Power in society Who has it how to get it and how to use it well

[Music]

do you want

power it’s a strange question right

it kind of feels wrong we tend to think

of wanting power as something only

comic book villains do that’s probably

partly because

we’re tragically familiar with abuses of

power

i know i’ve seen it up close and maybe

you have too in fact statistics would

tell me you probably have to

one in four women experience severe

physical

abuse in their lifetimes from an

intimate partner

three out of four employees say that the

worst

or most stressful part of their job is

their boss

now even if you’re fortunate enough not

to have seen or experienced abusive

power

in a workplace setting or in a domestic

setting

i know you’ve seen it in the news we all

see it all the time

every day it’s in pop culture

all through politic politics of every

stripe and color

i mean just in recent history we’ve seen

a president

try to subvert justice using his

position uh

intimidate those who tried to call him

out sabotage

and try to steal from an opponent’s

campaign and minimize and deny his play

and blame his behavior on others nixon

i’m talking about richard nixon just to

be clear um

i could tell you that the patterns of

behavior that i saw

during more than 200 interviews with

perpetrators of power-based crimes

are nearly identical to

so much of the civil and cultural

discourse that we see

today just

recently we all got a front row seat and

watched in horror

as a man used positional and physical

power to kneel on george floyd’s neck

for nearly nine minutes while he died

crying out for his mother

all of these things are connected by a

common thread

a pernicious desire for or expression of

power but i didn’t actually come here to

talk to you about all of that i actually

came here to tell you

that i want power and in fact

you want power right now at this very

moment you and i are both

trying to obtain more power whether we

realize it not

whether we realize it or not maybe

you’re not convinced

but what if i turn this question around

do you want to be

powerless in the mid-1500s thomas hobb

said that power is a man’s current means

to obtain some future good

the word power comes from the latin

posse which means to be able

and it is also where we get the english

word possibility you see power is not

wrong it’s simply to be able to create

possibility

we could simply define it as power is to

be able to

affect outcomes or people

in a desired direction

there’s my pursuit of power my pursuit

of power

is based on my partner captain marvel

and i

and our desire to obtain future good

for hulk and for black widow

we want our children to have the power

to dream and to learn and to create and

to achieve and to build

and to love and in my best moments i

want that for

every child in my community

but what does that really mean what

exactly is power how do i get more and

how do i use it in such a way

that every person rich or poor religious

or irreligious black or white is

empowered by my actions given more

potential

to affect the outcomes of their lives

in order to sort through some of these

questions let’s tap

three quick hooks into the conversation

that i think will help us

give us something to hang our thoughts

on hook number one

identify what exactly are the types of

power

hook number two understand

how does power really work and hook

number three of course how do we put

this all into action

and use power well

first of all types of power what are the

types of power what are the things in

society that help us

to influence the outcomes of our lives

and our families lives well the most

obvious of course is money

you have to have money to influence

outcomes but what about education

position a skill a specialized skill set

or a trade

internal power heart those kind of

things that happen on the inside

self-esteem and

and a work ethic and and love

what about an influential network even

spiritual belonging or religious

belonging

these are all things that most of us use

on a regular basis one or more of these

things

to influence or affect the outcomes of

our lives

there’s one that we hear a lot about but

we don’t

i don’t think understand as much and so

i want to take a couple of extra minutes

on that and that’s

cultural or social privilege now

privilege is a type of power and don’t

let the word privilege bother you or

make you feel defensive

not all types of privilege are

illegitimate

and even illegitimate privilege

is not always usually in fact not

your individual fault if you have it

it’s the result of larger social

uh evolutions now

uh privilege it can manifest in several

different ways i remember talking to

john

and i was in a little police department

interview room and john says to me

i didn’t yell i don’t have to yell i

just shot my pistol into the floor to

get her attention because she wouldn’t

listen

i mean she’s supposed to listen you’re a

preacher you know what the bible says

the husband’s the head the wife is the

tail

by the way the bible doesn’t say that

but john had male privilege he’d been

given by society

a greater degree of ability to influence

and control

outcomes and if you’re a man like me and

you live in a society

where your culture has given default

authority

and leadership decision making a power

to men then you have male privilege

regardless of how you use

that privilege and you should understand

we should all recognize that if our

culture has historically done that

then our traditions our social and legal

structures our economic structures

our religious beliefs all of these

things are gender roles they’ve all

evolved over time

to mirror and to reinforce that

privilege

white privilege is the same way if a

society builds its foundations

on a presumption of the superiority of

people with light-colored skin

then it’s legal and social institutions

it’s implicit biases it’s societal roles

everything all of these things are

interconnected and they evolve over time

to give certain people power and to keep

certain people from

power class privilege is another

important one or we could call this

socioeconomic privilege

this is typically inherited but it’s

normally one of the more powerful types

of privilege because it’s a combination

of several types of power

including occupation income and

education

now this is not an exhaustive list of

all the types of power i’m sure you

could add to the list

but these are some of the things in

society that move the needle

the things that help ordinary people

like you and like me

influence the outcomes of our lives

but how do they really work how do these

types of power

really work we’ve got to understand

power these types of power are not just

laying around on the street for anybody

to pick up and use any time they want

