权力之路:如何扩大影响力、推进你的职业发展 | Jeffrey Pfeffer(斯坦福)
The paths to power: How to grow your influence and advance your career | Jeffrey Pfeffer (Stanford)
Introducing the Guest
Lenny Rachitsky: We’re going to be talking about how to grow your power.
Why Power Feels Uncomfortable
Jeffrey Pfeffer: The reason why you should pay attention to this is because it leads to a lot of good things, salary, getting promoted, being happy in your career, being less stressed.
Power Skills for the Marginalized
Lenny Rachitsky: You’re not describing how the world should work. This is just how it is.
Jeffrey Pfeffer: Not only is, but how it was and how it will be.
Why This Course Isn’t For Everyone
Lenny Rachitsky: The Seven Rules of Power, get out of your own way, break the rules, show up in a powerful fashion, create a powerful brand, network relentlessly, use your power, and understand that once you’ve acquired power, what you did to get there will be forgiven, forgotten, or both.
Jeffrey Pfeffer: This is not about personality. These are skills they can be mastered.
The Course’s True Impact
Lenny Rachitsky: People might be hearing this and they’re like, “I don’t want to be this person.”
Jeffrey Pfeffer: Well, you already have done a fabulous job of illustrating principle one. That is one way to get in our own way. If I think power is dirty, the first thing that’s going to happen is I’m not going to do what I need to do to be successful in my career.
The Seven Rules of Power
Lenny Rachitsky: The opening quote to your book that I have here, if you want power to be used for good, more good people need to have power.
Assignment: Practicing Power
Jeffrey Pfeffer: That’s exactly right.
Lenny Rachitsky: Today, my guest is Jeffrey Pfeffer. Jeffrey is a Professor of Organizational Behavior at Stanford’s graduate School of Business, and teaches one of the two most popular and oversubscribed courses in all of the MBA program, called the Paths to Power. The other class, by the way, is Touchy-Feely, which we dove into last month. In his class and in his recent book, the Seven Rules of Power, Jeffrey teaches the things that you can do in your life and in your work to build your power, and through that get things done and advance in your career. As one student described the class, it’s the cod liver oil of the Graduate School of Business. You know it’s good for you, but you feel a little nervous about it. In our conversation, we dig into each of the seven powers, why it’s important to build these skills even if you feel uncomfortable.
We talk through a bunch of examples of the power in action and the impact it has had on people’s lives, why it isn’t as cringey or scary as you may think. I was actually nervous to have this conversation and I ended up being a huge fan of Jeffrey and the work that he does. We end the conversation with what you can start doing today to start building your own power. This podcast is basically for anyone that wants to advance in their career, whether you’re an IC or a CEO, and I’m really excited to bring it to you. If you enjoy this podcast, don’t forget to subscribe and follow it in your favorite podcasting app or YouTube. It’s the best way to avoid missing future episodes, and it helps the podcast tremendously. With that, I bring you Jeffrey Pfeffer. Jeffrey, thank you so much for being here and welcome to the podcast.
The Story of Derek Kan
Jeffrey Pfeffer: Thank you, Lenny. I am honored that you invited me on.
Lenny Rachitsky: I’m even more honored that you decided to come on. We’re going to be talking about something that makes a lot of people uncomfortable. I think it’s going to make me uncomfortable. We’re going to be talking about how to grow your power in life and in business. Let me just start by asking why does this stuff make people uncomfortable, and why is it still important for people to learn how to do this well?
Why You Need a Personal Brand
Jeffrey Pfeffer: Well, it’s important because a guy named Gerald Ferris developed a scale of political skill. And he and a bunch of his colleagues over the years did a lot of empirical research that demonstrates that political skill is associated with a lot of positive outcomes, salary, getting promoted, being happy in your career, being happy in your job, being less stressed. So the reason why you should pay attention to this is because it leads to a lot of good things. The reason why it makes people uncomfortable. You said it made you uncomfortable. Maybe I should ask you the question, why does it make you uncomfortable?
Case Studies in Personal Branding
Lenny Rachitsky: There’s a lot of things here that are probably not how people want to live their life necessarily, or want other people to act.
Jeffrey Pfeffer: Yeah, so I think it makes people uncomfortable because the realities of what it takes to get power bear almost no resemblance to what you’re taught in Sunday school or the mosque or wherever, how your parents raised you. They bear almost no resemblance to how we think the world ought to be. They bear a little resemblance to our aspirations. And I think we look around the world and we see people who have acquired enormous amounts of power and have used it for bad. But I tell people, I see people with hammers hitting other people on the head. That does not mean that a hammer is not a useful tool. You can take a screwdriver and stab it into somebody’s belly. I have a very dear friend who we’ll probably talk about later in the podcast. Laura Esserman is a breast cancer surgeon, and I tell people, Laura has a knife. She uses it to cure cancer. Muggers have knives. They use it to rob people. So I think we’ve confused the tool for how it has been used.
Reframing the Art of Self-Promotion
Lenny Rachitsky: You also have this quote that the people who need to understand power and build their power skills are people who come from backgrounds or characteristics who would normally put them at a disadvantage.
Jeffrey Pfeffer: I think that’s exactly right. I will go this Sunday to Nashville Tennessee to talk to a bunch of people of color in the NFL who are trying to rise up the ranks. Stanford runs a program because the NFL is serious, I think, about trying to make more opportunity for people, underrepresented minorities. But these are folks who will not succeed unless they learn power skills, because the world is stacked against them in lots of ways.
