Conversation 8: Responsibility, Authority, Power, and Influence

Since we started discussing the (PAEI) roles, now I look at people and say that lady is a (P) or that guy is an (A).

Wait! That’s not right. You’re branding people like cattle.

What’s wrong with that? Don’t you have tests to measure (PAEI)?

We have.

If these tests exist, what exactly is your objection to testing and, as you say, “branding” people?

I believe that behavior is conditioned mostly by environment. If you assign someone an (A) task, that person will behave like an (A) even if he or she is an (E) at heart. So what good is it knowing what a person is at heart? I am interested in the impact someone’s behavior has on others.

The best approach is not to test, but to be aware of a person’s behavior or your own style and its impact on others. Wouldn’t you want to know someone’s personality type for hiring purposes? An interview might not give you enough data as to their style.

The tests are called Management Style Indicators and are available from the Adizes Institute.

Absolutely. People who make staffing decisions should use tests, but staffing is not the concern here. I try to change behavior, rather than personalities, by changing the environment in which people work. For instance, don’t say that someone is a (P), rather, say that person behaves like a (P). Instead of administering a test, watch how a person behaves.

What’s wrong with labeling people?

If you start labeling people, your tendency will be to change the people rather than the environment that causes their behavior.

Okay. Now, can we move on to another subject I have been waiting to get to, how to predict implementation?

In order to predict whether or not a decision will be implemented, certain factors must be analyzed. First, you cannot implement a decision that’s not well defined. If the decision is ambiguous, it’s not going to be implemented the way you want.

If you start labeling people, your tendency will be to change the people rather than the environment that causes their behavior.

How do you know whether a decision is “well defined?”

You cannot have an almost well-defined decision. It either is well defined or it isn’t. A well-defined decision is one that fulfills the four imperatives of decision making.

These imperatives correspond to the (PAEI) roles. Fulfilling them gives you a (PAEI) decision.

The (P) role fulfills the first imperative: what to do. Can you guess what imperative the (A) role fulfills?

How to do it.

What about (E)?

Why it should be done?

Yes, but (E)’s imperative is by when. The timing of a decision is derived from the reason for making that decision in the first place.

Then is (I) imperative who should do it?

Exactly, and the big (E) is driving it all the way: why.

DIAGRAMA

I see. Why drives what to do, how to do it, by when to do it, and who does it.

Right. Once we make our decision we need to decide:

(1) what to do, which is fulfilled by the (P) role;

(2) how to do it, fulfilled by the (A) role;

(3) when to do it, fulfilled by the (E) role; and

(4) who should do it, fulfilled by the (I) role.

We must satisfy the four (PAEI) roles if we want to have a well-defined decision.

Frequently people believe they’ve made a decision, but in reality they’ve decided only one of the four imperatives. Usually they decide what to do without deciding how. Later on, they may discover that how the decision was implemented has undermined what was decided. The how destroyed the what.

Give me an example.

You probably know this from experience with your kids. They ask if they can do something, and you say yes. Later, you find out that they did what you approved of, but how they did it makes you wish you had never approved the decision in the first place.

That’s true. Sometimes my spouse doesn’t tell me what to do, only how to do it. But by the time she finishes telling me in full detail how to do it, she has told me de facto what to do. The what and the how are interrelated.

By when is also important. If the decision is not carried out in time, the decision will no longer be valid.

Who should do it is also important. Sometimes, the person to whom you assign a task determines how the decision will be implemented. Different people interpret decisions to fit their style.

You mean a decision is not well defined until what, how, by when, and who are communicated and understood? Only then is the decision clear?

If you decide only one of the (PAEI) imperatives, the person who is assigned to implement the decision will have to provide his own interpretation of the other three imperatives. Then he will do it according to his own style. As a result, you might not like the way the decision was carried out. For example, you tend to have a (P) style and will want it done now, but you did not communicate this at all. The (A) to whom you delegated will assume it is okay if it is done in a year’s time. This can create a lot of miscommunication, unhealthy conflict, and mutual accusations between you two.

So, if I want to predict whether a decision will be implemented correctly, I should check whether the four imperatives were clearly stated and understood. This sounds logical and reasonably simple.

