Explain how people and work units gain power through social networks

Communication is the lifeblood of all organizations, so Zappos and other organizations are keeping pace by adopting social media and other emerging channels into their communication toolkit. Certainly, social media technologies such as Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedln have transformed how we communicate in society, yet we may still be at the beginning of this revolution. Wire cablegrams and telephones introduced a century ago are giving way to e-mail, instant messaging, weblogs, and now social media sites. Each of these inventions creates fascinating changes in how people communicate with one another in the workplace, as well as new opportunities to improve organizational effectiveness and employee well-being.

Communication refers to the process by which information is transmitted and understood between two or more people. We emphasize the word “understood” because transmitting the senders intended meaning is the essence of good communication. This chapter begins by discussing the importance of effective communication, outlining the communication process model, and discussing factors that improve communication coding and decoding. Next, we identify types of communication channels, including e-mail and social media sites, followed by factors to consider when choosing a communication medium. This chapter then identifies barriers to effective communication. The latter part of this chapter offers an overview of ways to communicate in organizational hierarchies and offers insight about the pervasive organizational grapevine.

 

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Effective communication is vital to all organizations, so much so that no company could exist without it. The reason? Recall from Chapter 1 that organizations are defined as groups of

people who work interdependently toward some purpose. People work interdependently only when they can communicate. Although organizations rely on a variety of coordinating mechanisms (which we discuss in Chapter 13), frequent, timely, and accurate communication remains the primary means through which employees and work units effectively synchronize their work2 Chester Barnard, a telecommunications CEO and respected pioneer in organizational behavior theory, stated this point back in 1938: “An organization comes into being when there are persons able to communicate with each other.”3

In addition to coordination, communication plays a central role in organizational learning. It is the means through which knowledge enters the organization and is distributed to employees.4 A third function of communication is decision making. Imagine the challenge of

 

 

By making employee communication a priority, ESL Federal Credit Union has become one of the top medium-sized companies to work for in America. “We’re always focused on employee communication,” says Maureen Wolfe, vice president of people and organization development at the Rochester, NY-based financial institution. ESL relies on employee surveys, its intranet system, and plenty of face-to-face interaction between management and staff. “Employees feel they understand the expectations and have the tools they need to help in their day-to-day job while also keeping up on the latest business updates and fun activities going on as well.”5

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making a decision without any information about the decision context, the alternatives available, the likely outcomes of those options, or the extent to which the decision is achieving its objectives. All of these ingredients require communication from coworkers as well as from stakeholders in the external environment. For example, airline cockpit crews make much better decisions—and thereby cause far fewer accidents—when the captain encourages the crew to share information openly.6

A fourth function is to change behavior. When communicating to others, we are often trying to alter their beliefs and feelings and ultimately their behavior. This influence process might be passive, such as merely describing the situation more clearly and fully. Sometimes, the communication event is a deliberate attempt to change someone’s thoughts and actions. We will discuss this function under the topic of persuasion later in this chapter.

Finally, communication supports employee well-being.7 Informationally, communication conveys knowledge that helps employees better manage their work environment. For instance, research shows that new employees adjust much better to the organization when coworkers communicate subtle nuggets of wisdom, such as how to avoid office politics, complete work procedures correctly, find useful resources, handle difficult customers, and so on.8 Emotionally, the communication experience itself is a soothing balm. Indeed, people are less susceptible to colds, cardiovascular disease, and other physical and mental illnesses when they have regular social interaction.9 In essence, people have an inherent drive to bond, to validate their self-worth, and to maintain their social identity. Communication is the means through which these drives and needs are fulfilled.

 

A Model of Communication

To understand the key interpersonal features of effective communication, let’s examine the model presented in Exhibit 9.1, which provides a useful “conduit” metaphor for thinking about the communication process.10 According to this model, communication flows through channels between the sender and receiver. The sender forms a message and encodes it into words, gestures, voice intonations, and other symbols or signs. Next, the

encoded message is transmitted to the intended receiver through one or more communication channels (media). The receiver senses the incoming message and decodes it

into something meaningful. Ideally, the decoded meaning is what the sender had

intended.

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EXHIBIT 9.1

Transmit message

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Sender ReceiverThe Communication Process Model

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Transmit feedback

 

In most situations, the sender looks for evidence that the other person received and understood the transmitted message. This feedback may be a formal acknowledgment, such as “Yes, I know what you mean,” or indirect evidence from the receiver’s subsequent actions. Notice that feedback repeats the communication process. Intended feedback is encoded, transmitted, received, and decoded from the receiver to the sender of the original message. This model recognizes that communication is not a free-flowing conduit. Rather, the transmission of meaning from one person to another is hampered by noise—the psychological, social, and structural barriers that distort and obscure the sender’s intended message. If any part of the communication process is distorted or broken, the sender and receiver will not have a common understanding of the message.

 

INFLUENCES ON EFFECTIVE ENCODING AND DECODING

The communication process model suggests that communication effectiveness depends on the ability of sender and receiver to efficiently and accurately encode and decode information. There are four main factors that influence the effectiveness of the encoding-decoding process.11

1. Communication channel proficiency. Communication effectiveness improves when the sender and receiver are both motivated and able to communicate through the communication channel. Some people are better and more motivated to communicate through face-to-face conversations. Others are awkward in conversations, yet are quite good at communicating via smartphone or text message technologies. Generally, the encoding-decoding process is more effective when both parties are skilled and enjoy using the selected communication channel.12

2. Similar codebooks. The sender and receiver rely on “codebooks,” which are dictionaries of symbols, language, gestures, idioms, and other tools used to convey information. With similar codebooks, communication participants are able to encode and decode more accurately, because they both have the same or similar meaning. Communication efficiency also improves because there is less need for redundancy (such as saying the same thing in different ways) or confirmation feedback (“So, you are saying that… ?”).

