Power and fortune

This is the next series of posts from hand-picked guest bloggers about power; they have also written about trust . The idea for this series was kicked off by me rewatching Game of Thrones and thinking about its twin themes of power and trust.

My second guest blogger to write about power is Susan Cooper, who comes from the corporate world and who I first met on Triberr but is now a firm friend on Twitter.  Her first guest post on trust is a wonderful read and can be accessed here if you haven’t read it. Susan is now very happy being an artist, writer and blogger. Besides the fact that she tells really good stories, her biggest draw card to her blog www.findingourwaynow.com would be her delightful illustrations.

Have you ever wondered why a fortune teller – or whatever fortune predictor is at hand – has the power to convince us that what they (or it) have to say has real value? It’s fascinating to me how easy it is to take what a fortune teller has to say as a predictor of our good or bad fortune. That they – or it – have a crystal ball that can foretell any future event or events to come.

Let me give you an example. It’s fun to open a fortune cookie to see what the fortune will be. Many times we get some inane fortune that says something like: “You are a great person, with a good personality”. However, every now and then, we get one that hits home at just the right time that seems to speak just to us. We hold on to it, both physically and mentally. We put it in our purse or wallet. We post it on a bulletin board at work or home on the refrigerator.  We hang on to it as if it were a message meant just for us. That the message we receive is from an unknown sage who has the ability to see into our future. Then we start looking for signs that the fortune is coming to pass… until we forget about it. So why do we do this? My belief is we do it because it makes us feel good for a time. We have the notion that something wonderful could happen because that particular fortune showed up at just the right moment.

I had one of these fortunes appear the other day. The fortune read: “You will be traveling and coming into a fortune”. My first thought was: “WOW!!! I am so ready for that!”. My second thought was: “Who knows?  It could happen”.  The first part of this fortune is already true. I travel fairly regularly. The second part is what we all hope for. So (don’t laugh) I bought a lottery ticket with the numbers that were below the fortune (now I know you’re laughing!). Now, I have to say that is real power, when something like that can move us to think that we could be the next lotto winner.

When we (at least I do) think of coming into a fortune, we think of winning a lottery, or inheriting a large sum of money from some unknown relative. Admit it: we even have plans (you know it’s true) as to how we would spend our winnings or windfall. The fact is: the possibility of either of these things happening is very remote, especially because many of us rarely buy a lottery ticket, or have a long-lost unknown relative. However, we still wait for that miracle, wishing and hoping that it will come to pass… and as soon as possible.I believe we do this same thing in our daily lives. We do this by waiting, praying, wishing and hoping for something magically to appear to make our lives “all better”. Doesn’t that sound about right? We can’t see the power that we possess to create our own good fortune. Metaphorically speaking, we miss the part about buying the “lottery ticket” of working towards a goal we desire.

So what occurred to me was,  just maybe,  the power and meaning of that fortune in the cookie is our journey in life leads to the good fortune of knowledge, friends and priceless experiences. This is where true wealth lies and what we should draw from when finding our way to a happy, purposeful – and yes – a wealthy life that is rich with all the experiences we would miss by waiting. Working towards a goal isn’t as sexy or as easy as winning the lotto or inheriting a fortune, but waiting for something that will never happen is most certainly a fruitless endeavor.

There are two lessons from this. The first lesson is: don’t wait for something to happen that will bring us good fortune. There is no power or sage out there who can tell us what the future holds. We shouldn’t wait for something magical to reveal itself to us. It certainly won’t come from a fortune teller or a cookie. The journey to any new opportunity is often a circuitous route so buy a “lottery ticket” by taking action that moves towards something. That “start of something” is most often right in front of us, even if it’s only to spend time on a favorite hobby. Just get started.

The second lesson is to look within ourselves for gifts we possess and have gained from our life’s experiences, and then find a way to use them. Aside from our natural gifts, I see the remaining successes as our reward for all the challenges we face and overcome, now and from our experiences.  We just never know where one of these hard-earned gifts will take us unless we find a way to put them to good use. Now that is truest, purest power we all possess.

Life’s journey continues…

Power poisons the weak

This is the next series of posts from hand-picked guest bloggers about power; they have also written about trust . The idea for this series was kicked off by me rewatching Game of Thrones and thinking about its twin themes of power and trust.

The first to write about power for this series is Cullen Habel, who I know personally, but first met via Twitter. If you haven’t read it, his first post about trust was a fabulous, enlightening read. I have great respect for Cullen because he is a straight shooter and tells it like it is, and this brilliant post is no exception (being a straight shooter myself, I know what a burden this can be!). Cullen has worked in academia, sales, hospitality, retail and a long time ago in a radio workshop. He has a habit of trying to look beyond the obvious. You can connect with him via Twitter or his blog.

