Management – The Colored Mist

Anatomy of Power

Power is a malleable, invisible, infectious and multifaceted energy component that has a life cycle. Power generates a quantum field, which has the ability to grow or reduce ideas depending on the DNA (Dominant Narrative Association*). Power has the capacity to energise and de-energise at the same time. Human beings have a special connection with ‘Power’. Power can be both internal and external, it can be manifest and hidden. Power is one word can can mean several things at a time that can be both articulate and confusing. It is one word that can cause wars and deep human transformation. Power is evident and is felt like the heat of summer and the winter chill, you can sense its presence. If we name it, it may give power or take away from it, so there is always a negotiation happening with power. It keeps our heart beating, keeps us alive and it can also kill us. Every interaction with self or the other has power present. People can be born into power and thus may have unearned privilege and access to power. Sometimes people born in oppression and disempowerment can rise to have power. People who remain in power for too long can have power blindness that narrows their levels of empathy and perspective.

As a coach, leader, human, your insight into your relationship to Power is of extreme importance and has moral, ethical value to it.

Symbols of Power:

-Body type, Language, Race, Rank, Economic status, Type of car you drive, Clothes you wear, Brands you use, People you associate with, Spaces/Geographies you have easy access to etc.

Interaction with Power:

Humans and many animals since birth learn to associate and strategise their relationship to Power for survival. In initial years it means access to resources like food and security where the power is seen to lie with the parent. As the child grows the child is able to re-negotiate the terms and access to resources and comfort and may have shared power. However movement is always towards access to power. All this intuiting, sharing, understanding the dynamic of power is constantly learned and unlearned as the child grows into adulthood and happens through a process of ‘meaning making’. Symbols of power are introduced at an early age by social narratives and underpinnings of- what is felt, what is said, what is unsaid and what meaning is derived about the dynamic that co-exists. Usually the goal is for the child to have power as the child comes into adulthood. All behaviours and relating is learnt with respect to power.

Impact of ‘Power’ and its lasting relationship to ‘Self’:

Our relationship to external power dictates our relationship to our internal power that sources ‘Self’. Power has the capacity to both inspire and harm ‘Self’, E.g. You may get inspired by a leader and thus perceive them to have more power and in the process start seeking their validation that ends up disempowering you. The understanding of corrupt power, oppression and its manifestations helps us learn more about who we are as an oppressor and as an oppressed. It helps us learn about our agreements with Power. Also when we see power we could give away our power. E.g. Someone entering their CEO’s cabin with jelly knees.

Our agreements with Power are complex, fluid and depend on our experiences, personal symbols and continual meaning making:

-I want power, I will do anything to be in power, I will be compliant to power, I will rebel where I see power, I will negotiate with power, I will always associate with power and move towards it, I can see toxic power and I will rebel against it, I have enough ‘self’ power that helps me stand against any corrupt power, my ‘self’ power depends on the type of power present etc.

Remaining in observation of power, its interaction with self, its ability to influence, its ability to inspire and corrupt are all important for creating a systemic understanding of Power and thus helps us come from a space of awareness and sometimes a space of choice.

*Dominant Narrative Association: The association that we have with the dynamic dominant narratives running in the society, that can be seen in the collective unconscious as themes and symbols. E.g. When you see a picture of a wife serving a man on table, or an advertisement with many women wanting one man, there are gender biases being created in our mind about who has the power.

Power toxicity

My body feels tired and sore, I am aware of a strong feeling of hopelessness about the world we co-exist in. The hierarchical, power thirsty systems that are ingrained in our DNA and drenched in our visceral realities sometimes look like endless black holes. I have a sickening body reaction when I notice the behaviours of dehumanising self or others. It is time we started to notice and understand the toxicity of Power differential. “I am right, you are wrong” “My beliefs are truths and you need to look at yourself” are classic scripts that run in our system that creates the rifts, dehumanises and closes all channels of communication. It creates power structures, where A is higher than B. Where B is supposed to strive to become A and is never satisfied with being B. A on the contrary has to continue to maintain its position. Both are chained into the system, and both are constantly involved in power struggle. This struggle shows up in our families, societies and between countries. Our world is constantly engaged in struggles of power all the time, causing domestic violence, social injustice and war. However I don’t think we need to go that far, even if we observe interactions between our fellow human beings, we will notice the power differential. Systems are designed for the more powerful to grow and gain, while the less powerful keep the struggle on until someone in power gives them a hand. Hence everyone runs behind power based on who has more information power, decision making power, Financial power, network power ( who knows who?) etc.

Definition of an Individual’s Power:

Individual Power can be defined as an individual’s ability and freedom to believe in his/her own resourcefulness and wholeness as a human being. To have freedom in creating an identity, which an individual wishes to create.

Factors impacting individual power:

One of the major factor is individual’s own belief and relationship with Power. This belief is nurtured by prior conditioning of where the individual is coming from and how has this individual being impacted by power. Other factors that influence are the spaces that the individual co-exists in and how these spaces either allow individual power or oppress it.

Power toxicity:

Power by itself is not toxic, it is quite energizing when we can stand in our power. But taking away someone’s power or giving away our power can lead to toxicity in relating with one another. For example; Gopal is Tim’s boss, in his organisation he is more powerful than Tim. He makes most decisions, including when can Tim go on a holiday. Tim on the other hand believes that this is the way the system works and that he has no power. So Tim continues to behave and take instructions from Gopal. Tim is frustrated as he senses oppression but sometimes may not be aware that this is oppression, he lives his life as a powerless cynic. Even though it may look like Gopal has a wonderful life, it is far from his experience. Gopal experiences more pressure to maintain his position of power. He can’t take risks and is constantly under anxiety, he feels hatred towards Tim and his inability to stand in his power and share the burden that Gopal carries on his shoulder. However it is interesting to note that both Tim and Gopal have become comfortable in their relationship with power and questioning it is useless activity for them. Thus this relationship continues to feed power toxicity drenched in hopelessness and can create internal violence, which is equivalent to oppression of a poorer nation by a more advanced one. The only difference is that one is oppressed internally and not visible, whereas the other is more in the face. We can easily dismiss smaller scales of visceral oppression present in the system and hide it under the umbrella of tolerance, often calling people who react to it as imbalanced or too sensitive for the system. We design psychometric tools to measure psychological deviations or reactions that oppressed people may have and then train them to fit into the system. I believe that more we hide power toxicity that is present in traces, the more it grows.

I have here tried to put down a few questions, which can help us become aware of power toxicity in and around us:

1. You exercise your authority to make sure that your employees speaks only when you feel it is necessary and in a manner that is appropriate

2. You make sure that everyone and all tasks are completed on time and targets achieved, even if it means that employees sacrifice their personal time

3. You leave no space for unnecessary personal excuses

4. There is no time for discussions and feedback for self

5. You always make sure that you are in power over the employee

6. You lose your temper when an employee can’t perform as per your expectations

7. You have Freedom of speech

8. You feel the freedom to be sad, joyous, angry, fearful and are able to name it.

9. Is there Freedom to be, without being constantly reprimanded or corrected?

10. Feedback in your system nurtures

11. Are you being subjected to depreciating comments by boss in humor or otherwise?

12. Are you aware of gas lighting, thus creating psychopathological confusion in you?

13. there a sense of smallness experienced by you?

Answering some of these questions helps us find where power toxicity exists.

Oppression that continues can create power toxicity that impacts mind and body and can have psychopathological ramifications in individuals. Over time it creates mutation in the system to heighten tolerance of oppression, thus impacting life choices of individuals. It saps individuals of their vitality as they start believing that system cannot be changed and there is a greater force holding the system. Whereas in reality the power differential system is held deep in our psyche. It’s code is held in the oppression that we impose on ourselves, thus feeding into an oppressive system. We are scared of naming the oppression to the oppressor as there is deep fear of being ostracised from the system. The system is designed to make us feel alone in the oppression, whereas the whole system experiences oppression without awareness. When we oppress parts of ourselves we also do not allow others to express those parts thus creating a pattern of oppression outside from inside. We oppress reactive and sensitive parts of ourselves, which yearn for voice and choice, but our current comfort zone keeps us in denial. So we keep increasing the levels of power toxicity within ourselves as we continue to remain and construct systems of oppression.

Detoxifying Power:

Power with awareness of equity of self and others, is pure power. This power comes from a deep space of respect for self and others irrespective of their caste, creed, race, gender, country, culture or religion. It comes from knowing that each human being is equal and everybody’s power is connected. However this is easier said than applied. If we practice to develop our sensitivity to Power toxicity and are able to accept it and name it, I think that is where the edge of systemic transformation exists. Ripples of power toxicity that begin from self have engulfed our world in toxic power dynamics that need observation, attention and transformation.

Coaching with Awareness

This article is for coaches as well as those who aspire to coach in future.

Coaching is a process of internal self discoveries that leads to natural transformation in people. In the process the person who is being coached is able to connect with a internal resourcefulness that nurtures and allows the person to see perspectives, which might have been unavailable previously. The person is then able to choose an action that is appropriate and self driven.

For being a transformational coach it is important to move away from problem solving and fixing to exploring and engaging self, Both the ‘Self’ of the Coach and the person being coached.

