Dealing with Power and Politics as a Consultant

Facing the challenges of being new, not having a formal position and having to find support for change in client organizations

1. Introduction
As an external consultant, I have experienced moments of complete powerlessness when I saw logic and reason fall short due to politics in client organizations. Projects I have worked on were severely delayed and sound recommendations were never implemented because someone in power obstructed them. This paper explores the dynamics of power and politics in client organizations and strategies that will help consultants to avoid similar problems in the future. It is an attempt to offer guidance in navigating projects through the stormy sea that power and politics can be in client organizations for consultants. To this end, I will draw on academic literature and personal experience. First, I will discuss the challenges that arise from the unique position of the external consultant when it comes to power and politics. After that I will discuss strategies to meet these challenges.

2. The Position of the Consultant in Client Organizations

As a consultant you are not only new to a client organization, but you also lack a formal position. Yet you need to find support for recommended changes. These changes will of course, assuming that you do what you are supposed to do, be in the best interest of the client organization. However, we know that perspectives of organizational members differ and that their individual interests often diverge from the organizations general interest and can even be in conflict. As a consequence, consultants are likely to meet obstructions and resistance from organizational members, motivated out of self-interest rather than the organizations interest at one point in their career, threatening the success of the project they are working on at the time. Since consultants often work on a no-cure-no-pay basis or when they do not, still depend on the success of a project to build the reputable portfolio that is required to sell themselves on new projects such resistance is not only a direct threat to the project but also to your career, as competence in consultancy is often measured based on the success of previous projects. This makes the skill of being able to deal with power and politics in client organizations a career maker or a career breaker for consultants. I propose that this skill is based, to a large extent, on the ability to deal with the challenges of being new, not having a formal position and finding support for change in the client organization. Being new When you start a project at a client organization that is new to you, you are in the dark about the political climate and the power dynamics that are at play. You dont know what the interests are of the organizational members that hold power interests that could potentially conflict with your advice. Even worse, you still need to figure out who actually holds power, since the organizational hierarchy chart is often a poor indicator for whos really in power. This knowledge is essential in navigating through what could potentially be a political minefield. No
April 2009 Schulich School of Business Interpersonal Conflict, Politics & Power in Organizations Final Individual Assignment

matter what direction your project takes, a map with the location of the mines (i.e. the political interests of those in power) is essential for survival. But even when youve got this map, it only covers the manifest or surface dimension of power (Bradshaw, 1998). In Bradshaws framework, there is also a latent or deep dimension, that captures the deeply and often subconsciously held values and beliefs of individuals, groups and the collective that makes up the organization that needs to be taken into account when trying to make changes. Even more dangerous than opposition that originates from a conflict of interest, is resistance that springs from a conflict between your actions or recommendations with the deeply held beliefs of an individual or a collective within the client organization. If the manifest/structural power dynamics are land-mines that can damage or destroy your project, the latent/deep values and beliefs are sea-mines that will surely blow your project out of the water if you happen to cross them. Not having a formal position Scholars who write about power often dedicate the larger part of their introduction to overcoming the taboo that rests on power. A reflection of the bad reputation power has (Pfeffer, 1992), which was wittily captured by Kanter, in his observation that power is Americas last dirty word (Kanter, 1979). Because of this taboo, there is often little awareness and appreciation for the many different sources of power that can be employed to get things done, except for the one source that is always in plain sight and most explicit in business: the source of legitimate or formal authority (Bradshaw, 1998; Pfeffer, 1992) which one derives from ones position. Some authors have even made position the main theme of their analysis of power and politics in organizations. Oshry (2007), for example, describes the workings of organizational dynamics between what he calls tops (upper management), middles (middle management) and bottoms (employees), identifying pitfalls and suggesting strategies for successfully initiating change for all levels. Insightful and valuable for organizational members in general, but of little use for consultants as a guide for successfully dealing with the dynamics of power and politics in client organizations, as they have no formal position. And do not belong to any of these three groups. As a consultant you therefore can not draw on legitimate or formal authority as a power base. Although this is not necessarily something that keeps consultants up at night, it is a guarantee for encountering a lot of who-says-sos?, while trying to get things done from members of the client organization. And although there are many ways to deal with that and enough power bases to draw on in the process, you want to make sure that your tactics will be effective instead of backfiring on you. Finding support for change On the challenge of having to recommend change I can be brief. The academic field of Organizational Behavior and business practice leave little question about it, successfully initiating change is one of the biggest challenges for professionals, especially because power and politics are an important part of the equation.