3. Shared mental models of the communication context. Mental models are internal representations of the external world that allow us to visualize elements of a setting and relationships among those elements (see Chapter 3). When sender and receiver have shared mental models, they have a common understanding of the environment relating to the information, so less communication is necessary to clarify meaning about that context. Notice that sharing the same codebook differs from sharing the same mental models of the topic context. Codebooks are symbols used to convey message content, whereas mental models are knowledge structures of the communication setting. For example, a Russian cosmonaut

and American astronaut might have shared mental models about the design and technology onboard the international space station (communication context), yet they experience poor communication because of language differences (i.e., different codebooks).

4. Experience encoding the message. As people gain experience communicating the subject matter, they become more proficient at using the codebook of symbols to convey the message. For example, after speaking to several groups of employees about the company’s new product development, you learn which words and phrases help to convey that particular message better to the audience. This is similar to the effect of job training or sports practice. The more experience and practice gained at communicating a subject, the more people learn how to effectively transmit that information to others.

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5.

Communication Channels

A critical part of the communication model is the channel or medium through which information is transmitted. There are two main types of channels: verbal and nonverbal. Verbal communication uses words and occurs through either spoken or written channels. Nonverbal communication is any part of communication that does not use words. Spoken and written communication are both verbal (i.e., they both use words), but they are quite different from each other and have different strengths and weaknesses in communication effectiveness, which we discuss later in this section. Also, written communication traditionally has been much slower than spoken communication at transmitting messages, though electronic mail, Twitter tweets, and other Internet-based communication channels have significantly improved written communication efficiency.

 

INTERNET-BASED COMMUNICATION

In the early 1960s, with funding from the U.S. Department of Defense, university researchers began discussing how to collaborate better by connecting their computers through a network. Their rough vision of connected computers became a reality in 1969 as the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET). ARPANET initially had only a dozen or so connections and was very slow and expensive by today’s standards, but it marked the birth of the Internet. Two years later, a computer engineer developing ARPANET sent the first electronic mail (e-mail) message between different computers on a network. By 1973, most communication on ARPANET was through e-mail. ARPANET was mostly restricted to U.S. Defense Department-funded research centers, so in 1979, two graduate students at Duke University developed a public network system, called Usenet. Usenet allowed people to post information that could be retrieved by anyone else on the network, making it the first public computer-mediated social network.’3

We have come a long way since the early days of ARPANET and Usenet. The medium of choice in most workplaces today is e-mail, because messages can be quickly written, edited, and transmitted. Information can be appended and conveyed to many people with a simple click of a mouse. E-mail is also asynchronous (messages are sent and received at different times), so there is no need to coordinate a communication session. With advances in computer search technology, e-mail software has also become an efficient filing cabinet.14

E-mail tends to be the preferred medium for sending well-defined information for decision making. It is also central for coordinating work, though text messaging and Twitter tweets might soon overtake e-mail for this objective. As e-mail has been introduced in the workplace over the past two decades, it has tended to increase the volume of communication and significantly alter the flow of that information within groups and throughout the organization.15 Specifically, it has reduced some face-to-face and telephone communication but increased communication with people further up the hierarchy. Some social and organizational status differences still exist with e-mail,16 but they are somewhat less apparent than in face-to-face communication. By hiding age, race, and other features, e-mail reduces stereotype biases. However, it also tends to increase reliance on stereotypes when we are already aware of the other person’s personal characteristics.17

 

PROBLEMS WITH E-MAIL

In spite of the wonders of e-mail, anyone who has used this communication medium knows that it has its limitations. Here are the top four complaints:

Poor Medium for Communicating Emotions People rely on facial expressions and other nonverbal cues to interpret the emotional meaning of words; e-mail lacks this parallel communication channel. People consistently and significantly underestimate the

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degree to which they understand the emotional tone of e-mail messages.18 Senders try to clarify the emotional tone of their messages by using expressive language (“Wonderful to hear from you!”), highlighting phrases in boldface or quotation marks, and inserting graphic faces (called emoticons or “smileys”) representing the desired emotion. Recent studies suggest that writers are getting better at using these emotion symbols. Still, they do not replace the full complexity of real facial expressions, voice intonation, and hand movements.19

 

Reduces Politeness and Respect E-mail messages are often less diplomatic than written letters. The term “flaming” has entered our language to describe e-mail and other electronic messages that convey strong negative emotions to the receiver. People who receive e-mail are partly to blame, because they tend to infer a more negative or neutral interpretation of the e-mail than was intended by the sender.20 Even so, e-mail flame wars occur mostly because senders are more likely to send disparaging messages by e-mail than by other communication channels. One reason for this tendency is that people can post e-mail messages before their emotions subside, whereas the sender of a traditional memo or letter would have time for sober second thoughts. A second reason is the low social presence (impersonal) of e-mail; people are more likely to write things that they would never say in face-to-face conversation. Fortunately, research has found that flaming decreases as teams move to later stages of development and when explicit norms and rules of communication are established.21

 

Poor Medium for Ambiguous, Complex, and Novel Situations E-mail is usually fine for well-defined situations, such as giving basic instructions or presenting a meeting agenda, but it can be cumbersome in ambiguous, complex, and novel situations. As we will describe later in this section, these circumstances require communication channels that transmit a larger volume of information with more rapid feedback. In other words, when the issue gets messy, stop e-mailing and start talking, preferably face-to-face.

