Tag Archives: power

Who Has the Power?

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“Okay, here is what I want to happen,” Gordon explained. His description was thorough. He painted a good picture.

“I can see your vision,” I replied. “How do your people see this?”

“That’s the problem. I think I explained it well, in the memo I sent out, but they don’t seem to get it. For some of my team, I don’t even think they read it, and I get a little heartburn from that.”

“So, you haven’t figured it out, yet?” I asked.

“Figured what out?” Gordon’s head tilted.

“As interesting as I think I am, I finally figured it out. Nobody listens to me. As interesting as you think you are, nobody listens to you.”

“But, I’m the boss! They have to listen to me.”

“Gordon, you have a kid at home, right? Do you, as the parent, have the authority, at dinner, to demand that broccoli be eaten?”

Gordon sat up. “Well, yes I do.”

“But your kid has the power to determine whether broccoli will, in fact, be eaten.”

The Key Ring

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“Why did you think it was so important to give the key ring to someone else?” I asked.

“Because the key ring was a distraction,” Ryan explained. “People would come to me and ask for the key to the tool room, where we keep the calibration equipment. I loved when people asked my permission to gain access to the tool room.”

“Sounds like a powerful position,” I observed.

“And, I discovered that, as long as I had the key ring to all the doors, then people would continue to ask my permission. To the point, where I could not spend time on more important things.”

“What happened?” I wanted to know.

“As long as I had the key ring, I was the bottleneck in every decision. And while that bottleneck grew, I ignored my real priorities.”

“So, you could not keep the keys AND do your job, at the same time?”

“No,” Ryan said. “I had to assign the key ring to a more appropriate person.”

“What did you learn?”

“I learned that the key ring was just a symbol for power that had little to do with effectiveness. And sometimes the key ring had nothing to do with keys. The key ring had more to do with decisions that should have been made at a different level of work, a more appropriate level of work.”

“And?” I pressed.

“And, so I have to constantly look for the key ring, I am holding, that I really need to let go.”