April 2009 Schulich School of Business Interpersonal Conflict, Politics & Power in Organizations Final Individual Assignment

3. Project Starts: Understanding the Political Landscape and Power Dynamics

When you start a new project as a consultant, the client will introduce you to their take on what could be called the technical side of the problem. Often however, this isnt helpful or even misleading, as clients typically either tell you that they want to increase profitability or that you need to figure out the best way to successfully enter country Xs market with product line Y. Comparing both clients to a patient visiting a doctor, the first one only tells the doctor that she doesnt feel well (Rasiel, 1998), the second one immediately tells the doctor that she needs a prescription for antibiotics. Like the doctor in both scenarios, you as a consultant have your hands full figuring out what the real problem is when you start a new project. As a consultant you also dont come cheap. Thats why you always try to get a quick win so that the client feels shes spending her money wisely on you. In short, there is a lot of pressure to identify and tackle the technical problem as quickly as you can. Although there is nothing wrong with being eager, you shouldnt get blind sighted about the political side of the problem. A lot of political problems and power issues you will encounter later on in the project can be avoided by understanding the landscape of political interests and power dynamics in the client organization at the start. But how do you accomplish that when you are new? 3.1. Assessing the playing field Figuring out the political issues and power dynamics on both the surface and a deeper underlying level can look like an impossible challenge. You are essentially trying to comprehend an ever-active, continuously evolving, multilevel, multi-actor, and intangible set of relationships that is extremely complex. How do you know whos important and what their interests are, not to mention the deep cultural beliefs that most members of the client organizations arent able to articulate themselves? You treat it like a game. More specifically, you treat it like a game you dont know and that you are trying to figure out. The comparison to a game is both simple and powerful. Every game has got rules (official rules and cultural values in the organization) players (organizational members) with different roles (positions with individual goals and personal interests) that are related to each other (relationships/alliances) and contribute to an overall goal (organizational goal and interests) of their team (the organization). Acknowledge that although in games just as in organizations the goals of individuals are supposed to be aligned with the goal of the team, there can be conflicts of interest between the player and the team, a player for example doesnt pass the ball to a teammate who is in a better position to score because he wants to improve his own goal average, and the analogy of a game covers the fundamentals of the dynamics of power and politics dynamics in organizations. Figuring out who the players are is easy, since they are in plain sight. Figuring out what their roles are, whether they have any overriding individual interests and what their relationships are to other players, is a bigger challenge. If you just walked onto a playing field in the middle of a game you dont know, your only option to learn about a player is to talk to other players and ask them
April 2009 Schulich School of Business Interpersonal Conflict, Politics & Power in Organizations Final Individual Assignment

about her function and probe about her reputation to understand her role. Keep in mind though that you wont get objective evaluations. The person you talk to will give her perspective based on her role and history with the player youre trying to find out about. This means that you have to do this with several players to fill in the blanks and get a trustworthy picture of all the players. Making a habit of asking what does she do, who does she work with and what kind of person is she, whenever you hear a new name and keeping a mental, or physical note is an effective way to put together the political puzzle that gives you an overview of the surface-level power dynamics in the client organization. Figuring out the rules is somewhat different. Of course you can also ask the other players. The problem is however, that none of the players will exhaustively sum them up for you and that aside from the official rules, there are also tons of unwritten rules or accepted norms that, although not explicitly stated, are shared among the players and are often just as or even more important than the official ones. The best way to figure out the rules is therefore to look for actions that get players punished or that have met with disapproval or resentment from other players. When this happens, ask several players why the player was punished or received negative reactions. Because such cases do not occur every other day and you want to increase your understand as quickly as you can, probing for past events that fall into this category when possible isnt a bad idea either. Figuring out what somebody has done to fall in bad-standing in the client-organization will help you to spot the sea mines that are hidden deep under the surface. 3.2. If you are not a member of the client organization, you are a resource. Although it may feel a little bit degrading, realizing that employees at the client organization actually perceive you as a resource is both a good start in trying to understand the dynamics within the client organization, as it is a safeguard against a bruised ego at the end. Oversimplifying things, it could be said that there are two types of consultancy projects: (A) projects where the client organization actually needs the consultants expertise because they have no clue as to how they should solve a problem and (B) projects where someone in the client organization already has her own, perfectly clear idea about what to do but just needs the endorsement of an external (expert) party to legitimate that idea before she can implement it. In reality it is, of course, hard to find either in their pure form. Rather, A and B should be thought of as the extreme ends of a continuum (figure 3.1). In most projects at least someone in the client organization has ideas or preferences about the solution of the problem and there are always at least some parts of the solution that have not been worked out completely.

