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more than business skills—she was also politically savvy and tough. — location: 86 ^ref-28462

you may have lots of job-relevant talent and interpersonal skills but nevertheless — location: 93 ^ref-3933

wind up in a position with little power, because you are unwilling or unable to play the power game. — location: 93 ^ref-29368

being politically savvy and seeking power are related to career success and even to managerial performance. — location: 106 ^ref-41006

the managers primarily interested in power, were the most effective, not only in achieving positions of influence inside companies but also in accomplishing their jobs. — location: 110 ^ref-49685

You can compete and even triumph in organizations of all types, large and small, public or private sector, if you understand the principles of power and are willing to use them. — location: 122 ^ref-1820

Your task is to know how to prevail in the political battles you will face. — location: 123 ^ref-19609

WHY YOU SHOULD WANT POWER — location: 125 ^ref-37300

What did matter was power and status—things that provided people greater control over their work environments. — location: 135 ^ref-49854

Studies consistently showed that the degree of job control, such as decision authority and discretion to use one’s skills, predicted the incidence and mortality risk from coronary artery disease over the next five or more years. — location: 136 ^ref-60185

power is part of leadership and is necessary to get things done— — location: 150 ^ref-26967

changing the U.S. health-care system, — location: 151 ^ref-23136

It is important to be able to learn from all sorts of situations and people, not just those you like and approve of, and certainly not just from people you see as similar to yourself. In fact, if you are in a position of modest power and want to attain a position of great power, you need to pay particular attention to those holding the positions you aspire to. — location: 171 ^ref-54663

Second, this belief that the world is a just place anesthetizes people to the need to be proactive in building a power base. — location: 174 ^ref-41509

As soon as you recognize the just-world effect and its influence on your perceptions and try to combat the tendency to see the world as inherently fair, you will be able to learn more in every situation and be more vigilant and proactive to ensure your own success. — location: 205 ^ref-44767

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. — location: 211 ^ref-3578

If people make up educational qualifications and previous job experience—stuff that can actually be verified—do you think everyone is completely honest when they describe aspects of their behavior and character that are more difficult to discover? — location: 239 ^ref-49784

GET OUT OF YOUR OWN WAY — location: 246 ^ref-22153

And ironically, one of the best ways for people to preserve their self-esteem is to either preemptively surrender or do other things that put obstacles in their own way. — location: 248 ^ref-10465

that self-handicapping behavior negatively affects subsequent task performance. — location: 260 ^ref-59794

our desire to protect our self-image by placing external impediments in our way so we can attribute any setbacks to things outside our control actually contributes to doing less well. — location: 262 ^ref-47041

decades, I have come to believe that the biggest single effect I can have is to get people to try to become powerful. — location: 265 ^ref-61706

There is only one way to become more effective in building power and using influence: practice. — location: 281 ^ref-4117

how you can define job performance criteria in ways that are beneficial to you. — location: 287 ^ref-29977

the inevitability of reversals of fortune and how to cope. — location: 299 ^ref-63664

that you can actually acquire power—not by becoming a new individual but by doing some things slightly more strategically and differently. — location: 306 ^ref-17845

Jamie Dimon, the now-celebrated CEO of financial powerhouse JP Morgan Chase, left Citibank when his onetime mentor and boss, Sandy Weill, turned on him. — location: 330 ^ref-30082

Arthur Blank and Bernard Marcus founded the large and successful home improvement company Home Depot after they were fired in the late 1970s from Handy Dan Home Improvement Centers by a boss who didn’t like them. — location: 331 ^ref-6993

poor performance doesn’t mean you will necessarily lose your job. — location: 341 ^ref-37207

The lesson from cases of people both keeping and losing their jobs is that 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. — location: 349 ^ref-17736

effects of behavioral commitment—once someone has made a positive or negative judgment about a potential job candidate, that judgment colors subsequent performance appraisals. — location: 371 ^ref-56845

What this research means is that job performance matters less for your evaluation than your supervisor’s commitment to and relationship with you. — location: 372 ^ref-46586

performance ratings were weakly tied to actual productivity and that people with more educational credentials were more likely to be promoted even if they weren’t the best employees. — location: 385 ^ref-32083

great performance may leave you trapped because a boss does not want to lose your abilities and also because your competence in your current role does not ensure that others will see you as a candidate for much more senior jobs. — location: 400 ^ref-65389

You need to be noticed, influence the dimensions used to measure your accomplishments, — location: 413 ^ref-64851

mostly make sure you are effective at managing those in power—which requires the ability to enhance the ego of those above you. — location: 414 ^ref-55746

