Employing Differences

Employing Differences, Episode 105: How steep is our power gradient?

May 17, 2022 Karen Gimnig & Paul Tevis
Employing Differences
Employing Differences, Episode 105: How steep is our power gradient?
Show Notes Transcript

"If you have a difference of opinion about whether there's a power gradient and you think there isn't one, it's very predictable that you are the person who has the most power."

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Paul:

Welcome to Employing Differences, a conversation about exploring the collaborative space between individuals.

Karen:

I'm Karen Gimnig.

Paul:

And I'm Paul Tevis.

Karen:

Each episode, we start with a question and see where it takes us. This week's question is, "How steep is our power

Paul:

So one of the things that can sit in that space between gradient?" individuals is what we sometimes call a power gradient. So this is a difference in what we are able to do, to decide, to act on, to allocate money or time for. Basically, in any organization any two people have some sort of power gradient between them. And if they're in an organization where there's a reporting relationship, there can be a very specific power gradient. You're my boss, I'm your direct report. And in some organizations, the gap between boss and direct report is huge. And in some, it's small. And so what we want to explore a little bit today is – in all kinds of different groups and organizations – how we can start to think about this idea of this power gradient, how we can start to come to notice how steep is it, and what that can tell us about what is likely to happen in that group. What are things that are easier or harder depending on those power differentials?

Karen:

So one of the things that comes up for me with this is that I work with groups that aspire to have a very shallow – like zero – power gradient. They want to be egalitarian and completely equal power across the group. And while that is a great goal, it's an unrealistic goal in terms of thinking you'll actually achieve it. It's a thing to aim for, to work toward, to hold as a value, but it's not a thing that happens in human relationships – particularly not in people who have spent a good bit of their life in mainstream American culture. We are so used to hierarchical relationships, we're so used to power dynamics– and we've talked about this on the show before – that there are all kinds of things that make one person more influential(that's another word for power) one person more influential than another. And a lot of the time, that's good. If they're more influential, because they have more knowledge about a subject, we probably really like that. And if they're more influential because of the color of their skin, their age, their speaking pattern, their fluency with a language – there are a lot of things that we'd rather weren't the reasons that they have more influence. But I want to name that there are challenges with very vertical power gradients. There are also challenges with very flat power gradients. And one of the challenges with very flat power gradients is that we tend to think they're flatter than they are.

Paul:

I think one of the reasons why we tend to think they're flatter than they are, is that we are actually really bad about noticing when we're standing uphill from someone. One of the truisms about any of these sorts of power imbalances is that it's the person on the downhill side who is most aware of it. It also means that in a lot of organizations – because there are certainly organizations that say, "Hey, we want to have a collaborative culture." "Within product development, we want to make sure we're all equal," or"We can all contribute to this." And so they they also aspire to have these these flatter gradients. In those organizations, you can usually tell that the person who says that it is flat is the person who is least aware of their own power. And so yeah, I think it's important to pay attention to what actually happens, rather than what what people just say about it. I think one of the challenges there is that once you've started to espouse that you want it to be a particular way, it's really hard to talk about how it isn't.

Karen:

That's one of the crux things. I want to really point to this piece about if you want to know how steep your power gradient is, ask the people who you would guess have the least. Ask the people who have a boss, not the people who are a boss. In a lot of organizations – volunteer based organizations, the community organizations that I work with the most – ask the newest members, ask the quietest members, ask the folks that are on the fewest teams or in the fewest places of decision making. Ask those folks about the power gradient, and then I'm going to say believe them. And this is one of those cases like, we often like to think that"Well, everybody's opinion is equally valid, and everybody's idea is equally valid." And I'm going to make the case that on this one, the person who has the least power has the most accurate view of power gradient and power differential. That bears itself out in any research I've seen. One of my favorite books about some of these dynamics is called "The Power Paradox." And it's talked about in there. So if you have a difference of opinion about whether there's a power gradient and you think there isn't one, it's very predictable that you are the person who has the most power. And it's extremely predictable that the person you're disagreeing with has a more accurate viewpoint of that power gradient and the implications of that.

