The Power School

Background
Introduce by: Quinn and Lind-blom

Strategy formation is an overt process of influence, emphasizing the

use of power and politics to negotiate strategies favorable to particular
interests.

Organizational Politics:
( By Bol man and Deal, 1997 )

1. Organizations are coalitions of various individuals and interest groups.

2. There are enduring differences among coalition members in values,
beliefs, information, interests, and perceptions of reality.
3. Most important decisions involve the allocation of scarce resources
who gets what.

4. Scarce resources and enduring differences give conflict a central role in

organizational dynamics and make power the most important resource.
5. Goals and decisions emerge from bargaining, negotiation, and jockeying
for position among different stakeholders.

Organizational Politics
Three systems in organization
Formal authority, established culture, and certified expertise
Legitimate means sometimes used to pursue ends that are
illegitimate.
Forth System --- Politics
Not formally legitimate, can be used to pursue ends that are in fact
legitimate.

Types of Power
Micro Power

Macro Power

Macro Power
Use of power by the organization.

Micro Power
Deals with the play of politics of illegitimate and a legitimate power
inside an organization, specifically within the processes of strategic
management.
Individual Interests
Strategy as a political process

Strategy as a Political
Process
Bargaining and compromises

Competing goals of individuals and coalitions ensure that any

intended strategy will be disturbed and distorted every step of the
way.

Political Games In Organizations

Insurgency game
Played to resist authority
Effect change in the organization
Played by lower participants
Example

Political Games In Organizations

Counterinsurgency game
Played by those in authority who fight back with political means,
perhaps legitimate ones as well.
Example

Political Games In Organizations

Sponsorship game:
Played to build power base.
Individual attaches self to someone with more status, professing
loyalty in return for power.
Alliance-building game
Played among peer often line managers or experts
Negotiating contracts of support for each other
Too build power bases to advance selves in the organization

Political Games In Organizations

Empire-building game
Played by line managers to build powerbases
Individually with subordinates, not cooperatively with peers.
Budgeting game
Clearly defined rules to build power base
Less divisive, since prize is resources, not positions.

Political Games In Organizations

Expertise game
Non sanctioned use of expertise to build power base, either by
flaunting it or by feigning it.
Lording game
Played to build power base by "lording" legitimate power over those
without it or with less of it.
Manager can lord formal authority over subordinate or public servant
over a citizen.

Political Games In Organizations

Line versus staff game
Sibling type rivalry between line managers and staff advisers.
Formal decision-making authority against specialized expertise
Each side tends to exploit legitimate power in illegitimate ways
Riva/ camps game
Played to defeat a rival
Most divisive game of all
Conflict can be between two competing missions or units.

Political Games In Organizations

Strategic candidates game:
Played to effect change in an organization
Promote favored changes of a strategic nature
Whistle-blowing game:
Privileged information is used by an insider
Blow the whistle to an influential outsider on questionable or illegal behavior by
the organization
Young Turks game
Played for highest stakes of all
Small group of "young Turks," close to but not at the center of power, seeks to
reorient organization's basic strategy, displace a major body of its expertise, replace
its culture, or rid it of its leadership.

Benefits Of Politics
First, Politics as a system of influence can act in a Darwinian way to
ensure that the strongest members of an organization are brought
into positions of leadership.
Political games helps in identifying stars in organizations.

Second, politics can ensure that all sides of an issue are fully debated,
whereas the other systems of influence may promote only one.

Benefits Of Politics
Third, politics may be required to stimulate necessary change that is
blocked by the more legitimate systems of influence.
Expertise concentrates power in the hands of senior experts, not
junior ones who may possess the newer skills.
Invisible underhand to promote necessary change.
Fourth, politics can ease the path for the execution of change. Senior
managers, for example, often use politics to gain acceptance for their
decisions, by building alliances to smooth their path.