Jo Owen: What's power if you can't flaunt it?

Business school professors like to ask new students: "What is management about?" Worthy but confusing answers include profit, competition, organisation and stakeholders. For the professor, management is exactly what he wants it to be to make his point. This is accurate, scores no class participation points and misses the reality of management.

For most managers, management is about personal ambitions: money, power and status. One of the last taboos is to discuss how much you earn, so the trappings of success become disproportionately important. This is why sales people will often go along with changes to their targets and compensation, but you mess with their car at your peril. Salary is secret, but the car is the evidence of success to show to neighbours.

So managers learn how to play the game. Power is not about efficiency; it is about showing that you are busier, more important and smarter than anyone else.

Meeting power. Arrive last. Keep everyone waiting because their time is less valuable than yours. Read a 100- page document in the meeting to show you are so smart you can read, react and chair a meeting simultaneously. Leave the meeting to take phone calls so that others know how unimportant their agenda item is.

Conference power. Arrive just in time for your speech and leave immediately afterwards. Important people talk, unimportant people listen. If you have to stay, use coffee breaks to talk only to people more important than you are. Talk in grave voices so under-lings think you are deciding their fate.

Communication power. Never make or receive a phone call; use your secretary for that. Internal newsletters exist purely to carry your picture on as many pages as possible. Never use a computer, except for email, but make sure you have the latest and most expensive desktop, portable and hand-held machines. Instead of a computer use a fountain pen (tradition, expense) or red Biro (makes recipients of your comments feel like they are at school again).

Dress power. Dress for success. That means bespoke. If forced to wear smart casual, focus on smart, not casual – immaculately pressed clothes and designer labels to set you apart from the masses.

Eating power. Have a special diet. It must be esoteric and cause maximum disruption, ensuring you have special treatment on planes, in restaurants and even at office buffets. A gluten-free diet is perfect. You need know nothing about wine; order the most expensive. Status, not taste, is everything.

Pastimes power. Expense and exclusivity being vital, opera and shooting are good. Skiing is only good if it is in an exotic location. A pet charity implies wealth and enables you to network with other power people.

There are three ways to cope with power plays: ignore, indulge or imitate.

To ignore is the path of least resistance. One company suffered a series of power cuts during which meetings were plunged into darkness. The polite response was to ignore it and carry on presenting as if nothing had happened.

Indulgence ranges from sycophancy to warfare. The sycophant rushes round to ensure the boss gets the gluten- free diet. Indulgence warfare is to make a big public display of meeting such arbitrary needs. This will embarrass the boss, shorten your career, but give yourself and others some transitory pleasure.

Imitate the boss. If you can't beat 'em ... There must be someone more junior on whom you can play a few power games, isn't there?

Jo Owen is chief executive of Auvian Partners and author of 'Management Stripped Bare', published by Kogan Page at £14.99. jo.owen@virgin.net