Contributes to Information Overload E-mail contributes to information overload.22 Approximately 20 trillion e-mails (excluding spam) are now transmitted annually around the world, up from just 1.1 trillion in 1998. The e-mail glut occurs because messages are created and copied to many people without much effort. The number of e-mail messages will probably decrease as people become more familiar with it; until then, e-mail volume continues to rise.

 

WORKPLACE COMMUNICATION THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA

E-mail continues to dominate Internet-based communication in organizations, but a few corporate leaders believe that it undermines productivity and well-being rather than supporting these objectives. The opening vignette to this chapter described how Zappos employees already rely on Twitter, blogs, Facebook pages, and other social media to communicate. As Connections 9.1 describes, the Paris-based information technology consulting firm Atos Origin plans to replace e-mail altogether with social media and other communication technologies.

Social media include Internet-based tools (websites, applications, etc.) that allow users to generate and exchange information. This “user-generated content” is creative content (developed by the user), published on the Internet (perhaps with restricted access), and produced outside of professional routines and practices.23 Social media take many forms— blogs, wikis, instant messages, Twitter tweets, personal presentation sites (e.g., Facebook), viewer feedback forums, and the like. Whereas previous Internet activity involved passively reading or watching content, these emerging activities are more interactive and dynamic.

One recent model suggests that social media serve several functions: presenting the individual’s identity, enabling conversations, sharing information, sensing the presence of

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though that this transformation is less difficult for the com pany’s Generation-Y employees. “These people do not use e-mail any more. They use social media tools.” 24Good-Bye E-Mail, Hello Social Media!

Atos Origin is at war with e-mail. Executives at the Paris-based global information technology consulting firm believe the volume of e-mail transmitted around the company has created “information pollution” that stifles productivity and undermines employee well-being. “We are producing data on a massive scale that is fast polluting our working environments and also encroaching into our personal lives,” says Atos Origin chief executive Thierry Breton. The company estimates that reading and writing e-mails consumes up to half of its managers’ workweek. Furthermore, e-mail messages are irrelevant to about 70 percent of the people who receive them, according to a survey by Salesforce.com .

Other companies have fought e-mail overload by banning them for one day each week. Unfortunately, these “e-mail-free Fridays” often produce “e-mail-overload Mondays.” Atos Origin’s strategy is more radical: It plans to ban all e-mail among the company’s 50,000 staff within the next couple of years. The company will encourage staff to share ideas, engage in communities, and have virtual team meetings through instant messaging, web conferences, and an enterprise-strength social media site.

“It is clearly going to be a big challenge for us because e-mail is everywhere,” admits Atos Origin vice president for global innovation Marc-Henri Desportes. Desportes also notes

Paris-based information technology company Atos Origin plans to replace e-mail completely with other Internet-based communication tools within the next couple of years.

 

 

others in the virtual space, maintaining relationships, revealing reputation or status, and supporting communities (see Exhibit 9.2).25 For instance, Facebook has a strong emphasis on maintaining relationships but relatively low emphasis on sharing information or forming communities (groups). Wikis, in contrast, focus on sharing information or forming communities but place much less emphasis on presenting the users identity or reputation.

 

 

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-^CGIDGX 1 Shift grounds*^CEMEX enables employees to communicate and collaborate more easily through its new technology-based platform, called Shift. “Shift combines some of the best elements from popular social networking platforms,” says Sergio J. Escobedo Serna, vice president of innovation at the Monterrey, Mexico-based global building materials company. Along with traditional e-mail and scheduling, Shift incorporates wikis, blogs, web conferencing, and other team collaboration tools. “With Shift, we continue to empower our employees by promoting engagement and collaboration beyond traditional roles and titles, allowing the best ideas to resonate company-wide and effect real change,” says CEMEX chairman and CEO Lorenzo H. Zambrano.26

 

 

A few studies conclude (with caution) that social media offer considerable versatility and potential in the workplace.27 Even so, few companies have introduced these communication tools, mainly because they lack knowledge, staff/resources, and technical support to put them into practice.28 However, a common tactic is simply to ban employee access to social media (usually after discovering excess employee activity on Facebook) without thinking through its potential. One exception is Serena Software, which has made Facebook its new corporate intranet. The Californian company introduced “Facebook Fridays,” sessions in which it hires teenagers to teach older staff how to use Facebook. Most Serena employees now have Facebook pages, and the company’s Facebook site links employees to confidential documents behind the company’s firewall.29

 

NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION

Nonverbal communication includes facial gestures, voice intonation, physical distance, and even silence. This communication channel is necessary where noise or physical distance prevents effective verbal exchanges and the need for immediate feedback precludes written communication. But even in quiet, face-to-face meetings, most information is communicated nonverbally. Rather like a parallel conversation, nonverbal cues signal subtle information to both parties, such as reinforcing their interest in the verbal conversation or demonstrating their relative status in the relationship.30

Nonverbal communication differs from verbal (i.e., written and spoken) communication in a couple of ways. First, it is less rule-bound than verbal communication. We receive considerable formal training on how to understand spoken words, but very little on how to understand the nonverbal signals that accompany those words. Consequently, nonverbal cues are generally more ambiguous and susceptible to misinterpretation. At the same time, many facial expressions (such as smiling) are hardwired and universal, thereby providing the only reliable means of communicating across cultures.

The other difference between verbal and nonverbal communication is that the former is typically conscious, whereas most nonverbal communication is automatic and noncon-scious. We normally plan the words we say or write, but we rarely plan every blink, smile, or other gesture during a conversation. Indeed, as we just mentioned, many of these facial expressions communicate the same meaning across cultures because they are hardwired, nonconscious responses to human emotions.31 For example, pleasant emotions cause the

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brain center to widen the mouth, whereas negative emotions produce constricted facial expressions (squinting eyes, pursed lips, etc.).

