An interesting way to understand the power relationships that exist within organisations is to look at the trump cards that are played – whose name is used to be able to try to ensure action on urgent tasks? “X says that this has to happen today!”
In privately-held organisations, especially where the head of the operation has a large stake in its ownership, it's their name that will often be bandied around. The two companies that I have worked for like this also were client service-focused businesses, so important clients' names would also be used and, for a double-trump you would hear “the owner says that the client says that…”
Coincidently, I wonder if a distinction between whether a company has clients or customers might be “does the client actually get referenced by name to justify decisions?”. I can't see rushed actions being taken by South West Trains because Matt says that it feels like the aircon isn't working properly again…
Publicly-listed firms operate in the interests of shareholders. The shareholders are often a faceless, nameless (usually institutional) bunch, so trump cards are unlikely from that direction. Senior board members names are usually used but, particularly for companies who are losing their way, 'the analysts' (the sage-like banking researchers who with almost six sense divination have significantly less insight than the average octopus) are frequently used to play trumps on short-term decisions.
The public sector (from my exposure) trumps with 'the minister'. There's going to be an awful lot of that going on in the coming months and years, and I can only pass on my sympathy as a member of an electorate that screwed up earlier this year. We should all be very sorry, and probably will be.
The health service and education are both basket cases when it comes to trump power. In the NHS, senior non-medical managers and consultants both wield significant power, often it feels just to spite the other. In no other sector do so many suppliers have so much weight behind them. The higher education world is even worse, where (with obviously many exceptions) senior academics can be extremely unaltruistic and ironically distinctly non-collegiate. In either sector, one can imagine dozens of trumps being played on a regular basis.
Different models of commercial organisation also have different structures of power… I started my career at an accountancy partnership (KPMG) and names would be thrown around, but usually with a fairly clear understanding of the power hierarchy and relative weight behind each. I'd be fascinated to know if and who are used as trumps at John Lewis, a partnership model that I have always found very inspiring.
Understanding these trumps is a good grounding in where power lies in any particular organisation. And if you find that most of your decisions are being justified by a trump, either you've become CEO or you've run out of influencing techniques…
mmitII 