On the face of it, we all might imagine that power and trust are somehow linked.

It’s certainly where I was headed when I first started thinking that trust to me means I don’t think you’re a deep down asshole and we got an insight of it when @naturalgrump posted that trust is about power – I give the electricity salesman the power over a half hour of my time in the expectation that he will give me the economic savings he promised.  No wonder I feel a sense of betrayal when lured into a mind numbing, unproductive meeting so that somebody can tick a KPI or a “consulted” box.

I started mentally writing this post three weeks ago and it’s taken some unravelling. My dear wife operates a leadership consultancy and is a practitioner in choice theory, and I feel like I’ve spent my entire working life in a trust/power spin cycle. The themes of power and decency are never far from the practice of our lives.

Power, to me, is the ability to have an effect on other people’s lives. It might be as small as putting too much sugar in your boss’s coffee, or taking everything that’s important away from a person.

Power may occur in a good way, such as building another person’s self-esteem or in a bad way, such as provoking a sense of dread when you enter the room.

Having an effect on other people – isn’t that a fundamental driver of human behaviour? Even if the effect is only that the other people leave you alone or don’t trash you. My experience is that everybody sees it that way.

In fact the abuse of power often becomes a bit of a “dad joke” when I play the caricature of a power poisoned boss.  Recently, as we walked up to the locked car I barked: “Come on Mia… get in the car… don’t waste my time!”.

Mia: “Dad, the car’s locked.”

Me: “I don’t want to hear your excuses.”

So, there are a few topics on my mind here:

1. Internal strength and power poisoning

I’m not sure it’s as simple as George Orwell’s “power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely” but I think it’s a part of it.  I once saw a lovely young kid go crazy when I told him that as the oldest he was in charge. Bizarre. I’ve seen people of strength become almost embarrassed when given the responsibility of authority. The best of those are the ones who move past the embarrassment, and do the leadership stuff out of a sense of duty, not superiority.

2. Refusing to become toxic is not weakness

I have also seen weak people hold the stronger in contempt: “He hasn’t got the stomach for it”.  I knew a manager in retail who was dictated to terminate an employee that senior management didn’t like.  It ended up with this store manager losing his job.  He thought that it was better him than a person who didn’t deserve it.  Plenty more crappy jobs for bad companies out there, he mused.

3. Dark power is not strength

It is not a measure of your strength that people clam up when you enter the room.  If you believe that, then your lens is cracked.

4. The armour of goodwill

If you wield this dark power, then people seem to take any opportunity to take a shot at you. This forces you to continually defend. Compare that to the mountain of goodwill that – say – the Vinomofo guys command.

For over 40 years I have watched dark power and bright power at work.  It seems there’s a choice between the armour of goodwill and the illusion of strength.

I hope I have chosen the right path, and can walk it.

The challenge of being a knowledge worker

In the 21st century, the workforce of the western world is supposed to be forged around knowledge. You can see this trend very clearly, with the slow, strangled death of manufacturing (despite being propped up by handouts from the government) and the rise and rise of digital work. Who knew coding apps would have been a job five years ago? Ditto social media, and the multitudes of jobs that has been spawned around this hive of industry?

The “supply and demand” of knowledge has had a major effect on our workplaces, particularly ones I have found myself in. I think it’s fair to say that a major side effect of knowledge “production” is that workplaces have increased in complexity. We are forced to work together in increasingly complex environments on quite complex tasks. There are grey areas about who does what, which project management principles, Six Sigma, TQM and the like attempt to sort out. But in many respects, we don’t actually “produce” anything. Nothing overtly tangible anyway.

I have never worked in manufacturing, but I imagine that each person who works on building something, or producing something, has an overwhelming sense of achievement. Call me a romantic, but there is something honest about being able to say “I built that” or “I contributed to the building or making of that”. In my own working day, I might write a plan, a brief, some copy. I may do something semi-tangible like update a website, create a Prezi, or produce a booklet or a pamphlet, but these things are ephemeral, and the sense of achievement is only fleeting.

For the average knowledge worker, this also means that despite workplaces being underwritten with employer branding messages, workplace safety legislation, competency frameworks, continuous improvement, management training, team building initiatives, value statements, and performance management and development plans, the horse-trading of information, power games and office politicking are daily activities that have to be navigated with care. Being a knowledge worker is not unlike being back in court in 16th Century England. There are factions, sabotage and behind-the-scenes power plays that would chill even the Tudors. Manoeuvering through this quagmire is akin to walking through a swamp filled with landmines. A foot wrong, and the whole thing is likely to blow up in your face. And take your career with it.