Why don’t people follow this procedure when making decisions?

Because people have different (PAEI) styles. Lone Rangers, or (P- - -)s, usually look at the what and don’t invest time to articulate the how. For them the when is usually now and the who is probably whoever is available right then and there.

Bureaucrats, or (-A- -)s, usually look at the how. The how drives what to do and when it should be done.

Arsonists, or (- -E-)s, are interested in the why (or why not) and the when. They give you the general idea and usually want it done yesterday. Ask them what you should do and they will answer you with why they want it done.

(- - -I)s, or Super Followers, are more interested in who is going to do it than why it needs to be done. For them, the what, how, and when are driven by who. They are very “political.”

Because no one is a (PAEI), a decision will usually have one imperative decided and finalized, while the other imperatives remain ambiguous or not expressed at all. The imperative adopted depends on which style dominates the decision-making process.

In order to have a good decision implemented, all four imperatives must be finalized and communicated. This requires a true complementary team that works with mutual respect. ( another book.22 )

It also requires discipline in decision making, which is covered in the book: Empowering Meetings: A How-To Guide for Any Organization Based on the Adizes Methodology

So I must have a decision for which the (PAEI) imperatives are communicated and understood. Is that all there is to having a well- defined decision?

Not quite. The decision must be bound, too.

What does that mean?

Visualize a decision as a square. In each of the four corners is one of the (PAEI) imperatives that define a decision.

DIAGRAMA

But a square is more than four corners. It has another physical characteristic: It binds space.

The inside of the square represents what we can do, how we can do it, when we should do it, and who should do it. Anything outside the square represents what not to do, how not to do it, who should not do it, and when it should not be done.

DIAGRAMA

What are you saying?

I’m saying that you don’t know what to do until you know what not to do.

Consider this example given by Professor Herbert Simon, Nobel Laureate in economics. Jennifer is trying to teach Tom how to lace his shoes. A curtain separates them. Tom does exactly as Jennifer directs, but he misinterprets it in every possible way. Jennifer says, “Take the shoelace and put it through the first hole, and then from below, through the second hole.” Tom does exactly that, except he passes the shoelace around his shoe first. Jennifer cannot tell Tom how to lace his shoe correctly, unless she realizes what Tom is doing and can also tell him what not to do.

Any time something new is attempted, people must learn what not to do, as they attempt to do it correctly. A person really only knows what to do, when he also knows what not to do, and that knowledge comes with experience.

It is the same with the who component. We learn from experience who should perform a task after we make the mistake of assigning it to the wrong person. We know better who should perform a task after we learn who should not do it.

Is that why, for some people, their second marriage is better than their first?

It is, if they learned from their experience. It also tells you not to hire consultants who tell you only what to do. You will never really learn. When they leave, you still do not know what to do because the situation probably changed, and what you were told to do at that time no longer applies. A consultant should remain during implementation, so that she can tell you what not to do and you can learn.

Good experience comes from good decisions. Good decisions come from good judgment and good judgment comes from bad experience.

What I’m saying is that you do not learn from what’s expected, but what is inspected. Through inspection you get feedback. That’s how you learn from mistakes.

I know which people manage by expectations only: the Arsonists. They make a decision and expect the task to be accomplished. They hate to inspect, follow through, and make corrections.

Right. Managers should analyze the results of their decisions. Inspect them and learn from experience. Analyze them until they know what to do and what not to do, how to do and how not to do, when to do and when not to do, and who should do it and who should not do it. Only then can they have a decision that is fully defined and understood.

But by that time, most probably, the decision is obsolete. They’ll have to start all over again.

You live and you learn, constantly! There is really no such thing as a good decision, it’s only a good decision for the time being.

It takes time to experiment with a decision until it works. But even then, don’t become too attached to it. Its life span is short. The higher the rate of change, the shorter the time span for the validity of the decision.

There is really no such thing as a good decision, it’s only a good decision for the time being.

A decision has to be depicted graphically as a square. It has to be bound, and it must have four imperatives. The square represents the decision that is supposed to be implemented or the defined responsibility to make a change. A person can’t be really responsible until she has a well-defined (PAEI) task, which means a square of responsibility.

