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[MUSIC PLAYING]

Power is intrinsic to all relationships,

whether at work or at home.

And interestingly, these days, we

talk more about expectations, boundaries, trust.

We don't talk enough about power.

And when we do talk about power in relationships,

we tend to emphasize abuses of power.

I would like to simply invite you

to understand that all relationships imply dynamics

of power.

It's neutral.

It's not, in and of itself, good or bad.

So power, I want to demystify the word, first and foremost.

Because instantly, I feel that often people

cringe when you say power in relation-- yes, power.

When a child needs their parent, the parent

has power over the child.

You know, we are the most helpless creature that

comes into the world for a good year,

before two, before we can talk, we can feed ourselves,

we can clothe ourselves.

So we depend on caregivers.

And that gives these caregivers power.

At the same time, if we have a two-year-old who says, no,

and doesn't want to do what we ask them,

everybody understands that power doesn't always

come from the top-down.

It also can come from the bottom-up.

So how do we handle power in relationships?

And how do we understand what we can

do with the power, the generative power,

but also what can be done destructively with power

is the big question that all relationships ask themselves.

Power comes with the fact that when people need each other,

rely on each other, have expectations from each other,

depend on each other, it gives them power.

It gives the other person power.

But the question always is, is it power over or is it

power to?

Power over you can be oppressive, can be dominant,

can be exploitative.

But power to can be generative, can be inviting,

can be active and collaborative.

People often will say the person that

makes more money has power in a relationship.

That is possible.

But then it can be, therefore, that person

who makes more money, makes more decisions,

gets to decide where we live, what we spend the money on,

et cetera.

Or that person may say, you know,

you've been wanting to go back to school for a long time,

I can make that happen for you.

Go ahead.

Or you've been wanting to go back and do your artwork,

or you would like to take some time

to take care of your ailing parent at this point.

I can make that possible for you.

That is power to.

The other thing is I use my power to create an imbalance,

rather than I use my power to create

a collaborative or generative experience together.

Power is an organizational feature of relationships.

So in some situations, there needs to be leadership.

Leadership is power to.

It provides hierarchy.

Hierarchy provides structure.

Parents who don't assume their position,

their role, their authority, their power, leave a vacuum.

That vacuum often creates a reversal of power

where the child has to become the parent of the parents.

These are inverse hierarchies.

Those become problematic.

Employees that don't have a boss that gives them

a clear sense of direction and mission and where are we going

and why are we doing what we're doing are left with a vacuum.

And then they ask, what should we do?

And then sometimes another person

emerges that becomes the new power,

or it's chaos and disorganization,

same in political systems and how we manage society.

Groups, societies need structure.

That involves power.

That power is either voted, chosen, attributed, earned,

or stolen.

I think what's important to highlight

about power is that power is, at once, structural and also

interpersonal.

I come from a generation and certainly my parents

come from a generation where people who had more power, that

meant more authority.

That was the definition of power who were higher up

in the hierarchy.

When they told me what to do, I did not discuss it.

I didn't question it.

I didn't argue it because I came from a model

that people with more power tell the people with less power what

to do, and so it is.

My children are in a different generation

at this moment, where in the laterality reality

of new structures, they don't question the power,

but they may have questions about what the person in power

is saying or asking them to do or suggesting.

So power has become more fluid.

Power gets negotiated.

Power is not just something that is ascribed and assigned

to you by virtue of your age, of your birth, and of your status.

It is part of the relational dynamics.

And this is very new in relationships.

Power that is negotiated is something new

that came with the women's movement, that came

with the identity politics.

That is part of a larger cultural issue

in which your power can be taken away, with the #MeToo movement

too.

Power is no longer something that is just fixed

and you got it and it's part of your privilege forever.

There still are plenty of people who

have that kind of power too.

But there is also a new experience of power

that is much more fluid and much more negotiated.

If you are in a company and you have less power

and you are more junior and you want to bring something up,

the first thing you need to do is

look at the culture around you.

You look at the context.

When I just described how power used to be fixed

and it is now negotiated, it's a cultural shift.

In order to know what you can bring

to people who are in power above you at your company,

you need to look at the company.

What is the culture of this place?

Are young people allow to make suggestions?

Are their opinions worthy?

Are they invited?

Or do you wait your years before you can speak up?

