Power in institutions is often not where the formal structure says it is. Reading where it actually sits is the practical skill that determines what is possible.
The Power Map
Institutional power — the ability to shape institutional decisions, to direct institutional resources, and to determine what actions are possible within the institutional environment — is distributed across the formal hierarchy, the informal network, the budget process, and the relationship architecture of the institution in ways that the formal org chart only partially captures. The formal position that has nominal authority over a decision may have less actual power over that decision than the informal network of relationships that shapes what options reach the formal decision-maker. The senior official who has formal authority but limited institutional relationships has less actual power than the mid-level official whose long tenure and extensive relationships have made them the informal hub through which consequential decisions flow.
Reading where institutional power actually sits requires the observation that the formal structure obscures: watching who is consulted before decisions are announced rather than who announces them, identifying whose objections reliably slow or stop institutional actions regardless of the formal authority of the objecting party, and mapping the informal communication channels through which information about potential decisions flows before the formal decision process begins. The power map that results from this observation is the institutional terrain map that effective work within the institution requires — and it is usually significantly different from the formal hierarchy that the org chart represents.
Institutional power is where it is, not where the formal structure says it is. The practitioner who reads the formal structure will navigate the institution as it claims to operate. The practitioner who reads the actual power map will navigate the institution as it actually operates — and the difference determines what they can accomplish within it.
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