But many times, even if we know the four imperatives, the decision will still not get implemented. Why?

The (PAEI) imperatives are the first factors that predict implementation, but not the only ones. We also need leadership energy to carry the decision through.

Often we know what needs to be done, but we can’t carry it out without authority, power, influence, or any combination of these three.

Please define these concepts for me.

There are many definitions of authority. I use sociologist Max Weber’s definition, which is the legal right to make certain decisions. It is independent of what the person knows and whom he knows. It is independent of his personality. It is determined by the position in the organization, and anyone who holds that job has the formal right to make the decisions associated with that position. It is the formal authority.

But what if we eliminate the phrase “the right to make certain decisions” and substitute it with “the right to say yes…”

Or no!

You’ve made a common mistake. The word “or” is misleading.

Why?

There are many organizations where people can say no, but cannot say yes to suggestions that lead to change.

So?

In a bureaucracy, you will find many managers who possess the authority to say no, but only rarely do the same managers have the authority, the legal right, to say yes to decisions that cause change. Only the person at the top has the right to say both yes and no to decisions that cause change.

I see. When organizations are young, founders have the right to say yes and no. They have full authority; there is no question about where one needs to go for approval of a decision that involves change.

In the Adizes Methodology, authority is defined as the right to say yes and no.

As organizations grow and become too complex for founders to manage alone, they have to delegate authority. Usually they hesitate to delegate the right to say yes for fear of losing control. As a result, they delegate only the right to say no.

As organizations grow, the right to say yes stays with the president and more and more layers of no-sayers separate the yes-sayer from where the action is.

That’s very dangerous, because authority to say only no prohibits change and bureaucratizes an organization. If authority is the right to make decisions about change, then authority should be the right to say yes and no.

In the Adizes Methodology, authority is defined as the right to say yes and no. If managers cannot say yes, neither should they be able to say no.

That means I should propose change only to the person in the hierarchy who is allowed to say yes. If my boss is not permitted to say yes he should not have the right to say no. He must pass the suggestion up to the person who has the right to say yes. That’s how to keep an organization young and capable of dealing promptly with change.

Careful though, when you try to implement this methodology there is going to be lots of resistance, because lots of problems that need solutions are going to go all the way up the ladder to the president. This is because authority is centralized with the CEO or the founder of the company, especially in an aging corporation or a Go-Go company.

I do not understand this. Shouldn’t the problem or the solution that needs approval be given to the person responsible for dealing with it?

Not in this methodology. We assign problems to the person who has the authority to solve them, not necessarily to the one who has the responsibility for it.

Why?

As organizations advance on their lifecycle, and especially after the Go-Go stage, authority and responsibility get bifurcated. Responsibility is delegated, except for the authority to say yes to changes. As a result, many people have responsibilities, but lack the authority to make a change in order to solve the problem.

So, we assign problems to where the authority lies, where the person can say yes to a solution. When you do this, the president has so much to do she must either take on responsibil- ity to solve the problems or she must delegate authority to the person with the responsibility.

You are integrating, I see. You are integrating authority with responsibility. You are healing the organization, because disintegration was the cause of their bureaucratization.

Exactly. If decisions are depicted as a square, next I’m going to depict authority as a circle.

DIAGRAMA

I get the idea. The circle also encloses space. The circle’s boundaries define the authority I have, or, in other words, what decisions I am legally empowered to make. The space outside the circle represents the areas over which I have no authority.

Now, superimpose the circle of authority on the (PAEI) square of defined responsibility. What do you get?

DIAGRAMA

But the square and the circle can never fully overlap. That means authority will never be equal to responsibility. How can that be? We just discussed the integration of responsibility and authority.

They should be integrated or together, but not equal.

I purposely depicted authority as a circle and responsibility as a square, so that they would never equal each other. You may have authority beyond your defined responsibility at times, and at other times you may have more responsibility than authority.

Most people would call this bad management. How can someone be responsible for something, yet not have the necessary authority to decide and carry out that responsibility. All management textbooks say authority should equal responsibility. That makes sense to me. It is logical.

I think differently. I think the worst possibility is that the two are equal. They should be al- most equal, but not absolutely.

