The Art of Manliness - The Real Rules of Power

00:00:00.000 Brett McKay here, and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.

00:00:11.140 Most leadership advice says the same thing. To be a good leader, you need to be generous,

00:00:16.240 humble, and authentic. My guest, Professor of Organizational Behavior Jeffrey Pfeffer,

00:00:20.700 would say that kind of advice may make us feel good and represent the world as we'd like it to

00:00:24.600 be, but it doesn't actually work in the world as it really is. What the research shows does work

00:00:29.420 is what he lays out in his book, Seven Rules of Power, surprising but true advice on how to get

00:00:34.860 things done and advance your career. People often have negative associations with power,

00:00:39.400 but Jeffrey would argue that power, and many of the techniques involved in getting it,

00:00:42.980 are morally neutral and can be used for ill or for good. So if you have a worthy aim and want to grow

00:00:48.040 your influence and move up in your job, you have to get comfortable going after something that may

00:00:52.260 make you uncomfortable. Jeffrey shares how to do that as we take a quick and dirty dive into the

00:00:56.520 real rules of power. After the show's over, check out our show notes at aom.is slash rules of power.

00:01:16.020 All right, Jeffrey Pfeffer, welcome to the show.

00:01:19.400 It's a pleasure to be with you. Thank you for having me on.

00:01:22.200 Well, so you are a professor at Stanford, and you spent a lot of your career researching,

00:01:29.040 writing, teaching about business organization, but particularly power. You've written a few books

00:01:34.400 about human power. What led you down that path? Well, I think two things led me down that path.

00:01:40.860 The first thing that led me down that path is one of the things I've tried to do in my career

00:01:44.920 is to find topics that have the following two qualities. Number one, they're important,

00:01:50.660 and number two, nobody's talking about them. If you can talk about something that is important

00:01:57.160 and other people aren't doing, that puts you in a pretty good niche. Empower, for a long time,

00:02:03.160 and really still to this day, is something that's very, very important in social life,

00:02:07.540 but many people are unwilling to teach about it or to talk about it because it makes people

00:02:12.620 uncomfortable. That, I think, is the reason why I got into this.

00:02:15.940 And you make the case that you're in the world of business organization, leadership,

00:02:20.920 things like that, and you make the case that a lot of the literature out there about leadership

00:02:24.240 in the business world isn't actually useful. What do they say about how power works or doesn't work

00:02:30.180 that you think they get wrong? Oh, God. We could spend hours talking about that. I think many people

00:02:38.180 describe human behavior and human psychology as they would like it to be rather than as it is.

00:02:46.180 So the recommendations about leadership are to be authentic, to tell the truth, to be modest,

00:02:53.200 to be self-effacing, to be generous, all of these things. But if you look at the world,

00:02:58.840 the difference between frontline and CEO salaries are higher than they've ever been. The research

00:03:06.240 on lying indicates that people lie all the time. So, you know, the narcissism, not modesty,

00:03:13.000 is reliably and predictably related to getting and then holding leadership positions. So much of the

00:03:20.800 social science research, what does it take to be successful? What are the behaviors that we

00:03:24.960 actually reward? There are almost no resemblance to the aspirational platitudes that much of the

00:03:32.460 leadership literature puts forward. Yeah. Whenever I go on LinkedIn, I check out where people are

00:03:37.260 posting. A lot of this stuff is very aspirational. Like, here's an example of this leader that was

00:03:40.820 modest and, you know, is humble and blah. And I'm like, is that really how it works? And you're saying no.

00:03:47.640 No, that isn't how it works. Of course not. And I think you used the right word. The word is

00:03:53.300 aspirational. I think many people, you know, there's a lot of virtue signaling on LinkedIn and Twitter

00:03:58.680 and holding that aside. There's also a lot of, there's a lot of writing about how people would

00:04:04.060 like the world to be. And what the position that I take is that, you know, it's fine to have

00:04:09.960 aspirations, but if you're going to get from where you are to the aspirational world, you would like

00:04:15.180 to see, you need to understand number one, where you are, and you need to understand why you are where

00:04:20.460 you are. Because otherwise you just put out these platitudes and nothing ever changes.

00:04:24.960 And power is that ability that allows you to make that change that you want.

00:04:29.480 That's exactly right. Power is the ability to get things done against opposition. You know,

00:04:34.300 the Stanford Business School motto is change lives, change organizations, change the world. And if

00:04:40.760 you're going to change anything, you need influence.

00:04:43.760 All right. So power is the ability to get things done in opposition. But like, if power is the ability

00:04:47.700 to get things done, like, why are people uncomfortable thinking about and going after power,

00:04:53.120 like being effective? Why are people squeamish about that?

00:04:56.880 I don't know. It could be how they were raised. You're not supposed to seek power. You're supposed

00:05:03.160 to be, you know, do good work and, you know, work hard and keep your head down and everything will be

00:05:10.280 okay. And so I think how you're raised and the literature to which you're exposed causes you to,

00:05:16.400 I think, step away from power. And, you know, my friend Debra Liu is now CEO of Ancestry.com. 0.80

00:05:25.040 And prior to that, worked at Facebook, wrote a book, and I love the title, Take Back Your Power.

00:05:31.440 And the reason why I like that title is because the opposite of taking back your power is giving

00:05:37.020 away your power. And I think in a hundred ways, people lean away from being powerful rather than

00:05:44.580 leaning into it. Well, you mentioned earlier, a lot of these things that, you know, if you look

00:05:48.180 at the research, you know, how we reward influence and power to people, you know, people who are

00:05:52.800 narcissistic tend to have more power, deception, you know, these are some negative things. But in

00:05:58.340 this book, The Seven Rules of Power, you make the case that you don't have to be an unethical person

00:06:02.760 to want power. Because if you want to do good, if you want to do, there's a, you have a moral,

00:06:07.240 this good thing you want to do in the world, you have to think about, well, how am I going to do that?

00:06:12.100 And you have to think about, well, how am I going to get power?

00:06:14.780 That's exactly correct. And by the way, you know, the thing, the seven rules, you know,

00:06:20.220 number one, getting out of your own way. Number two, you know, breaking the rules. Number three,

00:06:25.720 showing up in a powerful fashion and building a powerful brand and networking. I don't think

00:06:30.280 networking is unethical. I don't think putting your, putting a brand forward or showing up in a

00:06:37.700 powerful fashion is unethical. I certainly don't think getting out of your own way and losing the

00:06:43.580 descriptions that hold you back are unethical. So I, I don't see, you know, much of the stuff

00:06:49.780 that I talk about in this book is being unethical or, or bad in any way. Of course, you ought to get

00:06:55.100 out of your own way and you ought to lean into your power and try to show up in a way that makes

00:07:00.000 a positive impression on other people.

00:07:02.080 Well, let's, let's dig into these rules a little bit more. So you said the first rule

00:07:05.540 of power is getting out of your own way. What do you mean by that? And how do people get in their

00:07:10.540 own way when it comes to power?

00:07:11.820 Oh my God. That's a great question. People get in their own way in a number of ways. Number one,

00:07:17.400 I think they apologize too much. So I, I call this kind of the preemptory apology. Pardon me for

00:07:23.680 interrupting. You know, I, I see people at meetings or even in my classroom, you know, I'm not sure

00:07:29.500 the comment I'm about to make is worthwhile. This kind of modesty thing, you know, I pardon

00:07:36.800 me for, you know, taking your time. No, don't, do not engage in preemptory apology. And, you know,

00:07:43.000 if you're going to make a comment that nobody wants to hear, don't make it in the first place.

00:07:46.620 Don't apologize for it in advance. I think that's one way in which people give up their own,

00:07:51.140 give up their power. And I think people carry in their heads descriptions of themselves.

00:07:56.520 You know, I'm not, I'm not that good. You know, the, the, you know, this idea about

00:08:02.460 self-handicapping or this idea that you're not worthy and deserving. If you go into a situation

00:08:07.760 and you don't think you're worthy and deserving, the odds are nobody else is going to think you

00:08:11.600 are worthy or deserving either. So, you know, I think, I think you need to come into situations

00:08:16.360 with a sense of your own competence and confidence. And you need to come into situations

00:08:22.080 using a set of adjectives about you that empower rather than disempower you.

00:08:28.640 Well, another way that people get in the way of themselves that you talked about in the book,

00:08:31.780 I thought was really interesting is this emphasis on authenticity. And you call this the authenticity,

00:08:37.320 a curse, actually, when it comes to power. Why is authenticity a curse?

00:08:42.740 Well, it's way too self-referential. People think that you ought to be true to yourself.

00:08:48.000 I don't think that's what leaders need to be. Leaders need to be true, not to what their own

00:08:52.680 feelings are, what their own preferences are, or what their own ideas are. They need to be true to

00:08:58.540 what the people around them need. So, you know, if you're running a startup and you come in one day

00:09:04.140 and, you know, you've, you've, you've had setbacks because startups invariably face various kinds of

00:09:09.860 setbacks and challenges. And you say to your team, you know, I'm not sure what to do. I'm not sure

00:09:15.940 how we're going to get out of this. You're going to lose the team. You're going to lose your

00:09:19.420 investors. You're going to lose your customers. You have to sometimes display confidence that you

00:09:24.020 don't feel. You have to sometimes display certainty that you don't feel. And certainly if you show up,

00:09:31.420 it's my friend, Gary Lubman, who used to run Caesars, the casino company. If you show up in the

00:09:36.420 middle of the night and you're tired and, you know, and you're not, and maybe your family has done

00:09:42.180 something bad or your, your children have gotten into trouble or whatever, you know, the people in

00:09:47.840 the casino don't want to hear about this and they don't want to hear that you're tired. They, you,

00:09:52.520 you need to show up with energy. You need to show up with a dedication to, and a focus on the people

00:09:58.540 who are around you and what do they need from you. And I think what they need from you is they need

00:10:03.140 energy and they need a sense that you care about them and you're going to devote your efforts to

00:10:08.660 making them more successful. Well, as you're describing that idea of being authentic,

00:10:12.020 with the example of, you know, if you're late at night, no one wants to hear that you don't know

00:10:16.200 the question or you're tired. There's just always a lot of talk lately in the past decade or so about

00:10:20.600 being vulnerable as a leader. And I think people are like, well, if you don't know, and if you're

00:10:24.980 tired, you should let people know that because then they'll trust you more or whatever. And you're

00:10:28.220 saying, it sounds good, but that really people don't respond well to that.

00:10:33.000 There's research that suggests that, you know, it's fine to be vulnerable to your significant other

00:10:37.600 or maybe to your children or to close friends. But in a work situation, people want to know that

00:10:43.440 you're going to lead them to victory, that you have the confidence and you are going to tap into

00:10:50.260 their energy and you're going to give them energy because we know emotions, including energy, is

00:10:55.120 contagious. And then at the end, you're going to lead them to success. Absolutely.

00:11:00.020 Another thing that gets in the way of how people get in their own way is this wanting to be liked.

00:11:04.560 But the problem is if you want to wield power, sometimes you're going to do things that people

00:11:08.540 don't like and they're not going to like you. So how do you overcome that desire to be well-liked

00:11:13.780 by everybody? I think you need to focus on results. You know, again, my friend Gary Lublin, who ran

00:11:19.720 Caesars for many years as a CEO, has this lovely saying, you want to be like a dog. A dog will love

00:11:24.840 you unconditionally. But your job as a senior leader is not to win a popularity contest. I mean,

00:11:31.960 people are looking to you to make sometimes tough decisions. Maybe you need to lay people off

00:11:37.120 because of economic circumstances. Maybe you need to fire people because they've underperformed or

00:11:42.160 they've let you down in various ways. You know, maybe you need to make decisions about strategic

00:11:47.940 direction for the organization that not everybody is going to agree with. And you're paid as a leader.

00:11:54.120 Your job as a leader is to help people become more successful. And sometimes that involves making

00:12:00.220 pretty tough decisions. All right. So this first rule of getting out of your own way,

00:12:03.240 it seems like it's a mindset shift. You have to just start getting comfortable with the idea that

00:12:07.720 to be a leader, you're going to do things that might go against what you feel is authentic or

00:12:12.420 natural if you actually want to get stuff done. I think that's exactly right. I mean, if you think

00:12:18.200 about Jeff Bezos of Amazon or Elon Musk of Tesla, you know, I'm not sure they're going to win

00:12:24.520 popularity contests or people are going to like them. I think most entrepreneurs, most, many CEOs

00:12:30.880 leading, you know, successful organizations, they are focused on accomplishment and, you know, and

00:12:37.340 they are focused on making things happen. And sometimes that involves, you know, not necessarily

00:12:44.100 behaving as everyone would want you to behave. Well, related to that is the second rule and that is

00:12:48.780 break the rules. What do you mean by break the rules and what kind of rules are we breaking here?

00:12:52.520 Breaking almost all rules. I'm, you know, my friend, Jason Calacanis, the angel investor

00:12:59.060 who wrote a book talking about how he turned a hundred thousand into a hundred million dollars

00:13:03.420 when he was applying to Fordham, he would drop in on the admissions office, the admissions officer

00:13:10.640 without an appointment. When he got admitted to Fordham, he dropped in on the Dean without an

00:13:16.160 appointment to get a better job in the computer lab. You know, I think breaking the rules,

00:13:21.060 there's a Malcolm Gladwell has a 2009 article in the New Yorker, how David beats Goliath.

00:13:27.860 How does David beat Goliath? Then we're talking to now the biblical David and Goliath. You know,

00:13:32.520 if David puts on all of the armor like Goliath has, and has a sword like Goliath has before David is a

00:13:39.780 little, much smaller than Goliath, isn't going to be able to move. So David says, I'm not going to

00:13:44.980 fight Goliath on Goliath's terms. I'm going to fight Goliath using my tools, the tools of a

00:13:51.020 shepherd. I'm going to use a slingshot. So David beats Goliath by basically engaging in what the

00:13:56.600 technical term would be asymmetric warfare. And it's true, not just in warfare, it's true in business

00:14:02.180 strategy. I think the most successful business organizations are ones that change the rules of

00:14:07.560 the game to favor what their particular capacities and capabilities are. So what does that look like

00:14:13.760 on a day-to-day basis? Like, you know, let's say you just got hired at a company and you want to make

00:14:19.880 a mark. I mean, like what kind of, what kind of rules should you start breaking and what does that

00:14:25.700 look like? Well, you know, so I have a friend, the former student named Tristan Walker. And Tristan

00:14:31.420 Walker wanted to get a job at Foursquare. He sent emails and resumes to the CEO at the time at Foursquare

00:14:39.020 and the CEO was busy running this startup. And so Tristan Walker began, basically, he didn't get the

00:14:47.620 job of being the head of business development. He started doing the job of being the head of business

00:14:54.620 development. And when he landed a contract with Starbucks, the head of Foursquare, the CEO said,

00:15:01.040 wow, maybe I ought to hire this guy because he was already doing the job for which he wanted to be

00:15:07.400 hired. Now that's an extreme example, but it's an interesting example. And I see this inside

00:15:12.660 organizations all the time. People take initiative. You know, I believe this organization ought to do

00:15:19.280 a strategic review. Okay. I can't get anybody's attention. I will do it myself. I think we ought to

00:15:26.320 reach out to the following potential customers. I can't get the sales team to do it. I'll do it

00:15:31.580 myself. In other words, you take initiative and do what you think needs to be done without waiting

00:15:37.280 for permission to do it. Yeah, I think that's interesting. A lot of times we tell people to

00:15:42.480 take initiative. You know, we tell our kids that you got to take initiative. But when you get in an

00:15:45.820 organization, taking initiative is seen as, well, you don't do that, that you're a renegade if you take

00:15:50.040 initiative. But you're saying you need to do more of that. You need to keep doing that when you get in

00:15:53.600 an organization. And, you know, if you land a contract for Foursquare with Starbucks, nobody's

00:15:59.060 going to say you shouldn't have done that. If you reach out to a potential customer and you're

00:16:03.820 successful in landing that customer, nobody's going to say, oh, you shouldn't have done that.

00:16:08.000 You know, if you undertake a strategic review that leads to some great insight that makes the

00:16:13.140 organization successful, nobody's going to say, oh, you shouldn't have done that. You know, at the

00:16:18.140 end, it's easier to ask forgiveness than permission. That's the basic principle.

00:16:24.040 And you use the example of Robert Moses, who he did this a lot when he was doing his thing in New

00:16:28.900 York City. Instead of going through the typical bureaucratic rigmarole to get something to prove,

00:16:33.200 he would just do it. He would just build it. Yeah. He would absolutely. He would, you know,

00:16:38.060 instead of asking, you know, for permission to do something, he would do it. And then, you know,

00:16:41.860 once the park was built or once the playground was built or once the swimming field was built,

00:16:45.780 what are you going to do? You know, people are enjoying it. You're not going to say,

00:16:48.700 well, you shouldn't have done that. Well, then you also bring in research,

00:16:51.500 like all this stuff isn't, you just kind of, you're not just pulling the stuff out of your

00:16:54.060 hat somewhere. You're just, you actually, there's research that shows that we actually,

00:16:57.520 when we see someone break the rules, we kind of like that guy, I want to listen to that guy

00:17:02.040 because he's, he's, I don't know, he's like above the law in a way. So maybe we should pay

00:17:05.520 attention to him. Yep. Yep. Rule breaking, you know, because, because it's heuristic association

00:17:11.520 between, you know, but the powerful people get to break the rules. So if you break the

00:17:15.660 rules, people will think you have more power than maybe you have.

00:17:18.660 We're going to take a quick break for your words from our sponsors.

00:17:27.600 And now back to the show. All right. The next rule is about appearing powerful and use the

00:17:33.000 example of two CEOs to highlight this rule. It's a Lloyd Blankenfine and Tony Hayward.

00:17:39.260 What can these two guys teach us about the importance of, of appearing powerful?

00:17:42.700 People, you know, I think people respond to how you look, you know, and so if you show up and

00:17:48.660 you speak in a powerful voice and you show up and use powerful gestures, as opposed to hunching over,

00:17:54.720 you know, people pay more attention to you. You could look at Oliver North and his testimony years

00:17:59.620 ago for Iran-Contra, you know, he shows up in his military uniform and he, he, he is assertive.

00:18:06.160 People respond to others, how others look and how they appear. Body language is important.

00:18:12.040 My colleague at the Berkeley, Dana Carney, has done a ton of research. She's writing a book

00:18:16.180 on the importance of body language. We know this and we see this. Next time you watch a political

00:18:21.080 debate or something on TV like that, turn off the sound and you can, you can tell who's winning

00:18:26.840 just by the body language.

00:18:28.560 Well, when you talk about these two guys, they, they, they both got called up to, you know,

00:18:32.760 I think Congress to give testimony or something because of wrongdoing that their companies were

00:18:37.060 accused of taking part in. And one of them went there and there was, he's very conciliatory and

00:18:42.200 like, oh, you know, we're really sorry. And he was talking about what's been so hard for me and

00:18:45.380 blah, blah, blah, blah. And the other guy was just, he didn't really talk about what he's being

00:18:49.580 accused of. He's like, well, here's, you know, I'm running this company. We're trying to get this

00:18:52.920 done. And as a consequence, something like this happened. It's just, that's just part of doing

00:18:56.600 business. And, but we're doing this, we're creating more, so much more value because we,

00:19:01.140 would that thing happen or something like that?

00:19:03.220 Yep. That's exactly right. I mean, Tony Hayward from BP, you know, reads a statement,

00:19:08.060 which of course prevents him from making eye contact, which is already a bad thing.

00:19:12.500 He's all hunched over. He doesn't use forceful arm gestures. And he certainly apologizes a lot

00:19:18.040 for the BP Gulf oil spill. Lloyd Blankfein representing Goldman Sachs, which has been accused of shorting

00:19:24.720 securities that it sold its clients, comes up and says, you know, we are the other side of what

00:19:29.700 our clients want to do. So we buy what we, you know, if they want to sell to us, we buy from them.

00:19:34.660 If they want to buy from us, we sell to them. And then we cover the risk by taking the other,

00:19:39.220 by perhaps making shorts or, you know, buying derivatives or whatever they do. And yes,

00:19:45.740 we are the other side of what our clients want to do. And by the way, we're 140 year old firm.

00:19:50.260 And this is what marketing making is. Market making is being the other side of our clients

00:19:55.000 transactions and a completely unapologetic. All right. It's a pure, more powerful thing

00:20:00.720 about body language. That's important. Look people in the eye, stand up straight. We've had people on

00:20:05.040 the podcast talking about those. Those are powerful social cues that signal competence and effectiveness

00:20:11.480 and power to other people. So you might think that's just dumb stuff, but it actually is really

00:20:15.160 like those little small details are important. Absolutely. Okay. So another rule is if you have 0.61

00:20:21.320 power, you have to use your power to increase your power. Why does using your power increase your

00:20:26.720 power? People want to be associated with success. People want to be associated with other people

00:20:32.220 who are able to get things done. So to the extent that you're able to get more done,

00:20:36.940 more people are going to support you. I mean, think about yourself as a startup or think about

00:20:42.840 yourself as, you know, maybe Robert Moses building parks, playgrounds or swimming pools or think

00:20:48.840 about yourself as Lyndon Johnson passing all that great society legislation. The more stuff you get

00:20:54.440 done, the more effective you look. The more effective you look, the more people want to support you

00:21:01.100 because, you know, while Don Quixote is a nice figure in literature, nobody wants to be associated

00:21:06.420 with people who are tilting at windmills. They want to be associated with people who are actually

00:21:10.780 making things happen. So the more you're able to get done, the more people want to invest in you

00:21:16.280 and to work with you. Well, I think FDR, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, he understood this principle.

00:21:21.580 You know, as soon as he got in, this is where the whole idea of, you know, the first hundred days

00:21:24.260 of a president, right? How much are they going to get done? Well, as soon as he got in, he established

00:21:28.680 all these agencies and was doing all this different stuff to help alleviate the depression. I think what

00:21:33.640 he was trying to do, he's trying to give confidence to the American people that we're in charge,

00:21:38.260 we're going to get stuff done and that only increased his power. Yep. That's exactly right.

00:21:42.880 That's another good example. Yeah. And LBJ did that too. And you talk about as soon as after

00:21:47.520 the assassination, like immediately he was setting out, here's what we're going to do to get the

00:21:51.200 great society going, education, civil rights. He had a plan like within that first day to get stuff

00:21:56.640 done. Yep. And the more bills he passed, the more people then say, wow, here's somebody who can

00:22:04.900 actually get the civil rights legislation that Kennedy tried to get through and was never able

00:22:09.800 to. And the more effective you look, the more people want to be associated with you and to work

00:22:16.660 with you. I mean, you think about this, if you're working in a company and you got two leaders,

00:22:21.420 one leader is getting stuff done and making stuff happen. And the other leader isn't, you know,

00:22:26.200 who do you want to, who do you want to work with? You want to work with people you want to work

00:22:30.160 in the, in the unit where that's making things happen. Well, so yeah, I think a lot of, I've

00:22:35.360 heard, I've read business advice where if you're put into a new leadership position, well, maybe what

00:22:39.260 you should do is just kind of embed yourself in the organization, see how things are run and then

00:22:43.700 you make your changes. You're saying, no, you need to go in there and just start making things happen

00:22:48.000 right away. People are looking to you and, and, and they are trying to evaluate, is this somebody

00:22:54.260 who's going to be successful or not? And the sooner you show that you're going to be successful,

00:22:59.040 the more support you're going to get. Okay. And then what this also does by exercising power,

00:23:05.060 it also, it's fights, it helps you fight off would-be pretenders as well to your, your leadership

00:23:10.320 position. That's, that is absolutely correct. And you see this with outside succession and CEO roles

00:23:16.320 and obviously in political roles. You know, a new CEO comes in from outside. Oftentimes there's a lot

00:23:21.880 of turnover in the top management team. Jim Collins, good to great, the great management thinker

00:23:27.840 and writer talks about getting the right people on the bus. And that's exactly right. It's very hard

00:23:33.260 to get things done if you don't have the right talent and skills working with you. And by the way,

00:23:38.840 getting the right people on the bus oftentimes means getting the wrong people off the bus.

00:23:43.720 So yes, you, you, you want a team who can execute. You want a team who can get things done. I mean,

00:23:48.860 think about a football team. You come in as a coach, look at Lincoln Riley at USC. One of the things

00:23:54.060 Lincoln Riley did when he came to coach USC is he said, I'm going to apparently, according to the,

00:24:01.140 what I read in the newspaper, have the largest number of transfers almost in the history of

00:24:06.780 college football, because I want to try to get the best talent on this team. So I have the best

00:24:13.560 chance of winning. Yeah. Lincoln, right. He I'm from Oklahoma. I went to OU. He is persona

00:24:18.040 non grata here. We don't like, we don't like Lincoln Riley. Okay. So, and another rule is

00:24:24.080 success excuses, almost everything. What's behind that rule.

00:24:30.160 Well, what's behind that rule is that once you are successful, once you are rich, you can,

00:24:36.280 and there are a bunch of psychological dynamics behind this. People will forget or forgive what

00:24:41.780 you did to get into that position of power. You see this all the time with wealthy business people,

00:24:47.660 you know, once you're rich and successful, you can put your name on a lot of pieces of concrete

00:24:53.420 and auditoriums and concert halls and et cetera. And people are happy to take your money and you,

00:24:59.560 you can buy legitimacy. Once you become rich and successful, people want to be associated with,

00:25:04.660 with, with power, with that rich, with that wealth and success. And so, and they will forget or forgive

00:25:09.940 or both what you did to get there in the first place.

00:25:13.200 Well, and so going to like a more, you know, down to earth example, right? So you talk about

00:25:17.420 someone taking initiative to start a thing that they, you know, maybe they didn't get permission

00:25:21.460 to start a development thing within their business. Well, if it's successful, people

00:25:26.180 aren't going to care. Like the boss is going to care that you didn't follow protocol because it

00:25:29.120 was successful. That's, that's correct. The saying is always failure is an orphan and success has many

00:25:35.600 parents. And one of the things you talk about in your previous book on power too, is that the just

00:25:42.520 world fallacy contributes to the way people will allow success to excuse almost anything. How does

00:25:50.740 that work?

00:25:51.680 The just world idea is an idea that started by the social psychologist, Melvin Lerner,

00:25:56.280 who says that people want to believe that the world is a just and fair place, that you get what

00:26:00.940 you deserve. But the dual of idea of, did you get what you deserve? Is once you get a lot of stuff,

00:26:07.000 once you're successful and powerful, people will say, well, you must've deserved it in the first place.

00:26:11.020 Yeah. It's a double-edged sword though, because we figure someone who's, who is successful,

00:26:15.400 you know, they deserve their success. So he's a skillful, good person and we want to be associated

00:26:20.860 with them. But when it, when it comes to be, you know, when it's related to ourselves, we can get

00:26:27.060 caught up into believing that our good actions will always be rewarded. And then we'll, you know,

00:26:33.700 we start to feel frustrated and resentful that we're not being adequately rewarded. Or, you know,

00:26:39.300 you, you see someone at work who's getting something using nefarious means, or they're just

00:26:44.720 kind of just not a pleasant person. And we think, well, they don't deserve that. So you, but you have

00:26:49.720 to accept that, you know, good things happen to bad people, bad things happen to good people,

00:26:54.560 but regardless, you have to keep trying to be proactive and make things happen in the world with

00:27:01.900 your own actions, right? You have to like, you know, exercise your agency.

00:27:05.000 Yeah, I think that's exactly right. I mean, I used to believe that the big contribution of my class

00:27:11.060 was to teach people a lot of social science and a lot of social psychology around power and influence.

00:27:17.260 And I've now come to believe that while I am teaching them social psychology and social science

00:27:22.300 and everything I talk about in seven rules of power, of course, has a lot of research behind it.

00:27:27.600 My, the biggest effect of my class is to cause people to be bolder than they were before,

00:27:33.560 to take more risks than they thought they could, to break the rules, to step out of their comfort

00:27:39.120 zone and to try stuff and to be, and to be, and you use the word, I think it's exactly the right

00:27:44.300 word, to become more proactive, to become more agentic. And, you know, once you become more

00:27:50.880 proactive and more agentic, you're more likely to get more stuff done. The more stuff you try to do,

00:27:55.660 the more stuff you're going to get done.

00:27:57.580 I've had, I had this conversation with, I coach flag football, a bunch of 11 year olds.

00:28:01.280 And sometimes that, sometimes that games, you know, they're like the ref, you know,

00:28:04.200 this is like, this is flag football. So there's one ref, you can't see the entire field.

00:28:07.380 There's no playbacks. And sometimes the ref will miss a penalty and there's like, Oh,

00:28:11.200 that's not fair. Oh, they just get really it. I'm like, I always tell like guys did all that

00:28:15.680 yelling. Did that change the call? No. It's like, well, you gotta, well, you got the only thing

00:28:19.800 you can do is go out there and play harder and try to do better. That's complaining and whining

00:28:24.000 about, you know, they, that's not fair. It's not doing anything. It happens every game,

00:28:28.060 but like for some kids it's landed. Some other kids are still, I still have to try to pound into

00:28:33.380 their head. Sounds like a great coaching idea. You know, I mean, it is a great coaching idea

00:28:40.360 because the question that you asked in the comment you just made is exactly the right question.

00:28:47.500 Does your complaining, does your whining, does your this, that, or the other thing,

00:28:51.520 does it change anything? And if the answer to that question is no,

00:28:55.020 then let's do something that's way more productive than doing things that don't make a

00:28:59.800 difference. Yeah. Another rule is you gotta expand your brand or develop a personal brand.

00:29:04.540 What role does that play in acquiring power? Well, I think narratives are, narratives are

00:29:09.500 important. And I think you will, you just as, you know, products need a brand. I think you,

00:29:14.260 people need a brand, you know, and they need a, not only do they need to build a brand,

00:29:18.340 which is a short statement that summarizes, you know, what they've done in their lives and who

00:29:24.940 they are and how that makes them uniquely qualified for the job to which they aspire,

00:29:30.820 the job that they hold. And then you need to promulgate that brand through social media.

00:29:35.260 And the example I use in the book is Tristan Walker. He's a graduate of Stanford, African-American,

00:29:41.700 was an executive in residence at Andreessen Horowitz, and, you know, thought about doing the same

00:29:47.060 stuff that everybody else thought of doing, you know, FinTech or, you know, social media.

00:29:53.400 But as, as an African-American man, he understood, number one, that there weren't a lot of personal

00:29:59.180 grooming products and, you know, that many of the shavers left him with razor bumps or, you know, 0.75

00:30:05.480 were hard on his skin. And he said, well, you know, instead of doing what everybody else is going to do,

00:30:10.580 I'm going to basically build grooming products for people of color, which are a large 1.00

00:30:16.460 growing segment of the population, completely underserved. And if you think about it, that is

00:30:22.520 a product and that is a brand that fits him. I am a black man and I am going to build products for

00:30:30.360 black men and for Latino and African-American women, for people of color. And I know that market

00:30:37.540 because I am that market and I've lived that experience. And so that's a brand that fits him

00:30:42.800 and suits him. And he built Walker and company brands, which was then bought by Procter and

00:30:47.320 Gamble. So, you know, the, you need a brand that somehow integrates your life experience with your

00:30:52.880 competence and capabilities in a way that says you are uniquely qualified to do what you're doing.

00:30:59.640 When you also say, sometimes you got to be appropriately controversial. What do you mean by that?

00:31:04.760 Well, you know, there's, what is the, what is the saying? There's various forms of publicity.

00:31:09.220 There's good publicity. There's bad publicity. And then of course the worst is no publicity.

00:31:14.880 You need, you need, you need to, you need to stand out. And one of the ways of standing out

00:31:19.280 is by saying things and doing things that catch people's attention. I mean, if I said to you,

00:31:24.880 if I said to you, I want you to bring out a personal computer, the last thing you would do

00:31:29.300 was bring out another windows machine that's black because there are like a zillion windows machines

00:31:35.340 that all look alike. I mean, you know, Apple had at one point, these kind of pastel colored machines

00:31:41.020 and they have different operating system. I mean, you need, you need to do something to stand out

00:31:45.720 and to differentiate yourself so that people notices. So the people notice your product.

00:31:50.540 So the people notice you, no one has ever been hired into a job for which nobody knew them or thought

00:31:58.020 of them. The first thing you need to do, if you're going to be hired, if you're going to be promoted,

00:32:01.960 somebody has to know who you are. And I think for a lot of people, again,

00:32:05.900 this goes back to this idea of getting out of your own way, right? Some people like, well,

00:32:09.460 it's just, I'm a modest person. I don't feel authentic when I'm talking about what I do.

00:32:13.380 And you say, no, if you actually want to get stuff done, you have to get comfortable talking

00:32:17.200 about how effective you are. That's exactly right. I mean, you should not assume that your boss

00:32:22.840 is watching you every minute and is noticing everything you're doing. So maybe you ought to let you help

00:32:29.220 your boss understand your accomplishments. No, that's a good point because someone else is

00:32:33.720 probably taking credit for that team effort you did. And it's not you, but it's some other guy.

00:32:39.080 Could be.

00:32:40.000 So another important part of gaining more power is networking.

00:32:43.240 Yep.

00:32:43.520 So how does networking increase your power? What type of networking are we talking about here?

00:32:48.120 Well, if leadership is getting things done to other people, it seems pretty obvious to me that the

00:32:53.120 more other people you know, the more you're going to be able to get done. Organizational life,

00:32:57.640 social life is in fact social. And so the more connections you have, and particularly the more

00:33:03.580 connections you have with people who can help you be effective, the better off you're going to be.

00:33:08.560 When you also talk about this importance of focusing on weak links, what are weak links and

00:33:12.760 why are they important to building power?

00:33:15.760 Yeah. So many people spend most of their time with people who are close to them. They are their

00:33:23.520 family. They are their close friends. They are the people they work with all the time.

00:33:28.880 And the problem, there's not problem. The issue with spending most of your time with people who

00:33:34.080 are close to you is people who are close to you probably know the same things and the same people

00:33:39.960 that you do. And the people to whom you're weakly tied, people that you may have met only once or twice,

00:33:45.520 people who are casual acquaintances, is they are going to diversify both what you know and who you

00:33:52.400 know. And just as diversification is good in financial markets, it's good in social markets as

00:33:58.200 well. The more different ideas you're exposed to, the more different people you are exposed to,

00:34:05.460 the more different sectors of the economy you're exposed to, the more creative you're going to be

00:34:11.200 and the more you're going to be able to get done because you'll know more different people and

00:34:15.440 things. Well, I think one issue that might happen with people who are proactive, like to get things

00:34:20.680 done, they might think, well, man, networking just takes a lot of time and it just takes me away from

00:34:25.080 my core competency, which is like why I'm here to like, you know, increase whatever profits in this

00:34:29.360 sector. But you still got to network. So how do you make time? Have you found any good advice on

00:34:34.360 making time for networking? I think you need to write down the people who you need to meet in order

00:34:41.840 to, you know, advance your and your organization's agenda and then figure out how you're going to

00:34:47.280 meet them and then like literally make lists and hold yourself accountable and spend and use your

00:34:53.440 phone or use something to keep track of how you spend your time and say to yourself, I'm going to

00:34:59.200 spend a certain amount of time networking. You know, I, I, people say to me, I don't spend enough

00:35:04.980 time exercising or I don't spend enough time taking care of my, my physical body. You know,

00:35:11.520 how do you, how do you do a better job of that? You make a certain time in the day, every day to run

00:35:17.420 or to do whatever exercise you're going to do. Similarly, I think you want to set a time and a certain

00:35:23.420 amount of time each week to build the relationships. They're going to permit you to get things done.

00:35:28.440 And a world basically of interdependence. You know, for me doing stuff like building your

00:35:34.340 personal brand or, you know, networking, even though I know they're, they're effective in

00:35:39.260 building power and influence. These are stuff, it's just stuff I don't like doing. I can't bring

00:35:44.600 myself to do. So I guess at the end of the day, people have to learn these rules of power and

00:35:50.120 influence, and then they got to decide if they want power enough to be willing to do the things they

00:35:55.980 may not do things they may not like or be comfortable doing, or they got to decide,

00:36:01.920 well, maybe I just don't want that much power and influence because I don't want to do all that

00:36:05.420 stuff. So that's something they got to think about. Well, Jeffrey, this has been a great

00:36:08.880 conversation. Where can people go to learn more about the book and your work?

00:36:13.060 Well, I have a personal homepage, www.jeffreypfeffer.com. I have a podcast myself

00:36:22.120 called Pfeffer on Power, which is pfefferonpower.com. So between the podcast and my personal

00:36:29.620 homepage, or you can read Seven Rules of Power, those are all ways to learn more about this. And,

00:36:35.620 you know, I'm happy to send people my course outline or, you know, whatever. So there,

00:36:40.880 I think there are a variety of ways to learn about this.

00:36:43.780 All right. Well, Jeffrey Pfeffer, thanks for your time. It's been a pleasure.

00:36:46.060 Thank you.

00:36:47.400 My guest today was Jeffrey Pfeffer. He's the author of the book,

00:36:49.780 Seven Rules of Power. It's available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere.

00:36:53.640 You can find more information about Jeffrey's work at his website, jeffreypfeffer.com. And

00:36:57.240 that's pfeffer with a P. Also check out our show notes at aom.is slash rules of power.

00:37:01.700 We can find links to resources and we delve deeper into this topic.

00:37:11.280 Well, that wraps up another edition of the AOM podcast. Make sure to check out our website

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00:37:46.900 Remind you not to listen to the AOM podcast, but put what you've heard into action.

The Art of Manliness - November 30, 2022

The Real Rules of Power

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