Respond quickly to the word power, as you did with the word conflict in chapter 2. What comes to mind? The following are common associations: Mark the ones that fit for you, and add connotations of your own:

power play	power source	power corrupts
high powered	power behind the throne	devious
bullheaded	run over	authority
power politics	powerhouse	overpower
low powered	sneaky	strong-arm
bulldozed	powerful	influence

Discuss what you were taught about the use of power. List three explicit or implicit “learnings” about power from your personal history, then discuss these with your small group. Some examples from students include

“When people gang up on you, there’s nothing to do but get away. You can’t go up against a group.”
“The most important kind of power is your own character.”
“Stay connected to people in power; they can help you.”
“Using power with those you care about is despicable.”
“We don’t talk about power. Power isn’t nice.”
“Your father/mother has the say around here. Don’t cross him/her.”
“It’s safest to get in a coalition with someone older and stronger.”
“I learned to gain power by manipulation, deception, sneaking, or lying.”
“As a pretty young girl I learned to gain power by flirting and playing with boys and men.”

Lynn and Daniel are a married couple in their 30s. Daniel is employed as a smoke jumper supervisor. This work requires him to be ready literally at a moment’s notice to get in a plane and direct safety activities for firefighters from various regions when a fire breaks out. Lynn and Daniel have two small children, ages two and four. They have decided that for now, the family needs are best served by Lynn’s being the primary parent, and taking care of the children, especially since Daniel is sometimes gone for weeks during fire season. Here’s where the problem comes in. Daniel was raised in a family in which the person making the money had the power. He believes that since Lynn is not making much money (she works part-time as a piano teacher), she should not make major purchases without his permission. He expects Lynn to pay the necessary bills, but to ask him for money, when she needs it, for household expenses. Lynn is angry and sometimes feels defeated since, in her view, Daniel does not know the needs of the household. She thinks she should be able to make expenditures as she sees fit. When she wants to plan a trip, or buy something out of the ordinary, Daniel says, “Make the money, then. I’m working as hard as I can.” Lynn believes that Daniel completely devalues her work at home.
How can this couple change their orientation to power in order to solve their problems and enhance their long-term
relationship? Specifically, how might they move from either/or power to both/and power? See what ideas you can generate.

List as many kinds of designated power (“power to” ) relationships as you can. Think of educational, family, couple, work, friend, and recreation contexts. See if you can think of several either/or power relationships that could be improved by being made a “power to” relationship. Not all distributive power relationships can be changed in this way; we are, however, urging you to think creatively at this point. Many of the later conflict resolution strategies in this book depend on creative thinking about power.

In a medical clinic in a rural town, a conflict over flextime had been brewing for several months. Many of the staff wanted the option of flexible time. The doctor in charge of the clinic traveled frequently since she often had to give presentations elsewhere. The administrative assistant especially wanted the option of flexible time. She was unhappy with the way the office policies were set up, believing them to be unfairly weighted toward professional staff and against hourly employees. When the assistant had problems with child care or needed to go to an appointment, she was not allowed to leave if the director was gone. The physician in charge also was a working mother, but she was able to work out her own schedule. The administrative assistant used tactics that a person stuck in a low-power position would typically use—calling in sick, forgetting, making mistakes, losing files, promising and then not following through, and complaining to other staff members. The director had begun a process of documenting her poor work. When the doctor went to a professional meeting in another state, she discovered that no hotel reservations had been made, the conference fee had not been paid, and the materials for her presentation to the conference had not arrived. When the doctor arrived back at the office, ready to fire the assistant, she found that the assistant had resigned without notice.

Think of a particular relationship in which there is conflict, strain, or the potential for struggle. List your own sources of power, using the RICE acronym explained above. Then list sources of power that the other person has in this particular relationship. Are there any that you (1) might be overlooking or (2) have under- or overdeveloped? What did you learn from looking at your own and the other’s sources of power?

With a group of people serving as the audience, try this experiment: watch a movie, role-play, or video presentation of two people in conflict. Or have two class members take on a problem-solving task or role-play an argument. They might argue about where to go for spring break, whether to ask a roommate to leave a living arrangement, or how to fairly assign grades to a group project. The audience makes notes throughout the conversation about who has the most power, and why. Then discuss your observations and your assessment.

Tom and Paula were a married couple with two small children. Tom felt the financial pressure of providing for the young family since he and Paula had decided that Paula would work at home, caring full-time for the children until they were at school. Tom, a dentist, scheduled more patients during each day and arrived home later than he used to. To release the increased stress, he set up golf games with friends on the weekends, something he and Paula used to do together. Paula felt lonely and upset that Tom was spending more time at work and with his friends. She let Tom know that she needed more help at home and asked him to pitch in with some of the chores around the house and with getting the children bathed and put to bed. Tom resented being asked to do more at home, since he felt his financial contributions to the family were unappreciated. Paula felt taken for granted and tired of being alone with the two children. Both felt low in power but acted in ways that communicated to each other that they were really higher in power than the other. Both felt justified in their escalating anger at each other. Both felt lonely, unappreciated, misunderstood, and scared. They were only a few weeks away from “dirty tricks” when they sought professional help.
As in the previous case, role-play this situation with different strategies for constructive change, using what you have
learned so far. You might have three different small groups set up a role-play, with the class judging which seems most constructive, and most realistic.