or to have complete access to there are

social and cultural institutions

that maintain and guide the flow of

access to power

you can think of these as the

gatekeepers of power and it all starts

early on

in childhood development through family

structures

the landmark adverse childhood

experiences study showed

that people who experience significant

levels of household dysfunction

abuse or neglect had much higher risks

of negative health and well-being

outcomes when you destabilize or you

interrupt

childhood development in a traumatic way

you

take power from that child and the

results can be catastrophic

and often the impacts are generational

in nature

and it’s important to recognize that

childhood development

it cannot be interrupted and sometimes

this happens this trauma can happen

at a society-wide level through things

like slavery

or mass incarceration sometimes it

happens at a microcosm level

through individual situations like

domestic violence

what about civil structures this would

include governing bodies

things like your state legislature your

hoa even

anything that makes policy in your

community or affects policy in your

community but it also includes things

like schools

and libraries and public services these

impact people’s access to

power what about judicial structures

this includes the justice system and

law enforcement in your community and

how the law is enforced

and how breaking the law is punished has

a

profound impact on who has power in

society that’s why we have to

have a a meticulous examination

and an ongoing appraisal or feedback

loop for justice structures

our judicial structures in our

communities because historically

judicial structures tend to tip in favor

of those in society with means who

already have power

and to see the harshest impacts in the

communities that are already most

disadvantaged

of course we can’t leave out economic

structures right financial institutions

and employers

control access to capital which is a

major form of power

and a gateway to many other types of

power now all of these structures

are exaggerate the principle of

compounding

that power compounds in other words

just like wealth begets wealth power

gets begets power individuals

or communities who have power typically

have more access to or even outright

control

the means of producing and consolidating

exponentially

more power while individuals or

communities who have little power

have to typically work around the system

in order to gain access to power

they may have to have a benefactor who

has power who can help

or they simply have to overpower the

system

through sheer numbers in order to

actually increase their power

now that interaction that we’re talking

about there is core to our understanding

of power because by

definition power involves an interplay

or an interaction

between one or more parties excuse me

two or more parties

that is either antagonistic or

mutualistic

in an antagonistic context power is used

to

overpower coerce dominate control

in a mutualistic context power is used

to influence inspire collaborate

help now an antagonistic use of power

is always inefficient and it costs all

parties involved resulting in a net

loss of human potential individuals or

communities who

are forced to function for an extended

period of time

in an antagonistic context where they

have less power

experience what’s called toxic stress

and that leads to

destructive outcomes including escalated

violence physical and mental health

challenges

and even a complete loss of identity

individuals and communities who are on

the more powerful side of this

antagonistic context

also experience loss though they may get

more gross power in the short term

but over the course of the long term

they pay an awful price including

they lose the potential of

sustainability and collaboration

now that doesn’t mean that antagonistic

power is never necessary sometimes you

have to overpower sometimes you have to

intimidate

but antagonistic power is typically not

necessary for the reasons that are often

used to justify its use

usually the justifications and believe

me i’ve heard more than my fair share of

justifications for abusive power

and they usually involve an exaggerated

claim for the need of self-preservation

or self-defense

or a scarcity of resources but the truth

is

a scarcity of resources there’s almost

never been a true scarcity of resources

not in the world not in individual

settings

there’s almost always a scarcity of

imagination

of innovation of collaboration of

empathy

now on the other hand mutualistic power

is efficient

and it benefits all parties involved

resulting in a multiplication

of human potential everybody ends up

with more power

in the long term so how do we use

power well how do we take that

understanding and put it into action

it all starts when we acknowledge the

reality of power struggle

and that nobody has the same starting

line in life

there’s no such thing as a pure

meritocracy there’s no such thing as

pulling yourself up by your own

bootstraps

you have to have help you have to have

luck you have to have

opportunity you have to have community

and that should motivate

all of us to raise a hand and say i will

use my power whatever that power is to

help and empower those with less power

than i have

along the way we may have to learn or

re-learn

the difference between antagonistic and

mutualistic context

i spend a lot of time talking to

companies and to individuals

about what mutualistic behavior really

looks like what mutualistic use of power

looks like what mutualistic leadership

looks like we understand that as we’re

doing that kind of individual work to

become empowering people

in order to see widespread uh

empowerment and widespread

distribution of power it takes

collective action

and so that means we have to support

reforms or

institutions that help balance power in

society

i want you to ask with me what if

what if instead of one out of four women

experiencing severe physical abuse what

if it was four out of four men

holding each other and themselves

accountable to respectfully partner

with the women in their lives what if

instead of three out of four

employees saying that their bosses was

the worst part of their jobs

what if it was four out of four bosses

raising a hand and saying

i commit to becoming an empowering

leader

and being there in a mutualistic way for

my team

what if instead of 20 of the us

population having 77

of the wealth what if we lived in a

world where we proactively funneled

excess back into the lives and

businesses and communities

of those who struggle to gain access to

capital

what if all of us woke up every day

with gratitude and humility and

confidence

and determination to know what our power

is

and to use it well

thank you

you