Paul:

One of the implications of that – and this is actually pretty well understood is that... and this is also another way of assessing the steepness of your power gradients – is information does not flow up power gradients particularly well. What that really means is that, in general, people don't communicate bad news – or in some cases, just general news – upwards across a steep gradient. When they perceive that someone else has a substantial amount more power than they do, they are very likely not to pass information about the real state of things along. So one thing you can do, and this is actually a question that I sometimes ask managers that I work with, is"How often do your direct reports tell you about things you are doing that is making their job harder?" Because if they're doing that pretty often, then the power gradient is probably pretty shallow. But if you're not hearing from them, it's not because you are the world's best boss. The lack of information is not a sign that there that there isn't anything going on. It's more likely a sign of a steep power gradient. And so that's actually one of the challenges for organizations that have a steep power gradient is the feedback about the effects of the decisions they're making don't come back up out of the organization. Because in a strongly hierarchical organization, decisions are made at one particular level and they're usually carried out at a lower level. But the decision makers need information about what actually happened? How did that actually work? Did that go well? Did it go wrong? They need that information flowing back up. And so while in a hierarchical organization, it's quick to make decisions, it's really slow to learn from them. And so as a result, that can be really hard to adapt.

Karen:

And I think there's a parallel in theoretically, shallow gradient organizations, which is that information doesn't flow either direction, all that well. And so it doesn't have that same some people are making decisions, other people are implementing them kind of dynamic. But there is a... Decisions are made that impact others, and the knowledge of that impact does not transfer back. And sometimes it's people say, "Forget this, I'm leaving." They just drop out of the group, which isn't good for anybody. Sometimes it's people get much more rigid in meetings, people complain. There's a lot of accusations sometimes about power grabbing and other things that isn't – that's not really what's going on. It's not usually a power grab, so to speak. Almost never an intentional one in my experience. But there is an unconscious power gradient at play. And the other piece is that often the information that's needed doesn't go down. So we talked to in a recent episode about people at the top making decisions, people at the bottom grumbling about them, because they didn't understand why they'd been made. And I'm thinking of your bathroom example from a few episodes ago, that having the information go back down also makes the whole system work better. And I think both those directions of information flow are affected very much by the power gradient in ways that don't seem obvious.

Paul:

Well, and that's a case of the intent of the decision is not really – or even the intent of what we're trying to do is not flowing down very well. That's also a generally a sign of a power gradient. Because,"Why do they need to know? Why do we need to tell the reason for this? We just need them to go do it." When you hear things like that you've got a steep power gradient.

Karen:

Yeah, well, and what I see in my groups is, "You mean, they don't know? Why wouldn't they know? I know, we've all known. We've all known it forever!"

Paul:

Yeah, and then there's also the further resentment around needing to say it again. We've talked before about how do we make sure that people get the information they need at the time when they need it; at the right time. But oftentimes, you get into that case of, "Well, I've said this before. How do they not know it?" sort of thing. And I think that's another thing that you see. I don't know if that's necessarily connected to power gradients at all. But it is a thing that you see that repetition and the resentment that builds up from the repetition around the information not flowing where it needs to go.

Karen:

So I feel like the big takeaway, I hope we get from this episode – and there are many more concepts to explore here, but the big takeaway as a starting point is get curious about power gradients. And particularly get curious about power gradients you think don't exist. If you're not aware of a power gradient, odds are, you're in a position to change it. And there likely is one that's having impacts you might not be aware of. On the other hand, if you know you're at the bottom end of a power gradient, be aware that the folks who are at the top end probably don't know it's there. You are probably seeing things and understanding things that the folks you're frustrated with simply aren't seeing. And it doesn't mean they're bad people or that they don't care, or even that they wouldn't like things to be equal. What's probably the case is that they have no idea it's not. And so just keep all of that dynamic in mind, wherever you are. And as we say every episode, get curious and be willing to be vulnerable in the way of giving up some of the power that you're currently comfortably carrying.

Paul:

Because as you start to try to shift that gradient, suddenly things that you weren't aware of are likely to become apparent. And working with those is its own set of challenges, which we're going to dig into in future episodes. But that's gonna do it for us for today. So until next time, I'm Paul Tevis.

Karen:

I'm Karen Gimnig. And this has been Employing Differences.