 

Emotional Contagion One of the most fascinating effects of emotions on nonverbal communication is the phenomenon called emotional contagion, which is the automatic process of “catching” or sharing another persons emotions by mimicking that persons facial expressions and other nonverbal behavior. Technically, human beings have brain receptors that cause them to mirror what they observe. In other words, to some degree our brain causes us to act as though we are the person we are watching.32

Consider what happens when you see a coworker accidentally bang his or her head against a filing cabinet. Chances are, you wince and put your hand on your own head as if you had hit the cabinet. Similarly, while listening to someone describe a positive event, you tend to smile and exhibit other emotional displays of happiness. While some of our nonverbal communication is planned, emotional contagion represents nonconscious behavior— we automatically mimic and synchronize our nonverbal behaviors with other people.33

Emotional contagion serves three purposes. First, mimicry provides continuous feedback, communicating that we understand and empathize with the sender. To consider the significance of this, imagine employees remaining expressionless after watching a coworker bang his or her head! The lack of parallel behavior conveys a lack of understanding or caring. Second, mimicking the nonverbal behaviors of other people seems to be a way of receiving emotional meaning from those people. If a coworker is angry with a client, your tendency to frown and show anger while listening helps you experience that emotion more fully. In other words, we receive meaning by expressing the sender’s emotions, as well as by listening to the sender’s words.

The third function of emotional contagion is to fulfill the drive to bond that was described in Chapter 5. Social solidarity is built on each member’s awareness of a collective sentiment. Through nonverbal expressions of emotional contagion, people see others share the same emotions that they feel. This strengthens relations among team members as well as between leaders and followers by providing evidence of their similarity.34

 

 

Choosing the Best Communication Channel

 

Which communication channel is most appropriate in a particular situation? Two important sets of factors to consider are social acceptance and media richness.

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emotional contagion

The nonconscious process of “catching” or sharing another person’s emotions by mimicking that person’s facial expressions and other nonverbal behavior.

SOCIAL ACCEPTANCE

Social acceptance refers to how well the communication medium is approved and supported by the organization, teams, and individuals.35 One factor in social acceptance is organizational and team norms regarding the use of specific communication channels. Norms partly explain why face-to-face meetings are daily events among staff in some firms, whereas computer-based video conferencing (such as Skype) and Twitter tweets are the media of choice in other organizations. Communication channel norms also vary across cultures. One recent study reported that when communicating with people further up the hierarchy, Koreans are much less likely than Americans to use e-mail, because this medium is less respectful of the superior’s status.36

A second social acceptance factor is individual preferences for specific communication channels.37 You may have noticed that some coworkers ignore (or rarely check) voice mail, yet they quickly respond to text messages or Twitter tweets. These preferences are due to personality traits, as well as previous experience and reinforcement with particular channels.

A third social acceptance factor is the symbolic meaning of a channel. Some communication channels are viewed as impersonal, whereas others are more personal; some are considered professional, whereas others are casual; some are “cool,” whereas

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Managing your boss may sound manipulative, but it is really a valuable process of gaining power for the benefit of the organization. A\i of us try to manage others—with varying levels of success. In the opening chapter to this book, we pointed out that people apply organizational behavior (OB) theories and practices to help them get things done in organizations. This includes improving relationships, developing power bases, and applying influence tactics that change the behavior of others. In fact, OB experts point out that power and influence are inherent in all organizations. They exist in every business and in every decision and action.

This chapter unfolds as follows: We first define power and present a basic model depicting the dynamics of power in organizational settings. The chapter then discusses the five bases of power, including the role of information in legitimate and expert power. Next, we look at the contingencies necessary to translate those sources into meaningful power. Our attention then turns to social networks and how they provide power to members through social capital. A later part of this chapter examines the various types of influence in organizational settings, as well as the contingencies of effective influence strategies. The final section of this chapter looks at situations in which influence becomes organizational politics, as well as ways to minimize dysfunctional politics.

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The Meaning of Power

Power is the capacity of a person, team, or organization to influence others.2 There are a few important features of this definition. First, power is not the act of changing someone’s attitudes or behavior; it is only the potential to do so. People frequently have power they do not use; they might not even know they have power. Second, power is based on the target’s perception that the power holder controls (i.e., possesses, has access to, or regulates) a valuable resource that can help him or her achieve goals.3 People might generate power by convincing others that they control something of value, whether or not they actually control that resource. This perception is also formed from the power holder’s behavior, such as those who are not swayed by authority or norms. For instance, one recent study found that people are perceived as more powerful just by their behavior—such as putting their feet on a table, taking coffee from someone else’s container, and being less vigilant of bookkeeping rules.4 Notice, too, that power is not a personal feeling of power. You might feel powerful or think you have power over others, but it is not power unless others believe you have that capacity.

Third, power involves the asymmetric (unequal) dependence of one party on another party.5 This dependent relationship is illustrated in Exhibit 10.1. The line from Person B to the goal shows that he or she believes Person A controls a resource that can help or hinder Person B in achieving that goal. Person A, the power holder in this illustration, might have power over Person B by controlling a desired job assignment, useful information, rewards, or even the privilege of being associated with him or her! For example, if you believe a coworker has expertise (the resource) that would substantially help you write a better

 

 

EXHIBIT 10.1

Dependence in the Power Relationship

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Countervailing power / «.* Power Person A is perceived as controlling resources that help or hinder Person B’s goal achievement

 

Visibility

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report (your goal), then that coworker has some power over you because you value that expertise to achieve your goal. Whatever the resource is, Person B is dependent on Person A (the power holder) to provide the resource so Person B can reach his or her goal.

