Power Play

Part II How (so far) and the new how

In Part I we touched on a truckload of ideas and tools relating to influence. In Part II we will investigate the world of influence strategy by strategy so you can become the expert.

In his analysis of the history of television, Adrian Martin, Associate Professor of Film and Culture at Melbourne's Monash University, breaks it down into three ‘ages', Paleo TV, Neo TV and Post TV. Traditional TV viewing, where the broadcasters set the schedule and incorporate paid advertising, Martin terms ‘Paleo TV'. The cable revolution opened up a Pandora's box of choice in terms of content and viewers could record and view shows to suit their needs and life style. This Martin labels ‘Neo TV'. Martin states ‘Post TV refers to the contemporary digital media landscape where streams of content are managed, and time shifted and controlled to meet customer desire. Of course today all three forms of TV continue to coexist. In the TV landscape, nothing new completely replaces the old.'

Borrowing this metaphor for your journey through the influence landscape, think of hard power (chapter 3) as comparable to paleo TV; and soft power and story power (chapters 4–5) as neo TV. But the greatest, most exciting rewards for leaders are to be found in the ‘new how': context power, empathy power, message power, love power, humour power, positioning power, fierce power, the power of co-creation and cause leadership (chapters 6–14). Think of these as equivalents to post TV. ...