Linda D Tillman, PhD
1904 Monroe Dr. NE Suite 200
Atlanta, GA 30324
404-873-5503 ext 17

 

 

Getting Out of the Power Struggle

A power struggle is a tug of war between two people.  In a tug of war, nobody wins.  In a literal tug of war, the winners pull  the losers over a mud puddle.  The losers fall on their faces in the mud, while the winners fall down also. 

A verbal power struggle results in the same pain and disappointment.  To get out of the power struggle assertively, RESPECT must be the foundation:

Example:  Your department is moving to another location.  In order for this to be accomplished, you have to pack up everything in your desk.  However, you and your team must also move all of the items associated with the project on which you have been working for a while.  Nobody wants to be the one to pack up all the paperwork for the project.

  1. Search for an area of agreement

    1. “Can we both agree that it’s important that our data get over to the new location?”
    2. “Can we agree that there may be some limits in how much we can each contribute to the packing since we also have to organize our own stuff?”
  1. Use of the empathic assertion

    1. “While I can see on your face how invested you are in getting our data organized, I am not comfortable with only one of us doing the packing.  That doesn’t seem fair. 
    2. I can imagine that you would be disappointed if you had to do all of the packing,  but I hope we can talk about a way to divide the task fairly.
  1. Mind Mapping

    1. “Let’s put Pack our Team Data in a circle in the middle of a piece of paper and write around the center words that come up as we think about managing this challenge.”
    2. Look at the ideas written around the center and try to determine what are useful and what are to be thrown out.
  1. Compromise

    1. “When we look at our mind mapping, the concerns that seem to be there are FAIRNESS and GOOD USE OF TIME.  How can we address both of these needs that seem to be important in our thinking about this challenge?”
    2. “Maybe we could each sign up to spend 30 minutes packing the team project.  If everyone put in 30 minutes that would be fair and we would all have time to pack our own desks.”
    3. This solution allows for fairness and good use of time.