Last week we explored the three basics of power present in any situation – Who is in power, the skills that make them powerful and internal qualities like character and personal standards. We also talked about the ultimate wildcard, power dynamics.
In this week’s excerpt from Genuine Power—7 Techniques to Be Powerful in a Loud, Complicated World, we’ll meet Johanna, whose experience of speaking her truth doesn’t go according to plan.
To download your free copy of Genuine Power, visit your favorite bookseller. Ditch the tired, obsolete version of destructive power and live a Soul Boss life, where you stay the boss of you. Go from tripped up to powered up!
Let me guess. You’re all set for that Big Conversation which has been brewing.
You’ve got your talking points all lined up. Do you know why your viewpoint makes sense? Check. Do you have the list of reasons why someone should agree with you? Check.
That sounds like a great checklist! What’s missing? Standing in someone else’s shoes.
It seems obvious to understand how we affect others before wielding personal power. But we can be so worried about having the perfect words that we skip past that piece. We’re tripped up the moment we forget to consider what the other person might be hearing.
Johanna heard Dave turn the key in his office door. Before he was back from the kitchen with his first cup of coffee, she slid into his guest chair.
One thing had become clear over the last year: Acting as the primary client contact just wasn’t for her. She thought she’d love designing ad campaigns. However, managing the message and balancing all the deadlines was a lot harder than it looked. Her colleagues were always helpful, but there had been a few near misses. Projects were always on the edge of going sideways.
It was time for Johanna to have a heart-to-heart talk with Dave. Everyone at the office seemed busy—surely, he would find something else for her to do once he understood how miserable she was handling demanding, unreasonable clients. She had started as the agency receptionist and worked her way up. Over ten years on the job had to count for something.
***
That night, Johanna’s husband Rob was surprised to see Johanna’s car in the driveway. He usually beat his wife home by at least an hour. As he walked in, he saw a bottle of chardonnay on the coffee table. He leaned in to kiss Johanna’s cheek. He noticed she had been crying.
“What happened?” Rob asked, taking off his coat.
“Dave. Fired. Me,” Johanna said, choking up. “Not exactly, but that’s where it landed.”
Rob frowned. “I don’t understand. He can’t think you’re better working on the front end.”
“He doesn’t want me working for him at all!” Johanna complained. “We’ve never been close, but I thought he’d see things my way. How he should find a better fit for me, especially because I’m one of the most senior people on staff when you consider how long I’ve been there. But he just clenched his jaw and said, ‘Johanna, we’re an ad agency. We make ads. You asked for the account manager job. Now, do you don’t want to do it? What about the rest of the team?’ Then he asked me to leave his office, after only five minutes of talking.”
“Huh? Just like that?” Rob asked.
“I thought we would talk more after his meeting, but he didn’t stop by. This afternoon I got a call from HR. She told me I had two choices. Either I could stick with my current work or she could talk to Finance and work up a separation package. Can you believe that?”
“Dave’s such a jerk! I grabbed my stuff and walked out,” Johanna said, her face turning red. Then she gulped and whispered, “What have I done?”
A lot was going on in Johanna’s tense conversation with Dave. It was kind of like trying to juggle a lot of glass balls. So, let’s now put those balls down very carefully, one by one. That will help us make a quick cut, where we triage the situation and distinguish what is most important from issues that can wait.
Johanna was trying madly to balance a long list of concerns that day—among them, maintaining her tenure, sustaining her delicate relationship with her boss, Dave, and figuring out how to admit she was barely treading water on her work assignments. But leading with her heart alone meant she was overlooking Dave’s critical priority: managing the ad agency’s bottom line.
For Dave, finding the best way to support the business was the only glass ball that mattered. When it hit the ground it shattered, and Johanna’s situation fell to pieces.
Let’s face it: There are no magic words to make hard things disappear. But trying to solve a tough problem with a one-and-done, mic-drop conversation is the old power model. Genuine power goes beyond a zero-sum game where someone needs to lose for the other person to win.
Johanna and Dave could have solved the work allocation problem by breaking down decision-making into multiple steps. With more time, they might have figured out an innovative approach, where change benefitted everyone.
For example:
Schedule “Discuss” and “Decide” meetings. Dave felt pressured to make an instant decision, and he let that pressure get to him instead of postponing a major choice. Their conversation might have gone in a completely different direction if he changed his reaction to, “I don’t want to rush this conversation. It’s a big topic. So, let’s meet later.” The first meeting would have been a “Discuss” meeting. The second meeting would have been the “Decide” meeting. Once he gave Johanna an ultimatum, there was no turning back.
Consider How a Reshuffle Could Benefit Everyone. Reshuffling the work split might have helped everyone. The rest of the team would have lightened their loads and Johanna would have work better suited to her. But Dave and Johanna never got to that part of the discussion. Johanna saw herself as a truthteller and thought Dave would be impressed by her candor, yet he heard her startling message as, “I don’t like my job. Fix it. And fix it for me.”
If Johanna had said, “What I would like instead . . . ,” she could have redirected Dave’s attention toward a solution.
Genuine power happens when you understand that your viewpoint is correct . . . for you. It requires using insight and awareness to see how you affect others, the Soul Boss principle of connecting head and heart, with plenty of flexibility thrown in for good measure. Honesty can be a powerful tool, but power tools need to be used with care!
Technique #1—Use Power Tools with Care
Speaking your truth is a single part of a bigger conversation.