Diana R. Sieger is the president of the Grand Rapids Commmunity Foundation. For more information, visit Diana's President's pages or view her biography.

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President's Point of View: Power - why are we so fascinated with it?

June 7, 2007

Continuing the saga of attending Stanford’s Executive Program for Philanthropy Leaders in Palo Alto and here’s a brief description of our morning program on Wednesday, June 6th: Deb Gruenfeld from the Stanford Graduate School of Business is a - if not the - leading expert on power and she is a tremendous professor. It is something to get foundation leaders to come to terms with the “asymmetrical” imbalance of power relationships that we have with organizations who come to us for funding of proposals!

I have to say that the exercise we did yesterday morning cast me in the light of a turncoat! Well not even in the “light of a” turncoat but actually the character who abandoned her roots! Dr. Gruenfeld organized a sophisticated group exercise entitled “Star Power” and essentially through luck during the first round we were given assignments to join one of three groups based on our scores from collecting and negotiating for chips that we all took from a simple lunch bag.

Needless to say, I was a bit disheartened when my paltry sum led me to the low group identified with badges having red squares on them. The middle group was known by their blue circles and were actually physically elevated to the middle level of the lecture hall and the prestigious group - the almighty green triangles - held the highest position atop the room. We were then given six “bonus” poker chips per group and told to disburse them as we saw fit.

Well - somehow - even though I didn’t ask for this “honor” - I was given the six chips at the 11th hour in the hopes, though not fully articulated, that I would lift all the red squares out of the “pit” and make their dreams come true in the two other groups.

My new individual total gave me entry into the green triangle group who were reluctant in their acceptance of me and they immediately told me that they had concocted a scheme to determine the two final winners of the game and yet we had two more rounds to go. During the second round I was told to NOT negotiate with anybody else and to stand with my arms folded.

My reaction? And anyone who knows me from GR will smile at this - - - I said very loudly “I want to go back to the red squares, they are sweeter than all of you!” Two of the red group members tried to come up to barter for chips and I was torn but the triangles prevailed sending my two “former” friends pounding down the lecture hall steps - “you were supposed to help us but you turned your back on us!”

Sigh … the game continued and taught us the dynamics of power relationships and how those of us in the foundation need humility in our work with organizations applying for funding and to remember that the tide could turn at anytime.

After debriefing and an examination of my behavior and lots of laughter, our colleague Chee Koon Tan from Singapore’s National Volunteer and Philanthropy Centre summed it up best by reminding us about humility and why we are working as partners with our communities through foundations. She was the real winner of the day.

So off I go with my tail between my legs … humbled. Good thing I’d say. Take a look at Mark Petersen’s blog at http://markpetersen.wordpress.com/ - he’s my colleague at the Bridgeway Foundation and he is MUCH younger than me and knows all the bells and whistles of blog entries with which I will become much more proficient once I return home!

Power - don’t abuse it - respect it and humility will win the day!