Now that you know the most important facts about the old and the new power models, you are probably wondering how to cultivate new power. Obviously, if your organisation is a Castle, it is not enough to create a Facebook page and to constantly update your status – you need to intentionally engage your customers/audience/supporters. According to the authors of the article, there are three important steps you need to make.

Step 1: Audit Your Power – are you a castle, a cheerleader, a connector or a crowd? If you want to change your company/organisation, you first need to know the current situation. Knowing the main characteristics of each of the four groups, try to find out where you are in the diagram.

Step 2: Occupy Yourself – if you want to change (to good!) and improve over time, you will need to be harsh to yourself. Self-scrutiny and self-criticism is what your company needs in order to make the transition from old to new, from consumption-based model to at least share/shape-based model. As Heimans and Timms put it, imagine there was a movement ‘Occupy *YOUR COMPANY NAME*’. How would you feel? What would you do? What would you not do? These are all questions you need to start answering NOW.

Step 3: Develop a Movement Mindset – times will come when you will find out that minimal participation and consumption no longer do the trick. New power comes with new responsibilities and one of them is to think differently. Today it is crucial to be able to mobilize a wide community of people – creators who contribute and share your success.

The Challenge of New Power

So far, it may all sound easy and straightforward, but new power models are not so easy to reach – there are certain obstacles on the way there, certain traps you should avoid at all cost. First of all, new power models are all about respect – in a self-driven community of sharing, shaping and co-owning creators, all members are equal and no one is looking for the one strong, powerful and omnipotent leader. It is a round table, don’t try to change that. Also, you will need to be flexible, or “bilingual” – for the moment, it is reasonable and wise to go both “old” and “new”. Start a community based on the new power models and embracing the new values, but if you want to make a difference and achieve something, don’t denounce the “old way” yet. And finally, make sure you are making the most of the situation and using your capabilities to their fullest by structuring your power model – “new” doesn’t mean chaos and anarchy.

The Conclusion

The conclusions we can draw from all said so far is that (as already mentioned), nothing is black and white. If you want to make an impact in the sphere of the new, you will need to embrace the ways of the old. If you want to escape the old, you will still have to understand how it works. If you want to find more information on all this and more, you can access the original article for free – there you will see interesting diagrams, case studies and more examples. The idea, however, is to start thinking about the change – you need to initiate it now if you want to make a change soon.