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Understanding Power in Organizations

J. Pfeffer

Published 2020 in Organizational Collaboration

ABSTRACT

N orton Long, a political scientist, wrote, "People will readily admit that governments are organizations. The converse—that organizations are governments—is equally true but rarely considered.'" But organizations, particularly large ones, are like governments in that they are fundamentally political entities. To understand them, one needs to understand organizational politics, just as to understand governments, one needs to understand governmental politics. Ours is an era in which people tend to shy away from this task. As I browse through bookstores, I am struck by the incursion of "New Age" thinking, even in the business sections. New Age can be defined, I suppose, in many ways, but what strikes me about it are two elements: (1) a selfabsorption and self-focus, which looks toward the individual in isolation; and (2) a belief that conflict is largely the result of misunderstanding, and if people only had more communication, more tolerance, and more patience, many (or all) social problems would disappear. These themes appear in books on topics ranging from making marriages work to making organizations work. A focus on individual self-actualization is useful, but a focus on sheer self-reliance is not likely to encourage one to try to get things done with and through other people—to be a manager or a leader. "Excellence can be achieved in a solitary field without the need to exercise leadership."^ In this sense, John Gardner's (former secretary of HEW and the founder of Common Cause) concerns about community are part and parcel of a set of concerns about organizations and getting things accomplished in them.^

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