Week 10
Tutorial 9 – Influence tactics and organisational politics and sources of power in the
workplace
Materials:
Harvard Business Review Article (see link below)
Butchers paper
Co-worker Influence Scale
 Purpose
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The goals of this tutorial are to develop an understanding of organisational politics and influence tactics through
case study analysis.
 Activity 1: Organisational Politics. Allow approximately 30 minutes for this activity.
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Steps:
‒ Ask students to read the short Harvard Business Review article
http://hbr.org/2012/04/the-real-leadership-lessons-of-steve-jobs/ar/1
The article is summarised as follows:
A few years ago, the CEO of Apple Computer invited Steve Jobs (who was not associated with the company at
the time) to serve as a special adviser and raise morale among Apple employees and customers. While doing this,
Jobs spent more time advising the CEO on how to cut costs, redrawing the organisation chart and hiring new
people. Before long, most the top people at Apple were Jobs’ colleagues, who began to systematically evaluate
and weed out team of Apple employees.
While publicly supporting the Apple’s CEO, Jobs privately criticised him and in a show of lack of confidence, sold
1.5 million shares of Apple stock he had received. This action caught the attention of Apple’s Board of Directors,
who soon after decided to replace the CEO with Steve Jobs. The CEO claimed Jobs was a conniving backstabber
who used political tactics to get his way. Others suggest that Apple would be out of business today if he hadn’t
taken over the company.
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Ask students to work in pairs and consider:
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In your opinion, were Steve Jobs’ actions examples of organisational politics?
Discuss in groups and justify your answer.
 Activity 2: The power to success in sport – the use of referent power. Allow approximately 20 minutes for this
activity.
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Background
Rising to the top of competition in any sport is not an easy road to travel. It requires skill, determination,
dedication and long hours of training. Ask some of the great Australian Olympic swimming champions who have
won three gold medals, such as Shane Gould, Dawn Fraser and Ian Thorpe, as well as Stephanie Rice, who won
three gold medals at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. And there are the rising stars of the lesser known sports such as
mountain biking and BMX. BMX was included in the Beijing Olympics in 2008 for the first time as one of the upand-coming men’s and women’s cycling events.
Rising stars have their ups and downs but, as they become famous in their chosen sport, they realise that they
also start to have some influence. They have referent power. For all sorts of reasons people start to identify with
them. Probably the best indication of this sort of power is that the more successful they become the more
sponsors they attract.
One such rising star is Jared Graves, who is an Australian cyclist who has represented Australia in BMX, 4X (fourcross) and DH (downhill) mountain biking. In 2006 he finished second in the mountain bike 4x world cup series.
In 2008 he finished second in the BMX world cup series and was selected to compete at the Beijing Olympics,
where he finished sixth. In September 2009 he won the UCI Mountain Bike 4 X World Championship.
Graves started in the sport at the age of four and to date it is his profession. He is a member of the international
Yeti Cycles racing team (Yeti is a manufacturer of mountain bikes, based in the United States). For six months of
the year, Jared races in the United States and Europe, and in a few competitive events in Australia. As an
unknown teenager, the going was tough, competing overseas against very strong and experienced riders. Now
that he is in the world rankings for BMX, downhill and 4X mountain biking, he attracts a lot of attention and is
continually negotiating with sponsors. He has some power and influence in his sport because he is a winner, and
his sponsors include Yeti Cycles, Fox Racing Show, Monster Energy and Oakley.
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Steps:
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Divide students into groups of 3-5. Ask students to prepare a list of sports figures (i.e., athletes, players, etc.)
who participated in advertisements.
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Ask the students to recall as much as possible about these advertisements, and identify how the participants’
referent power was used in those advertisements.
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Students should prepare their ideas on butcher’s paper (text or graphics) presenting their view on the influence
such sports-figures have. Is it a good or a bad influence? Who is it likely to influence? How long will this
influence last for?
Sources: Personal communication; <http://www.foxsports.com.au/beijing_olympics/story/0,27313,242239105016776,00.html>; and <http://www.2008.nbcolympics.com/athletes/athlete=1654/bio/index.html>.
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Steps:
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Provide the following overview to students.
You have just been hired as a brand manager of toothpaste for a large consumer products company.
You job mainly involves encouraging the advertising and production groups to promote and
manufacture your product more effectively. These departments aren’t under your direct authority,
although company procedures indicate that they must complete certain tasks requested by brand
managers.
Ask students to work in groups of 3 – 5.
Describe the sources of power you can use to ensure that the advertising and production departments will help
you to make and sell toothpaste more effectively.
 Activity 3: Co-worker Influence Scale. Allow approximately 20 minutes for this activity.
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Steps:
This exercise is designed to help students understand the different forms of influence when working with coworkers (i.e. people at the same organisational level), as well as estimating their preference for each influence
tactic in this context.