Power

Key Concepts

“BEWARE OF THE LEADERSHIP LITERATURE”

“Most books by well-known executives and most lectures and courses about leadership should be stamped CAUTION: THIS MATERIAL CAN BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR ORGANIZATIONAL SURVIVAL. That’s because leaders touting their own careers as models to be emulated frequently gloss over the power plays they actually used to get to the top. Meanwhile, the teaching on leadership is filled with prescriptions about following an inner compass, being truthful, letting inner feelings show, being modest and self-effacing, not behaving in a bullying or abusive way—in short, prescriptions about how people wish the world and the powerful behaved. There is no doubt that the world would be a much better, more humane place if people were always authentic, modest, truthful, and consistently concerned for the welfare of others instead of pursuing their own aims. But that world doesn’t exist.” (p. 11)

“THE WEAK LINK BETWEEN PERFORMANCE AND JOB OUTCOMES”

“David Schoorman’s study shows the effects of behavioral commitment—once someone has made a positive or negative judgment about a potential job candidate, that judgment colors subsequent performance appraisals. What this research means is that job performance matters less for your evaluation than your supervisor’s commitment to and relationship with you.” (p. 23)

“So great job performance by itself is insufficient and may not even be necessary for getting and holding positions of power. You need to be noticed, influence the dimensions used to measure your accomplishments, and mostly make sure you are effective at managing those in power—which requires the ability to enhance the ego of those above you.” (p. 25)

“SEVEN IMPORTANT PERSONAL QUALITIES THE BUILD POWER”

Ambition

“Success requires effort and hard work as well as persistence. To expend that effort, to make necessary sacrifices, requires some driving ambition.” (p. 43)

Energy

“I know of almost no powerful people who do not have boundless energy.” (p. 44)

“That’s because energy does three things that help build influence. First, energy, like many emotional states such as anger or happiness, is contagious.14 Therefore, energy inspires more effort on the part of others.” (p. 45)

“Second, energy and the long hours it permits provide an advantage in getting things accomplished. Research on genius or talent—exceptional accomplishment achieved in a wide range of fields—consistently finds that “laborious preparation” plays an important role.” (p. 45)

“Third, people often promote those with energy because of the importance of being able to work hard and also because expending great energy signals a high degree of organizational commitment and, presumably, loyalty.” (p. 45)

Focus

“Although there is a lot of talk recently about increased career mobility, it remains the case that it is often easier to acquire positions of influence as an insider. A recent profile of CEOs of S&P 500 companies found that the median tenure with their company was 15 years.” (p. 47)

Self-Knowledge

“There is no learning and personal development without reflection.” (p. 49)

“Structured reflection takes time. It also requires the discipline to concentrate, make notes, and think about what you are doing. But it is very useful in building a path to power.” (p. 49)

Confidence

“Showing confidence seems often to be a particular issue for women, who are socialized to be deferential and less assertive. But that behavior causes problems. Research by social psychologist Brenda Major shows that women work longer and harder for the same amount of money, award themselves lower salaries, and have lower career-entry and peak-earnings expectations than men.” (p. 51)

Empathy with Others

“What sometimes gets in the way of putting ourselves in the shoes of others is too much focus on the end goal and our own objectives and not enough concern for recruiting others to our side—or at least curtailing the likelihood of their opposition.” (p. 52)

Capacity to Tolerate Conflict

“If you can handle difficult conflict-and stress-filled situations effectively, you have an advantage over most people.” (p. 53)

“ASKING WORKS”

“The problem is that people underestimate the chances of others offering help. That’s because those contemplating making a request of another tend to focus on the costs others will incur complying with their request, and don’t emphasize sufficiently the costs of saying no. Rejecting an appeal for help violates an implicit and socially desirable norm of being “benevolent.” Would you rather be known as generous or stingy? In addition, turning down a request made in person is awkward. We are taught from childhood to be generous, so we are inclined to grant the requests of others almost automatically. Furthermore, saying yes to a request for assistance reinforces the grantor’s position of power. To offer mentoring or to open doors for another not only causes someone to depend on you and reciprocate the favor, perhaps by becoming a loyal supporter in the future; it also signifies that you can do something for someone else and that you therefore have power.” (p. 78)

“One reason why asking works is that we are flattered to be asked for advice or help—few things are more self-affirming and ego-enhancing than to have others, particularly talented others, seek our aid.” (p. 80)

“DON’T BE AFRAID TO STAND OUT AND BREAK THE RULES”

“There is lots of competition inside organizations—for jobs, for promotions, for power. Your success depends not only on your own work but also on your ability to get those in a position to help your career, like your boss, to want to make you successful and help you in your climb. For someone to hire you or promote you they must notice you. You need to do some things to stand out. And to do that, you need to get over the idea that “the nail that stands up gets hammered down” and similar aphorisms I hear over and over again as well as a natural reluctance to toot your own horn. In other words, you need to build your personal brand and promote yourself, and not be too shy in the process.” (p. 82)

“A DEFINITION OF NETWORKING AND NETWORKING SKILLS”

1. Building internal contacts (e.g., “I use company events to make new contacts.”) (p. 107)

2. Maintaining internal contacts (e.g., “I catch up with colleagues from other departments about what they are working on.”) (p. 107)

3. Using internal contacts (e.g., “I use my contacts with colleagues in other departments in order to get confidential advice in business matters.”) (p. 108)

4. Building external contacts (e.g., “I accept invitations to official functions or festivities out of professional interest.”) (p. 108)

5. Maintaining external contacts (e.g., “I ask others to give my regards to business acquaintances outside of our company.”) (p. 108)

6. Using external contacts (e.g., “I exchange professional tips and hints with acquaintances from other organizations.”) (p. 108)