April 2009 Schulich School of Business Interpersonal Conflict, Politics & Power in Organizations Final Individual Assignment

Figure 3.1 Continuum between project type A and B

The further a project is positioned to the side of (B), the more vigilant you should be as a consultant. Besides professionally unsatisfying, projects that to a great extend serve to legitimize the ideas of those who hired you, are often in need of legitimacy for a reason. Other people in the client organization may not be as fond of them, for why wouldnt the idea need to be endorsed by an external party before being implemented. If this is the case, the people who oppose the idea are also likely to be people who hold significant power over either the decision whether or not to implement the idea or the implementation process, for, again, why else would the idea need to be legitimized before being implemented first. Such power does not necessarily have to be based on formal authority; it could, for example, also be the deep personal power of resistance (Bradshaw, 1992) of the people who are the key to successful implementation. If your project comes down to legitimizing the ideas of the person who hired you, you are bound to run into problems caused by the opposition. If youre lucky you will run into them in the early stages, if you are less fortunate, you will only find out after your final recommendations have been rejected or were sabotaged during implementation. Avoiding this and increasing your understanding of the political landscape and the power dynamics that specifically relate to your project is easy. It only requires a change in mindset, observation and some clever thinking. Picture yourself as a resource and figure out how and why the client organizations members want to deploy you. Looking at your project from this perspective will help you to navigate your project through the client organizations political minefield. Sometimes however, the political side of the problem far outweighs the importance of the technical side or it simply makes solving the technical side impossible. In such situations it is wiser to have an honest talk with your client and walk away. The chance of stepping on a mine is just too big and the reward isnt worth the risk. Another benefit of perceiving yourself as a resource from the start when your project is on position on the continuum that is acceptable to you is that it prepares you to deal with the fact that the only credits for an outstanding performance you will often get from the clients organization, is a sincere thank you from the person who will get the real reward and recognition internally, the person who hired you. Seeing yourself as a resource will also save you from any bruises to your ego in the end.

April 2009 Schulich School of Business Interpersonal Conflict, Politics & Power in Organizations Final Individual Assignment

4. Project Middles: Getting the Work Done

The projects mid-life begins when you actually start to work on the problem and need to gather information. At some point in almost every project, this will require the assistance of at least one or more member of the client organization other than the person who hired you. Assuming that such key persons in the client organization will cooperate in the best way they can because they all acknowledge the importance of you project will surely present you with some surprises. As Maister (2004) observes, even the person that hires you often feels insecure, threatened, worried, exposed, concerned, and suspicious about hiring you. Imagine how other key persons in the client organization, that potentially have conflicting interests with the person who hired you, could feel about sharing information with you. Some will even refuse to give you what you need because you do not have a formal position in the client organization. The default reaction of most consultants I know to a situation like this is as well as the one Rasiel (1998) to pull rank and get their contact within the client organization to exercise their power to get the person to cooperate. Although this indeed often does the trick when your contact has a high position within the client organization, I argue that you should only use this as a measure of last resort. Your contact does not always have authority or influence over the key persons to your project. They could, for example, be in a different departments or business units, making this strategy useless. More important however, is to realize that even when your contact does have formal authority, resistance will not magically disappear by forcing cooperation cooperate. Because resistance is based on deep personal power (Bradshaw, 1998) and forced cooperation is only cooperation on a structural level, they will likely limit their help to exactly what is asked from them, not revealing additional information that might be relevant, or even try to sabotage your project in other ways out of resentment. A last reason to avoid using the formal authority of your contact is that when you do, you confirm your own powerlessness, and risk not being able to get anything done yourself afterwards. Therefore, I argue that you should avoid using the formal authority of your contact in the organization and draw on the power bases that you do have or can develop as a consultant in order to procure voluntary cooperation of key persons to your project. In the following paragraphs the powerbases that you can draw on and develop as be discussed, along with some strategies to build and leveraging them in order to get what you need to successfully complete your project. 4.1. Building Relationships: Referent Power A successful sales person I worked with explained the key to his success as follows: When I meet somebody for the first time professionally, I never start talking about business. I even try to avoid it as long as I can. I always try to build a relationship first. Without a relationship it is simply impossible for me to do business. As I gained more experience myself, I found that this applied not only to sales, but business in general. If you build relationships the right way, this can be a much