If there are areas where I have responsibility without the authority to carry out a task, how can I perform the task and be evaluated fairly? I am lost now.

What I have given you so far is an optical illusion. Can you really draw responsibility as a square with distinct lines that absolutely define what is included in your responsibility and what is not? Can you do that in reality?

Obviously not.

Why not?

Because change is a constant. Whatever we decided yesterday might not be applicable today. Responsibility is an approximation.

The same is true of authority. It is subject to change.

You cannot delineate it perfectly. Its boundaries—with respect to time, people, and situations—change. The square and the circle can never fully overlap. That means that, in reality, authority will never be equal to responsibility. Responsibility and authority would be better depicted like this.

IMAGEN

When do you know exactly what you’re responsible for and exactly what authority you have? When do you have both responsibility and authority such that you can stabilize and make them equal to each other?

Only when there is no change. And when does that happen?

When you’re dead.

Right. Sometimes you have more control than you need; sometimes you don’t have enough. That’s life. Not knowing your precise authority and responsibility in a constantly changing world is normal and even desirable.

Desirable? How do you figure?

Because it means you are alive, and the more alive you are, the more you run into situations where you are not in authority or control.

How do I handle that?

Since authority cannot equal responsibility all the time, you will sometimes have responsibility without commensurate authority. What should you do then to carry out your responsibility?

Ask for the authority. Go and get it.

What if you have authority without responsibility?

Take on more responsibility?

Right. In a young company, say 40% of the responsibility and authority is given, 60% is taken. In an older company, 60% is given, 40% is taken. (Don’t take these numbers literally, like an (A).)

The day when 100% of the authority and responsibility is given and none is taken, the organization is dead. That’s why it is desirable not to know your precise authority and responsibility. It means that the organization is young, alive, and changing.

But how can people function with this kind of uncertainty?

If you believe it’s your responsibility, then it’s your responsibility.

But I might invade someone else’s territory. What if my responsibility overlaps with someone else’s?

What is wrong with picking up the phone and saying, “We have a problem. Is it mine or yours?”

If you believe it’s your responsibility, then it’s your responsibility.

How do you play doubles in tennis? Do you draw a chalk line down the middle of the court, saying this is your area, and this is mine? When the ball comes at high speed, do you wait until you’re sure where it’s going to land before deciding who is responsible for hitting it back? Obviously not. You both watch for the ball. Part of the area is yours, part of the area is your teammate’s, and whose part is the middle?

Ours!

If the ball comes down the middle, you both might make a move. Therefore, you should watch the ball and each other.

But if we both make a move for the ball, that’s not efficient, right?

Yes, but in order to be effective in hitting the ball, we might have to sacrifice some efficiency. Both of us may have to make a move for the ball, even if it’s just our eyes that move.

Have you watched bureaucracies operate? To maximize efficiency they say, “This is your area. Don’t step into anyone else’s.” Everyone has a precisely defined domain of responsibility, so that no one wastes energy doing someone else’s job. It is very efficient, but what happens when things change? Say, a problem develops in an area where it’s not clear who is responsible. The ball has landed between two players, and neither is sure whose ball it is. What does a bureaucracy usually do?

It appoints a third person to stand in the middle.

Yes. Now there are two new areas with potential for uncertainty as to who is responsible. One year later, what will the bureaucracy do?

It appoints two more people to cover the new uncertainties. Soon there will be a hundred areas where people overlap and feel uncertain about who is responsible. The court will be overrun with players.

Bureaucracies are ineffective because they try to be too efficient.

By then nobody is playing tennis. They’re watching each other instead of the ball. “Don’t step over this line. This is my territory.” “No! This is my territory!” It’s called turf wars. Nobody even notices the ball unless it hits him smack between the eyes. Everyone is too busy protecting his domain.

You mean that in a bureaucracy, people focus more on how and who, than on what and why? Or, in the (PAEI) code, a bureaucracy is more focused on (A) and (I), than on (P) and (E)?