GET NOTICED — location: 416 ^ref-26442

an outspoken and provocative individual. Consequently, he sometimes irritates people. But as another manager told me, “decades from now I will remember him, while I will have forgotten most of his contemporaries.” — location: 443 ^ref-45463

What you can do is consistently emphasize those aspects on which you do well. — location: 458 ^ref-36539

The presentation diverted the board’s attention away from why reduced prices were required to lock in business. — location: 469 ^ref-9373

REMEMBER WHAT MATTERS TO YOUR BOSS — location: 476 ^ref-8217

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. — location: 488 ^ref-11705

MAKE OTHERS FEEL BETTER ABOUT THEMSELVES — location: 491 ^ref-49503

The surest way to keep your position and to build a power base is to help those with more power enhance their positive feelings about themselves. — location: 494 ^ref-1287

One sure way to make your boss feel worse is to criticize that individual, and this criticism is going to be particularly sensitive if it concerns an issue that the boss feels is important and where there is some inherent insecurity. — location: 508 ^ref-35977

worry about the relationship you have with your boss at least as much as you worry about your job performance. — location: 519 ^ref-14917

The last thing you want to do is be known as someone who makes your boss insecure or have a difficult relationship with those in power. One of the best ways to make those in power feel better about themselves is to flatter them. — location: 522 ^ref-31147

managing up—both the importance of doing so and some ways of being successful at the task. That’s because your relationship with those in power is critical to your own success. — location: 556 ^ref-30388

personal change is possible; — location: 576 ^ref-45740

you need to see yourself and your strengths and weaknesses as objectively as possible. — location: 578 ^ref-37241

CHANGE IS ALWAYS POSSIBLE — location: 582 ^ref-19613

a number of those offering him jobs commented on how he stood out from his peers through his behavior. — location: 600 ^ref-45714

he focuses on “feedforward,” which emphasizes what people need to do to get ready for the subsequent positions and career challenges they will confront. — location: 627 ^ref-64258

Ironically, therefore, those who admit ignorance are more likely to improve—in all domains, including understanding power dynamics inside companies—than those who either don’t know their deficiencies or are afraid to admit them to others. — location: 658 ^ref-48943

The two fundamental dimensions that distinguish people who rise to great heights and accomplish amazing things are will, the drive to take on big challenges, and skill, the capabilities required to turn ambition into accomplishment. — location: 672 ^ref-16287

The three personal qualities embodied in will are ambition, energy, and focus. — location: 673 ^ref-46016

The four skills useful in acquiring power are self-knowledge and a reflective mind-set, confidence and the ability to project self-assurance, the ability to read others and empathize with their point of view, and a capacity to tolerate conflict. — location: 674 ^ref-16239

director of the Carol Franc Buck Breast Care Center at the University of California–San Francisco, and a person who has led remarkable changes in medical practice both locally and nationally from a position of little formal power, got her MBA degree while practicing medicine full-time and having her first child. — location: 696 ^ref-4599

“You don’t change the world by first taking a nap.” — location: 699 ^ref-56415

This suggests that there is a practice or training effect in developing energy. — location: 721 ^ref-18817

focus on the 5 to 10 percent of all the possible job duties that actually have the most leverage allows him to manage his time more effectively and also permits him to allocate the resources of his team for greatest effect. — location: 749 ^ref-36150

he attributed his success to extensive reading—he read at least one nonfiction book a week—and to his practice of structured self-reflection. — location: 760 ^ref-16133

After every significant meeting or interaction, he would make notes in a small notebook. He would write down what had gone well and what hadn’t, what people had said and done, and the outcome of the meeting. — location: 761 ^ref-7852

That notebook captured his thoughts about what had transpired so that he could make future interactions more effective; and the discipline of writing fostered reflection and also imprinted the insights more forcefully into his consciousness. — location: 763 ^ref-24146

many people who think they have 20 years of experience really don’t—they just have one year of experience repeated 20 times. — location: 770 ^ref-37750

Empathy with Others — location: 804 ^ref-33936

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— — location: 816 ^ref-44949

an important lesson: far from diverting you from accomplishing your objectives, putting yourself in the other’s place is one of the best ways to advance your own agenda. — location: 828 ^ref-8364

Capacity to Tolerate Conflict — location: 830 ^ref-24910

If you can handle difficult conflict-and stress-filled situations effectively, you have an advantage over most people. — location: 835 ^ref-52037

Many of the people who seem to me to have the most difficulty putting themselves in the other’s place are people who are so smart they can’t understand why the others don’t get it. — location: 881 ^ref-25378