April 2009 Schulich School of Business Interpersonal Conflict, Politics & Power in Organizations Final Individual Assignment

stronger powerbase than formal authority alone can ever be. But how do you build relationships the right way and how do they help you to get what you need as a consultant? Referent power is defined as power that comes from trust and commitment given to the individual because of their personal traits and characteristics and is obtained by building respect and trust through personal integrity, charisma and group affiliation (Bradshaw, 1998). Integrity, to me, means that fake smiles and acting out of self-interest are not the right way to build a relationship that will actually help you to get things done. Instead, effectively building a relationship means taking a genuine interest and being honest about your own motives. In practical terms, building a relationship that will help you get what you need means getting to know the key persons to your project before you need them, and, equally important, give them an opportunity to get to know you. Although there are different ways to do this, the most straightforward and generically applicable one is to talk to other persons in the client organization that you already know and learn as much about the person as you can before you meet them, professionally and personally. Good questions to ask are what shes good at, what makes her important to the client organization, if shes got any special achievements on her track record, and what she likes to do when shes not working. Try to find something that you are genuinely interested in yourself and you have something to talk about and a start for building a relationship. When you meet her, be honest and say that the main reason to get to know her at this point (this can change over time as the relationship develops) is that your project will probably require her cooperation in the future. Since this is your true motive to see her and pretty obvious to any person with basic intelligence, it is better to state it so that you do not leave her guessing and can start building trust. After mentioning this, avoid talking about your project for a while. Talk about the things you found out about her. Talk about something, her boss or colleague told you she did a good job on for example. Dont forget about things outside of work either, especially if you share an interest. Talk about your own interests and experiences as well. Be careful not to push it though, or to feign interest. If she doesnt seem to care or youre not truly interested, you might do more harm than good. You can always fall back on and in any case should end by giving her a chance to share her thoughts on your project, so you understand her position. Let her know that you want to take her interests into account as much as you can. Integrity, however, also demands that this will not always be possible as your commitment is to solve the problem to the best interest of the company, not hers. Although the latter doesnt seem a good way to build a relationship, it will actually often be appreciated, as it reflects honesty and integrity. A talk like this can take as little as 10 minutes and will significantly increase the chances of the other person cooperating later on. Getting to know more about her interests during a short talk like this also puts you in a position to do her small favours. If shes facing a problem at work, you might be able to advice her on it. If you know that she loves hiking and is going on a holiday to the Suisse Alps, you could recommend a great hiking trail you followed yourself two summers ago. Small favours like that create a sense of obligation to return favours later on (Kotter, 1977; Pfeffer, 1992).
April 2009 Schulich School of Business Interpersonal Conflict, Politics & Power in Organizations Final Individual Assignment

Getting to know people and helping them out also makes your own job a lot more fun. As Dale Carnegie said you will have more fun and success when you stop trying to get what you want and start helping other people get what they want. 4.2. Expertise: Sharing a piece of your mind As a consultant, one power base that is directly at your exposal is your expertise. When the project you are working on is positioned far enough towards point A on the continuum in figure 3.1, you are there because members of the client organization can not solve the problem themselves and you can. Another way to get things done without relying on the formal authority of your contact in the client organization is effectively leveraging your expertise as a power base. Leveraging your expertise effectively however, does not mean telling everybody how great and knowledgeable you are. That is just being arrogant and will likely incite resentment rather than cooperation. Instead, you should share some of your knowledge with the people that you need to cooperate. This means that instead of walking up to, for example the sales manager of the client organization, and telling her directly that you need last years sales data, you talk about the problem you are working on first, and in more detail than your first meeting youve already had to get acquainted (paragraph 4.1). Share the goal of your project, your approach to solving the problem, and where the sales data you need from her fits in. When her personal interests are at least to some degree aligned with the clients organization and showing her how her cooperation is going to help the organization will increase your chances to get what you need. If you are lucky, you will not only get the sales data but she will share a piece of her mind regarding your project as well, adding some valuable qualitative insights to the sales data. Also try to do your best to tie her personal interests to the objective of your project if the situation allows for it. If theres still resistance after using this approach, the last way to leverage your expertise is to come up with examples of similar successful projects you have worked on your self or that you know of. Explain to her how getting the sales data (or whatever it is you require from another key person in the client organization) was essential to the success of that project. Let her know that if you do not get what you need, you will not be able to do the same thing for her company. She probably does not want to keep you from making a similar contribution to her organization. The logic behind using your expertise as a power base in this manner, is that the credentials and ongoing experience that you will demonstrate using this strategy is something that others will respect (Bradshaw, 1998) making cooperation more likely. 4.3. Power by Association: Using the Scarce Relationships You Have Effectively Another reason why the sales manager in the previous paragraph wouldnt want to obstruct, is that although you have not yet threatened to get your contact to order or pressure her to do what you want, she probably knows that you are working for her. Power from association is another power base that you can use to get things done in the client organization, as long as you know how to use it.
April 2009 Schulich School of Business Interpersonal Conflict, Politics & Power in Organizations Final Individual Assignment

