TO EXPLAIN WHERE I have arrived&ny understanding of power and love and social cain how I started.
I grew up in Montreal and studied pl University. In&nmer of 1981, as&ny undergraduate degree, I attended&neeting of the Pugwash Conference on Science and World Affairs in Banff, Alberta, where I heard a speec energy&nental clenges arising out of texity and fullnessof people and ideas and td. I decided to s to social sciences, and I went on to do a graduate degree&nics and public policy at tifornia at Berkeley. After graduation, I worked at a variety of research institutions in&nerica, Europe, and Asia, and tanning&nent of Pacific Gas and&npany in San Francisco.
My fatue of industriousnessof&ny job well, whatever&nination&nprovement. His favorite story was of Henry David Tived in tden Pond and after two years&ne out with his axe sharper than when he had ne in.
I&nbitious and keen&nake&ny&nark on td.
GENERATIVE POWER
In 1988, when I was twentyseven years&noved&n San Francisco to London to take a job in tobal strategy&nent of t Dutcl.&nost about for Sl&natic&nemos:&nent of Côte d'Ivoire has reiterated their request that we&n referring&n as the Ivory Coast." I once&nistaken pl&ne&nent for a fuel oil delivery sd be deposited. I liked Sl's practical role in providing the y:&npany invested lions of dollars a year&nent, drilled for oil thousands of feet underwater, and produced fuels by sands and cooling natural gas. I reveled in all cog in this portant&nachine.
I was at Sl at tist confidence. Tin Wall len, the&n , Francis&na ished "Tfe about Manhattan financiers as "Masters of the Universe," and Margaret Thatcher tternative"&nerican free&nodel.&neme was tl spitical, social, legal, international, intellectuala&nong&npeting powers produced the&ne.[11]&n&ny office in a London skyscraper,&ned&ne that if everybody just did their job and&nanly jostlingthe row and prosper.
My experience at Sl, and elsewd of business, was of&nost&ninded&nphasis on&natic use of powerthe kind of power that&ner pd recognize.&ned&ne te understood power&ne way Martin Luther King Jr. did: "Power properly understood is notity to achieve purpose."[12] Their&ned to accord wit Tillicanation of poenerative root: "tiving to realize itself, intensity and extensity." This drive can be seen in the force of a gro seed: tla&nploy to turn vacant urban lots into parks, wy plant seeds that break through the concrete.
At Sl I could see frealization, along witleagues, produced&npetitive intellectual creativity and growth. The head of&nent, Arie de Geus, wrote a book called&ne also see iving drive for selfrealization, along with that of&npetitive&nmercial creativity and growth.[13]
In all of this I saenerative aspect of power: t drive to "get one's job done." Power expresses our purposefulness, ency. Although power is tize one's self, the effect of power es beyond one's self. Power is&nake a difference in td; it&neans by w realities are created. Without po nerows.
At Sl I was head of the strategy group tausible alternative storiesof socialpoliticalenvironmental contexts in which tf. In 1991, Pieter le Roux, a professor at teft University of the Western Cape in South Africa,&ne etogy to p a group of Souteaders develop a strategy for effecting the transition&n apartson Mandela&n twentyseven years in prison, and the netiations between the opposition and the&ninority&nent had started in earnest. Le Roux's project sounded interesting and worte&ne,&ny Sl bosses were happy, after years of being vilified for not having&n South Africa, for td tationships with the opposition. So&nber 1991, I traveled to Cape Town to facilitate the first workshop of&ne known as teur Scenario Exercise.[14]
Warating&neeting&n political parties, trade&nmunity organizations, universities,&npanieswas t purposefulness. Every one&n&nmitted to addressing,&n tar idological and institutional base, Soutlenges, and tready realized td be successful only if they ether. White&nan&nembered, witeasure, ack leaders who had hitherto been his adversaries: "Tly&ninded they were. Te wy said: 'Look, this is ho to be when we take one day.' They were prepared to say: 'Hey, d it be? Let's discuss it.'"[15] I felt excited to play a part in t change process.
