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  • Political Behavior in Organizations 2

    In the last byte, we looked at the definition of organizational politics and political behavior. In today’s byte, we continue the discussion further.
    By its very nature, politics is a controversial topics; and more so for the managers. While some managers take a favorable view of it, others see it detrimental to the organization. Some workers perceive their workplace to be highly political and find using political behavior very satisfying when they engage into it! These people would then thrive in such an environment. The other section generally finds the office politics distasteful and stressful. It is common to find that most people detect political behavior at all levels of the firm.
    Organizational conditions could also encourage political activity – unclear goals, autocratic decision making, ambiguous lines of authority, scarce resources and uncertainty – all these favor political activity!
    Political behavior in organizations could affect the organization very negatively when it is strategically undertaken to maximize self-interest.  That is, if members of an organization quite competitively pursue selfish ends – it is unlikely that the concerns of others are paid attention to. The workplace thus would be seen as less helpful, more threatening, and more unpredictable.

  • Political Behavior in Organizations

    In the last byte, we looked at Korda’s symbols of power and attempted to understand what each symbol represents. In today’s byte, we begin our discussion on Political Behavior in Organizations.
     
    Organizational Politics refers to the use of power and influence in an organization. The term of politics could have a negative connotation, but this is not necessarily true.
     
    Organization is a setting where people have competing interest, an effective manager would need to reconcile these interests. Thus the art of managing necessitates organizational politics. There are various tactics and strategies that could be used to acquire and expand power base. While some of these are sanctioned (approved by) in an organizational setting, there are others which are done without a sanction.
     
    Political Behavior thus refers to actions not officially sanctioned by an organization but taken up to influence others and thereby meet one’s personal goals. While in some cases, the goals could be aligned to team or organizational goals; in other cases, the personal goals and interests of others collide with each other; individuals pursue politics at the expense of others’ interest.

  • Power 12

    In the last byte, we looked at Kanter’s symbols of power. In today’s byte, we look at Korda’s symbols of power and attempt to see how these two are different. 

    Michael Korda uses rather unusual symbols – office furniture, time power and standing by as symbols of Power.

    Furniture gives an interesting indication of the power one holds. Ex: The size of one’s desk may convey the amount of power or, a rectangular (rather than circular) conference table could enable the most important person to sit at the head of the table.
     
    Time power refers to the use of clocks and watches as power symbols. Often, we find personal planners left open on the desk to display a busy schedule!
     
    Standing by refers to the obligation on people to be available (connected through internet, cell phones, pagers etc at all times so executive could reach them.
     
    An interesting definition of power by Korda is that – there are more people who inconvenience themselves on your behalf than there are people on whose behalf you would inconvenience yourself.
     
    While Kanter’s symbols focus on the ability to help others, Korda’s symbols focus on the status.

  • Power 11

    In the last byte, we looked at which sort of power would suit which kind of membership. In today’s byte, we look at Kanter’s symbols of power.

    Organizational charts though depict authority, generally do not tell much about who has power. One of the attempts to understand this was by Kanter. Kanter provides the following characteristics of powerful people in organizations.
    1. Ability to intercede for someone in trouble
    2. Ability to get placements for favored employees
    3. Exceeding budget limitations
    4. Procuring above average raises for employees
    5. Getting items on the agenda at meetings
    6. Access to early information
    7. Having top managers seek out their opinions
    We can clearly identify an active, other directed element of power in all the above. One could use these symbols to identify powerful people in organizations.
    Aligned to this, Kanter also identifies some of the characteristics of powerless people. One way to overcome powerlessness is to share power and delegate decision making authority to employees.

  • Power 10

    In the last byte, we looked at the power analysis by Amitai Etzioni. In today’s byte, we look at how the type of organizational power should be matched by the membership in the organization in order to achieve congruence. 

    In an alienative membership, members have hostile feelings. In such scenarios, coercive power is the appropriate power type to use.
     
    In calculative membership, analysis of the good and bad aspects of being in the organization. In such a scenario, it would be good to use a utilitarian or reward based power would be appropriate.
     
    In a moral membership, people possess a strong positive feeling. In such a scenario, normative power is the most appropriate.
     