Although the challenge of being new implies that your network within the client organization is limited to your contact at the start of your project, using the impact association can have will help you build a network faster and makes getting things done easier. Lets go back to the example of the sales manager. In addition to building a relationship with her (paragraph 4.1) and leveraging your expertise (paragraph 4.2) some intelligent name dropping can get you a long way as well. If youve assessed the playing field (paragraph 3.1) you should have some idea about the power hierarchy within the client organization and be able to roughly position the person you need to cooperate in it. If your contact, Carol, is higher up in the hierarchy dont hesitate to start out with Im working with Carol on Mentioning other persons that are above her or at about the same level in the hierarchy and sharing how they have already helped you out with your project is also a good idea. Showing that you already know a fair amount of important people in the organization and that they were willing to help you out will often reduce her resistance to cooperate as well. Two cautionary notes with regard to this strategy need to be made however. First, association will only work if its used as soft indirect influence, do not tell the other person that you need her to do something and mention your acquaintance with a certain person as a reason why she should directly, this is indirect though obvious threatening instead of subtle influencing. Second, be careful not to mention association with her political rivals, she might put you in their camp. One advantage of being an external consultant without a formal position in the client organization is that you often get to meet a lot of people from different departments, people who do not necessarily meet each other or share relevant information a lot. Going beyond simple name dropping is sharing information youve got from other persons you spoke to earlier and forwarding it to the person whose cooperation you seek to acquire, if its relevant for that person of course. Make sure that it is information that you can share though and not the confidential type, remember your integrity. This again ties in with doing small favours (Kotter, 1977; Pfeffer, 1992). However, it will also give you somewhat of a central position in the informal communications network, increasing your personal influence (Pfeffer, 1992).

5. Project Ends: Successfully Selling Your Ideas

The end phase of a project consists of the preparation for and actual delivery of your recommendations to the client. Usually your recommendations will be in the form of a report and a final presentation. I will take the presentation as the defining moment at the end of a project. Although this doesnt necessarily have to be true, this is just a simplification that allows for parsimony in writing and everything discussed in this chapter about the presentation, in principle applies to final reports, workshops or any other mode of delivery for your final recommendations, because regardless of what media you use, the challenges are essentially the same. Getting all the key decision makers with their different and sometimes conflicting individual interests to support

April 2009 Schulich School of Business Interpersonal Conflict, Politics & Power in Organizations Final Individual Assignment