 

Although dependence is a key element of power relationships, we use the phrase “asymmetric dependence” because the less powerful party still has some degree of power—called countervailing power—over the power holder. In Exhibit 10.1, Person A dominates the power relationship, but Person B has enough countervailing power to keep Person A in the exchange relationship and ensure that this person or department uses its dominant power judiciously. For example, though managers have power over subordinates in many ways (e.g., controlling job security, preferred work assignments), employees have countervailing power because they possess the skills and knowledge to keep production humming and customers happy, something that management can’t accomplish alone.

Fourth, the power relationship depends on some minimum level of trust. Trust indicates a level of expectation that the more powerful party will deliver the resource. For example, you trust your employer to give you a paycheck at the end of each pay period. Even those in extremely dependent situations will usually walk away from the relationship if they lack a minimum level of trust in the more powerful party.

 

Let’s look at this power dependence model in the context of managing your boss. You become a valuable resource to your manager by performing your job well, being solution-oriented, providing useful information, and adjusting your behavior to the manager’s preferred work practices. Power exists only through your boss’s awareness of your value, so managing your boss also involves some impression management. Furthermore, managing your boss builds countervailing power; only occasionally do employees have more power than their boss in the employment relationship. Finally, trust is an essential ingredient in managing your boss. Being reliable, productive, and showing empathy for the boss’s needs are ways that managers increase their trust in subordinates.

The dependence model reveals only the core features of power dynamics between people and work units in organizations. We also need to learn about the specific sources of power and contingencies that allow that power to be effectively applied as influence. As Exhibit 10.2 illustrates, power is derived from five sources: legitimate, reward,

 

coercive, expert, and referent. The model also identifies four contingencies of power: the employees or departments substitutability, centrality, discretion, and visibility. Over the next few pages, we will discuss each of these sources and contingencies of power in the context of organizations.

 

 

Sources of Power in Organizations

A half-century ago, the social scientists John French and Bertrand Raven identified five sources of power in organizations. Although variations of this list have been proposed over the years, the original list has remained surprisingly intact.6 Three sources of power— legitimate, reward, and coercive—originate mostly (but not completely) from the power holder’s formal position or informal role. In other words, the person is granted these sources of power formally by the organization or informally by coworkers. Two other sources of power—expert and referent—originate mainly from the power holder’s own characteristics; in other words, people carry these power bases around with them. However, even personal sources of power are not completely contained within the person, because they depend on how others perceive them.

 

LEGITIMATE POWER

Legitimate power is an agreement among organizational members that people in certain roles can request a set of behaviors from others. This perceived right or obligation originates from formal job descriptions, as well as informal rules of conduct. The most obvious example of legitimate power is a manager’s right to tell employees what tasks to perform, whom to work with, what office resources they can use, and so forth. Employees follow the boss’s requests because there is mutual agreement that employees will follow a range of directives from people in these positions of authority. Employees defer to this authority whether or not they will be rewarded or punished for complying with those requests.

Notice that legitimate power has restrictions; it only gives the power holder the right to ask for a range of behaviors from others. This range—known as the “zone of indifference”—is the set of behaviors that individuals are willing to engage in at the other person’s request.7 Although most employees accept the boss’s right to deny them access to Facebook during company time, some might draw the line when the boss asks them to work several hours beyond the regular workday. There are also occasions in which employees actively oppose the boss’s actions.

The size of the zone of indifference (and, consequendy, the magnitude of legitimate power) increases with the level of trust in the power holder. Some values and personality traits also make people more obedient to authority. Those who value conformity and tradition and have high power distance (i.e., they accept an unequal distribution of power) tend to express higher deference to authority The organization’s culture represents another influence on the willingness of employees to follow orders. A 3M scientist might continue to work on a project after being told by superiors to stop working on it because the 3M culture supports an entrepreneurial spirit, which includes ignoring your boss’s authority from time to time.8

Managers are not the only people with legitimate power in organizations. Employees also have legitimate power over their bosses and coworkers through legal and administrative rights, as well as informal norms.9 For example, an organization might give employees the right to request information that is required for their job. Laws give employees the right to refuse work in unsafe conditions. More subtle forms of legitimate power also exist. Human beings have a norm of reciprocity—a feeling of obligation to help someone who has helped them.10 If a coworker previously helped you handle a difficult client, that coworker has power because you feel an obligation to help the coworker on something of similar value in the future. The norm of reciprocity is a form of legitimate power because it is an informal rule of conduct that we are expected to follow.

Legitimate Power Through Information Control A particularly potent form of legitimate power occurs where people have the right to control the information that others

 

A French television program recently reveal ed how far people are willing to follow orders. As a variation of the 1960s experiments conducted by Stanley Milgram, 80 contestants administered electric shocks whenever a volunteer (an actor who didn’t receive the shocks at all) answered a question incor rectly. Shocks increased in 20-volt increments, from 20 volts for the first mistake through to 460 volts. Contestants often hesitated after hearing the volunteer screaming for them to stop, yet continued the shocks after the host reminded them of their dut y. Only 16 of the 80 contestants refused to administer the strongest shocks.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

receive.12 These information gatekeepers gain power in two ways. First, information is a resource, so those who need that information are dependent on the gatekeeper to provide that resource. For example, the maps department of a mining company has incredible power when other departments are dependent on the map department to deliver maps required for exploration projects.

Second, information gatekeepers gain power by selectively distributing information-so those receiving the information perceive the situation differently.13 Executives depend on middle managers and employees to provide an accurate picture of the company’s operations. Yet, as we learned in the previous chapter on communication, information is often filtered as it flows up the hierarchy. Middle managers and employees filter information so it puts them in a more positive light and allows them to steers the executive team toward one decision rather than

another. In other words, these information gatekeepers can potentially influence executive decisions by framing their reality through selective distribution of information.