WHERE YOU begin your career affects your rate of progress as well as how far you go. — location: 896 ^ref-1473

advanced degrees and elite credentials from leading universities. — location: 981 ^ref-28097

centrality in consequential decisions. — location: 989 ^ref-13294

Another source of departmental power is the ability to provide critical resources, such as money or skills, or the ability to solve critical organizational problems, — location: 1008 ^ref-6179

both also benefited mightily from being at the right place at the right time. — location: 1041 ^ref-2856

Skill at diagnosing power distributions is useful. — location: 1050 ^ref-56904

The changing environment of health care has produced a shift in the power structure of hospitals: they used to be run by doctors; now they are more likely to be part of a large chain run by people with business and administrative experience. — location: 1084 ^ref-16848

Paying attention to what departments are represented in powerful positions provides an important clue as to where the power lies. — location: 1089 ^ref-1814

THE TRADE-OFF: A STRONG POWER BASE VERSUS LESS COMPETITION — location: 1090 ^ref-33240

Your answer to this dilemma depends on the extent to which you are an organizational entrepreneur and risk taker. It also depends on whether you are satisfied being carried along by a powerful tide or you want to get ahead of the wave or create your own pond where you can stand out. — location: 1104 ^ref-64260

By taking a different path, she helped her prospects for career success. — location: 1114 ^ref-3192

Getting In: Standing Out and Breaking Some Rules — location: 1144 ^ref-41721

launching or relaunching your career requires that you develop both the ability and the willingness to ask for things and that you learn to stand out. — location: 1157 ^ref-34554

the worst that could happen from asking for something would be getting turned down. And if they were turned down, so what? They would not be any worse off than if they had not asked in the first place. — location: 1177 ^ref-44038

Some people do believe that worse things could occur: that their bold behavior could offend those exposed to it and they could develop a “bad reputation.” Probably not, and the risk of standing out is well worth taking, as we are about to see. — location: 1179 ^ref-14810

ask the head of the London-based consulting firm recruiting him to have a meal together once a year. — location: 1183 ^ref-3934

Asking Works, but People Find It Uncomfortable — location: 1189 ^ref-58735

how much people underestimate others’ compliance with requests for assistance in a series of studies that illustrate how uncomfortable asking for help can be. — location: 1201 ^ref-32853

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. — location: 1215 ^ref-26214

built relationships by asking for — location: 1217 ^ref-11728

help. — location: 1217 ^ref-62424

Gupta’s strategy for getting these people’s help was simple: determine who he wanted to be involved in the project and then ask them in a way that enhanced their feelings of self-esteem. — location: 1234 ^ref-28326

Show that you understand their importance and how wise they are in how you frame the request. — location: 1251 ^ref-62887

doing things differently and following an unconventional strategy permits even heavily outresourced underdogs to triumph. — location: 1307 ^ref-56335

if we act in a certain way, over time our attitudes follow. For example, if we act friendly toward an adversary whose help we need, we will come to feel more friendly as well. — location: 1367 ^ref-15349

People Forget and Forgive — location: 1374 ^ref-64666

Standing out helps you get the jobs and power you may seek. Asking for what you need and being less concerned about what others are thinking about you can help in launching your path to power. — location: 1391 ^ref-23166

having resources is an important source of power only if you use those resources strategically to help others whose support you need, in the process gaining their favor. — location: 1403 ^ref-11177

in choosing among jobs, choose positions that have greater direct resource control of more budget or staff. — location: 1435 ^ref-52214

CREATING SOMETHING OUT OF ALMOST NOTHING — location: 1465 ^ref-19582

Provide Attention and Support — location: 1477 ^ref-1418

spending time with others at events that were important to them. — location: 1489 ^ref-13339

Do Small but Important Tasks — location: 1493 ^ref-7621

People appreciate help with doing some aspect of their job, and they particularly appreciate assistance with tasks that they find boring or mundane—precisely the kinds of tasks great for beginning to build a power base. — location: 1494 ^ref-61749

Taking on small tasks can provide you with power because people are often lazy or uninterested in seemingly small, unimportant activities. — location: 1510 ^ref-37176

he visited the office regularly, informally meeting people. — location: 1518 ^ref-23620

overcome the “out of sight, out of mind” phenomenon and use the mere exposure effect to his advantage. — location: 1518 ^ref-21180

hub of all the recruiting communications, caused him to be much more in touch with senior partners, including the head of the firm, and built his reputation as someone who was willing to help out even when he didn’t have to — location: 1527 ^ref-35377

Build a Resource Base Inside and Outside Your Organization — location: 1538 ^ref-23066

His path to a college presidency now seems assured because he understood how to find and use resources. — location: 1549 ^ref-19771

