Kenneth Boulding, in his brilliant book
Principles of Economic Policy
, describes the connection between power, choice, and possibility:

[P]ower is measured by the area within which choice is possible. If you have no choice, you have no power. Power, in other words, is measured by all the things you could do if you desired.

Boulding goes on to describe possibility boundaries, boundaries that mark the limits of our choices. We are free to choose our position within our possibility boundaries. Outside the boundary are all of the positions that we cannot reach, whatever our choices.

We can sort our possibilities along various dimensions of possibility. For example, at any moment we each have a physical possibility boundary. There are places I could go in the next hour if I so chose. There are places I could not go regardless of my choice.

We each, at any moment, have an economic possibility boundary. Given my current financial resources, there are things I could buy and things I could not buy.

There are many such dimensions of possibility, and we could refine these two into a richer set of categories if we wished. However many dimensions we might use to analyze our range of possibilities, our choices are bounded.

At any moment, our total field of possibility is the intersection of the possibilities along all dimensions. I may have enough money to buy an antique mahogany desk at an auction that starts in three minutes in Ponca City, Oklahoma, but if I can’t get to Ponca City in time, I can’t bid. I may be able to attend an auction for a multi-million dollar mansion here in Sacramento, but if I don’t have the money, I can’t bid. My possibilities for bidding at these auctions are limited by both my physical possibility boundary and my economic possibility boundary.

An implication I see in this “possibility boundary” model is that we increase our power by expanding our field of possibility. We expand the field of possibility by pushing back the boundaries along one or more dimensions. And we push back the boundaries by acquiring resources—money, skills, knowledge, clarity of purpose, permits, tools, reputation, friendships, Miles Davis CDs, and so on.

We can acquire resources in three ways. First, we can create resources, such as when we create new knowledge by learning from our experience. Second, we can exchange our resources for others that give us greater possibility for creating value, such as when we pay money for an airplane ticket, or sell an airplane ticket for money. Third, we can integrate our existing resources into forms that offer greater possibility, such as when Elisabeth Hendrickson and I recently teamed up to combine her testing expertise with my facilitation skills to lead a workshop about how Agile software development affects testers and test managers.

I think that possibility alone doesn’t give the full measure of power. I see another factor: the wisdom of our choices. We can increase our power by increasing our discernment about where we choose to be within our field of possibility.

Boulding addresses this, partially, by introducing the dimension of psychological possibility: the set of positions that we are willing to choose. The psychological possibility boundaries that we create for ourselves are often the boundaries that most constrain us. If I refuse to fly on an airplane, I can’t reach Ponca City in six hours, much less three minutes. If I were willing to fly, my possibilities would increase.

From all of this, I’m refining my model of
The Structure of Power
. Here’s the skeleton:

• We derive our power from the possibilities available to us and the wisdom of our choices.
• We increase our possibilities by increasing our resources.
• We increase our resources by creating new resources, by exchanging less powerful resources for more powerful ones, or by integrating our existing resources into more powerful forms.

I have a great deal more to say about power. Later.

resource

1. n. Anything that can be used to create value.
2. n. Matter, energy, or information that can be transformed into more valued forms.
3. n. Knowledge, skills, or implements that can be used to transform other resources into more valued forms.

These definitions are strongly related to my definitions of technology. If I were feeling silly, I could plug these definitions of resource into my definition of technology to yield: Technology is the application of resources to transform other resources into more valued forms. Silly.

It feels to me as if the second and third definitions above omit something important: relationships. Relationships are resources for the people involved. I could add “relationships” to one or both lists, but they’re already somewhat unwieldy.

What else is left out of this definition?

I’d like to find an evocative category to summarize the lists in the definitions. What category summarizes matter, energy, and information? What category summarizes knowledge, skills, and implements? For now, I can’t think of concise, evocative categories. The word anything in the first definition certainly summarizes all of the other terms, but it’s too general to be evocative.

Any adjustments I make here would likely ripple into my definition of technology.

A few weeks ago, Esther Derby, inspired by a Fast Company article about Whole Foods Market CEO John Mackey, wrote a short article about appreciation.

Esther says, “Some people are uncomfortable expressing appreciation.” I know something about that. When I first learned about Temperature Reading, at Weinberg & Weinberg’s week-long Problem Solving Leadership workshop in 1992, I felt very uncomfortable expressing appreciation. We held several Temperature Readings during the week, and at each I expressed my appreciation to several people for things they had done. Each time, as I opened my mouth to speak, my throat tightened and my eyes teared up. I was puzzled about that, and I made a mental note to think about what was going on for me in those moments. Why would it be so difficult to express something as wonderful as appreciation?

