How to Convince without Power?

In this episode, Ricardo commented on the types of power and how each one of them can be used in our professional and personal relationships.

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Episode transcript

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Hello, everyone. Welcome to the five Minutes being. Podcast. Today elect to talk about convincing without power. And why are you want to talk to you about that? Another date? One of my colleagues came to my office to discuss a challenge in a project. And then I gave some suggestions and he came back to me and said, Ricardo eats. It's very easy for you to say, do this, do that because you have the power to do that. You're the boss you are, is active. And really, yes, I'm very lucky because I have autonomy and a quite good decision making power, but I challenge him.

And I think, do you believe you don't have any power because maybe you need to understand a little bit more what friends, the concept of Power. And then I start talking to him and I start by saying heavy, heard about this stuff 30 from French and having fringes. We haven't did a lot of studies about understanding the human, the behavior around the power. And they created five groups of Power. The first one is called a legitimate Power the second one, the real award.

Power the third one, the X Power the fourth one, the reference Power okay. The last but not least the coercive power and the legitimate Power. They said, look, it's the power you have because you are the boss because you have the power of attorney, the pan, because you can write things. So, because you were really DIBELS, you are in the director where you were the vice-president, you were the executive director, whatever So this is the legitimate Power. The second is the reward. Power is the power I have because I can compensate people for, we need and the power I have to increase your salary, the power I have to give you Bono's or something like that.

The third one is the expert. Power is it the power that I have? Because I know technically I have the school on the topic we're talking and this increase my power back up, but have the expertise. I love the example of a doctorate. When you go up to a doctor, when you are sick and go to the doctor, which kind of Power to the doctor or exercise on You, it's exactly the expert. Power you go there, you listen. And you hollow because you believe in, from the expertise of that professional, the force is the reference power is the power I have based on celebrity, on fame or on collections.

For example, I am able to open you the door to someone else. Then I have a reference power. Referent power is the power that an former basketball player has while doing an advertiser because its not a direct power, but it's a lot power BI. The reference that that person represents to you unless, but not least it's the power that comes your ability to punish someone, to fire someone or to make someone follow your instructions is based on fear.

This is exactly when someone kidnapped someone is the power that that person has over the victim. So it's very, very important in way. I don't want to talk about friendship and habit, but I won't just to use this to frame what I will have to say to you. So when you talk convincing without Power maybe the power that you were translating hear is the legitimate power. You may come to me and say, look, I'm just a team member. So how can exercise power? I'm not the boss because you are looking only one out of five dimensions of the Power and which kind of advice can I give to you if you are on this case, is that you have all your bases of Power that you can use.

And one of the best ones for the project manager is the expertise and the reference expertise. So when you went to Convince 70, the one that's something must be done, be prepared, develop, study, and bring all possible expertise, bring all the rationale behind your suggestion. You can not say we should do that because I am in charge here. No, but do you say, Oh, we should do that because I did the complete research and I found this five options in that analyze the cost of benefits each of them.

And I have all the documents here that I can present. You can base it on these in basic on a simulation. And based on the books, I'd read the papers I saw and based on the facts I saw in my previous experience, I think this is the best way to move. So you bring all the expertise because that is, is that quite solid convincing our argument and modern is of course the reference power, the power you have from your previous experience from the past, do you connect? So if you can use order people, not sure yet when I said to use, I didn't mean use in a bad sense, but do you, you can get some support from other people based on your network.

So you can have more support. Maybe you were not directly able to influence the decision, but you know, someone that can exercise in a different kind of power to make this change or move. So it's something and it's not pleased. Or a lot of people see at all Power as something like dirty, corrupt, not Power, it's something that we need to handle and deal with on a daily base in our project environment. So it's very important that you try to identify which kind of our lives stake holders that I came your way in a good sense, as a reference, as a path for me to exercise some sorts of Power and last but not, not at least is that cursive.

And I don't to say that you we'll go to a meeting and say, Oh, I will quit my job. No, no it's not bad. But the one of the biggest arguments I use, it's a mixture between the expertise and coercion. And I say, look at me, we do not move to this direction. The price to be paid will be this and this. If a parent opens a big and become a nurse, great. So will you use this? It's not pleased, its not a trap. What do you use? Look the non-decision or at the wrong decision.

She has a very strong price stack and people need to understand. So this is the course of, so a good project manager knows how to exercise this in place without being necessarily empowered in a legitimate way. Think always about that. When you are in a project, don't think that you don't have legitimate Power then you cannot do anything. This is the role, but in the wrong way or that will drive you for sure to wrong their results.

I hope you enjoyed this podcast en let's talk again next week in another five minutes PM. Podcast.

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