 

REWARD POWER

Reward power is derived from the person’s ability to control the allocation of rewards valued by others and to remove negative sanctions (i.e., negative reinforcement). Managers have formal authority that gives them power

 

over the distribution of organizational rewards such as pay, promotions, time off, vacation schedules, and work assignments. Employees also have reward power over their bosses through their feedback and ratings in 360-degree feedback systems. These ratings affect supervisors’ promotions and other rewards, so supervisors tend to pay more attention to employee needs after a 360-degree feedback system is introduced.

 

COERCIVE POWER

Coercive power is the ability to apply punishment. For many of us, the first response to this definition is managers threatening employees with dismissal. Yet employees also have coercive power, such as being sarcastic toward coworkers or threatening to ostracize them if they fail to conform to team norms. Many firms rely on this coercive power to control coworker behavior in team settings. Nucor is one such example: “If you’re not contributing with the team, they certainly will let you know about it,” says an executive at the Charlotte, North Carolina, steelmaker. “The few poor players get weeded out by their peers.” Similarly, when asked how AirAsia maintained attendance and productivity after the Malaysian discount airline removed time clocks, chief executive Tony Fernandes replied: “Simple. Peer pressure sees to that. The fellow employees, who are putting their shoulders to the wheel, will see to that.”14

 

EXPERT POWER

For the most part, legitimate, reward, and coercive power originate from the position.15 Expert power, on the other hand, originates mainly from within the power holder. It is an individual’s or work unit’s capacity to influence others by possessing knowledge or skills valued by others. One important form of expert power is the (perceived) ability to manage uncertainties in the business environment. Organizations are more effective when they operate in predictable environments, so they value people who can cope with turbulence in the consumer trends, societal changes, unstable supply lines, and so forth.

A groundbreaking study of breweries and container companies identified three types of expertise that cope with uncertainty. These coping strategies are arranged in a hierarchy of importance, with prevention being the most powerful:16

 

· Prevention. The most effective strategy is to prevent environmental changes from occurring. For example, financial experts acquire power by preventing the organization from experiencing a cash shortage or defaulting on loans

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

· .

· Forecasting. The next best strategy is to predict environmental changes or variations. In this respect, trendspotters and other marketing specialists gain power by predicting changes in consumer preferences.

· Absorption. People and work units also gain power by absorbing or neutralizing the impact of environmental shifts as they occur. An example is the ability of maintenance crews to come to the rescue when machines break down.

Many people respond to expertise just as they respond to authority: They mindlessly follow the guidance of these experts.18 In one classic study, for example, a researcher posing as a hospital physician telephoned on-duty nurses to prescribe a specific dosage of medicine to a hospitalized patient. None of the nurses knew the person calling, and hospital policy forbade them from accepting treatment by telephone (i.e., they lacked legitimate

 

power). Furthermore, the medication was unauthorized, and the prescription was twice the maximum daily dose. Yet, almost all 22 nurses who received the telephone call followed the “doctor’s” orders until stopped by researchers.19

This doctor-nurse study is a few decades old, but the power of expertise remains just as strong today, sometimes with tragic consequences. The Canadian justice system recently discovered that one of its “star” expert witnesses, a forensic child pathology expert, had provided inaccurate cause of death evaluations in at least 20 cases, a dozen of which resulted in wrongful or highly questionable criminal convictions. The pathologist’s reputation as a renowned authority was the main reason why his often weak evidence was accepted without question. “Experts in a courtroom—we give great deference to experts,” admits a Canadian defense lawyer familiar with this situation.20

 

REFERENT POWER

People have referent power when others identify with them, like them, or otherwise respect them. As with expert power, referent power originates within the power holder. It is largely a function of the person’s interpersonal skills and tends to develop slowly. Referent power is also associated with charisma. Experts have difficulty agreeing on the meaning of charisma, but it is most often described as a form of interpersonal attraction whereby followers ascribe almost magical powers to the charismatic individual.21 Some writers describe charisma as a special “gift” or trait within the charismatic person, while others say it is mainly in the eyes of the beholder. However, all agree that charisma produces a high degree of trust, respect, and devotion toward the charismatic individual.

 

Contingencies of Power

Let’s say that you have expert power because of your ability to forecast and possibly even prevent dramatic changes in the organization’s environment. Does this expertise mean that you are influential? Not necessarily. As was illustrated in Exhibit 10.2, sources of power generate power only in certain conditions. Four important contingencies of power are sub-stitutability, centrality, visibility, and discretion.22

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^connect

To assist your learning and test your knowledge about the contingencies of power, go to www.mcgrawhillconnect.com , which has activities and test questions on this topic.

 

 

 

 

referent power

The capacity to influence others on the basis of an identification with and respect for the power holder.

SUBSTITUTABILITY

A key strategy for managing your boss is to become a valuable resource. As we mentioned in the opening story to this chapter, employees become valuable by performing their jobs well and by offering useful information and guidance that makes a managers job easier (e.g., offering solutions, not just problems). But your power over your boss depends not only on providing something of value; it also depends on how many other people offer the same resource.

The key word here is substitutability, or the availability of alternatives. If you and no one else has expertise across the organization on an important issue, you would be more powerful than if several people in your company possessed this valued knowledge. Conversely, power decreases as the number of alternative sources of the critical resource increases. Substitutability refers not only to other sources that offer the resource but also to substitutions for the resource itself. For instance, labor unions are weakened when companies introduce technologies that replace the need for their union members. Technology is a substitute for employees and, consequently, reduces union power.

