I. THE ORIGINS OF THE PROGRAM

The Content of Personality: Self-Reports or Behavior?

The Positive Power and Influence Program (PPIP) has roots both in German introspective phenomenology and American behavioral psychology. Phenomenology focused on the content of personality and accepted personal reports of experiences as valid data. Gestalt psychology is a direct descendent of this approach (as we will discuss later). American behaviorism, on the other hand, modeled itself after the physical sciences. Rejecting the validity of subjective (self-reported) experience, behaviorists only accepted observable—hence behavioral—data.

Henry Murray, a student of Freud teaching at Harvard University, had developed the
Thematic Apperception Test (TAT). In this test, the participant (or patient) saw a series
of pictures shown one at a time. The participant then composed or invented a story
about what was happening in the picture. David Berlew, a clinical psychology student,
was among a number of researchers trained to analyze the stories, or “samples of the
unconscious,” and use these analyses to assess mental illness.

Berlew’s mentor, David McClelland, was one of the American psychologists who tried
to broaden behaviorism to include the content of personality or of thought. Through a
rather elaborate series of experiments, McClelland developed coding systems that
allowed researchers to count the frequency of certain types of imagery in the TAT
stories that people told. By coding imagery, McClelland could obtain a quantitative, or
“behavioral,” estimate of the strength of certain interesting social motives. McClelland
named these motives Achievement, Affiliation, and Power. In a sense, his approach
brought German phenomenology and American behaviorism together. It allowed the
content of thought (whether conscious or unconscious), to be explored by observing
and counting the frequency of certain types of verbal responses.

Coding Achievement Motivation

McClelland’s early work focused specifically on the Achievement motive, which
became increasingly identified with entrepreneurial motivation. Later, he turned his
attention to Affiliation and Power. A student, David Winter, continued to study Power
motivation in public figures such as presidents. When McClelland and Winter spoke
about Power motivation, they meant an unconscious motive based on the degree to
which an individual gets pleasure and satisfaction from exerting power and
influence over other people. In behavioral terms, if exercising power is rewarding for
you, you are likely to do it more often.

Of course, it is not easy to predict motivation from observed behavior, because behavior is complex and human motivations are even more so. Psychological barriers, or neuroses, are not infrequent. For example, some people spend most of their lives
without engaging in any display of creative or artistic behavior, but late in life they
exhibit considerable artistic talent. When they discuss this change in behavior, they
confess to finally overcoming deeply held fears of ridicule or lack of confidence.

Similarly, some people may have high Power motivation but find that it conflicts with
their values, and so they suppress that part of their behavior, or at least they may tend
to hide it or disguise it.

In fact, McClelland’s studies did show that a questionnaire measuring the degree to
which people think Achievement or Power or Affiliation is important (or important to
them as individuals) does not correlate with the actual frequency of Achievement,
Power, or Affiliation imagery in their imaginative stories (TATs) or “unconscious
fantasies.” Motivation is suppressed when perceived as undesirable.

McBer and Company, a consulting and research firm founded by McClelland and
Berlew in the late 1960s, developed programs focusing on motivation. One early
“achievement motivation” program trained people to think in the same way that
entrepreneurs (or other people with high Achievement motivation) think. The program
taught participants to write imaginative stories filled with achievement imagery, and
then trained them in behaviors that were characteristic of people who spent their days
thinking “achievement thoughts.” Although the program produced powerful learning
experiences for participants, many corporate managers found it “too psychological.” In
addition, the training techniques were not easily transferred to other trainers who were
not trained psychologists.

The research of McClelland and Berlew assumed that the “effective level”—the level
actually operating— of a particular motive was a result of both what people carry
around internally and the “arousal characteristics” of the situation. For example,
Person A may have a high Achievement motivation, but if this person is eating lobster
with friends at a restaurant it simply may not be engaged—and thus may have an
“effective level” of zero. On the other hand, Person B may have a relatively low
Achievement motivation. But in an environment that continually presents challenging
tasks, provides good feedback on performance, encourages moderate risk-taking, and
so on, then Person B may have a reasonably high “effective level” of Achievement
motivation. In fact, evidence suggested that entrepreneurs worked hard to shape their
own environment, to maximize their intrinsic level of Achievement motivation.

(One logical next question might then be: can other people actively shape their
environments in a similar way? This issue led Berlew some years later to explore the
characteristics of how “idea champions” use influence in their organizations to promote
and implement change.)

Interestingly, Berlew concluded that the difficulties he encountered trying to train
people to exhibit more “achievement” behavior were not likely to surface with “power”
behavior. He figured that people were always able to demonstrate their use of power
(in the form of observable influence behavior) in the street, over cocktails, at home or
work, in politics—anywhere two or more people gathered for a purpose.

Studying Group Interaction

A different theoretical source of the PPIP stems from American sociology, particularly
the work of Talcott Parsons and his student, Robert F. Bales. As a graduate student at Harvard, Berlew encountered Bales studying small group behavior. Bales coded the
interaction of small, leaderless groups by sitting behind a one-way mirror and
observing behavior. Bales had devised a coding system that included categories like
“Makes Suggestions,” “Asks Questions,” and so on. Berlew and other assistants were
trained to code individual behaviors they observed into these categories, achieving a 90
percent reliability rate. From these data, Bales drew a number of interesting
conclusions about group behavior and the behavior of individuals in the groups. For
example, he found that the “most influential” person eventually becomes unseated by
the second most influential person (usually the most popular or best liked). The process
iterates or recycles, with the newest most influential person being unseated by
the“number two” person, and so on.

During this period, Berlew became interested in the kinds of behaviors exercised by the
people who were in the most influential position that resulted in their “downfall.”
Berlew realized that there were both positive and negative types of influence behavior.
McClelland was also interested in these “two faces of power.” He argued that power
could be used to exploit others or used for the good of the group or organization.

The PPIP applies the label of “personal power” to the positive use of personal influence
skills. As a training program, it helps participants to explore the difference between the
positive and negative uses of power and, through coding individual behavior in group
situations, to learn how personal power can be used effectively. The PPIP, therefore,
has a conceptual basis in both Bales’ and McClelland’s work at Harvard.

In summary, the design of the PPIP emerged from a few key sources. Its core model of
personal power and influence partly derives from the study of individual personality
and motivation, especially achievement motivation. More important still was
psychological research on how achievement motivation was expressed in social and
interpersonal situations, particularly the research conducted in complex settings like
organizations.

The next section describes how organizations’ interest in managerial success led David
Berlew and others to explore how people in organizations use power and influence to
accomplish their goals, and how these individuals might become more effective
through training.