In any organization, the person who receives information first has advantage. They can act on information before others know it exists. They can prepare responses before questions are asked. They can shape the narrative before the true story spreads. Information asymmetry is one of the most durable sources of power. The person who controls what information flows to whom controls what decisions get made.
In any group, information does not flow equally to all members. Some people are on key communication channels; others are excluded. Some people know before others. This creates an information hierarchy that parallels and reinforces the status hierarchy. Those at the top of the status hierarchy get information first; those at the bottom get it late or not at all. This reinforces their respective positions.
Controlling Channels Information flows through channels: meetings, email lists, communication networks. The person who controls who is included on which channels controls the information flow. A strategic email list that excludes certain people means those people do not know what is happening until it is decided.
Selective Disclosure The person with information power decides what to reveal to whom and when. Some people get the full picture; others get selected pieces. By controlling what information different people receive, you shape their understanding and their decisions.
Opacity About Your Information While controlling others' information, you maintain opacity about your own knowledge. People do not know what you know, what you have decided, what you are planning. This prevents them from forming counter-strategies.
A manager controls information flow in a team. They are on all important email chains. They attend all key meetings. They receive information first. They selectively share with team members: team member A gets information about certain decisions, team member B gets information about others. Neither team member knows the full picture. The manager appears to be responding to events; actually, they have known about them for days.
When decisions get made, the team appears to be surprised, but the manager has been preparing. The manager's power comes not from official authority but from information control. The team depends on the manager to know what is happening.
Greene's Laws 3 (Conceal Your Intentions), 4 (Always Say Less Than Necessary), 12 (Use Selective Honesty and Generosity to Disarm and Infect), and 19 (Know Who You're Dealing With) all involve information control and opacity.
Level 1: Map Information Channels Which channels carry important information in your context? Which meetings matter? Which email lists include key decisions? Map the information flow.
Level 2: Position Yourself on Key Channels Ensure you are on the email lists and in the meetings where important information flows. If possible, become part of the channel—receive information before it is widely distributed.
Level 3: Control Distribution Once you have information, control who receives it and when. Do not distribute all information equally. Share strategically based on your goals.
Level 4: Maintain Your Opacity While controlling others' information, maintain opacity about your own knowledge and planning. Do not reveal what you know or what you are planning until strategic moment.
Level 5: Create Information Dependency Over time, people should begin to depend on you for information. You become valuable because you know what is happening and can keep them informed.
The warning sign: people have discovered that you have been controlling information and have been selectively sharing. They realize they have not been getting the full picture. They feel manipulated and excluded. They begin to bypass you to get information directly from other sources.
The corrective: information control works best when it is not visible. Once it is visible as control, it becomes resented. Also: do not let the information gap become so large that it becomes obvious something is being hidden. People who feel excluded and deceived stop trusting you.
Greene's principles (Laws 3, 4, 12, 19) assume information control provides durable advantage. Yet tension exists: in modern organizations, information often flows too quickly to be fully controlled. Also, controlling information can be seen as opacity and deception. The more visibly you control information, the more you are resented.
R.G.H. Siu's Craft of Power (1979) compresses the principles described above into three short operator-aphorisms in Ops #39-41. Each one names a discipline the page above describes in body form.
The gradient (Op#39). "Power reflects the gradient of information. Distribution of information to subordinates is a decentralization of your power; leakage to the opposition a loss. Restrict the outward dissemination of critical information by a strict need-to-know."siu1
Read the principle directly. Operator power is the gradient — not power adjacent to information, not power exercised through information, but power as the differential. Every piece of information leaked is a unit of power transferred. Treat opacity not as ornament but as the active maintenance of the only quantity on which the operator's position depends.
The private network (Op#40). "The formal lines of organizational communication govern hierarchical efficiency. Private networks complying with your own prescriptions amplify your personal power. Do not be imprisoned by your cordon of courtiers."siu2
Siu names the deeper move underneath the page's "Position Yourself on Key Channels" instruction. Build private channels parallel to the formal ones. What formal channels deliver to the institution is efficiency. What private channels deliver to the operator is power. Siu's warning at the end closes the loop — operators who only get information through the official pipeline become captive to the courtier-filter, hearing only what the layers between them and the world decided to let through.
The right rate (Op#41). "Only data useful for your purpose constitute information. Right form, right kind, right time, right rate. The rest is noise. The most disruptive noise belongs to the interesting and intelligible variety, wasting channel capacity and draining staff energy. Preclude data glut."siu3
Siu's calibration sharpens the page's "selective sharing" instruction. Calibrate the rate. Too little, and the operator's network goes dark. Too much, and noise drowns the signal. Watch out for the dangerous noise: the variety that looks like signal — interesting, intelligible, demanding attention — but contributes nothing to the decision the operator is actually trying to make. An operator's discipline runs in two directions, not one — controlling who receives information, and throttling the rate at which she processes it herself.
Together these three aphorisms add a second layer to the page above. Where the page describes positioning on channels, Siu names the gradient that channel-position is meant to maintain. Where the page describes selective disclosure, Siu names the metering rate at which selectivity becomes operational. Where the page describes opacity about your knowledge, Siu names opacity as the active maintenance of the differential the operator's power runs on.
Behavioral Mechanics — Concealment and Strategic Opacity Information control is opacity applied to organizational networks. The handshake: opacity functions at both individual and organizational levels. Individual opacity about intentions is mirrored in organizational opacity about information flow.
Behavioral Mechanics — The Proximity Principle: Distance and Access as Power Proximity to information sources (being on key channels, attending key meetings) is a form of proximity to power. The handshake: information and proximity are linked. The person physically near power also has information advantage.
The Sharpest Implication If information control is foundational to power, then organizations where information flows freely and equally are unstable. Stable organizations develop information hierarchies where those with power control information flow. This creates structural corruption: the person in position is not necessarily the most competent but the person with best information control. Systems that attempt to flatten information hierarchies find they quickly reform because information control is such a durable source of advantage.
Generative Questions