes in behaviour involve a number of things including transforming the awareness and transformation capacities that we will deal with in Part 2 of this article.

Much more than a simple training programme is involved in these transformations. These transformations involve deep seated psycho-dynamic forces that will not transform in a simple instructional or training situation.

In a subsequent article we will deal with what is involved in transforming the awareness and communication capacities. In later articles we will deal with the other dynamics of transformation. You can learn more about our learning change programs by visiting our site

About the Author

Dr Bob Calkin is the CEO of Career Mentoring Institute who provide on-line capacity building programs for organizations and individuals helping them transform their behavior to meet the challenges of the modern workplace. You can find out more about CMI's capacity building programs by visiting our site