What I saw in these h the window they&ne onto&nics of South Africa's extraordinary transition,&ny understanding of we in td. I saw&n across a&n could, even in tex, conflictual, and clenging of contexts, exercise tlectively to change&n for the better. I was inspired by what I about this generative power.
What&ny understanding of&ne. I saw that I had a job to doa a difference in the &ns. In 1993, I&n&noved to South Africa. Since then I have been doing this kind of work tsewhere.
DEGENERATIVE POWER
How do&ne to&nething that we are not noticing? I&ny office,&ny sunglasses were&ny shirt pocket. I went into a dark closet and leaned to pick&ne supplies near toor, when I dn't place. As I went out, I unconsciously filed away tous eventtained soundand went back to . Later I saw&ny sunglasses and began looking all around&n. Tained sound and realized it had been tasses falling&ny pocket onto toset floor.
During teft Sl and started as a facilitator of social&ns, I kept hearing sounds of a second kind of power that I didn't know how to interpret. My first interpretation of weurthe interpretation that&nwas that&n had decided that their power, tize tves as individuals and as a nation,&nore effectively be exercised with rather than against one another. They had used four&nages&nmarize their shared understanding of the different ways the future of td: an "Ostric,&ne Duck" scenario of an constrained new&nent, an "Icarus" scenario of the ne&nins" scenario of rising sloetlo Jordan, one of tlectual leaders of t Congress, heard these scenarios presented at a&neeting, ously naïve about tly&nics of power in the South African context.&nins?" ously. "Ty atter here are hawks and sparrows!"
It is not surprising that Jordan and I had different perspectives on power.&ne&n a peaceful and unfettered background, and I had encountered South Africa for the&ne in 1991, one year after t transitional netiations years after tess, violent clashes between&nent and the opposition in the 1970s and 1980s. Jordan is black, which in apartheid South&neans ass person. He e for t Congress and y just returned to ty in tooks different to people gle for it.
Now I realized what I had been hearing: power has tenerative side of power is t Tillich refers to as tfrealization. The degenerative, shadow side is po or suppression of tfrealization of anotlich recognizes botizes itself tsion. But power is neither the one nor the otizing itself nonbeing. It uses and&npulsion in order&ne this threat. It uses and abuses force in order to actualize itself. But it is neither the one nor the other."[16] Power abuses force&npulsion to suppress or oppress&ninate another.
Like Pallo&ny wife Dorotack and grew up in Soutved for years in te. Water we visited&nala together, she&nething that I didn't. T people tacks in South Africa: they were treated as if te. Not to see another person, or to see her&n as a nonperson, is&ne&nanifestation of power.
&nost&nmon understanding of power is as power. When Stephen Lukes, a professor of politics and sociology at New York University, wrote assic 1974 book Power: A Radical View, he equated power&nination. But tater, in the second edition, Lukes revised his view: "It&nistake to define po that 'A exercises power B when A affects B&nanner contrary to B's interests.' Power&nination is only one species of power."[17] Power is a subset of powerto.
Degenerative power arises out of generative powerto. When&n&ny powerto and&nyself&nping up against you exercising yours, and if in tict I you, ty turn to exercising power you. My drive to&nyself slips easily into&ny selfrealization above yours, and tieving arrogantly that&n&nore deserving of selfrealization, and tfrealization even&npedes yours.
Many wued tfrealization above that of otoyed an ideologyapartheidto justify their&nics across races or etasses or genders in every society. Ty beautiful face of&norphs, as in a y terrible face of power.
Once I had seen the two sides of power starkly in Soutd recognize ty elseweft Sl, I consulted to&npanies and business associations in Houston, Texas. I found tture of Houston unusual and fascinating. Te there were unconstrained in their entated, entrepreneurial powerto. Topers&net owned&npanies witike&nith Interests," which I understood to represent an unabasebration of t's own interests and power.
Te were also enthusiastic in tuntary panthropy and&nent. They&nore aware te I sewe in tution of t reality. Houston had gro the test city in the United States in 1940 to fourtargest in 1990. It&ne what it was not by accident, but as tt of t&nade by people sucves, and tt a responsibility to continue tic y of Houston businesspeople¬ed individual selfrealization&nent witlective selfrealization.