Haven’t you seen that in your experience? Bureaucracies are ineffective because they try to be too efficient. To maximize control the assigning of responsibilities is very precise and detailed, eliminating uncertainties. Have you seen job descriptions in a bureaucratic organization? It would take a battery of lawyers to interpret them. Have you looked at their manuals? They contain pages and pages of how to do something rather than why to do it.

As a result, bureaucracies grow in size with change. Change creates more uncertainty. More uncertainty creates more demand for more people to handle it and for more policies and rules, which create even more uncertainty with change, etc.

Bureaucrats have responsibility but no authority to make changes. It is the elected politicians who have the authority to decide through legislation.

That makes it very inflexible, very slow to change. Thus, the word bureaucracy has a negative connotation.

Sometimes when dealing with areas of overlapping responsibility, they appoint a committee. Bureaucracies have lots of committees. Isn’t that a solution to the overlap issue?

Not necessarily, because a committee usually doesn’t feel responsible for solving the problem either. No one on the committee has authority to say yes. They only make a recommendation.

A bureaucracy has an (A) culture where people would rather be precisely wrong than approximately right. (A)s ask permission. (E)s ask forgiveness. For (A)s, everything is forbidden unless expressly permitted. For (E)s, everything is permitted unless expressly forbidden.

A bureaucracy has an (A) culture where people would rather be precisely wrong than approximately right.

In government it is this attention to precision and avoidance of risk that fosters bureaucratic growth. Some societies reinforce this risk avoid- ance out of fear that government may overstep its bounds. By limiting authority, society prevents government agencies from taking initiative.

But this could be fully justifiable. You don’t want government officials overstepping their authority. That can endanger the control a society wishes to exercise on its public servants. Government officials are there to serve, not overrun—I mean manage, decide for the people.

Gain the skills to navigate and lead change effectively in your organization, family, government, and personal life. Get certified here.

Good point. Do you know what the root of the word administer is? It is to serve. That’s why we say public administration instead of public management. We use the terms arts administration, education administration, and health administration. Public servants, as the name suggests, are supposed to serve the artists, teachers, medical personnel, and the people in general. They are there to facilitate, not manage.

We want public servants, as (pAeI)s, to stay within their defined responsibilities. The artists, teachers, and medical personnel are the (PaEi).

Then how do you keep public servants from becoming bureaucrats and bureaucratizing the organization?

There must be complementary management. They must work together, co-decide with the artists or scientists or whomever they serve.

Who performs the (E) role in government, then?

The politicians.

I can see why there is no love lost between the governmental machinery and the political machinery. It appears to be the typical (E) versus (A) conflict.

Integrating the political structure into the governmental structure is a difficult process. It can be done, and I have done it. But let’s not digress anymore. Let’s go back my recommendation that authority not match responsibility exactly. I say that responsibility should equal authority, more or less.

You’re claiming that all management textbooks that say the opposite, that authority should equal responsibility, are wrong.

Yes they are. The parity they prescribe doesn’t occur in the real world. Have you ever met a manager who claims to have all the authority she needs for her responsibility? In my experience all managers, leaders even administrators complain they don’t have sufficient authority to carry their responsibilities.

In young companies authority is clear, and responsibilities are ambiguous. In aging companies, responsibilities are clear, and authority is ambiguous. Only when an organization is in its Prime does authority equal responsibility, but even then it is more or less. Both are functionally somewhat ambiguous. That is the reality.

Because of change, right? Both the square (responsibility) and the circle (authority) are changing. They always shift and thus rarely, if ever, fully overlap.

Yes, the relationship of authority to responsibility must be more or less rather than perfectly equal, because of the reality of change. They could equal only when you stop change, which means when you are dead.

You mean to say we are fully in control of life when we are dead. This is funny.

See my manuscript “Confessions of an Organizational Transformationalist” (Santa Barbara, CA: Adizes Institute Publications, forthcoming).

But how do you handle more or less? How do you handle the areas of uncertainty? The higher the rate of change, the higher the uncertainty, right?

Both teamwork and influence, which is another source of energy, must be used to get things done.

The gap between responsibilities and authority, caused by change, should be covered with a lot of influence. The greater the rate of change, the greater the level of uncertainty, which, in turn, requires more influence.