The Sloan program at Stanford is a one-year master’s management program—sort of an MBA for midcareer executives who attend full-time. Some people are sponsored by their employers, and while sponsorship means that your company has invested a lot in your development, it also means you are away for a year and out of the action. — location: 1558 ^ref-37320

Building Efficient and Effective Social Networks — location: 1597 ^ref-55433

Roizen’s success was built on her intelligence and business competence combined with her ability to build strategic social relationships—to network—both inside and outside her employers. — location: 1604 ^ref-38375

bridging separate organizations, brokering deals, and relationship building to influence decision making. — location: 1638 ^ref-41200

THE ABILITY TO NETWORK IS IMPORTANT IN MOST JOBS — location: 1654 ^ref-46128

the two most important networking behaviors being “maintaining external contacts” and “building internal contacts.” — location: 1664 ^ref-47316

Networking actually does not take that much time and effort. It mostly takes thought and planning. — location: 1704 ^ref-45720

an occasional note, for instance, at the holidays, or an occasional e-mail or lunch or short phone call keeps you in front of and salient to a set of people who can be helpful to you or may call on you for help. — location: 1711 ^ref-54380

When he began this network, it consisted of one person, himself. Because he had neither great credentials nor high status, he involved others with high status, including those from his consulting firm and alumni of leading U.S. business schools living and working in Argentina, in his presentations and efforts. — location: 1718 ^ref-35553

He targeted people to meet, asking others to introduce him when possible, followed up after meetings with thank-yous, and provided information and contacts to the people he had met so they would receive value from interacting with him. — location: 1727 ^ref-59944

go out of your way to meet new people. — location: 1733 ^ref-39099

All that was required was some initiative and being willing to reach out to strangers—to get out of one’s comfort zone. — location: 1738 ^ref-9852

NETWORK WITH THE RIGHT PEOPLE — location: 1739 ^ref-52533

social ties were important in the job-finding process and the more one used social ties, as contrasted with less personal mechanisms such as formal applications, the better the job the individual found. — location: 1742 ^ref-17915

Weak ties are with casual acquaintances, people you hardly know and with whom you have fairly infrequent interactions. — location: 1748 ^ref-19323

Weak ties, by contrast, are more likely to link you to new people, organizations, and information, providing new information and contacts. — location: 1751 ^ref-57133

an optimal networking strategy is to know a lot of different people from different circles, have multiple organizational affiliations in a variety of different industries and sectors that are geographically dispersed, but not necessarily to know the people well or to develop close ties with them. — location: 1757 ^ref-56208

both organizations and people are known by the company they keep—so it behooves you to associate with high-status people. — location: 1763 ^ref-25887

start an organization that is so compelling in its mission that high-status people join the project and you build both status and a network of important relationships. — location: 1773 ^ref-7894

As Philippe explained, he was both doing good and doing well. — location: 1780 ^ref-1552

People like to bask in reflected glory and associate with high-status others. Versions of this story in different contexts happen every day. — location: 1789 ^ref-29555

Power and influence 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. — location: 1791 ^ref-50776

people attribute power to individuals who are central. — location: 1800 ^ref-42646

You can assess your centrality by asking what proportion of others in your work, for instance, nominate you as someone they go to for advice or help with their own work. Another way of assessing centrality is to ask what proportion of all communication links flow through you. — location: 1801 ^ref-20753

This natural tendency to associate with those close to us creates an opportunity for profiting by building brokerage relations— — location: 1819 ^ref-56104

bridging the structural holes that exist between noninteracting groups. — location: 1820 ^ref-40079

by connecting units that are tightly linked internally but socially isolated from each other, the person doing the connecting can profit by being the intermediary who facilitates interactions between the two groups. — location: 1821 ^ref-15140

You have to do the network “work” yourself if you want to accrue the benefits. — location: 1843 ^ref-38422

When you need to access tacit knowledge, a smaller network of close ties is important because it takes close relationships to get people to spend the time to explain their tacit expertise. — location: 1852 ^ref-64228

When the project requires locating explicit knowledge that can be readily transferred once you find it, a large network of weak ties provides greater benefit. — location: 1854 ^ref-29936

a network rich in weak ties was most useful for doing new things because a large network of weak ties permitted product development teams to explore broadly for information that was helpful. — location: 1857 ^ref-63519

a large network of weak ties is good for innovation and locating information, while a small network of strong ties is better suited to exploiting existing knowledge and transferring tacit skills. — location: 1861 ^ref-47162

your ability to create and leverage social ties depends in part on how others perceive you. And those perceptions depend in part on your ability to speak and act with power. — location: 1863 ^ref-25315

Acting and Speaking with Power — location: 1867 ^ref-14447

North defended himself and his actions by appealing to a higher purpose— — location: 1878 ^ref-1905

He took responsibility for what he did, saying that he was “not embarrassed” about his actions or about appearing to explain them. — location: 1881 ^ref-63840

he asserted that he had controlled what had occurred, frequently using phrases such as “I told” and “I caused.” This phrasing demonstrated that he was not running away from what he had done. — location: 1882 ^ref-62497

Observers watching people who don’t deny or run away from their actions naturally presume that the perpetrators don’t feel guilty or ashamed, so maybe no one should be too upset. This phrasing also communicated power, that North was in charge rather than a “victim” of circumstance. — location: 1883 ^ref-10897

Using long, convoluted sentences full of subordinate clauses, answering questions indirectly, admitting that he was “embarrassed,” and looking extremely uncomfortable, Kennedy made a weak impression—he looked guilty. He left his position as Stanford president soon thereafter. — location: 1907 ^ref-25927

how they chose to present themselves, how they decided to act, and the impression they made. — location: 1912 ^ref-15288

expressing anger is usually much more effective than expressing sadness, guilt, or remorse in being seen as powerful. — location: 1914 ^ref-58584

The students who impressed me the most spoke articulately, looked me in the eyes, and could rattle off stories right away. — location: 1926 ^ref-35355

To come across effectively, we need to master how to convey power. We need to act, and speak, with power. — location: 1931 ^ref-45993

ACTING WITH POWER — location: 1943 ^ref-19621

Authority is 20 percent given, 80 percent taken. — location: 1945 ^ref-36071

Deception in the sense that you pump yourself up and put a better face on things than you start off feeling. But after a while, if you act confident, you become more confident. So the deception becomes less of a deception. — location: 1952 ^ref-21910

If acting is important as a leadership skill and for acquiring power, it is important to know how to perform. One principle is to act confident. — location: 1969 ^ref-4056

BE AWARE OF YOUR AUDIENCE — location: 1971 ^ref-834

DISPLAY ANGER INSTEAD OF SADNESS OR REMORSE — location: 1989 ^ref-10847

A second experiment demonstrated that angry people were seen as high-status while sad and guilty people were viewed as low-status. — location: 2006 ^ref-56757

if you have to choose between being seen as likable and fitting in on the one hand or appearing competent albeit abrasive on the other, choose competence. — location: 2039 ^ref-42571

Self-deprecating comments and humor work only if you have already established your competence. — location: 2040 ^ref-19107

Everyone can stand up straight rather than slouching, and can thrust their chest and pelvis forward rather than curling in on themselves. — location: 2053 ^ref-64580

Gestures can also connote power and decisiveness, or their opposite. Moving your hands in a circle or waving your arms diminishes how powerful you appear. Gestures should be short and forceful, not long and circular. Looking people directly in the eye connotes not only power but also honesty and directness, while looking down is a signal of diffidence. Looking away causes others to think you are dissembling. — location: 2055 ^ref-47798

To display the emotion you need to show, go within yourself to a time and event when you did feel the emotion you need to project at that moment. — location: 2061 ^ref-27115

TAKE YOUR TIME IN RESPONDING — location: 2085 ^ref-31165

The people who do best at this task are those who, even though they are in front of an audience and feel pressure to fill the dead air, collect their thoughts and themselves, pausing often for what seems like a long time before beginning to speak. They know what they are going to say, have thought consciously about how they are going to use the space and their movements to inspire confidence, and have gotten their nervousness under control so they can project influence. — location: 2091 ^ref-25340

Obviously it is always desirable to be prepared to make an important presentation. But there will be times when a question or comment blindsides you or when you find yourself in a situation without preparation. Breathe and take time to collect yourself—you will be much more effective than if you just rush into the situation. — location: 2094 ^ref-10090

SPEAKING POWERFULLY — location: 2097 ^ref-7634

there are three faces of power. The first is the ability to win in direct contests: Whose point of view prevails? — location: 2113 ^ref-13676

The second is more subtle: Who sets the agenda, and in the process determines whether a specific issue will even be discussed or debated at all? — location: 2114 ^ref-36207

the third form of power is more subtle still: Who determines the rules for interpersonal interactions through which agendas and outcomes are determined? — location: 2115 ^ref-15734

In most companies, the strategy and market dynamics are taken for granted. If someone challenges these assumptions—such as how the company is competing, how it is measuring success, what the strategy is, who the real competitors are now and in the future—this can be a very potent power play. The questions and challenges focus attention on the person bringing the seemingly commonsense issues to the fore and causes people to have to renegotiate things that were always implicitly assumed. — location: 2128 ^ref-58079

PERSUASIVE LANGUAGE — location: 2132 ^ref-21170

a number of conventions that make speech more persuasive and engaging. Here are five such linguistic techniques. 1. Use us-versus-them references. — location: 2154 ^ref-29947

  1. Pause for emphasis and invite approval or even applause through a slight delay. — location: 2162 ^ref-10520
  1. Use a list of three items, or enumerations in general. — location: 2165 ^ref-48696

Lists make a — location: 2167 ^ref-43634

speaker appear as if he or she has thought about the issue and the alternatives and considered all sides thoroughly. — location: 2167 ^ref-12528

  1. Use contrastive pairs, comparing one thing to another and using passages that are similar in length and grammatical structure. The — location: 2168 ^ref-13381
  1. Avoid using a script or notes. If — location: 2174 ^ref-45701

use humor to the extent possible and appropriate. — location: 2182 ^ref-18831

Social ties and how you present yourself through language and demeanor are components of creating a reputation and an image. — location: 2199 ^ref-61272

Building a Reputation: Perception Is Reality — location: 2203 ^ref-28915

make a good impression early, carefully delineate the elements of the image you want to create, use the media to help build your visibility and burnish your image, have others sing your praises so you can surmount the self-promotion dilemma, and strategically put out enough negative but not fatally damaging information about yourself that the people who hire and support you fully understand any weaknesses and make the choice anyway. — location: 2233 ^ref-28881

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. — location: 2290 ^ref-37312

Reach out to the media and academics who write cases and articles, and write your own articles or blogs that enhance your visibility. — location: 2390 ^ref-34067

recommends writing articles because it helps you clarify your thinking. — location: 2391 ^ref-24628

Displaying some negative characteristics, as long as they aren’t so overwhelming as to preclude your selection, actually increases your power because those who support you notwithstanding your flaws will be even more committed to you and your success. — location: 2435 ^ref-64970

The trick is to be sure you do the things to build your reputation, have others tout you, and attract the kind of media coverage and image that can help build your power base. — location: 2454 ^ref-37772

Overcoming Opposition and Setbacks — location: 2457 ^ref-49789

NO MATTER how worthy your goals, how hard you work, and how talented you are, virtually everyone encounters opposition and setbacks along the path to power. — location: 2459 ^ref-38223

build an informatics system to capture more of the data from treatment outcomes and to increase the ease and speed of enrolling patients in clinical trials. — location: 2478 ^ref-3595

there are important lessons for everyone attempting to acquire the power to make change and the resources to build their reputation and career even as they overcome opposition and setbacks along the way. — location: 2497 ^ref-4646

OVERCOMING OPPOSITION: HOW AND WHEN TO FIGHT — location: 2499 ^ref-38335

Particularly in a leadership position, it is irresponsible to avoid people with whom you have disagreements and to duck difficult situations. — location: 2505 ^ref-58715

TRY A LITTLE TENDERNESS AND LEAVE PEOPLE A GRACEFUL OUT — location: 2507 ^ref-61828

people rebel against constraints or efforts to control their behavior—force is met with countervailing force.4 Seeking to dominate the conversation and the decision making and totally control the situation may work on some of your adversaries, but probably not too many. Most will seek to push back, very hard—they will react to your attempts to overpower them by doing things to maintain their power and autonomy. — location: 2509 ^ref-6753

coopted the opposition, making the potential protesters part of the university, feeling less estranged and like outsiders. — location: 2519 ^ref-43345

Helping opponents move to another organization where they won’t be in your way may not be the first thing you think about doing, but it ought to be high on the list. — location: 2528 ^ref-18487

boards and bosses often say nice things about people being shown the door, and even sometimes provide money—seldom from their own pockets—that makes the exit easier to swallow. — location: 2531 ^ref-50977

DON’T CAUSE YOURSELF UNNECESSARY PROBLEMS — location: 2537 ^ref-64479

You need to continually ask yourself, “What would victory look like? If you had won the battle, what would you want that win to encompass?” People lose sight of what their highest priorities are and get diverted fighting other battles that then cause unnecessary problems. — location: 2540 ^ref-12957

Because he did not push too hard against his bosses or his peers, Yusuf defused the emotional tone of meetings and by not creating unnecessary enmity, could often get the decisions he wanted, even if it took some time. — location: 2549 ^ref-36308

You need to have a clear understanding of where you are going and the critical steps on the way. When you confront opposition on this path, you need to react. But you just waste your time and possibly acquire gratuitous problems if you get involved with any issue or individual that has some connection, regardless of how irrelevant, to you and your agenda. — location: 2552 ^ref-49668

DON’T TAKE THINGS PERSONALLY—MAKE IMPORTANT RELATIONSHIPS WORK — location: 2555 ^ref-42176

after you reach a certain level, there comes a point in your career where you simply have to make critical relationships work. Your feelings, or for that matter, others’ feeling about you, don’t matter. — location: 2563 ^ref-35723

focus on the data. He pushed himself and his team to get as much objective information as possible, and to be analytically and logically rigorous, so that facts would dominate the discussion and make strategic issues less about personalities and feelings. — location: 2568 ^ref-43901

The ability to not take opposition or slights personally, think about whose support you need and go after it, regardless of their behavior toward you or your own feelings, and remain focused on the data and impartial analysis requires a high level of self-discipline and emotional maturity. It is a rare skill. But it is crucial in surmounting and disarming opponents. — location: 2570 ^ref-30067

BE PERSISTENT — location: 2574 ^ref-56893

Laura Esserman describes her success as coming from her dogged persistence and likes to talk about other examples of successful scientists who emphasized the importance of not giving up in the face of setbacks. — location: 2580 ^ref-59752

He was extremely patient, beginning more than a decade ago to build the relationships that would enable him to successfully seize power in the BCCI, relationships that were, in many instances, only tangentially related to cricket and included powerful Indian politicians. — location: 2602 ^ref-37401

MOVE FIRST—SEIZE THE INITIATIVE If you move quickly, you can often catch your opponents off guard and secure victory before they even know what is happening. — location: 2606 ^ref-46182

Don’t wait if you see a power struggle coming. While you are waiting, others are organizing support and orchestrating votes to win. — location: 2616 ^ref-31861

MAKE YOUR OBJECTIVES SEEM COMPELLING Your path to power is going to be easier if you are aligned with a compelling, socially valuable objective. — location: 2634 ^ref-46691

place your own objectives in a broader context that compels others to support you. — location: 2655 ^ref-36852

COPING WITH SETBACKS — location: 2656 ^ref-58067

DON’T GIVE UP — location: 2677 ^ref-50310

If you are going to persevere and recover, you need to stop blaming yourself, letting your opponents dominate the discussion of what happened, and feeling bad about your complicity in your demise. — location: 2688 ^ref-10732

The best way to overcome the embarrassment is to talk about what happened to as many people as possible as quickly as possible. — location: 2690 ^ref-35845

Making what happened less emotionally fraught is absolutely essential for your being able to think strategically about your next moves. — location: 2693 ^ref-43625

CONTINUE TO DO WHAT MADE YOU SUCCESSFUL — location: 2694 ^ref-8401

ACT AS IF—PROJECTING POWER AND SUCCESS — location: 2712 ^ref-51215

Steve’s success in landing a great position derives in no small measure from his never appearing as if there had been any career reversal. — location: 2719 ^ref-36493

One of the ways others are going to ascertain how things turned out is by how you present yourself. Are you upbeat? Do you project power and success or the reverse? This is why developing the ability to act in ways that you may not feel at the moment, described in chapter 7, is such an important skill. You want to convey that everything is fine and under your control, even under dire circumstances. — location: 2722 ^ref-27920

At the very moment when you have suffered a reversal in fortune and most need help, the best way to attract that help is to act as if you are going to triumph in the end. — location: 2725 ^ref-56114

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.” — location: 2941 ^ref-59698

One lesson from the growing number of studies on the effects of power is how little it takes to get people into a power mind-set where they engage in all kinds of disrespectful and rude behavior. — location: 3003 ^ref-19108

It’s easier to lose your patience when you are in power—power leads to disinhibition, to not watching what you say and do, to being more concerned about yourself than about the feelings of others. But losing patience causes people to lose control and offend others, and that can cost them their jobs. — location: 3106 ^ref-63158

he emphasized that he was just getting too tired to remain on his game, be alert to the maneuverings, and continue to fight. — location: 3128 ^ref-51731

Companies and leaders can fail to see the changes in the social environment that can make old ways less successful than they once were. The tendency of power to diminish the power holder’s attention and sensitivity to others with less power compounds this problem. The combination of diminished vigilance and changed circumstances often leads to the loss of power. — location: 3161 ^ref-46399

