Book Talk
Title Pages A monthly section on local books and authors,
edited by Jocelyn Dong
No more Mr. Nice Guy
Stanford professor Jeffrey Pfeffer explores the personal qualities that help people achieve power — and the issues surrounding that quest
Courtesy of Stanford University Graduate School of Business
JIMMY CARTER AND MORE ... President Jimmy Carter’s edited, annotated diary has been published, and Carter will sign copies of “White House Diary,� at Kepler’s, 1010 El Camino Real, Menlo Park, on Tuesday, Oct. 26, at 7 p.m. Tickets can be purchased at www.keplers.com. Earlier in the month, Menlo Park author Barry Spector will talk about his book, “Madness at the Gates of the City: The Myth of American Innocence,� on Tuesday, Oct. 19 at 7 p.m. According to Spector, his book “looks at America through the lenses of Greek mythology, indigenous wisdom and archetypal psychology.� Stanford University Professor Ian Morris will talk on Wednesday, Oct. 20, at 7 p.m. “Why the West Rules — for Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal about the Future� spans 50,000 years of history and concludes that it is the effects of geography on the everyday efforts of ordinary people that explain Western dominance, not the strivings of great individuals.
Business Professor Jefferey Pfeffer examines the concept of power in his new book. by Jocelyn Dong “Power: Why some people have it and others don’t,� by Jeffrey Pfeffer; HarperBusiness, New York; 273 pp.; $27.99 s a superintendent, Rudy Crew was a rock star. Taking the helm of the troubled, $4.5 billion Miami-Dade County school district in 2004, Crew improved student academic performance and built new classrooms to ease overcrowding. In spring 2008, he was named National Superintendent of the Year by the American Association of School Administrators. And yet, in September 2008, Crew found himself voted out by a fractious school board that was more interested in the district’s racial issues than improving the school per-
NORMALIZING CANCER ... Sue Glader, a Mill Valley writer, will be reading from her children’s book, “Nowhere Hair,� on Sunday, Oct. 17, at 7:30 p.m. at Books Inc., Town & Country Village, Palo Alto, with 20 percent of sales that evening going to the Palo Alto nonprofit Breast Cancer Connections. Glader said she wrote the book to help people talk to their children about cancer, after her own bout with breast cancer at 33. Information: www.nowherehair.com.
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SUBS ... Carol Gilbert, a Palo Alto resident, recently selfpublished an illustrated children’s (continued on next page)
3ATURDAY /CTOBER TH s AM Preview: &RIDAY /CTOBER TH AM PM AND 3ATURDAY /PENS AM
formance. Crew learned the hard way that doing a great job does not equal job security. What counts instead is power. That’s Stanford University business Professor Jeffrey Pfeffer’s take on Crew’s fall from grace, detailed in Pfeffer’s new book, “Power: Why some people have it and others don’t.� Though local bookstore shelves are filled with leadership texts on climbing the corporate ladder, Pfeffer provides a guidebook that is exceedingly readable, grounded in social-science research and filled with both local and national examples to bring his points to life. Pfeffer’s work draws on 35 years of research and teaching on power,
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which he defines as “the ability to get your way — to overcome opposition and resistance to implement the decisions that you think are best for making your company, and you, successful.� In Silicon Valley, where business is king, “Power� will attract readers interested in unlocking the secrets behind the political realities that affect them each day in their own workplaces. To be sure, Pfeffer aims his advice at employees of strongly hierarchical organizations, though he gives the disclaimer that his principles are not one-size-fits-all. Staff at companies that are relatively flat might find themselves picking and choosing from among Pfeffer’s advice — or applying the principles to advance in an industry rather than a specific firm. In 13 chapters, Pfeffer covers seven essential qualities that bring influence, what sources of power are, how to overcome opposition, the downsides of power, whether there’s a connection between personal power and organizational effectiveness, and more. Some of Pfeffer’s advice will sound familiar: Get noticed, flatter your boss, act with confidence, network with people and manage your reputation. But he also seeks to debunk some myths, such as that intelligence and likeability are keys to success in the workplace. Intelligence, he says, has been found to account for only 20 percent of variation in a person’s performance on the job. In addition, intelligence comes with potential downsides, including the tendency for brilliant people to rely too heavily on their own competencies and sometimes to lack empathy for those who are not as smart. Likeability can be a useful quality, Pfeffer says, but fear and the ability to help others accomplish their goals correlate more strongly to power. While likeability can create power, power almost certainly creates likeability, he asserts, explaining that people want to associate themselves with other people who are perceived as successful. As Crew’s story outlined, doing a good job and achieving power are also more tenuously linked than people might believe. Pfeffer quotes research that shows a weak relationship between job performance and success: In one Dutch study, whitecollar workers who were rated “very good� at their jobs were only 12 percent more likely to be promoted than those rated only “good.� Similarly, the converse is true: CEOs whose businesses performed poorly for three consecutive years and then went bankrupt were only 50 percent more likely to be fired, Pfeffer reports. Despite the research that Pfeffer highlights in his book, he says that systematic academic research on personal power in organizations has not been plentiful. So Pfeffer proposes his own list of the personal qualities of powerful people: ambition, energy, focus, self-knowledge, confidence, empathy and capacity to tolerate conflict. He details in his book how each quality leads to power, giving examples of people who have successfully used the skills to achieve their goals. He doesn’t necessarily explain how to acquire these seven skills, however — noting only in the section on