Or maybe it’s just many of the workplaces I’ve been “lucky” enough to work in that are like this?

Trust is about power

This is the fourth in a series of posts from hand-picked guest bloggers about trust. The idea was kicked off by me rewatching Game of Thrones and thinking about its twin themes of power and trust.  

My fourth guest blogger is Sukh Pabial, who I  first met on Twitter when I was an L&D consultant. Sukh is a L&Der as well, and we have formed a collegiate friendship via Twitter. I have even guest blogged for him on his blog Thinking About Learning, and thought he was a perfect candidate for writing about trust. You can find Sukh on Twitter as @naturalgrump, but he is the least grumpy person I know. And very, very wise.

I find trust to be an interesting topic. It’s fraught with so many definitions, expectations, and desires that it’s a bloody minefield to navigate well. What’s worse is, the emotions that come attached with it. I like to be trusted; it helps me to be a nice human being. I hate breaking trust, I feel like a lowly slug that should be squished and have my guts splattered everywhere.

So let’s think about trust from a different perspective, which I hope will give another set of complications to think about. Trust is about power.

We all have power in this world, and we wield this power in different ways. Some are good at influencing, others are good at sales, some are good at strategy, and others are good leaders. In all these cases, these people have found a power they hold, and use it to their advantage. And in doing so, they also create a trusting bond. If you are the recipient of the above, you will expect that their world is held true, and you agree – implicitly – to share your power with them.

When I agree to take the phone call “Hello, Mr Pabial, I’m calling about your gas bill, can I have five minutes of your time?”, I’m agreeing to giving you my power for that time. What you do with it is where the balance either tips in your favour or not. If we reach an accord, an interesting thing happens. Both our levels of power increase.  I feel more in control of my life and finances because of a decision you have helped me to make. You feel more in power because you have completed a successful transaction that gives you a monetary reward as well as boosting your self-confidence and esteem. My trust in you is elevated, I feel like I’ve gained something and this is a mutually beneficial relationship.

I will perform wonders with my trust. I will sing your praises, I will recommend you to others, I will stay loyal to you for a long time, and basically be your friend. Because I have shared power with you, that makes me feel my trust in you was well placed.

But if it goes wrong, the power goes all skew-whiff. I resent you taking my time and that I shared my power with you. I gave you an opportunity to raise us both, and it was cast aside like a cheap hotdog with bad ketchup. The power I was in control of is now beyond my reach because of this bad event. Your power is also taken from you. You don’t make the sale, you don’t make me glad to have been part of this call, and your power is diminished for this poor event.

I will also perform wonders with my trust when you break it. I will actively discourage others from using your service. With social media, I can make my voice heard by the masses and you will have to respond to me. I will move my service to someone else and you will lose my custom. I will be angry I shared my power with you to lose my trust in you.

So, what will you do with my power when you ask for it?

A Good Friday post

Earlier this week I explained why I thought Easter kicked Christmas’s butt.  Today is Good Friday, and it has been a good day indeed. After going for a quick 3km run this morning (I wanted to run 5, but my knee played up at the 2km mark), I had @Boo_Squared over for lunch (I had promised her Nigella Lawson’s slut spaghetti), then settled in for an afternoon watching Game of Thrones (she had read the book and I told her she must watch the series).

I first watched this series over Christmas in a TV binge. In two days, I had made my way through the entire season. If you haven’t seen it, I can categorically state that it is one of the best shows I have ever had the pleasure of viewing.  Ever. And I like it for so many reasons. The production values are excellent (no expense has been spared), the characters (and casting) are so believably flawed, the story is oozes suspense and intrigue, the writing is just spot-on. But most of all I love how it’s a story about power and trust. And this intrigues and resonates with me, because I believe power (and its abuse or non-existence) and trust (and betrayal)  are themes that underpin, impact and are a catalyst for all human relationships.

Suffice it to say, I will be exploring this theme further. I put the call out on Twitter today and have asked a number of eminent people to contribute to the theme of trust on this blog (power will follow) and give me their take on it. It’s an open brief, so I am not sure what will be written. All I can do is guarantee it will be worth checking out.

And to whet your appetite, here is my friend @Boo_Squared‘s take on trust (and I absolutely agree):

@dileeshus Yeah, I’ll contribute something along the lines of, there’s a big difference between appearing trustworthy and actually being it

— Secret Squirrel (@Boo_Squared) April 6, 2012

Stay tuned, readers!