Organisational members adopt different strategies to acquire power. Durkin suggested strategies listed below help to gain deeper insights into power and politics in the organisations.
Specific
Political Strategies for Power Acquisition
Organisational members adopt
different strategies to acquire power. Durkin suggested strategies listed below
help to gain deeper insights into power and politics in the organisations.
a. Maintain
alliance with powerful people
Alliances with members of other
important departments or of top management or with boss’s secretary or staff
assistant are critical to acquisition of power.
b. Embrace
or Demolish
The guiding Machiavellian principle is that senior
managers in the taken over firms should be welcomed and encouraged or sacked.
To make them powerless it is better to sack them than to downgrade them. If
downgraded, they combine and fight back.
c. Divide and Rule
This is a popular strategy based on the assumption
though unwarranted, that persons divided will not themselves form coalition.
d.
Manipulate classified information
Organisational members adept in
politics control information so as to gain power.
e. Make a
quick showing
Looking good on some project or
task right at the beginning is to get the right people’s attention. Once this
positive attention is gained, power is acquired to do more difficult and
long-range projects.
f. Collect and Use IOUs
Do favours to others with clear
understanding that they should pay in return when asked.
g. Avoid
decisive engagement
Also called Fabianism: Be slow, but sure to become
entrenched and gain cooperation and trust of others.
h. Progress one step at a
time
One small change can be a
foothold for power seeker to use it as a basis to get other major things
accomplished.
i. Wait for a crisis
It is based on the assumption
things must get worse before they turn better. Crisis conditions bring more
resources that facilitate tiding over crisis.
j. Take Counsel with Caution
This relates to how to retain power
rather than how to acquire it. For example, prescriptions like participative
management and empowerment are to be taken with caution as they erode the power
base of managers.
Tags : Management Concepts & Organisational Behaviour - Organisational Power & Politics
Last 30 days 2107 views