The greater the rate of change, the greater the level of uncertainty as to who has the respon- sibility and who has the authority. The greater the uncertainty, the better the teamwork will have to be, or in a chronically changing situation, bureaucracy will mushroom.

You mean my success depends, to some degree, on others?

You are most vulnerable when you fight this reality and attempt to negate your interdependence. Just remember, the organization was born with interdependence, and this interdependence was tested when you all came upon a rock blocking your way, a rock none of you alone could lift. The organization was born when the need for interdependence was recognized. There is no organization and no management without interdependence. If you do not accept this, you can’t manage. You cannot lead.

The greater the uncertainty, the better the teamwork will have to be, or in a chronically changing situation, bureaucracy will mushroom.

What else do we have beyond authority to get things done, to cause implementation to happen?

Power. It is the capability, not the right, to punish and/or reward. If I can hurt you or make you happy, I have power over you.

When does that happen?

If you need anything from me, I have power over you, because I can either give it to you or not give it to you.

Makes sense.

Now, would you agree with me that to withhold expected rewards is a punishment?

Yes.

If you expect something from me and I deny giving it to you, I’m punishing you. I might claim that I’m not punishing you and that I’m just not giving you what you want, but that’s a punishment, isn’t it?

I’ve seen that happen in some bad marriages.

You want to punish people? Promise them something and then don’t deliver it. They will be upset and hurt. You let them build expectations that are not met. And the way to punish yourself is to expect too much of yourself. When you can’t deliver, you’ll really come down hard on yourself. The road to happiness does not go through expectationsville.

Are you telling me then, to be a vegetable, someone who wants nothing?

I didn’t say to want nothing, although wanting too has its negative repercussions. When you want something it means you are not happy with what you have. You are negative about your situation. The more ambitious you are, the more frustrated you become and the harder you are on yourself and on others.

The way to punish yourself is to expect too much of yourself. The road to happiness does not go through expectationsville.

What should be the right attitude then, without expecting and wanting?

Do what needs to be done. That is all. Do what the situation dictates. Do the best you can, and leave the rest to God to take care of. If you do not believe in God, let the probabilities in life dictate what will happen.

It is important to understand that you cannot control outcomes. All you can do is your best.

Without expecting or wanting a specific outcome. Just let it be. Is that it?

Expecting and wanting assumes you are in control. We all know from experience, which comes with age, that we are not in control. We try to be in control at tremendous expense to our happiness.

You will be happier in life if you just do what needs to be done, do your best, and that is all there is to it.

As far as organizations are concerned, you said that power is the capability to punish or reward, and that withholding expected rewards is equivalent to punishment.

Right. Since you cannot lift the rock alone, you need the cooperation of others. And since there are many rocks on the path to the realization of any goal, anyone you need to assist you in lifting the rocks (your responsibility) has power over you. Power is the capability to grant or withhold needed cooperation.

Let me see if I understand. If I could do the job by myself, there would be no organization, because I would not need others. Since I can’t carry out my responsibility alone, anyone I need has power over me.

The measure of their power is a function of how much you need them and how much of a monopoly they have over what you need. That’s why falling in love or being infatuated with someone is an overpowering experience. We say, “I need you so much. I can’t live without you. You’re the only one for me.” That situation can be extremely painful or gratifying, de- pending on the response.

Power is the capability to grant or withhold needed cooperation.

So when am I totally free?

When you can say you don’t need anybody for anything.

But you’re going to tell me that will happen only when I’m dead!

In a prior conversation we mentioned the epitaph on the headstone of Nikos Kazantzakis, author of Zorba the Greek: “No more hope, no more fear. Finally free.”

As long as you hope for or fear something, that thing has power over you. Being a member of a civilized society, living in a highly interdependent environment, means relying on others. Thus, the more developed the society, the more powerless the individuals in it will feel. Whomever you need, for whatever reason, has power over you. They’re as powerful as the importance you attach to whatever you need from them.

Now let me ask you a question. As a manager, as a leader, where is the power?

Good question. Is it above, below, or beside you? Whom do you need the most?

The power is above me. My boss has the most power.

You have confused power with authority. In the upper strata of the organization, there is more authority than power. Maybe there is some authorized power, but raw power with no authority is in the hands of those you need most to accomplish your responsibility. Who are they?

