ABSTRACT
Power certainly has a negative connotation in our culture. It suggests manipulative people doing nasty things to defenseless innocents in unconscionable ways. In business the term power is defined more objectively as “the potential to allocate resources and to make and enforce decisions”. Multiple departments vying for resources or competing with one another for the attention of the board of directors or CEO are common power struggles at the corporate level. Behavior analysts in particular should do well in positions of authority because they understand that the higher they move on the organizational chart, the more powerful reinforcers they have to dispense. The blatant use of power to force people to comply with requests is incompatible with how behavior analysts should relate to people. The topic of power and how it is used in organizations makes many behavior analysts uncomfortable. Power is the “the potential to allocate resources and to make and enforce decisions”.
