Handling power, dominance and submission in modern workplace:

The most timid one feels to be extremely powerful the moment he/she gets himself/herself associated to the dominant class of people. That’s what leads commoners to take part in gruesome offence during all the crusades and community wars in history and also during gang-rapes and even teasing (both eve and adam).

This is something what we need to keep in mind while leading a big group of people/ team in the organisation, even if it is a team of translators. Technical understanding of couple of languages may not cause increasing rationality among people. It may not be possible for the HR people to concentrate on each and every individual’s behavior in the project teams, especially if the number of team members are many. Finally, responsibility rests on the project manager.

According to Melbourne-based psychologist and career-change specialist Meredith Fuller, bad workplace behavior falls into three categories and the second in the list is:

“Insidious cruelty to others: nasty comments or behavior that undermines or causes stress so that a person is afraid to go to work”.

We often find some new joiners in the company having habit of passing nasty comments on some people they find awkward – obviously as per the cultural standard of the place/social strata/community where he/she has been brought up in. In newcomer’s case, target can be any one of the same group or seniors. We may ignore comments for some time and in most of the cases, bad habits subside with increasing workload or absence of co-workers interested in the same topic. Individuals having bad habits can be successfully treated with appropriate behavioral training programs as well.

It turns into a matter of concern when we pick up a group of new joiners having the same habit for the same project or a couple of new joiners (friends) are influential enough to form a group in the office. Being a group, they are often good performers at workplace which make them indispensable in the project, especially when the project manager has to show profit in a very short term. Often these become active participants in all cultural/social activities in the organisation making their presence felt and needed everywhere. Well, now there is a chance of these becoming the dominant group having the power of practically ‘recruiting’, ‘promoting’ and ‘firing’ co-workers according to their choice in a very short span of time. Showcasing power attracts apparently ‘timid’ colleagues join their group while they anticipate this is the only option for their survival.

Verbal teasing (rarely physical) and fiery gossiping becomes this group’s main weapon to irritate the person they don’t want to see and finally drive him/her away. Being ‘good performer’, obviously they have enough influence on the project manager’s decision making process. Sometimes project managers wrongfully appreciate these people for having very good “interpersonal skill”as their secret of success.  In course of time, if the authority is not cautious, this becomes the most dominant pressure group within the project team, practically having the power to ruin the project.  Well, my experience says dominating groups offer every person outside the group the scope to become an obedient member. And they take extreme step only in case of the ‘disobedient’ one.

Effect: presence of dominant pressure group may not have any direct effect in the profit making process - sometimes it works excellent if we think of revenue generation in short term. But this indirectly affects a company's bottom line – the moral backbone, the result of which may start showing up after a long time. Employees outside the dominant group, however efficient they are, feel uncomfortable at work, absenteeism may rise, finally resignation of sensibly serious employees  is common. Many times the organisation keeps on losing hardworking and serious human resource only because of not being able to handle dominant groups in the projects – impact is again on sustainability.

Fuller says smart organisations know that human capital is their most important resource and they ensure that HR as well as project teams have adequate staffing, authority and procedures to address such troubles and well as treat the troublemakers. For those that don't, there could be trouble down the track. But how can a project manager in an organisation evolve ‘smartness’?

1.     Work on perception – the process by which we perceive meaning of any event. Manager should come out of bias (we know it’s difficult but it’s a must) – please forget your own cast, community, race, religion etc when you are supposed to manage people.
2.      Develop a habit of observing people’s body language, i.e. eyes and gesture as well as keep an ear open to know what they are talking about – please don’t participate in gossips – onus is on you.
3.      Don’t let any two people mocking at the third person – at least at your presence. People are always looking for your support, even for wrong practices.
4.      Stop using dominant groups to fulfil your objectives - bad or good. They will gradually become weaker if importance is not given.
5.      Be a part of the team, not part of the dominant group.
6.      Use the ‘taught’, ‘thought’ and ‘felt’ concept of life rationally – don’t become dependent on any one of these.
7.      Try to know your people as much as possible – background, education, social class, families 
8.      Have a little courage at heart when you are supposed to ‘lead’/’manage’ a group – you may loss your job  if the pressure group is very strong in the organisation – no need to be scared – you will find another!
9.      Don’t complement or criticise your people irrationally and depending on information collected from the dominant group – this may be misleading.
10.      Leave the organisation which favours blame game and is not interested to sort out the issue.

We don’t have industrial unions is modern day service industries, unattended dominant groups have the potential to take the role of industrial unions of THOSE days!