The employees.

It’s the people on the line who make a company flourish or die.

They can withhold cooperation without having the authority to do so. If they do, you can’t carry out your responsibility. You will have difficulty lifting the rock of your managerial responsibility without them.

One time I was consulting for a shoe manufacturing company. We were doing strategic plan- ning, what kind of shoes, at what price, style, and quality, etc.—high-level planning. At the break I wandered into the shipping department of the company. They were putting shoes into boxes. I wondered what if a worker, just a minimum-wage worker, was upset with the company, what damage could he do? Take one shoe of one size another shoe of another size, put them in the same box, and send them out. Who would know? Who would catch him doing it? I visualized the strategic planners, consultants, and top executives working hard, making marketing and product-differentiation decisions. Then here’s this guy, making mini- mum wage, who’s capable of ruining their whole strategy by not cooperating.

What is the value of a managerial decision if the employees sabotage it? Uncooperative flight attendants can ruin an airline’s multimillion-dollar advertising campaign just by being rude to customers. When does a military organization lose a war? When the generals have not been in the trenches for a long time. When they ignore the soldiers on the line.

It’s the people on the line who make a company flourish or die. Many people believe the way to power is to climb the organizational ladder. They climb and bloody themselves as they fight their way up, pushing others over the cliff in order to be the only one to get to the top. Finally when they reach the top, exhausted, they find a sign saying, “It’s down there.”

Many good leaders have learned that the higher they go, the more they have to respect who is “down there,” because that’s where their dreams and plans will be either fulfilled or dashed.

What about influence?

Influence

Influence is the capability, not the right, to make another person do something without using authority or power.

Give me an example.

What I’m doing right now, I hope, is influencing you. I have no authority to tell you what to do. I have no power to withhold future information or cooperation from you if you don’t do what I am teaching here. I don’t even know whether we will meet again. Thus, if you manage differently starting Monday morning in light of these conversations, it is because you have been persuaded. You believe in it because it makes sense to you.

When people take our input and make their own decisions based on this input, we have in- fluenced them. When people are free to act of their own volition, they have been influenced. Anything other than that is not influence; rather, it is a combination of power, authority, and/or influence.

Here is how you can test yourself to see if you have used influence on people or not: Assume you are alone in the room with the focal person, the person you are trying to influence. Assume no one knows what you are telling him to do. There is no record, no tape recorder, and no minutes are being taken. Now assume when you finish talking to him, you have a heart attack and die. Right there. No one else beyond the focal person knows what instructions you gave him. Only he knows. Will he carry them out or ignore them? There is no record of what was said, so he is free to choose. If he will do it, it means he now “owns” that decision. He was influenced. If he ignores your instruction, you have not influenced him.

Whenever you try to influence someone imagine this scenario. Is the person convinced to the point that he owns the decision and will act on, it even if you change your mind, or not?

When I lead organizational restructuring, I want to test whether or not I have influenced the organization. Are they going to do the restructuring out of their own conviction or because they are just following my recommendations? Do they own the new structure or not?

When the redesign of the structure is done, I take the floor and start criticizing the structure and find problems with it. (It’s not too difficult to do because nothing in this world is perfect. The structure is the best we can do. That is all.) People then get upset with me, “We like the structure and we are going to implement it, whether you like it or not. It is our company so please relax.”

When they say something like this, I know the decision has been based on influence and not on being overpowered by a fast-talking consultant. I know that they own the structure and will implement it whether I come back or not.

But power, authority, and influence aren’t separate. They are inter-related.

Absolutely. Let’s look at the combinations by considering authority, power, and influence as circles that overlap.

Authorance

The diagram below is a Venn diagram, the type used in symbolic logic to show relationships between sets. When authority and power overlap, what do you get? Authorized power (ap). That is the right to punish and/or reward. For instance, when someone has the right to promote, to increase salaries, and to approve vacation time, she has authorized power.

DIAGRAMA

When they’re not overlapping, that’s authority without power. What does that mean?

