Power can be a useful way of understanding what is happening in a difficult situation. But that does not mean that “power” is always the best word to use when opening the conversation.
Imagine a meeting where two people are frustrated with each other. There are disagreements about priorities, decisions are getting stuck, and each person thinks the other is making things harder.
One way to begin might be:
“I think we need to talk about the power dynamics here.”
That may be exactly what is going on. But the phrase itself can raise the temperature. Someone may hear an accusation: *You are abusing your power.* Or: *You are trying to take power away from me.*
Another opening might be:
“I think it would help to talk about the dynamics of what’s going on here.”
That leaves considerably more room.
The conversation can then explore what each person is trying to accomplish, what choices each person has, what constraints they face, what resources or authority they can draw on, and what makes it easier or harder for them to act.
In other words, the conversation can begin examining power without immediately naming it as power.
This is not necessarily avoidance. It may simply be good conversational design.
Power is often easier to see than to discuss
People routinely talk about many of the things that make up power.
They talk about authority.
They talk about resources.
They talk about influence.
They talk about who has access to information.
They talk about who can make a decision.
They talk about whether someone has any realistic alternatives.
They talk about status.
They talk about whether someone feels able to speak freely.
But putting all of these things under the heading of **power** can change the emotional meaning of the conversation.
This is one reason that discussions of power can become difficult very quickly. The word carries associations with domination, hierarchy, politics, coercion and abuse. Those associations are sometimes entirely appropriate. But they can also appear before anyone has established whether those things are actually happening.
Start with the situation
A lower-temperature conversation might begin with questions such as:
◼ What is each person trying to accomplish?
◼ What is getting in the way?
◼ What choices does each person have?
◼ Who controls resources, information or decisions that matter?
◼ Where does one person depend on another?
◼ Does anyone feel unable to say what they really think?
◼ Are differences in status affecting the conversation?
◼ Is anyone experiencing the situation as threatening or humiliating?
At some point it may become useful to say:
“What we’ve been describing is partly a power relationship.”
By then, the idea has some shared meaning. It is no longer simply a loaded word dropped into the middle of a disagreement.
Compassion matters
There is another part of this.
A conversation about power can be conducted as an attempt to identify who is right, who is wrong, who is dominant and who is being dominated.
Or it can be conducted with an interest in understanding what is happening to everyone involved.
That does not mean pretending that harmful behavior is harmless. It means approaching the situation with enough curiosity to understand why people are acting as they are, what pressures they are experiencing, and what would allow them to function more effectively together.
This is where power and caring intersect.
A caring conversation about power tries to preserve people's dignity and capability while still making the underlying dynamics visible.
The language can become more explicit over time
There is no rule that says a discussion about power has to begin with the word "power".
Sometimes it probably should. There are situations where the power imbalance is obvious, serious and central to the problem.
But in many ordinary organizational situations, a more useful sequence may be:
What is happening here?
then
What is shaping what each person can do?
then
What power relationships does that reveal?
The purpose is not to make power invisible. It is to make it discussable.
Sometimes the most effective way to begin talking about power is not to use the word power at all.