Over the next several months I experimented with expressing appreciation to people at work. Slowly I noticed what made it hard for me. Whenever I expressed my appreciation, I was reminding myself (unconsciously) that I, too, yearn for appreciation, and that I wasn’t experiencing the appreciation I wanted from others. And I was reminding myself (again unconsciously) that I often left my own appreciation unexpressed.

Once I was aware of my yearning, I found ways to satisfy it. The most important way was to remember to express appreciation for myself. When I began to do that, I found that I was more able to appreciate others, and that I didn’t feel such a strong need for other people to appreciate me. I’m sure that affected the way I related to people, because they began to express their appreciation for me.

In a comment on Esther’s article, Robert Watkins suggests that “This is one of those new age ideas which can be nice in theory, but in practice often just results in fake sincerity.” When I’m facilitating a session of appreciations, I do a few things that encourage sincerity. First, I invite appreciations. I don’t require them. It’s possible that people may feel some internal pressure (”I should …”) to say nice things when others around them are saying nice things to each other. I haven’t noticed a problem with that. Sometimes I see a chain reaction, in which the people who receive appreciation immediately want to offer appreciations of their own. However it happens, the appreciations that people express seem sincere to me.

Second, I encourage the person giving the appreciation to describe specifically what the receiver did, and what need that fulfilled for the giver. The main reason I encourage this is that the specifics make appreciation more meaningful, both to the giver and to the receiver. Sincerity is just a bonus, a nice side effect. It’s hard to be both insincere and specific about what someone has done and what need that has served for you.

In another comment, Jason Yip says, “I’m wondering if it’s useful, if doing it in public is a bit too ‘New Age’, whether it would be appropriate to start out with individuals doing it privately by themselves.”

I think it is wonderful for individuals to start by offering appreciations in private. It’s also wonderful to start in public. Here’s an example.

My friend Joe managed a team of a dozen software developers. He wanted his team, one of the more effective teams in the organization, to become even more cohesive than they already were, and asked me to help with that. One of Joe’s concerns was that the people on the team may not be reviewing each other’s code as often or as eagerly as he would like. We talked more about the situation, and decided that I would facilitate a Temperature Reading for the team.

A Temperature Reading is an activity that gives a team important information about itself and its members. The first phase of a Temperature Reading is appreciations. I offered people an opportunity to express appreciation to their colleagues for things they had done.

The people in the room—hardcore geeks all—had no trouble offering appreciations to each other. They offered dozens. And my impression was that about half of the appreciations were about code reviews. “John, I appreciate that you found that null pointer bug in my code.”

Joe noticed, over the next few weeks, that people were more eager to review each other’s code, and more eager to express appreciation to each other in the moment.

Starting privately is good. Starting publicly is good. When it comes to expressing appreciation, whatever will get you started is the right way to start.

Speaking of getting started, I started to write this article two weeks ago, inspired by Esther’s earlier article. Then I set it aside. Today Esther offers another look at appreciation, this time as a form of recognition. And I was inspired again.

Esther, I appreciate your two articles about appreciation. The first inspired me to remember some of the wonderful things I’ve learned about appreciation, and to start writing this article. The second inspired me to finish what I’d started.

Robert and Jason, I appreciate your expressing your concerns. Your comments to Esther inspired me to write about my experience doing Temperature Readings with technical people, many of whom may share your concerns.

manipulate

1. v. To influence a person using means that would be less effective if the person knew your intentions.

manipulation

1. n. The process of influencing a person using means that would be less effective if the person knew your intentions.

My definition relies heavily on descriptions I’ve read in two books. In
Influence without Authority
, Allan R. Cohen and David L. Bradford say, “influence attempts are not manipulative if you can tell your potential ally your intentions with no loss of influence.”

Edgar Schein, in
Process Consultation, Volume 1
, defines manipulation as “influencing others without making visible the motivation behind the influence attempts.”

Each of these quotes suggests a test for whether your influence attempts are manipulative. Cohen and Bradford’s quote suggests what I call
The Private Test of Manipulation: Could I tell the other person my intentions?

Schein’s definition suggests the second, stronger test, which I call
The Public Test of Manipulation: Have I told the other person my intentions?

empower

1. v. To connect a person with a source of power.

I’ve written about this definition before. I’m posting it again to add it to my glossary.

power

1. n. The ability to create value.

I’ve written about this definition before. I’m posting it again to add it to my glossary.

I’m developing two workshops, one about leadership and another about power. These workshops are for software people—developers, managers, executives, and others—and I’d like your input.