 

J

Nonsubstitutability is strengthened by controlling access to the resource. Professions and labor unions gain power by controlling knowledge, tasks, or labor to perform important activities. For instance,

 

walls to remind visitors of their expertise. Medical professionals wear white coats with stethoscopes around their necks to symbolize their legitimate and expert power in hospital settings. Other people play the game of “face time”—spending more time at work and showing that they are working productively.

DISCRETION

The freedom to exercise judgment—to make decisions without referring to a specific rule or receiving permission from someone else—is another important contingency of power in organizations. Consider the plight of first-line supervisors. It may seem that they have legitimate, reward, and coercive power over employees, but this power is often curtailed by specific rules. The lack of discretion makes supervisors less powerful than their positions would indicate. “Middle managers are very much ‘piggy-in-the-middle,'” complains a middle manager at Britain’s National Health System. “They have little power, only what senior managers are allowed to give them.”34 More generally, research indicates that managerial discretion varies considerably across industries, and that managers with an internal locus of control are viewed as more powerful because they act as though they have considerable discretion in their job.35

 

The Power of Social Networks

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connect’

Do you have a guanxi orientation? Go to www.mcgrawhiltconnect.com

to assess how well you nurture interpersonal connections.

“It’s not what you know, but who you know that counts!” This often-heard statement reflects the idea that employees get ahead not just by developing their competencies, but by locating themselves within social networks—social structures of individuals or social units (e.g., departments, organizations) that are connected through one or more forms of interdependence.36 Some networks are held together due to common interests, such as when employees who love fancy cars spend more time together. Other networks form around common status, expertise, kinship, or physical proximity. For instance, employees are more likely to form networks with coworkers located near them as well as with coworkers who are relatives or close neighbors.37

Social networks exist everywhere because people have a drive to bond. However, there are cultural differences in the norms of active network involvement. Several writers suggest that social networking is more of a central life activity in Asian cultures that emphasize guanxi, a Chinese term referring to an individual’s network of social connections. Guanxi is an expressive activity because being part of a close-knit network of family and friends reinforces one’s self-concept. Guanxi is also an instrumental activity because it is a strategy for receiving favors and opportunities from others. People across all cultures rely on social networks for both expressive and instrumental purposes, but these activities seem to be somewhat more explicit in Confucian cultures.38

SOCIAL CAPITAL AND SOURCES OF POWER

Social networks generate power through social capital—the goodwill and resulting resources shared among members in a social network39 Social networks produce trust, support, sympathy, forgiveness, and similar forms of goodwill among network members, and this goodwill motivates and enables network members to share resources with one another.40

Social networks offer a variety of resources, each of which potentially enhances the power of its members. Probably the best-known resource is information from other network members, which improves the individual’s expert power.41 The goodwill of social capital opens communication pipelines among those within the network. Network members receive valuable knowledge more easily and more quickly from fellow network members than do people outside that network.42 With better information access and timeliness, members have more power because their expertise is a scarce resource; it is not widely available to people outside the network.

Increased visibility is a second contributor to a persons power through social networks. When asked to recommend someone for valued positions, other network members more readily think of you than people outside the network. Similarly, they are more likely to

 

connections 10.1

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Powered by the Social Network

Engineering and environmental consulting firm MWH Global reorganized its information technology (IT) operations into a single global division and located its main service center in New Zealand. Ken Loughridge was transferred from England to manage the new service center, but he didn’t know the key players in his New Zealand team. “By and large, the staff I’d adopted were strangers,” he says.

Fortunately, Loughridge was able to consult a report displaying the informal social network of relationships among his staff. MWH Global had surveyed its IT employees a few months earlier about whom they communicated with most often for information. These data produced a web-like diagram of nodes (people) connected by a maze of lines (relationships). From this picture, Loughridge could identify the employees on whom others depend for information. “It’s as if you took the top off an ant hill and could see where there’s a hive of activity,” he says of the map. “It really helped me understand who the players were.”

Social network analysis has gained a following among some executives as they discover that visual displays of relationships and information flows can help them to tap into employees with expertise and influence. “You look at an org chart within a company and you see the distribution of power that should be,” says Eran Barak, global head of marketing strategies at Thomson Reuters. “You look at the dynamics in the social networks [to] see the distribution of power that is. It reflects where information is flowing—who is really driving things.”

Karl Arunski, director of Raytheon’s engineering center in Colorado, can appreciate these words. The defense and technology company’s organizational chart didn’t show how mission management specialists influenced people across departmental boundaries. So Arunski asked two executives to identify the names of up to ten experts who didn’t fit squarely in a particular department, and then he conducted social network analysis to see how these people collaborated with engineers throughout the organization.

This is one of several social network analysis diagrams that helped Raytheon engineering director Karl Arunski determine who has the most social network power.

 

Credit: Courtesy of Karl J. Arunski, Raytheon.

 

 

The resulting maps (one of which is shown here) showed Arunski the influence and knowledge flow of various experts. It also highlighted problems: One cluster of employees is almost completely disconnected from the rest of the engineering group (top left of the diagram). The team’s isolation was worrisome, because its members were experts in systems architecture, an important growth area for Raytheon. To increase the team’s network power, Arunski encouraged the team leader to hold meetings where engineers could share information about systems architecture. The number of people attending eventually grew to 75 people and reduced the team’s isolation from others. “Social network analysis helped Rocky Mountain Engineering understand how organizations develop architectures, and it enabled us to know how engineers become architects,” says Arunski.43

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mention your name when asked to identify people with expertise in your areas of knowledge. Referent power is a third source of power from networks. People tend to gain referent power because network members identify more with or at least have greater trust in network members. Referent power is also apparent by the fact that reciprocity increases among network members as they become more embedded in the network.44

A common misperception is that social networks are free spirits that cannot be orchestrated by corporate leaders. In reality, company structures and practices can shape

these networks to some extent.45 But even if organizational leaders don’t try to manage social networks, they need to be aware of them. Indeed, people gain power in organizations by knowing what the social networks around them look like.46 As Connections 10.1 describes, some leaders are discovering the hidden dynamics of these networks and tapping into their potential.