    The following table summarizes the choices.
    This analysis emphasizes that the characteristics of an organization play a role in determining the type of power appropriate for use in the organization.
     
    This theory is however also controversial as this suggests the use of a single type of power in any organization.

  • Power 9

    In the last byte, we looked at the intergroup sources of power. In today’s byte, we look at concept of Power in a slightly different context.

    Amitai Etzoni looked at power from a sociological orientation and developed a theory of power analysis – that identifies three types of organizational power and three types of organizational involvement; which lead to either congruent or incongruent power uses.
    The three types of organizational power are:
    • Coercive Power – influencing members by forcing them to do something under threat or punishment
    • Utilitarian Power – influencing members by providing them with rewards and benefits
    • Normative Power – influencing members by using the knowledge that they want to belong to the organization and by letting them know that they are expected to do the right thing.
    The three types of membership are:
    • Alienative Membership – the members posses hostile, negative feelings towards the organization. They do not want to be there. Ex: Prisons
    • Calculative Membership – the members weigh the benefits and limitations of belonging to the organization Ex: business
    • Moral Membership – the members have positive feeling about the organizational membership and could also deny their own needs. Ex: an NGO working for better health etc.

  • Power 8

    In the last byte, we looked at the positive and negative faces of power. In today’s byte, we look at intergroup sources of power.

    Teams in organizations derive their power from either of the 2 sources:
    • Control of Critical resources
    • Control of Strategic Contingencies.
    Strategic contingencies refers to the activities that other groups depend on in order to complete their tasks.
    Strategic contingencies could arise from any of the three factors:
    1. ability to cope with uncertainty – a group’s ability to help others deal with uncertainty
    2. high degree of centrality – the group’s functioning is important to the organization’s success
    3. non substitutability – the extent to which the groups function is indispensible to an organization example a very specialized experience.

  • Power 7

    In the last byte, we looked at some of the ethical issues that come in the context of power usage. In today’s byte, we look at the two faces of power – personal power (a negative one) and social power (a positive one).

    Personal Power is a negative face of power and essentially signifies the use of power for personal gains. Another description for the managers who use personal power is “power hungry”. Extreme cases of personal power are called – Machiavelli – i.e. willing to it whatever it takes to get one’s own way. These people are generally unconcerned about other’s opinion or welfare.

    The positive face of power – Social power – represents the use of power to create motivation or to accomplish group goals. This could be done through the following four power-oriented characteristics:
    1. Belief in the authority system
    2. Preference for work and discipline
    3. Altruism
    4. Belief in justice.

  • Power 6

    In the last byte, we looked at information power and understood the role it plays. In today’s byte, we look at some of the criteria one could use to answer the question of ethics in the context of power usage.
     
    1. Q1: Does the behavior produce a good outcome for people both inside and outside the organization?
    2. Q2: Does the behavior respect the rights of all parties?
    3. Q3: Does the behavior treat all parties equitably and fairly?
    Only if a decision meets all the three criteria, would it seen as an ethical usage of power-related behavior. Even if the behavior of choice fails one of the three questions/criteria listed above, one would be in a better situation by taking care of all these three.
     
    Definitely, there could be conflicts amongst the various criteria and in such situations – choices need to be made. It is best that the criteria be filtered on a case-by-case basis to help solve complex ethical issues surrounding the use of power.

  • Power 5

    In the last byte, we looked at a few guidelines for the judicious use of power. In today’s byte, we look at a new type of power – Information Power.

    Information Power could be defined as – the power derived through the access to and control over important information.

    An example: Let us assume the case of a CEO’s personal secretary. He or She would have the information about the CEO’s schedule that would help other get an appointment with the CEO.
     
    The central crux of an individual’s information power is the person’s position in the communication network in the organization – both the formal and informal one.
     
    Managers could not just pass on information they receive to their subordinates, but also filter it based on the influence the information might have on the subordinate. This could give interesting “spins” to the whole information.
     
    Information power need not always be interpreted as a downward flowing power. It could also be an upward flowing power – ex: In a manufacturing plant the operators could feed in information that would drive the managerial decision making at higher levels.