First imagine a leadership workshop. In order for the workshop to be exceptionally valuable for you:

• What objectives or needs would the workshop address?
• What kinds of situations would the workshop address?
• What concepts would the workshop cover?

Now imagine a workshop about increasing your power and using it wisely. In order for the workshop to be exceptionally valuable for you:

• What objectives or needs would the workshop address?
• What kinds of situations would the workshop address?
• What concepts would the workshop cover?

Finally, I have two more general questions:

• What other questions should I be asking?
• What else do you want me to know as I develop these workshops?
• Is there anything you want to ask me?

Please let me know what you think, either through comments here or through email. I will be grateful.

Due to popular demand, I’ve added an Atom feed for full entries. I’ve also added an Atom feed for summaries.

I will continue to publish only summaries in the RSS 1.0 and RSS 2.0 feeds.

A few years ago I invented a law of process improvement, which I called The Law of Conservation of Frustration:

Whenever we improve a process in order to reduce frustration, we increase our demands on the process until we are exactly as frustrated as before.

Lately I’ve come to realize that this formulation is analogous to Thomas Malthus’s famous argument, sometimes called “The Dismal Theorem of Economics,” that human populations will grow exponentially, checked only by widespread misery and starvation. We might call my law The Dismal Theorem of Process Improvement.

Recently I’ve been reading Kenneth Boulding’s brilliant book Principles of Economic Policy. Boulding expresses Malthus’s Dismal Theorem this way:

If nothing can check the growth of population but starvation and misery, then population will grow until it is miserable and starves.

Okay, Boulding’s version isn’t much cheerier than Malthus’s. But Boulding introduces an important qualification, and that qualification offers a glimmer of hope: What if something else could check the growth of population?

I like this glimmer of hope, faint though it may be. So I’ve added a similarly hopeful qualification to my law, yielding an improved version of The Law of Conservation of Frustration:

If nothing but frustration can check the growth of our demands, then whenever we improve a process, we will increase our demands on the process until we are exactly as frustrated as before.

The qualification encourages us to ask: What factors other than frustration might check the growth of our demands?

I can think of several candidate factors, all interrelated. The first is measurement. What if, in addition to our frustration, we also had data to tell us that we’re twice as fast as we were two years ago, and we ship one less than half of the defects? Then our improvements would be more visible. We would know that we are making gains.

Another candidate factor is relationships. If we can improve our relationships with our customers, if we can increase our trust in each other’s abilities and intentions, we may be able to replace demands with conversations and negotiations.

A third factor is commitments. If we steadfastly commit only to what we can reasonably deliver, we will more often deliver on our commitments. This will create better working relationships with at least some of our customers.

Measurement, trusting relationships, and reasonable commitments. What other possibilities are there? What other things can we do to keep demands from overwhelming our awareness of our improvements?

Jack Vinson, in a recent article expanding on my thoughts about automation, lamented, “Now if we could just convince Dale to provide a full web feed [in his RSS feeds] instead of the brief teasers.”

Someone else (I forget who) gave me a similar nudge many months ago. That makes two nudges in 17 months of blogging.

I publish only the excerpts in my RSS feeds because that helps me to “see” all of you, to know that you’re out there reading what I write. My web server logs what pages people visit. When your feed reader tells you that I’ve posted a new article and you click the link to read it, my web server notes that. Every day I look at the logs to learn what pages are being visited. I don’t know who is visiting, but I know how many people are visiting each page. I care about that little bit of information. It helps me to “make contact” with you, if only in a very small way.

If I were to publish the full articles in my RSS feeds, I would lose information in two ways. First, my RSS feed is a single page that includes my ten most recent blog articles. When your feed reader reads the feed, my web server logs a visit to that single page. That would give me little information about what entries you read.

Second, feed readers are automatic. They read my feed once per day, or several times per day, or once per hour. If I were to notice a jump in the number of visits to my RSS feed, that might mean that a whole bunch of people subscribed. Or it might mean that one of you configured your reader to check my feed once per hour instead of once per day. The visit count for my RSS feed tells me very little about how many real people are out there.

So my “excerpt only” feeds give me a teeny tiny bit of information. And that information is important to me, because it gives me a teeny tiny connection with all of you. I’d miss that if I didn’t have it.

I’m aware that by publishing only excerpts, I make things less convenient for those of you who subscribe to my RSS feed. And I care about that.

I try to make sure that the excerpts are not mere teasers. but are themselves informative. Most of the time I try put the main point into the excerpts, to help you decide whether you’re interested in reading the full article.

I revisit this issue from time to time, especially when someone nudges me. Consider me nudged.