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Influence is gained and maintained by the control of resources or processes, and people can often gain influence through unconventional means. This strategy aims to identify the main sources of influence, and to point out how they can be used to wield power.
Resource-Based Influence
Influence comes from the control of resources where dependencies exist. If an organization or department is dependent on a certain resource coming from a certain source, whoever controls that source, either within or outwith the organization, has a huge amount of influence. These resources may be raw materials, personnel, assets, equipment; even time can be controlled or possessed in organizational terms.
Influence and power can be manipulated by individuals reducing their dependence on others; the less they rely on others, the more independent they become, and the more influential.
Decision-Based Influence
Due to the nature of organizations, relying on decision-making processes, control of these automatically confers a degree of influence. Gaining influence from this source necessitates having control over the criteria on which decisions are made and the processes that decide what the issues to be decided are.
Influence can be expressed through:
- paying an issue so little attention that it withers away
- preserving the status quo, not discussing an issue and thereby winning by default
- defining the criteria for decisions, thereby effectively halting certain issues before they come fully to light
Influence From Resolving Uncertainties
The proven ability to resolve uncertainties can give an individual or sub-unit influence as a recognized trouble-shooter. This might be the case of an engineer who possesses the skill to repair faulty equipment or computer crashes. The influence gained depends largely on the uniqueness of the skill and how important to the organization or department it is to solve the problem. This links closely to the next source of influence, technology-based influence.
Technology-Based Influence
In a similar vein to influence derived from resolving uncertainties, the organizational dependence on technology confers influence which can be exploited for individual gain. A dependency on technological support staff is created, or on those individuals able to operate or fix the technology. The problem this creates is that skilled workers are easily able to withdraw those skills, giving them the power to negotiate over rewards.
Therefore, it is in management’s interests to introduce technology that can be operated by less-skilled staff, moving the influence away from the operators. Otherwise, the withdrawal of assistance by a few key personnel can disrupt the whole organization, and those who depend on it. An example might be air-traffic controllers.
External Influences
Influence can be exerted over organizations by groups who are nothing to do with the organization itself. These groups might be trade unions or consumer associations. They wield influence through:
- mobilizing the media to act in their interests
- finding smaller groups against large organizations in court cases
- taking the moral high-ground against large organizations
- lobbying governmental decision-makers
Becoming involved in these groups is a way of developing a profile within an organization, i.e. becoming a recognized trade union shop steward will immediately change an individual’s status within an organization.
Bureaucracy
A bureaucracy-based organization immediately and automatically confers influence onto those who know and can work the bureaucratic system. Appointment to positions of power is on well-defined grounds: qualifications or election, or membership of a decision-making group.
Problems with this model of organizational influence are that officials can become over reliant on administrative systems, as they are the source of their power, resulting in a protection of the status quo in an attempt to maintain their position and build up power.
Information-Based Influence
Information, in a similar way to resources, can become the source of influence and power. Those who control information flow and technical knowledge can:
- open and close channels of communication
- be selective in the release of information
- control access to sensitive information
- technical experts can shape knowledge to favor their own interests, i.e. ‘In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king’
Network-Based Influence
A well-known and significant source of influence is developing relationships with those in possession of direct power or influence. Having the ear of a more powerful player offers patronage and sponsorship, and also confers a degree of influence in itself. This is, in effect, influence due to who you know rather than what you know.
Formal or informal networking can exist across departments and levels of hierarchy, and is extremely useful in terms of office politics, enabling someone to act with more influence than they have been formally given. They are reciprocal arrangements, so that a favor granted will be expected to be returned.
Networks include informal groups of colleagues who meet up in the pub, play squash together or perhaps went to the same school or university. These, and other forms of network take time and energy to set up and maintain, and may be defensive or offensive. The weak may align with the strong, or the weak may align with other weak parties to form a strong network, with more influence than the members could wield individually.
All of these sources of influence can be controlled by those who are not in an orthodox position of power, i.e. a technician who holds the key for the supplies cupboard in a school; they are available to a variety of individuals, and provide means for people to develop influence without conventional authority.