The culture will tell you, most often,

how you can address people in power and question their power

or question certain decisions or bring certain ideas.

And then watch your manager and watch the people above you

and how they respond to others.

Collect information or go and talk

to the other people on the floor or on Zoom and ask them,

is this a place where people do this kind of things,

or is this a place where you wait?

I have an image that always stays with me when

I think about how you negotiate power, which I was giving

a talk in a Eastern European country

with strong hierarchies.

And the professor was sitting here.

And the room had 1,000 people, but a lot of them

were the student of the professor.

And I noticed that when I would ask a question

to the audience--

what do you think about this, or what

do you think about what I just said?

It could be something really simple like that.

Or is this the way this happens in this country too,

people didn't answer me.

They first looked to the professor.

And when the professor went like this, then

people knew what they could answer.

And I saw, this is hierarchy, this is structure,

this is power.

Everyone was clear, there was a consensus

around the norm of where the power

center lies and, therefore, how it affects everybody else.

You learn, when you enter a culture, a family, a company,

what the power dynamics are, where the power center is,

and how much challenge to the center you can express.

The questions that you ask yourself

when you want to understand who has power

is, what are the criterions that determine power?

Is it the people who are more responsible?

In your romantic relationships, in your family relationships,

is it the person that is more competent

or is it the person that is more incompetent?

Is it the person that earns more money?

Is it the person that makes more decisions?

What do you think makes for the power?

So when you say, she has all the power, with what?

My boss is all about, oh, this person on my team

has way too much power.

What do you mean, that their opinions matter more,

that they disqualify others, that some people only

listen to them?

I think you start with, this person has power.

The next question is, how so?

What confers them the power.

Do they take it, do they grab it, or is it given to them?

What is the relational dynamic around it?

Have people given up, they just let the person talk,

they don't respond even, they barely listen?

Watch the systemic organization around the power.

How is the system--

the couple, the family, the group, the team, the company--

organized around the power?

And how does it maintain the power structure

in place, the power equity or the power inequity in place?

The tendency is to think that the most competent one--

this is true for families as well as romantic relations--

that the most competent one, the most successful one,

the most earning one has power.

But the same way that I say power

can come from the bottom-up from a child,

it can also be so with adults.

For example, in many relationships,

you have one person who has an addiction or who is depressed

or who can't get their act together

or who can't keep a job.

And that person also has power.

The depressed person, they don't experience

themselves as powerful.

But, systemically, what they feel inside

is very different than what happens

between them and others.

If I am down, most of the time, the people around me

are going to try to cheer me up.

They're going to give me all kinds of advice with what I

need to do to feel better, to get my energy back, et cetera.

And I will say, no, no, no, no.

And in the end, many of these very wise advice-givers

will end up feeling as helpless as me.

And this is a very important understanding of power.

So power is probably the most important, for me,

it's one of the most important dynamics

to understand in a relationship.

When you say, where lies the power,

who has the power, and power for what?

As you reflect on power, I'd like you to keep this in mind--

power is intrinsic in all relationships.

And power structures are more fluid now.

There's no relationship that doesn't have a power dimension.

You can have power over and you can have power to.

Hence, power can be oppressive and/or generative.

Power comes both from the top-down

and from the bottom-up.

And remember, be discerning about the kind of power

that people hold, how they've come to have it,

how they are supported to keep it, and how it affects

others around them.

I'm going to give you a little exercise to do, is to take

a little scan of some of the important relationships

in your life.

And again, you can choose your romantic ones, family ones,

friendships, work situations, all of the above.

And just ask yourself, what is my experience of power

in my relationships?

Do I feel that I have agency, that I

have power, initiative, action that I can freely express?

Do I feel that I'm often at the hands of other people

and their power over me?

Have I switched back and forth, sometimes I'm here,

sometimes I'm there?

And what made it change every time?

The main question is not do I have power,

but do I have agency?

Can I take certain steps separately

from what you are doing to me or to us?

And that is important, the opposite of agency

becomes codependency.

And just write the stories down for yourself.

Get a bit of a profile.

This is going to give you a host of information

about how you have experienced power, the power of others

and your own, when you step into your power,

when you are meek, when you deny it, when you're bold, when you

resist it, when you're afraid of it,

all of your responses to the position of power itself.