#8 - It's All About Power
Hello,
Here is your weekly dose of ideas for a better career. I hope you find something that resonates with you, sparks action and brings you value and joy. If you missed last week’s edition - ideas on working from home and leading remote teams, WFH tips from Mars, the world after coronavirus, verses of hope - you can catch up right here.
This week's edition is all about POWER. We'll start with a few thoughts around COVID-19 pandemic, and follow with better career ideas, I promise.
Ever since governments around the world started to use their powers and impose restrictive measures to slow down COVID-19 pandemic, I found it fascinating that we can perceive exactly the same restrictions either as attacks to our personal liberties or as our free choice to sacrifice our personal freedoms for the common good. There can be many reasons why we adopt one or the other view. I believe one of the reasons is how we perceive the intent of the authority who imposes restrictions. The first frame means lack of trust and therefore requires surveillance from the authority; the second frame is possible only if we trust that the measures reducing our privacy and freedoms will be only temporary and fair.
Can we fully trust our governments to give back all the impressive powers they're amassing in the name of fighting with coronavirus? It's a billion dollar question. In last Saturday's daily brief, Quartz editors claim that ‘while we're collectively housebound, one of the greatest rearrangements of power in modern history is happening before our eyes - and there is a very real concern that we're too overwhelmed to do anything about it.’ Yuval Noah Harari talks about an ‘important choice between totalitarian surveillance and citizen empowerment.’
The distinction here is between Power Over and Power To.
Power Over is about submission and surveillance.
Power To is about trust and empowerment.
And it's not only about governments.
It's about leadership at every level.
Why do we seek power? To dominate and control? Or to elevate and empower those around us?
I took this ‘Power Over’ vs ‘Power To’ distinction away from this fascinating conversation:
Podcast Recommendation: Worklife with Adam Grant: Relationship at work with Esther Perel
In this sparkling conversation Adam Grant and Esther Perel - two bright, very different and complementary personalities - talk about power, its complex nature and multiple facets; about power dynamics in relationships and in conversations; about trust, and how we can build it and repair it after a breach; about transparency as the opposite of trust; about vulnerability, autonomy vs loyalty, about helping others and asking for help; about people pleasers and 'work spouses'. This conversation made me jumping for joy, so many aha! moments I had while listening to it.
Book recommendation. Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion
Reading or rereading this book can be very timely in the current turbulence. We are anxious and stressed, we are busy and overwhelmed with information overload. It's precisely under such circumstances that we have tendency to slip into automatic behaviour patterns. Most of us know surprisingly little about these patterns and what triggers them; but they make us terribly vulnerable to anyone who does know how they work. This book explores six key psychological principles that make us say 'Yes' when we should be saying 'No'. One of these six triggers is Authority: a deep-seated sense of duty to authority that we all have. Read about this principle and five others and you will be amazed how many examples in the current crazy COVID-19 pandemic environment you will find to illustrate them. And you can think how to positively use the power of this principles when pitching your ideas or yourself in a job interview. Discover it.
Now, to the new career-focused article this week - without surprise, it's also about power.
New Article. Interview Tips: Power Dynamics
It's quite common to approach a job interview as an exam or even as an interrogation that we need to nail. Such a frame is not only limiting, but it can also unfavourably shift the power dynamics of an interview right from the start. What can we do differently? Short answer: we can realise that we have more power than we think. We talk about avoiding beta traps and illustrate them with cult scenes from a very good movie (I promise, you'll like it!). Read and watch here.
Finally, we have the power to stay beautiful even when we are housebound.
Turn Your Bathroom into a Salon. Your at-home grooming syllabus for the next few weeks. - Into The Gloss
Stay safe, stay sane, stay powerful, stay beautiful.
Arina