 

GAINING POWER FROM SOCIAL NETWORKS

How do individuals (and teams and organizations) gain the most social capital from social networks? To answer this question, we need to consider the number, depth, variety, and centrality of connections that people have in their networks.

Strong Ties, Weak Ties, Many Ties The volume of information, favors, and other social capital that people receive from networks usually increases with the number of people connected to them. Some people have an amazing capacity to maintain their connectivity with many people, and emerging communication technologies (Facebook, Linkedln, etc.) have further amplified this capacity to maintain these numerous connections.47 At the same time, the more people you know, the less time and energy you have to form “strong ties.” Strong ties are close-knit relationships, which are evident from how often we interact with people, how much we share resources with them, and whether we have multiple- or single-purpose relationships with them (e.g., friend, coworker, and sports partner). The main advantages of having strong ties are that they offer resources more quickly and sometimes more plentifully than are available in weak ties (i.e., from acquaintances).

Some minimal connection strength is necessary to remain in any social network, but strong connections aren’t necessarily the most valuable ties. Instead, having weak ties (i.e., being merely acquaintances) with people from diverse networks can be more valuable than having strong ties (i.e>, close friendships) with people in similar networks.48 Why is this so? Close ties—our close-knit circle of friends—tend to be similar to us, and similar people tend to have the same information and connections that we already have.49 Weak ties, on the other hand, are acquaintances who are usually different from us and therefore offer resources we do not possess. Furthermore, by serving as a “bridge” across several unrelated networks, we receive unique resources from each network rather than more of the same resources.

The strength of weak ties is most apparent in job hunting and career development.50 People with diverse networks tend to be more successful job seekers because they have a wider net to catch new job opportunities. In contrast, people who belong to similar overlapping networks tend to receive fewer leads, many of which they already knew about. Because careers require more movement across many organizations and industries, you need to establish connections with people across a diverse range of industries, professions, and other spheres of life.

Social Network Centrality Earlier in this chapter, we explained that centrality is an important contingency of power. This contingency also applies to social networks.51 The more centrally a person (or team or organization) is located in the network, the more social capital and therefore the more power he or she acquires. Centrality is your importance in the network. What conditions give you more centrality than others in social networks? One important factor is your “betweenness,” which literally refers to how much you are located between others in the network. The more betweenness you have, the more you control the distribution of information and other resources to people on either side of you. In Exhibit 10.3, Person A has high betweenness centrality because he or she is a gatekeeper who controls the flow of information to and from many other people in the network. Person G has less betweenness, whereas Person F and several other network members in the diagram have no betweenness.

Another factor in centrality is the number or percentage of connections you have to others in the network (called “degree centrality”). Recall that the more people connected to you, the more resources (information, favors, etc.) will be available. The number of connections also increases centrality because you are more visible to other members of the network. Although being a member of a network gives you access to resources in that network, having a direct connection to people makes that resource sharing more fluid. Finally, centrality is a function of the “closeness” of the relationship. High closeness occurs when a member has shorter, more direct, and efficient paths or connections with others in the network. For example, Person A has fairly high closeness centrality because he or she has direct paths to most of the network, and many of these paths are short (implying efficient and high-quality communication links).

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Person A has high betweenness, closeness, and degree (number) centralityEXHIBIT 10.3

Centrality in Social Networks

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Person F has low betweenness, closeness, and degree (number) centrality

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One last observation is that Exhibit 10.3 illustrates two clusters of people in the network. The gap between these two clusters is called a structural hole.52 Notice that Person A provides the main bridge across this structural hole (connecting to H and K in the other cluster). This bridging role gives Person A additional power in the network. By bridging this gap, Person A becomes a broker—someone who connects two independent networks and controls information flow between them. Research shows that the more brokering relationships you have, the more likely you are to get early promotions and higher pay.

 

The Dark Side of Social Networks Social networks are natural elements of all organizations, yet they can create a formidable barrier to those who are not actively connected to it.53 Women are often excluded from informal management networks because they do not participate in golf games and other male-dominated social events. Nina Smith, who leads Sage Software’s Business Management Division, has had several conversations with female executives about these power dynamics. “I’m still trying to knock down the Boys Club and I still have women at Sage coming to me and saying, ‘Nina, that’s the boys’ network and I can’t get in.”54 Several years ago, executives at Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu discovered that inaccessibility to powerful social networks partly explained why many junior female employees left the accounting and consulting firm before reaching the partnership level. The global firm now relies on mentoring, formal women’s network groups, and measurement of career progress to ensure that female staff members have the same career development opportunities as their male colleagues.55

 

 

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structural hole

An area between two or more dense social network areas that lacks network ties.

How does power affect the power holder? The answer depends to some extent on the type of power.56 When people feel empowered (high self-determination, meaning, competence, and impact), they believe they have power over themselves and freedom from being influenced by others. Empowerment tends to increase motivation, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and job performance. However, this feeling of being in control and free from others’ authority also increases automatic rather than mindful thinking. In particular, people who feel powerful usually are more likely to rely on stereotypes, have difficulty empathizing, and generally have less accurate perceptions compared to people with less power.57