A Power Play is a conscious transaction or series of transactions in which one person attempts to
- Cause another person to do something she or he does not want to do, or
- Prevent another person from doing something she or he wants to do.
So, a Power Play is an attempt by one person to control another person.
Steiner classifies power plays into four categories:
- crude physical – using physical force to control someone
- subtle physical – using physical contact to manipulate someone
- crude psychological – using overt lies, AI generated photo to create “fake news”
- subtle psychological – using strategies to convince you that I know what is best for you
A “rescue” is an example of a subtle psychological power play. A rescue is an attempt to do something for someone that they haven’t asked for, or don’t want, or can do for themselves. Although rescues don’t look like at attempt to control, they are an attempt to get someone to do what the rescuer thinks they should do, and in that sense, they are attempt to control.
Are you being power played or not? You can’t know for sure unless the other person is aware of it and admits it. But it doesn’t really matter if you know or not. What matters is that you don’t get forced to do something you don’t want to do, or that someone doesn’t prevent you from doing what you want to do.
Steiner suggests the following options to respond to a Power Play
- use a similar or different power play (escalation)
- Submit (go along with it)
- Refuse (don’t go along with it)
- Try to convince the other person they are wrong
- Cooperative response:
- expression of how it feels to be power played
- a brief analysis of the power play
- a cooperative alternative (perhaps which you both figure out)
Two last comments from Steiner:
- it may be useful to wait, delay, slow down the decision making process, so you don’t get caught in a “hurry up” process.
- finding a cooperative response might require experimenting, being creative, being playful.
Based on comments in Claude Steiner’s book, The Other Side of Power