“When a coach is able to create a container where self can engage, transformation occurs.”

Many times in various organisational coaching, coaches are in a performance role, in such cases, engagement with self can be difficult. The Organisation may want the Coach to remove a problem with an individual or a group of individuals in a very pathological way. Transformational coaches need to develop skill to overcome the default of pathological prescription and engage with the group or individual’s deeper, transformational agenda effectively. Only when that happens will the real gold be hit and real transformation occur.

Coaches need to be aware that they are able to differentiate between their ‘Self’ that initiates transformation and the ‘Part’ that seeks acceptance and performance rating from the client. Sometimes it is possible that the ‘Part’ plays out, in such a case the person being coached also remains in the ‘Part’ of performance, without connecting with internal resourcefulness. The coaching assignment is delivered but post that the transformational agenda of the organisation remains unfulfilled. Organisations will always need to remember that for transformation to occur the ‘Self’ or the Core essence of the individual has to be engaged, for that Coach needs to be in his/her own ‘Self’ and engage from that space.

Aware Coaching is what gets long term transformation and self driven actions, in any coaching intervention.

I am open to taking any questions or comments for further discussion on this topic.

Thanks and regards,

Rashmi

“Time flies” myth busted!

In this blog we bust the myth of flying Time.

As we all know ‘Time’ is a precious resource, sold as a commodity in a capitalist world. How we spend our time on this planet defines who we are and what we are becoming. Time, prima facie seems like a simple concept to understand and we allow it to run our lives without deeper consciousness about it.

There are two basic belief systems around time, one that says it is finite and the other which says it is infinite. Where the belief of ‘time is finite’ exists, there are structures around time and a sense of hurry and a sense of lack of time. In some other cultures where there are beliefs about re-birth and ‘time is infinite’, the pace is slower and sense of time almost negligible.

Whatever your belief may be, becoming aware of it and how it impacts your pace, your goals, dreams and your life is important. What spaces do you want to spend your life in, so you feel more fulfilled, more satisfied. Feeling that time has been wasted creates much anger, blame and guilt. So to understand how and what impact we want to create in this life depends on, How and what we spend our time on.

There is a simple yet Dynamic tool, that can be used to divide, measure and utilize time, It is the time quadrant. This quadrant holds the essence of time and its relativity to our lives.

This quadrant says that time can be divided into four categories, and every quadrant has its own energy. Our being in every quadrant is different and a higher consciousness is needed to be in the centre of these quadrants and observe ourselves.

The quadrant of High Importance, High Urgency holds crisis and high pressure energy. These are crisis situations, related to health, death, relationships and breakdowns of all kinds. If we end up spending too much time in firefighting situations, we would be either freaking out or becoming numb to what is happening to us and around us. Health issues like abnormal blood pressure, vertigo, heartburns etc. could arise out of being in this space.
In Low Importance, Low Urgency quadrant, there are activities which are complete time eaters, like gossiping, watching television or spending time playing mindless video games. Too many such activities create a hole in the time bucket. This quadrant holds the energy of inertia, stiffness and heaviness. Too much time spend in this can cause us to detach socially, sometimes it can cause us to put on weight and associated physical and mental health issues.

Low Importance, High Urgency: Activities which are interruptions and need immediate attention. These could be activities which we need to pay attention to but could be someone else’s high priority. Such distractions when increase they start holding energy or frustration and hopelessness. There is anger and a need to create boundaries when the time increases in this quadrant. Any important Goal or objective can never be reached in this Quadrant.

High Importance, Low urgency: These activities are easy to put in the back burner, as they don’t require immediate attention. These could be creating a financial plan, writing down a will, finding time for positive and meaningful networking, getting trained on a new skill, writing your short term and long term goals, spending time with relations, which matter the most, exercising to maintain your body rhythm etc. Being in this quadrant creates much growth and feeling of self-worth. The last quadrant is the one that creates opportunities of growth for us, It gives us time for self awareness and introspection. Infact if you are reading this article you are spending time in this quadrant, become aware of its impact on your awareness and growth. If you are spending less time in this quadrant then your crisis situations would be more as you don’t have time for planning.

The key is to cut down time from any quadrant that is not serving you, and that usually is the Low Importance, Low urgency quadrant. Start putting time saved from this quadrant into the High importance low urgency space and you would see how dramatically the quadrants start working for helping you achieve what you wish for.

These quadrants are very dynamic and alive in nature, any quadrant that you feed would grow. If we had to sit down and list our activities and put them in the four quadrants, we would know what is eating up our time. Everyone in this world has twenty four hours and there is time for everything, we just have to know where we want to put our time and how? Creating time consciousness and giving due time to all the quadrants, with our choice and complete awareness can liberate us.