My fascination with the theory, closely followed by practice of organizational power building started with attending the famous Stanford university course Building Power to Lead delivered by Professor Jeffrey Pfeffer and built closely on his book Power: Why Some People Have it and Others Don't.

Lately though, I have started to hear more and more comments and questions from students and coaching clients asking whether the strategies captured in this book are still holding water in the world where direct contacts got diminished, many offices leverage work-from-home model and getting some face time with others might actually require much more effort. Below is to argue that not only the strategies are still alive and kicking yet that we also have now completely new opportunities to practice and polish them.

Key strategies to consider for building your organizational power - within the on-line environment:

Getting out of your own way.

This strategy - in essence - is about overcoming our own limiting beliefs. It might sound cliché, yet it is at the same time the most fundamental, yet also the most difficult part of the successful Power building strategy. Good news? The work on challenging our own assumptions can happen anytime and anywhere - and on-line settings set no limitations to it.

Examples of what you can do here and now to leverage it:

• Stop being judgmental about yourself and your circumstances.

No matter how humble your current situation might be, you can always strive to make it better. You don't have to conform to stereotypical society rules, such as - for example - your humble beginnings or patched history to predestine you to the lower power status. If you do not conform to those rules and create your own rules then you become powerful. On-line world is not a show stopper here. It is simply another stage and new opportunities for you to leverage.

• Create a strategic goal and focus on that goal to channel your energy.

The more specific you can get in terms of your objectives and the exact destination point, the higher the chances that you would be able to make decisions easier - by asking a question whether this next step will bring you closer or further apart from your goal. Additionally, goals help motivate us to develop strategies that will enable us to perform at the required goal level. You can leverage performance tracking apps to make sure that you trace your steps on the path to success.

• Ask, ask and then ask some more.

This sub-strategy is one of the least risky and potentially highly rewarding. Very little can go wrong with this one. Worst case scenario is that to your request you will hear no answer, but then - how much worse you would actually be versus your situation prior to asking? What if you hear yes? How many doors might have stayed closed just by the simple fact of not getting interested in opening them? On-line environment might surprisingly make it easier to get over ourselves here - especially if we happen to be introverts, as it gives us multiple communication channels and options to use ranging from videoconference to a simple e-mail.

• Create a journal of things that went well, did not go well and your aims in almost all your key interactions and key events/meetings.

Think about what you could change to improve your outcome and practice that. Thanks to on-line meetings environment, you can easily leverage your most important sessions, presentations or meetings through recording, screen-shots, notes embedded in the meeting invitations. You can also leverage on-line diaries or blogs to keep it live and current.

TO BE CONTINUED...