„‚ CONDITIONS THAT HINDER EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION

center. Field centers have great latitude in choosing their assignments and projects; it is
through negotiation and discussion that the program manager and the field-center
director agree on the terms of managing the program. Subsequently, the field-center
director assigns a technical manager to carry out the program objectives; and the
program manager allocates resources to the center.
After this transaction has been completed, the program manager is left with little or
no control over the spending of the money funded; however, he or she remains
responsible for overseeing the program’s development. The program manager’s primary
responsibility is managing the relationships among the technical managers, on the one
hand, whose positions are hierarchically equivalent to his or her own, and the
headquarters administrators, on the other, whose positions are higher but who view the
program manager as the expert in managing the program concerned. In the absence of a
traditional hierarchical reporting structure, the program manager’s ability to influence
other organizational units rests largely in his or her ability to understand the limitations
and constraints of the work situations involved as well as what other people expect from
him or her.
The authors’ study focused on the following questions:
■ How does the program manager influence individuals in other parts of the over
whom he or she has no formal power?
■ What competencies distinguish the program managers who are viewed as more
successful from those who are viewed as less successful?
The authors asked people who are the objects of program managers’ influence
attempts to rate the effectiveness of these managers. This inquiry focused on the
network of individuals who are at the same and higher status at NASA. Three
conceptual models were used to analyze the influence attempts made by program
managers: personal power strategies, transformational versus transactional leadership,
and empathy versus perspective taking.
Personal Power Strategies
At OD ‘80, the University Associates (now Pfeiffer & Company) conference on
organization development that was held in New York, San Diego, and London in 1980,
Harrison (1980) delivered a presentation and subsequently wrote a paper about his work
on personal power. His presentation focused primarily on people in organizations who
do not have the traditional forms of power that are associated with positions in the
hierarchy. Such individuals include staff, product/program managers, and consultants
who act as resources to operating managers. In the absence of positional power, these
people have to rely on what Harrison calls personal power. Harrison states that in order
to make optimum use of personal power, one must be responsive to the “psychological
energy” of the individual, group, or organization with whom he or she interacts. When
one person tries to change or affect another, something analogous to physical energy or
force is involved; energy is required to overcome the inertia of the other person and to
388 ❘❚
The Pfeiffer Library Volume 6, 2nd Edition. Copyright ©1998 Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer