Power: Why Some People Have It and Others Don’t
Power: Why Some People Have It and Others Don’t
In this crowning achievement, one of the greatest minds in management theory reveals how to succeed and wield power in the real world. Over decades of consulting with corporations and teaching MBA students the nuances of organizational power, Jeff
Rating: 
(out of 10 reviews)
List Price: $ 27.99
Price: $ 14.25
So, You Want to Start a Business?: 8 Steps to Take Before Making the Leap
- ISBN13: 9780137126675
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed
“Hess and Goetz present a roadmap for how to avoid the things that can cause you to stumble and how to build a business the right way.” –JEFF ZEIGLER, CEO, TechTurn.com, Austin, TX “When I started my graphic design business, I knew I ha
Rating: 
(out of 7 reviews)
List Price: $ 21.99
Price: $ 12.72
stephen hallam 8:06 pm on October 22, 2010 Permalink
Review by stephen hallam for Power: Why Some People Have It and Others Don’t
Rating:
I just finished reading Jeffrey Pfeffer’s POWER and tomorrow it will become required reading for all my MBA students. Pfeffer has spent his career researching and writing about power and this is his best work yet. You don’t have to be an academic to understand, appreciate and use what Pfeffer has learned about power, but, if you are an academic, you will appreciate how he has backed up all his advice with good data. Anyone planning a career in management needs to understand power–how to get it, use it, keep it, and, when the time is right, give it up gracefully. This book shows you how. My only criticism is that I would have liked to have seen a chapter on using power ethically. With all the business scandals of late, it wouldn’t hurt to remind readers not to abuse others with the power you acquire. Power, like money, it neither good or bad; it all depends on what you do with it. Using power to get into a position where you can make a positive difference and applying that power to implement needed change can be done ethically but Pfeffer fails to address that fact. However, this book is the best I’ve seen at helping others understand the facts about power. If you want to make a difference in practically any walk of life, this book is a must read.
Robert Morris 8:53 pm on October 22, 2010 Permalink
Review by Robert Morris for Power: Why Some People Have It and Others Don’t
Rating:
I have read and reviewed all of the previous books that Jeffrey Pfeffer wrote or co-authored and consider this one his most valuable because his focus is much less on dysfunctional organizations and how to resuscitate them; indeed, he focuses almost entirely on what any ambitious person needs to understand about what power is…and isn’t. Unlike his approach in any other of the previous books, Pfeffer establishes a direct rapport with his reader and seems to be saying, in effect, “Over the years, I’ve learned a great deal about power will now share with you what I hope you will find most interesting and, more to the point, most useful.” In the Introduction, for example, he suggests that having power is related to living a longer and healthier life, that power and the visibility and stature that accompany can produce wealth, and that power is part of leadership and necessary to get things done, whatever the nature and extent of the given objectives may be. “Power is desirable to many, albeit not all, people, for what it can provide and also a goal in and of itself.”
Although Pfeffer does not invoke the core metaphor from Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” in The Republic, I think it is especially relevant to the various misconceptions about power that Pfeffer refutes. The situation in Plato’s allegory is that people are located in a darkened cave watching shadows dance on a wall. (The source of light is outside the cave.) They think they are watching ultimate realities. Rather, what they observe are images, yes, but also distortions. The same is true of the “just world hypothesis” that the world is predictable, comprehensible, and therefore potentially controllable. Worse yet, it implies that “people get what they deserve; that is, that the good people are likely to be rewarded and the bad to be punished. Most important,” Pfeffer adds, “the phenomenon works in reverse: if someone is seen to prosper, there is a social psychological tendency for observers to decide that the lucky person must have done something to deserve his good fortune.”
Pfeffer insists that the world is neither just nor unjust: it is. He also challenges “leadership literature” (including his contributions to it) because celebrity CEOs who tout their own careers as models tend to “gloss over power plays they actually used to get to the top” whereas authors such as Pfeffer offer “prescriptions about how people [begin italics] wish [end italics] the world and the powerful behaved.” Pfeffer also suggests that those aspiring to power “are often their own worst enemy, and not just in the arena of building power” because of self-handicapping, a reluctance (perhaps even a refusal) to take initiatives that may fail and thereby diminish one’s self-image. “I have come to believe that the biggest single effect I can have is to get people to [begin italics] try to become powerful.” Pfeffer wrote this book as an operations manual for the acquisition and retention of power. Of even greater importance, in my opinion, he reveals the ultimate realities of what power is…and isn’t…and thereby eliminates the shadows of illusion and self-deception that most people now observe in the “caves” of their current circumstances.
Here are a few of Pfeffer’s key points that caught my eye, (albeit out of context):
In the workplace, “as long as you keep your boss or bosses happy, performance really does not matter that much and, by contrast, if you upset them, performance won’t save you.” (Page 21)
“Asking for help is something people often avoid. First of all, it’s inconsistent with the American emphasis on self-reliance. Second, people are afraid of rejection because of what getting g turned down might do to their self-esteem. Third, requests for help are based on their likelihood of being granted.” (Page78)
“Power and influence [within social networks] come not just from the extensiveness of your network and the status of its members, but also from your structural position within that network. Centrality matters. Research shows that centrality within both advice and friendship networks produces many benefits, including access to information, positive performance ratings, and higher pay.” (Page 119)
“Not only are reputations and first impressions formed quickly, but they are durable. Research has identified several processes that account for the persistence of initial reputations or, phrased differently, the importance of the order in which information is presented. All three processes are plausible. We don’t need to know which is operating to worry about making a good first impression.” (Pages 150-151)
Note: The three processes are attention decrement, cognitive discounting, and a version of the self-fulfilling prophecy, joined by a fourth (biased assimilation), all of which Pfeffer explains on Pages 151-153.
“Michael Marmot’s study of 18,000 British civil servants – all people working in office jobs – in the same society – uncovered that people at the bottom of the hierarchy had [begin italics] four times [end italics] the risk of death as those at the top. [Check out Marmot's The Status Syndrome: How Social Standing Affects Our Health, published by Times Books.] Controlling for risk factors such as smoking or obesity did not make the social gradient in health disappear, nor did statistically controlling for longevity of one’s parents. As Marmot concludes, `Social circumstances in life predict health.’ So seek power as if your life depends on it. Because it does.” (Page 236)
Much of great value has been written about how to establish and then sustain a “healthy” organization. The fact remains, that cannot be achieved without enough people who possess sufficient power. In my opinion, Jeffrey Pfeffer is determined (obsessed?) to increase the number of such people, one reader at a time. Hopefully those who read this book will help others to acquire the power they need to be successful, influential, and most important of all healthy.
BlogOnBooks 8:53 pm on October 22, 2010 Permalink
Review by BlogOnBooks for Power: Why Some People Have It and Others Don’t
Rating:
Want to get a good job? Want to move up the corporate ladder? What are the tools you are going to need?
A good education? Hard work and smarts? Being well liked?
Not so much, at least according to Jeffrey Pfeffer, a Stanford Business School professor and author of numerous books on this and related subjects. No, despite popular notions and the usual urban myths, Pfeffer contends that the path to power is significantly different than the popular notions we were raised to believe.
In “Power: Why Some People Have It and Others Don’t,” Pfeffer sets out example after example of just how poorly served executives are by using the above listed methods and instead take a more aggressive approach to the utilization of tools like building relationships (always appear to be supporting your boss), networking, self-promotion (in healthy doses, but not too much), organizational visibility, control of information as well as the usual power profile advice on initial impressions, speech, posture, etc.
Pfeffer uses numerous examples – from the top of the corporate ladder (former GE boss, Jack Welch, of course, but also Bill Clinton, a former chairperson of Time, Inc, Ollie North and others) to those just getting started (including new recruits and interns) to illustrate what works and what doesn’t in stark, cold terms. While Pfeffer admits that his techniques may not be for everyone or may make some squeamish, he recommends you try them anyway and keep your fears to yourself as you work your way up the corporate ladder, preferably quickly.
The only disappointment here is perhaps in the labeling. While a title as generic as “Power” might be perceived to be a tome on personal title, it seems most of Pfeffer’s teachings are strictly related to the type of hierarchical ladders of the corporate workplace. If you’re looking for something more relating to personal power or even entrepreneurial power, this may not be the book for you.
Check out this Q&A with author Jeffrey Pfeffer.
Paul F. Ross 9:17 pm on October 22, 2010 Permalink
Review by Paul F. Ross for Power: Why Some People Have It and Others Don’t
Rating:
Useful advice … follow it
Psychology’s 150-year scientific history has taught, among other things, that people don’t follow advice. When people change their behavior, it is because they have learned something new, or relearned something they should have remembered. They have persuaded themselves to change their own behavior. Pfeffer knows all this very well. Why then does he fill his book “Power: Why some people _____________________________________________________________________________________
Pfeffer, Jeffrey Power: Why some people have it – and others don’t 2010, HarperCollins Publishers, New York NY, ix + 273 pages
_____________________________________________________________________________________
have it – and others don’t” with advice? The answer: because Pfeffer expects his readers to be seeking insights about how to guide their own career into positions of high influence and high reward. His readers want to learn and, thus, may learn. The book is a-reproduction-in-print of the elective course Pfeffer teaches at Stanford University called “The Paths to Power.” The virtues of Pfeffer’s advice are that (a) he warns readers (correctly) that, for the most part, books and courses offering secrets of leadership are hazardous to one’s career, concealing much, much more than they reveal and falsely understanding the causes of success, (b) he closely links his advice to credible research evidence, a rare but vital feature of valid counsel about how-to-help-your-career, and (c) he recognizes (correctly) that we live in a mixed-up and unfair world and are primarily responsible for our own career progress. Further, (d) Pfeffer is understandable, down to earth, very practical, very realistic, while advising from an evidence-based background about how people behave in organizations and how organizations go about their business.
Pfeffer opens his advice with a list of rewards for having power, closes it with a list of the costs when one has power. He advises (correctly) that “it takes more than performance,” noting the evidence that gaining the top spot is not closely correlated with being the top performer. We receive much instruction in world cultures that self-promotion is injurious to oneself, but Pfeffer teaches (correctly) that self promotion is necessary. He teaches appropriate ways for accomplishing being noticed and achieving influence. He examines how and why people lose power. Knowing that every career experiences setbacks, Pfeffer considers how one deals with defeat, with being fired.
Pfeffer’s book displays an important oversight. Citing evidence that is solid, Pfeffer advises that “it takes more than performance” to get ahead. Having understood this, the reader has the responsibility to learn and do the things that are needed to win leadership roles and influence … not simply perform well at his/her job and expect to be noticed. Pfeffer’s advice seems to be “If you want leadership, take it.” That idea implies that the individual taking leadership is the only one who has a stake in who leads. That can’t be right!
This reviewer knows, as does Pfeffer, that job performance as routinely assessed in business, government, and non-profits today has much too little impact upon career outcomes for individuals. Many excellent performers are not recognized and rewarded. Is that as things must be? Is job performance assessment as practiced seeing what it should and could be seeing? I think not. We have as leaders only those without knowledge of the behavioral and management sciences … and so are using almost none of the knowledge from those sciences. The research I’ve seen and done in a five-decade career in North America’s Fortune 50 corporations urges that job performance can be measured, even in executive and professional jobs, that it can be measured much more usefully than any organization is doing it today, and that job performance measurements should provide guidance in determining who is invited to take more responsibility. There is evidence enough that many, many mistakes are made in selecting leaders (or allowing a person into a leadership role … depending on how one construes what happens). Failures we’ve seen in top leadership in the first decade of the twenty first century have been dramatic. The sad truth is that poor leadership exists not just at top levels. I admire Pfeffer’s advice (reach out and take leadership), think it enormously practical, think it fits the world as it is … but also think the world needs some significant changes in order to make it better than it is. Measuring job performance well and then being guided by these measurements in choosing leaders are some of the important improvements needed in organizational life as we know it. Science knows how to make the measurements. The role of leader belongs to the leader not only for what it will do for the leader but also for what it will do for the organization being led and for all of society’s stakeholders as impacted by that organization.
Yes, make Pfeffer’s Power a book you keep at hand for frequent rereading. Yes, give this book to offspring, colleagues and friends for their reading. For completeness sake, stick a copy of this review in the book that you pass along.
Bellevue, Washington
3 October 2010
Paul F. Ross, Ph.D., Industrial and Organizational Psychologist (retired)
Career experience at Exxon, Arthur D. Little Inc., Digital Equipment Corporation, Texas Instruments, The Prudential, Imperial Oil Ltd. of Canada, The Ohio State University, Harvard University, State of California, Commissioner of Higher Education for The Netherlands, and with other clients
elizabeth white 9:45 pm on October 22, 2010 Permalink
Review by elizabeth white for Power: Why Some People Have It and Others Don’t
Rating:
It is an OK book. It has a lot of verbiage with a few morsels of real information.
Jeff Lippincott 10:34 pm on October 22, 2010 Permalink
Review by Jeff Lippincott for So, You Want to Start a Business?: 8 Steps to Take Before Making the Leap
Rating:
What a book. Just wonderful. I’ve been reading books on business plans and books related to business plans on and off over the past couple of years. I have found a number of adequate books on business plans, but this book (and “The Business Rules” ISBN: 1599180618) both do a pretty good job explaining what you need to know in order to write a great business plan.
Neither book tells you how to write a business plan. However, they are great books to help you polish up the business plan you have already written. If you are interested in preparing a great business plan, or in need of some strategic planning regarding a business plan you have already written, then I highly recommend you get a copy of either or both books and study them.
Included in this book is great content related to what the author claims to be 124 Business Lessons spread over 10 chapters as follows:
0. Introduction
1. Can you be a successful entrepreneur? (15 lessons)
2. Basic rules of business success (8 lessons)
3. What is a good business opportunity? (10 lessons)
4. How do you choose the right business customers? (9 lessons)
5. How do you design your product or service? (14 lessons)
6. What is the right price for your product or service? (9 lessons)
7. How can you overcome customer inertia? (9 lessons)
8. How to manage your business (22 lessons)
9. How do you find and keep good employees? (15 lessons)
10. How do you manage growth? (13 lessons)
11. Conclusion
As you read this book with your business plan in mind I guarantee you will think of many things you have left out of your business plan that should have been included. I also guarantee that you will think of things that you have included in your business plan that should be changed. This book is a goldmine of information you need in order to tweek your business plan so your business will be as successful as possible. And if your business cannot be successful, then this book will have helped you figure that out, too.
The conclusion to the book is basically just a summary of the 124 lessons learned. And it also summarizes “55 Business Rules” the author plants throughout the book that provide great wisdom.
I would have liked the book better if it had included a chapter, some lessons, and business rules regarding marketing. The book is totally lacking when it comes to that subject. But what the book does cover it covers well. 5 stars!
Eric Barger 10:59 pm on October 22, 2010 Permalink
Review by Eric Barger for So, You Want to Start a Business?: 8 Steps to Take Before Making the Leap
Rating:
If you are thinking about starting your first business, you are already counting the money you will make. Do yourself a favor and read this book before you make the leap. It will save you a lot of heartburn and after you have started.
Being a large business owner and the owner of a new startup company, I can tell you from personal first-hand experience every word in this book should be taken to heart. Be brave and go for it, but know the pitfalls that most people fall into after they have started their business.
One example from the book is that people who are ready to start their own business are counting the money they are already going to make. I have been there and done that. It was nice to see a book that will ground you so you don’t make the mistake of succumbing to the negatives that outlook can have.
Read the book! Be successful! Make lots of money and do it wisely!
Peace, Love and Music 11:51 pm on October 22, 2010 Permalink
Review by Peace, Love and Music for So, You Want to Start a Business?: 8 Steps to Take Before Making the Leap
Rating:
Wonderful, great talking points. I love the way it was organized and how frank it was. Hurry and get this book while it is still free!!
Stephen M. Soltis 12:14 am on October 23, 2010 Permalink
Review by Stephen M. Soltis for So, You Want to Start a Business?: 8 Steps to Take Before Making the Leap
Rating:
In this timely and important entrepreneurship primer, Ed Hess and Charles Goetz “walk the talk” by delivering simple, sound, common-sense advice and counsel for aspiring business owners. Don’t expect fancy charts, esoteric consultant-speak or silver-bullet algorithms here — instead you’ll get plenty of straight-talk and smart, practical and applicable advice from two successful entrepreneurs who’ve been there and back and now want to share their insights and passion. After reading “So You Want To Start a Business?” I was tempted to buy a few hundred copies and send to Washington to help with the bailout turnarounds. A great book and a powerful tool for what will certainly be a surge in American entrepreneurial spirit in the coming years. Well done.
Steve Soltis, Director of Executive Communications, The Coca-Cola Company
David B. Shipper 12:33 am on October 23, 2010 Permalink
Review by David B. Shipper for So, You Want to Start a Business?: 8 Steps to Take Before Making the Leap
Rating:
Have not finished yet but so far it is better than many business books I’ve read. Would recommend.