Thanks again for a great power workout yesterday, and welcome Dana and @brooking! The power framework I mentioned in our discussion is by David Kantor. My ex-colleague, Kristin Cobble, wrote an excellent blog post about his work at:
http://groupaya.net/blog/2012/01/david-kantor-the-secret-life-of-groups/
He’s also written a book about his work:
- http://amzn.to/19IzPBh (hard cover)
- http://amzn.to/1aNfvi9 (Kindle)
If any of you have resources to share, please add them in the comments!
Brooking 2:01 am on October 17, 2013 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi everyone – Brooking here, new addition to the group. Yesterday definitely stirred the pot for me in my thinking about power (personal reflections forthcoming), and I wanted to share the main camps of influence on the topic for me. First, academic organizational behavior research, specifically French and Raven’s (1950) distinction of 5 types of power:
legitimate (i.e. role based)
coercive (ability to punish)
reward (ability to reward)
referent (i.e. charisma based)
expert (i.e. knowledge based)
That’s just a taste of one way to categorize types of power, and I can share a nerdy academic piece that digs into this more if anyone is interested, or a quick google search would probably give you more to dig into.
Secondly, I really like Arnold Mindell’s “process work” approach to facilitation w/ awareness of power dynamics. He’s got a great discussion of social rank and implicit power in his book Sitting in the Fire, which is about using conflict to create connection in groups. He has dealt with some INTENSELY heated power dynamic situations with incredible grace, and in my experience with process work it makes power dynamics really explicit in a way that often actually increases connection.
http://www.amazon.com/Sitting-Fire-Transformation-Conflict-Diversity/dp/1887078002/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1381975092&sr=1-1&keywords=sitting+in+the+fire
Eugene Eric Kim 2:43 am on October 17, 2013 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Thanks for sharing these, @brooking! All of this also reminded me of an upcoming workshop (November 6) on power dynamics being hosted by the Leadership Learning Community, a wonderful Oakland-based organization on whose board I serve. It’s called a Star Power Workshop, it’s being facilitated by Dave Nakashima, and it’s supposed to be amazing:
http://leadershiplearning.org/blog/llc-staff/2013-10-08/register-bay-area-learning-circle-star-power
Have any of you heard of the Star Power exercise? I was told not to Google it in advance, as it is supposed to be a much better exercise when you come to it cold. If any of you would like to participate, I’d encourage you to register quickly, as they’re expecting to sell out quickly. It costs $20.