It means you have the right to tell someone what to do, but if he doesn’t do it, you can’t really do anything about it. You don’t wish to stir up a hornets’ nest. This might be the case, for instance, with a talented researcher in a company insists on working differently from all the other scientists. Because she is valuable to you, you leave her alone, even though you have the authority to order her to conform. The cost of using your authority might be higher than the long-term value. That’s authority without effective power.

What about power without authority?

Power without authority occurs in situations in which you can withhold cooperation without being caught. Consider the difficulty of trying to catch the worker who put the wrong shoes in the box. If you can catch and punish such workers, then they don’t have power. However, if you can’t catch them, they do have power. Another example is postal workers, who can easily misdirect the mail. You can’t monitor every postal worker. As for sales people on the road, you can’t accompany them and control exactly what they do and how they do it. They have the effective capability to withhold cooperation if they want to. That’s why we control salespeople mostly by results. If you try to control the process, it’s often more expensive than it’s worth. So you had better motivate them to do it right. This is where influence comes in.

What about the situation in which power and influence overlap?

I call this indirect power (ip). If somebody tries to influence you, but you don’t feel you have the freedom to decide, that person has indirect power. You read the influence as a threat, as power. Reading between the lines you realize that you had better do what the person says. He is not threatening you, he is rather nice, but you are worried.

Give me an example.

A staff vice president from the corporate headquarters visits a factory and gives the production line some suggestions. This person has no authority to instruct, but the production manager knows this staff person is close to the president. She has his ear. She can do damage to the production manager if she wants to.

The VP “suggests” something to be done. The line manager does not believe in the sugges- tion, but is frightened by this executive from headquarters that can do him harm, and follows the suggestion. If the decision results in a disaster, the production manager says, “Corporate staff told me to do it.”

The corporate vice president will respond, “Not true. I only suggested it.”

The line feels no responsibility, since it feels it was threatened into submission. The corporate person feels no responsibility, because she didn’t authorize the line to do anything. After all, this person had no authority to decide. She just “suggested.” The end result? No one feels accountable for what happened.

You just used the word “accountable.” How is accountability different from responsibility?

In the first edition of my book Managing Corporate Lifecycles I wrote a whole chapter about it. For now it’s enough to understand the difference is this: responsibility is what the organi- zation expects from you, accountability is what you feel can truly be expected from you. That is what you feel accountable for. For that you need to know your responsibility well, have the authority, power, and/or influence to carry it through, and feel rewarded for doing it. Otherwise, although you are responsible, you would not feel accountable.

What about when influence overlaps authority?

I call it influencing authority (ia). That’s what the late business author and statesman Chester Barnard called authority by acceptance or professional authority. The person with authority has the right to say what to do, but can also convince people of the validity of what he says. That’s when we say, “My boss is an authority on the subject. I think she’s right and I’m going to do what she says.” That is accepted authority.

When authority, power, and influence overlap, you get a new combination.

DIAGRAMA

I call this capi, which is an acronym for coalesced authority, power, and influence. You have the authority to tell people what to do, you can influence them as to the validity of what you want done, and if they are in doubt and do not listen well, you have the power to punish or reward them, and that assures they will listen and comply.

There is no reason, when you have capi, why people would not follow your decisions. You have the legal right to decide, they know you have the power to punish and reward, and they’re persuaded by the content of your decision that it is the right one. You have control.

I like that.

Hold your horses. In our next conversation you might find out that it is not the best situation at all. The dream might be a nightmare.

The total managerial energy—which is the totality of authority, power, and influence, plus the union (µ) of authority and power, the union of authority and influence, plus capi—I call authorance, symbolized by a sigma, which is the mathematical notation for summation. In mathematical symbols, it can be written like this:

Σ = a+ p + i + µap + µai + µip + µapi

Capi is the core of the Venn diagram, where authority, power, and influence overlap.

capi = µapi

Now, we have learned that to implement decisions they must first be well defined, and that means. . .

That all (PAEI) imperatives should be fully expressed.

Which, in terms of decisions, means?

What, how, when, and who.

And also?

What not, how not, when not, and who not.

Further, in order to carry out this well-defined decision, we need authority, power, and influence, or any combination of the three.

Next we’ll discuss how to predict the effectiveness and efficiency with which a decision will be implemented.