Francis Ford Coppola once said ‘the way to power, isn’t always to merely challenge the establishment, but first to make a place in it and then challenge and double-cross the establishment’. It is a very succinct understanding of affecting a systemic change. If you’ve been in the corporate world long enough, you will have found yourself frustrated with how hard it is to get people to appreciate your new ideas. New things scare people and between trying out something different and sticking to the old ways, most people will choose their established old ways. This is one of the issues discussed in the famous Adam Grant book Originals. He takes the example of Carmen Medina to drive home the point about how risky it is to start changing things in your new job or a new posting.
Medina’s own book Rebels at Work is an exceptional read and I will post my takeaways from that book in a different post. In this post, I try and summarise the problems faced by Medina in trying to get the CIA to adopt a more digital and open approach to sharing intelligence. Medina was a bright and young intelligence officer with a lot of ideas. She was convinced by making intelligence digital she could improve the productivity of the whole organization, make information available to the people who need it faster, and overall make the world a much safer place. Her approach to getting this done was straightforward. She started talking about how this could be done in meetings and prepared presentations and sent them to decision-makers. She was coming from a place of conviction but because she was rallying behind a cause that seemed radical and that she was new, she came across as an outsider who did not appreciate the nuance of intelligence desk work. Her ideas were shot down and she almost decided to quit the intelligence field altogether. She in fact changed divisions and went to work in IT.
This was actually a great move. In the IT department, she took a different, more leveled approach. She worked in establishing great connections and gaining respect from people. In effect, she found that she had to earn a certain status before people could become receptive of the ideas she had. One of the key things to understand here is that status is always earned and it is not the same as the position of power. You may have a designated position of power but that does not bring in with itself the status you desire. When it comes to getting through to people, it is the status and not the power you command, that matters.
Medina’s next few years were extremely productive. By building on her status and respect, the same ideas that she had tried to push through a few years back, now struck a chord with people around her. While before she seemed like a renegade, after gaining the status of an insider, she seemed like someone who had a balanced view about things, and her conviction to the idea was looked at as dedication to the cause.
This is a classic corporate story and was even observed in a study that was conducted across various industries like media, manufacturing, construction, and IT over a two year period. It was seen that the more frequently employees voiced ideas & suggestions upwards, the less likely they were to get promoted or get a raise. Leaders appreciate it when employees show initiative to grow, seek feedback, gather new knowledge, build their network, etc, to go above & beyond. Speaking up with suggestions, however, is likely to be seen negatively.
This is the risk that comes with trying to break the status quo. The key point to appreciate here is the distinction between two constructs we often consider the same. Power and Status.
Power is exercising control.
Status is being admired & respected.
Exercising Power without Status elicits negative reactions from people. This is what Medina faced when she tried to bring her ideas to fruition in her first attempt. Status cannot be claimed, it has to be earned or granted. This is why the time she spent time building her status in the IT department before again voicing her ideas and building support for it, was so pivotal. Before you earn Status, your suggestions are taken as contrarian views. Once you’ve earned Status, the same suggestions seem like you stand for something. It is this idea of ‘double-crossing the establishment’ that Coppola spoke about.
I run a startup called Harmonize. We are hiring and if you’re looking for an exciting startup journey, please write to jobs@harmonizehq.com. Apart from this blog, I tweet about startup life and practical wisdom in books.