“Networking actually does not take that much time and effort. It mostly takes thought and planning. Keith Ferrazzi’s book title Never Eat Alone makes the point. People are going to eat and exercise anyway—why not use that time to expand your network of contacts? When Ferrazzi turned 40, he didn’t have one birthday party; he had seven, in seven different cities around the United States, hosted by seven different friends.” (p. 113)

“YOU GET ONLY ONE CHANCE TO MAKE A FIRST IMPRESSION”

“There are two important implications of the durability and rapid creation of first impressions. First, if you find yourself in a place where you have an image problem and people don’t think well of you, for whatever reason, it is often best to leave for greener pastures. This is tough advice to hear and heed—many people want to demonstrate how wonderful they are by working diligently to change others’ minds and repair their image. But such efforts are seldom successful, for all the reasons just enumerated, and moreover, they take a lot of effort. Better to demonstrate your many positive qualities in a new setting where you don’t have to overcome so much baggage.” (p. 152)

“Second, because impressions are formed quickly and are based on many things, such as similarity and “chemistry” over which you have far from perfect control, you should try to put yourself in as many different situations as possible—to play the law of large numbers. If you are a talented individual, over time and in many contexts, that talent will appear to those evaluating you. But in any single instance, the evaluative judgment that forms the basis for your reputation will be much more random.” (p. 153)

“The Price of Power”

COST 1: VISIBILITY AND PUBLIC SCRUTINY

“An important lesson: if you are going to misbehave in any way, do so before you achieve a high-level position that makes you the object of constant attention by peers, subordinates, superiors, and the media.” (p. 184)

COST 2: THE LOSS OF AUTONOMY

“James March, a very distinguished organizational scholar and political scientist, once remarked that you could have power or autonomy, but not both.” (p. 188)

“After a while, most of the CEOs and other senior leaders I know block out time for themselves and the activities that they want to do. But all of them talk about the loss of control over how they spend their time as one of the big costs of being in a position of power.” (p. 188)

COST 3: THE TIME AND EFFORT REQUIRED

“Building and maintaining power requires time and effort, there are no two ways about it. Time spent on your quest for power and status is time that you cannot spend on other things, such as hobbies or personal relationships and families. The quest for power often exacts a high toll on people’s personal lives, and although everyone bears some costs, the price seems to be particularly severe for women.” (p. 189)

“Put simply, you can’t have it all, and the quest for power entails trade-offs, including in one’s personal life. Men also confront the choice of how to spend their time, and for them, too, there are only 24 hours in a day. Being successful exacts a price for men also.” (p. 191)

COST 4: TRUST DILEMMAS

“Here’s a simple truth: the higher you rise and the more powerful the position you occupy, the greater the number of people who will want your job.” (p. 191)

COST 5: POWER AS AN ADDICTIVE DRUG

“People have a heightened risk of death in the period immediately after they lose their job—and not just because of greater financial stress or the absence of medical insurance. As Michael Marmot, a British researcher on the effects of social standing on health, has written, one reason there is a connection between not working and health is because being out of work ‘represents loss of a social role and all the things that go with it.’” (p. 196)

Quotables

“Many people believe that they know what their bosses care about. But unless they are mind readers, that’s probably a risky assumption. It is much more effective for you to ask those in power, on a regular basis, what aspects of the job they think are the most crucial and how they see what you ought to be doing. Asking for help and advice also creates a relationship with those in power that can be quite useful, and asking for assistance, in a way that still conveys your competence and command of the situation, is an effective way of flattering those with power over you. Having asked what matters to those with power over you, act on what they tell you.” (p. 30)

“The research shows that intelligence is the single best predictor of job performance. However, intelligence is often overrated as an attribute that will help people obtain power. That’s because intelligence seldom accounts for much more than 20 percent of the variation in work performance in any event, and the relationship between performance and attaining power is equally weak.” (p. 55)

“You need to get over the idea that you need to be liked by everybody and that likability is important in creating a path to power, and you need to be willing to put yourself forward. If you don’t, who will?” (p. 76)

“You can monetize your high-status network. I have a friend who is a well-known executive coach. A while ago he was asked to submit a proposal to coach a certain CEO. His price: $250,000. The CEO told my friend that he had received a proposal from another coach for $25,000. My colleague replied that he knew and had trained the person supplying the lower-priced bid, and he thought the quality of this other coach’s work was exceptional. Why should the CEO choose him, at 10 times the price? Because, the executive coach noted, he was having dinner with the CEOs of several large, prominent companies (whom he named). Could the other coach provide such access and a similar sort of experience? He got the business. People like to bask in reflected glory and associate with high-status others. Versions of this story in different contexts happen every day.” (p. 119)

“Patricia Seeman, a consultant and executive coach to senior Swiss executives, says that the best way to hold on to your position is to maintain your perspective and balance. She commented that ‘unless you understand yourself pretty well, you’re going to lose control of yourself.’ Seeman told me that a former chairman of Swiss Re had this advice for maintaining a sense of perspective about oneself: ‘What you have to do is every now and then expose yourself to a social circle that really doesn’t care about your position.’ So this brilliant and powerful senior leader would go back to his primary school, somewhere in a village in the Alps—to the people to whom he was just the same person he was when he was seven years old.” (p. 203)

“Harvard Business School professor John Kotter told me that he thought for many people, the biggest obstacle to success was not talent or motivation but the fact that they were in the wrong place—that the power and influence requirements of their job did not fit their personal aptitudes and interests. Although I know of no formal study of this hypothesis, my own experiences and those of many others who have watched careers unfold suggest that it is right.” (p. 229)

“So seek power as if your life depends on it. Because it does.” (p. 236)