Power and Games in Organizations

Power is one way of examining organizations: who has it and where does it come from and how it is used. As a designer, understanding they types of power you face in an organization is critical. You need to know how to play the power game (the rules) and who the players are (the roles). Power is a harsh reality in organizations; it's part of survival.

Power has to do with relationships between people: people have power and with it make organizations and can choose to exercise their power or not, for good or ill. Using power nakedly is probably a losing scenario; to play the power game, you need to have skill.

You can think of systems such as organizations like a game, and "players" "win" by getting more power. This is game thinking/theory, and it is a powerful tool, especially in strategy. Game theory in organizations is a tricky thing though. In the past, organizational theory used to think there was one goal to the game: to make profit. But in the last half century, this was overturned as the goals of the individuals in the organization were added in. Now we realize that people play their own games within organizations, that there are often multiple games going on where the rules aren't disclosed and you can lose without even knowing it. (Contradictions in behavior can sometimes be explained by people playing their own games.) Additionally, the formal and informal structures within organizations create different games with different rules.

Deep down, it is all about power.

Originally posted on Thursday, February 24, 2005