your plan and finding them willing to make changes in their organization is both the biggest challenge of being a consultant as the only measure of success for your project that really counts. 5.1. Nobody likes surprises The target audience for your recommendations consists of people that already hold positions of considerable power. Pfeffer (1992) observes that although a lack of flexibility and a reluctance to change are actually reasons why people loose power, people who are in power have a tendency to hold on to the way things are even when the environment requires change from the perspective of the larger structure. The reason, again, is that individual interests are not the same as the interests of the larger system. This observation interestingly enough reveals both how difficult it is to actually succeed in getting support for your recommendations to change, as how resistance to change by those in power can actually be self-defeating. Given the importance of personal interests and the fact that they are often in conflict with those of others and even the interests of the larger system, how likely is it that youll convince, lets say 8 decision makers to implement the changes you recommend during your presentation? Even one decision maker whos influenced by seven other people that are present will not give you her blessing right there and then just because your recommendations make sense to the larger system. In order to prevent your moment in the corporate sun from dissolving into a shouting match, you should make sure that there isnt anything that is new to the audience in the presentation (Rasiel, 1998). I would go one step further, saying that in order for your recommendations to be implemented, there shouldnt be anything new to anybody who is involved or has influence over the process in your advice when you formally deliver it. Rasiels solution is to prewire everyone by walking them through your advice individually before the presentation, remembering that your job is not only to come up with the right answer but to sell it to the client as well, requir[ing] salesmanship [on some times] and compromise on others. But what does such salesmanship need to entail in order to be effective? Specific tactics should of course be chosen based on the context of the situation, but in general the cardinal rule is that selling should always be focused on and around the personal interests of that person. When it proves too difficult to reconcile the differences between the personal interests and those of the larger system, however, and the situation allows for it, engaging in some political behaviour of your own may do the trick. Talk to the person you expect the most resistance from last and get support and advice on how to handle potential resistance from that person from other key decision makers first. By the time you need to win that person over, the support you already have and some of the advice you got will make your job a lot easier. In complex situations this may require more than one round of visits and even turn into lobbying, the effort, however, is still more than worth it. Formally delivering your recommendations when theres still opposition will often turn into an unsatisfying and sometimes even painful experience after many months of hard work. After youve

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won them all over individually, your presentation is just a performance that sets the stage for favourable decision making regarding your recommendations. 5.2. Giving Them Something You Want Them to Say No To Another way to deal with the difficulty of getting key decision makers in the client organization to implement your recommendations is to know what their frame of mind is likely to be. It will be helpful and in most cases also realistic if you perceive your audience as to be looking for reasons to say no to your recommendations. Although this is a negative perspective, it keeps you sharp and pushes you to prepare for the worst. Instead of focusing all of your attention on backing up and defending your recommendations, however, let their desire to say no to something work for you and give them something you want them to say no to first. Often this would be the do nothing option, the one thing you are trying to avoid as it would mean that you didnt add any value with your project. Forcefully illustrating the consequences of doing nothing and contrasting them with the effects of your recommendations is likely to make the key decision makers in the client organization go for one of your recommendations. This approach should not only be part of the final presentation, but also be incorporated in the prewiring strategy (paragraph 5.1). The only difference is that the consequences of do nothing should be linked more to the personal interests in the prewiring process than the interests of the larger system.

6. Summary
As a consultant, the challenges of being new, not having a formal position and having to find support for implementing recommended changes make the political landscape and power dynamics in the client organization a stormy and treacherous sea, difficult to sail your project through successfully. Approaching them in every client organization as a game thats new to you and already in play, where you need to figure out the rules, the positions and the goals of all the players as quickly as you can, and perceiving yourself as a resource the players will try to use in improving their score in the game, will help you understand the political side of the problem your working on and handling the challenge of being new. Building relationships based on integrity and taking the interests of key persons to your project into account before you actually need them, sharing your mind with them and explaining how what you need from them will contribute to what youre trying to achieve, leveraging your expertise, using the relationships that youve been able to build so far with some intelligent namedropping, and sharing information that is interesting to the person whos cooperation you need, will help you to get things done without having a formal position as a powerbase. And finally, at the end of your project, prewiring all the relevant stakeholders for your recommendations and having them say no against the do-nothing option will help you to get the support you need from key decisions makers in the client organization to actually see your recommendations being implemented.
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References
Bradshaw, P. 1998. Power as Dynamic Tension and its Implications for Radical Organizational Change. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 7 (2): 121-143. Kanter, R.M. 1979. Power failure in management circuits. Harvard Business Review, 57:65 Kotter, J.P. 1977. Power, dependence and effective management. Harvard Business Review, JulyAugust 1977: 125-136 Maister, D. 2004. The Consultants Role. In C.J. Fombrun & M.D. Nevins (Eds.), The Advice Business: Essential Tools and Models for Management Consulting: 1-10. Pearson Prentice Hall. Oshry, B. 2007. Seeing Systems: Unlocking the Mysteries of Organizational Life. San Fransisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc. Pfeffer, J. 1992. Managing with Power: Politics and Influence in Organizations. Boston: Harvard Business School Press. Rasiel, E.M. 1999. The McKinsey Way: Using the techniques of the worlds top strategic consultants to help you and your business. New York: McGraw-Hill.

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