Craig is a supervisor in a community agency, and Marilyn is a staff member who works part time. Craig coerces Marilyn into taking on a community volunteer program—a job she neither wants nor has time to develop at a competent level. Marilyn resists working on the program, and deadlines are looming. Craig, noticing her avoidance, humiliates her in a public meeting by pointing out what has not been done, and asking her to agree to work hard on the program. Marilyn accedes (on the surface) but talks to her friends about how poorly she is treated. After two months of Craig’s disapproval of her progress and of her seeking social support and a new job elsewhere, she resigns.

Answer the following questions about Craig and Marilyn:

• How might Marilyn have changed her passive aggressive stance into a constructive one?
• How might Craig have changed his “power over” stance into a constructive one?
• What might a beginning dialogue that is constructive sound like?

Bruce is the production manager of a large electronics manufacturing facility, and Lenny is the engineering manager. Each supervises a five-person team of managers. Lenny’s engineers are responsible for (1) designing systems for production and (2) quality control. Bruce’s production employees are responsible for output—they have to get the product out the door and shipped to customers. Over a two-year period, the two teams seemed gridlocked. Engineering staff members complained, both in their staff meetings and to the plant manager, saying, “Those production people—we design good systems for them to follow; they don’t follow them, and then quality slips. What is their problem?” Meanwhile, production employees openly criticized the engineers on the manufacturing floor by saying, “They think they are so hot—yet their elaborate designs don’t work, they treat us like slaves, and they don’t know or care how we are being held to a minimum number of units produced.” Finally, the plant manager had to ask for outside help. The production and engineering managers met, as did the work teams. They agreed to (1) shift quality control to the production side, (2) have the engineers provide training to the production employees so they could enforce quality control, (3) not make any more negative public comments about the other team, and (4) require the production and engineering managers to attend each other’s staff meetings. What was a “power-against” situation became, over a period of a month, a “power-with” situation. The plant manager was very pleased that his two key players in engineering and production were now helping each other accomplish their goals rather than interfering with one another. Production output and quality both improved. A new system of rebalanced power made collaboration possible.

Conflict Parties: Tom, a midlevel manager in an office; Helen, the secretary for four people in the office.

Repetitive Conflict: Often when Helen is too busy to get all her work done immediately, she will set priorities and plan her schedule based on known deadlines. Tom’s work makes up the largest share of Helen’s work. Tom and the other three supervisors rank equally on the organizational scale. However, when Tom is busy and pressed, he rushes to Helen’s desk with work that needs to be done immediately. Following is a typical exchange:

Tom: Helen, I have just this one little thing that has to go out today.

Helen [sighing]: Yes, Tom, I know—just one little thing. But I have to get this out for Joe today, and it must be done first.

Tom puts more pressure on Helen to do his job first by saying that it won’t take long and that just this once she needs to respond to the emergency pressures. Helen gets angry and tries to persuade him that it can wait one more day. Then she pouts a bit.

Helen: I am only one person, you know. Just put it there and I’ll try to get it done.

Tom: Helen, you’re a sweetheart. When this madhouse calms down, I’ll take you out to lunch. I knew I could count on you.

Helen then stays late to finish the work, but she asks her office manager to speak to Tom again about interfering with her ability to manage her work. Tom apologizes a few days later.

Tom: I didn’t mean to make you mad. I didn’t think that one report was going to tick you off so much.

Helen: It’s OK; it’s just that I can’t please everybody.

Cheryl and Melissa are two teenage girls who share a room in a foster home. Cheryl is more outgoing and friendly than Melissa, who is shy in groups but demanding of Cheryl’s time and attention. Recently, Melissa increased small demands for Cheryl to shut the door, turn down the radio, bring her a drink of water, include her in phone gossip, and lend her clothes, records, and other items. Cheryl, after discussing the situation with several helpers, decided she did not want to continue to respond to Melissa in anger and disdain (e.g., “Get your own water—I’m not your slave!”). She then took the following steps to restore the balance of power:

1. She reminded Melissa that they had agreements about chores in the room, made at a family meeting, that Cheryl wanted to follow.


2. She voluntarily began to fill Melissa in on happenings at school that involved people whom Melissa admired.


3. She complied with Melissa’s requests, such as getting her a drink of water, the first time they were made, but then said, “I’m glad to get it this once, but remember we agreed to be equal in who does what in the room. So you’re on your own now.”


4. She asked Melissa to go to basketball games with her and her friends. Melissa became sociable, made new friends of her own, and needed Cheryl’s assistance less.

Granted, Cheryl was a remarkably compassionate teenager. But she reported that her life was better, too, since she got along so much better with her roommate.