“leave before the party’s over” and to do so in a way that causes others to remember you fondly. — location: 3172 ^ref-32230

political struggles are more likely to occur and to be more fierce and power is used more often when resources are scarcer and therefore there is more struggle over their allocation. — location: 3210 ^ref-44977

declined. The lesson is clear: you should always watch your back, but be particularly wary and sensitive to what is occurring during times of economic stress. That is when political turmoil and the use of power are likely to be at their peak. — location: 3218 ^ref-54247

don’t worry about how your efforts to build your path to power are affecting your employer, because your employer is probably not worrying about you. — location: 3251 ^ref-53734

have to do so—after all, that has been the message of companies and business pundits for years. Take those admonitions seriously. — location: 3254 ^ref-47460

One implication of this phenomenon for you is that the specific organization or domain in which you rise to power may matter less than the fact that you manage to achieve high-level status someplace. — location: 3289 ^ref-14316

lower-power groups often developed attitudes that justified their own inferior (and others’ more favored) position, thereby contributing to the persistence of hierarchical arrangements that disadvantaged them. So, people attending a lower-status university would not bolster their university’s status compared to higher-status schools but accepted the fact of the lower status of their educational institution and the implications of that lowered status. — location: 3301 ^ref-45015

responsibility and authority don’t always coincide. — location: 3318 ^ref-44158

Getting things done under circumstances where you lack direct line authority requires influence and political skills—a knowledge of organizational dynamics—not just technical skills and knowledge. — location: 3321 ^ref-9828

Yusuf emphasized two things: first, do excellent quality work, which entails hiring and effectively leading outstanding talent. And second, understand the organizational dynamics—how different people perceive things, what their interests are, how to make a persuasive case, and how to get along with people and build effective personal relationships. — location: 3325 ^ref-63460

you need to master the knowledge and skills necessary to wield power effectively. In some circumstances, this may be good for the organization, but in virtually all circumstances, it is going to be good for you. — location: 3366 ^ref-31693

Building power does not require extraordinary actions or amazing brilliance. Instead, as comedian, actor, and movie director Woody Allen has noted, “Eighty percent of success is showing up. — location: 3381 ^ref-17376

BUILDING YOUR PATH TO POWER — location: 3400 ^ref-40036

Some jobs require more political skill than others. Project or product manager would be one such job—lots of responsibility without a lot of formal authority over the people whose cooperation you need to be successful. — location: 3402 ^ref-35509

pick an environment that fits your aptitudes and interests—one where you can be successful in both the technical and political aspects, if any, of the work. — location: 3407 ^ref-30041

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. — location: 3420 ^ref-8332

You need to be realistic about the political risks, not just to you but to those to whom you are tied, if you want to build a path to power. — location: 3433 ^ref-51068

Don’t Give Up Your Power — location: 3434 ^ref-47302

The process often begins with how you feel about yourself. If you feel powerful, you will act and project power and others will respond accordingly. If you feel powerless, your behavior will be similarly self-confirming. — location: 3438 ^ref-45547

People lower in personality dominance with less resource control perceived situations as threats not opportunities and hid their true attitudes. — location: 3447 ^ref-16248

if the targets of your behavior are those with power, your good feelings will be quite temporary as the consequences of your actions unfold. — location: 3455 ^ref-28989

People sometimes give away their power by defining situations as outside of their control, thereby playing the victim role. — location: 3456 ^ref-63588

it won’t get you much power or approval inside companies. — location: 3458 ^ref-21500

“That candidate gave away all his power by defining the problem externally and as something he couldn’t influence. — location: 3461 ^ref-22958

When we tell ourselves that our problems are caused by others, we spend time on why we can’t be successful. When instead we focus on what we can do, we spend time on being successful.” — location: 3462 ^ref-55829

When we stop thinking of ourselves as powerless victims and cease eschewing doing the things that will bring influence, our chances of success increase dramatically. — location: 3469 ^ref-62969

Take Care of Yourself—Don’t Expect Justice — location: 3473 ^ref-54631

Although there was much agreement that Chris’s behavior had been inappropriate and harmful to the company, there was little support for Bob. If he was not going to put up a fight, no one was going to pick up the cudgel on his behalf. — location: 3482 ^ref-64293

People who are complicit in their own beheading don’t garner much sympathy or support. — location: 3483 ^ref-44789

People align with who they think is going to win. If you don’t stand up for yourself and actively promote your own interests, few will be willing to be on your side. — location: 3495 ^ref-30500

Pay Attention to the Small Tasks — location: 3499 ^ref-26159

SURVIVING AND SUCCEEDING IN ORGANIZATIONS — location: 3514 ^ref-16937

don’t complain about how life isn’t fair, or that your organizational culture isn’t healthy, or that your boss is a jerk. — location: 3521 ^ref-7054

Stewart Gabel, Leaders and Health Care Organizational Change — location: 5060 ^ref-6803

(New York: Doubleday, 2004). — location: 5146 ^ref-42715