Using Penalty Power to deal with problem people

I thought this opinion piece was an interesting read titled
'People Problems : Excercising personal power'

'There has been a lot of emphasis in recent years on empowerment. But just how does an employee at any level develop personal power?

Empowerment literally means becoming more powerful. When you have power, you are able to influence others to do certain things, persuade them that you have a good idea, gain co-operation, and ultimately achieve results.

There are five main ways to develop power and influence over people'

They are listed as using:

• position power
• knowledge and experience
• reward and recognition
• penalty
• inspiration

If you are being bullied, harassed, mobbed or victimised, the 'Using Penalty' seems an effective appropriate method, as described:

Using penalty

'The opposite of offering a reward, is threatening a penalty and sometimes this is the only way to exercise power to influence behaviour. And in two specific types of situations this is very appropriate; safety issues and harassment situations.

“I don’t want to do this but if you don’t leave me alone and stop harassing me, I’m going to report you to management. So please, please stop immediately or next stop is HR.”

Threatening a penalty or punishment is a pretty negative way to influence a person’s behaviour, but sometimes it’s the most effective way. It’s the way the police, for example, keep us below the speed limit. If we don’t, we get a penalty, a fine. So this way of exercising personal power does work!'

There you go, see how far you can get with that tactic!

The writer Eve Ash concludes .... 'Today’s workplace requires people to exercise personal power more and more. And this means being able to influence others at all levels to complete tasks, change behaviours, alter their points of view. Make sure you equip yourself with all these techniques so that you can become truly empowered!'

source: smartcompany.com.au