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So for a long time I've noticed the power, the power, the the the power of power dynamics, the impact of power dynamics in organization.
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And it's these, these are the hidden undercurrents in life and work.
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It's the organizational chart doesn't necessarily show you the power dynamic always.
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There's people maybe who have a longevity in the in the organization, and they're these knowledge keepers and people who know the organization inside out and have seen different leaders in the organization who have a lot of carry a lot of power and information with them.
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And uh we're really talking about decision-making power.
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Um, I was working with a military unit and their commanding officer um came up to me and said, Hey, I want to I want to talk to you about something, get your your advice on something.
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And he basically said, Hey, power dynamics.
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Um what's your thought on it?
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How do I how do I manage it?
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I'm hyper aware of it.
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And it was very cool to see a leader that was hyper-aware of the fact that, and these are his words that I'm I'm telling you here, if somebody walks in his office, they behave differently than they would otherwise, which is fine.
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It's a military unit, there's a hierarchy, and there's reasons for that.
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But what he didn't want is him missing out on information and losing touch with his people because of the power dynamic.
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And that's a really important aspect for leaders to think about.
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Really good leaders do think about it and they leverage power dynamics in a way that makes sense.
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But this leader, this was so surprising to me.
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I remember sitting in that office and not knowing this isn't something that I typically worked on until that point.
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And power dynamics ultimately will be built into the high performance ecosystem depending on how you work on these poor areas.
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You've got people, so the people you hire, uh, the culture, how how you describe the culture and and what it's like and what that invisible handshake is when you walk into the environment, the structure, so the structure of the place, like the physical buildings, will impact power dynamics and and and the structure of the organization as a whole, and then the the processes.
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And the processes I think are interesting because they what I've noticed with with power dynamics is that we're and I'm gonna read to you a couple of notes that I wrote down as I was reflecting on this.
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Be aware of the moments, especially um if in a position of authority.
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So this can show up in the workplace by by a manager buying their uh burying their employee in bureaucracy and creating uh standard operating procedures, right?
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So there's certain procedures and organizations and processes.
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Some employees have to follow it and others don't, right?
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So that that's a that's an example of a power dynamic because the key decision maker is not being equitable, right?
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And that can slow down the work, somebody's work, and really uh make the employee less uh less effective and make them feel ineffective, which lowers motivation, which potentially makes them leave the workplace and do a worse job.
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And so power dynamics can show up in sports teams as well, when when a head coach is using rewards and punishments to to coerce a team player to to behave a certain way.
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And I've seen this in pro environments as well, pro sports environments, right?
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There was a there's a coach that I was working with, and um a player, so he found out that a player sped in their car on their way to practice, and he fined the player, right?
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That's a power dynamic.
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And that that's an example of uh transactional leadership.
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So the coach didn't talk to the player who he he had had issues with before, he just fined the player, which then this this grunled the player more.
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They docked it from his salary, it might have been 50 bucks or something, or whatever, whatever the currency was there.
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But um, yeah, that's I found that interesting.
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And so um that that's an example of power dynamics as well.
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And I think that ref effective leaders really reflect on on how, where, and why power dynamics exist in teams and in their teams and and what their role in maintaining a power dynamic is versus breaking it down to the biggest amount possible, right?
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Um, so that's my thoughts on power dynamics.
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I'd love to hear from you though.
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These are present, everybody lives in a system where there's power dynamics, right?
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So I'd love to hear examples.
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Drop me a comment on this uh podcast, shoot me an email, um, z oran at kizo.ca I'll put that, I'll put that in the description there in the show notes.
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And yeah, I'd be curious to see what uh the the challenges folks are having with impacting power dynamics and shaping them.
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This has been a built for pressure brief.
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My name is Lawrence Stoykovic, and I'll see you next time.