Rule One: Don’t Limit Yourself
Lenny Rachitsky:
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Another element of your course that you try to make clear in your syllabus is to teach people not to be as judgmental. You also have this whole huge bold phrase, “This class is not for everyone.” Can you just talk a bit about maybe why it’s not for everyone and then why being less judgmental is important?
Jeffrey Pfeffer: The class is extremely popular. I have a long waiting list. It’s kind of mythical. And because of the principle of social influence, we are influenced by what other people do. We’re influenced in our choices of restaurants, we’re influenced in our choices of music. I’m not sure I like Taylor Swift, but I certainly want to go see Taylor Swift because everybody else is. And many people sign up for the class. And one year in particular, there were some people who sat in about the third row up, directly in front of me, and they looked every day like they were having some terrible thing put up some horrible orifice or something. They looked literally in pain, and so I decided, and of course they learned nothing. If you come to the class and you’re in that much psychological discomfort, you’re not going to learn anything.
And so what I try to do is tell people that in order to benefit from this class, you have to be open to learning the material. And if you’re not, and by the way, this would be true for any class. If you go to physics and you say, I don’t like physics, I hate physics, I don’t believe in physics, I don’t believe in the theory of physics, whatever, you’re not going to learn anything. And so I’m trying to get the class, given those huge waiting lists, I’m trying to get the class to have people in it who are in fact going to benefit from it rather than sit there and look like they’re in pain. And the judgmental thing, if Matthew 7, “Judge not that ye be not judged.” The Koran says, “Only Allah can judge people.” The American poet, Walt Whitman said, “Be curious, not judgmental.”
Mother Teresa said, “If you judge people, you have no time to love them.” Judgment, if I need to build a positive relationship with Lenny because you are on my critical path in my job, and jobs necessarily entail a reasonable amount of interdependence, I get things done through and with other people. If I decide that Lenny is whatever set of bad adjectives you want to use, dumb, incompetent, immoral, whatever, my ability to build a positive relationship with you, and you remain on my critical path, becomes almost zero unless you’re a better actor or I’m a better actor than I think most people are.
So therefore, you should suspend judgment in the sense that if somebody is on your critical path, the only judgment you should make is they’re on my critical path. If I want to get something done, I need their collaboration and cooperation, and the fact that I may not like them is in fact irrelevant. And as I have taught senior executives over the years, it is absolutely clear to me that one of the skills that they have mastered is they have a skill that you cannot tell what they think of you. And that’s important because I need your collaboration, I need your cooperation. And if I leak out in ways that say I don’t respect you or I don’t like you, I don’t admire you, whatever, my odds of getting you to work productively with me goes essentially to zero. So that’s a judgmental story. Does that make sense?
Being Liked Versus Being Respected
Lenny Rachitsky: Absolutely. And I have a quote from your syllabus along these lines, “Not everyone we encounter in Paths to Power is someone you’re going to want to emulate. This is a class about how to get things done, how to build and wield influence, and there are multiple ways to accomplish these objectives.” So I’ve had two friends actually go through the course. One I asked about the course of the impact it had on her. She’s actually a founder now. And she told me that your class was her single most favorite class at all of Stanford Business School, because it was realistic and applicable to life as a founder. Because it didn’t sugarcoat business, didn’t sugarcoat life. It told her how the world really works and it is helping her succeed with her startup right now.
Jeffrey Pfeffer: Thank you. There’s no higher praise than that. I actually don’t read, I shouldn’t probably say this on the public, but I don’t actually read my course evaluations because the impact I want to have is not to have people like me, but to have that kind of impact. To make people more successful, more effective in their lives.
Rule Two: Break the Rules
Lenny Rachitsky: That is a good segue to one of your rules of power. So let’s just talk about your Seven Rules of Power. I actually have your book right here and if folks want to learn more, here it is, Seven Rules of Power. This is your fourth book about power, and this is your best book about power, because it basically summarizes everything you’ve learned in a really cohesive way. So let me first share the Seven Rules of Power and then I’m going to dive into a few of them. Does that sound good?
Jeffrey Pfeffer: That sounds perfect.
Rule Five: Relentless Network Building
Lenny Rachitsky: Okay, so the seven rules, one, get out of your own way. Two, break the rules. Three, appear powerful. Four, build a powerful brand. Network relentlessly. Use your power, and success excuses almost…
How to Network Without Awkwardness
Jeffrey Pfeffer: Everything, correct.
Becoming a Hub in Your Network
Lenny Rachitsky: Okay, success excuses everything almost. Got it. Okay. So let me start with power four, which is around personal brand. And the reason I want to start here is I have a friend that’s actually in your class right now, Ralph, and I saw that he started a podcast. And he told me that he did it because it was part of the homework that you give students. You call it Doing Power. Is that the name of the homework assignments?
Jeffrey Pfeffer: Yeah, I have. So we give them a bunch of assignments throughout the class, which are self-reflective assignments, but their big thing for the class is they have to do power. They have to do something during the quarter to take the principles of the class, and what they’re learning, and put them into practice. And that is because everything I do, I do for a reason. That is because if you don’t use what you learn, the learning will disappear. So if you go to a French class and you learn French, and you never speak French, in about a relatively short period of time you’ll forget everything you learn. And so I want the learning to stick with them, so I try to get them to do something with it.
The Power of Weak Ties
Lenny Rachitsky: While we’re on this tangent, I wanted to talk about this whole, you have a book, the Doing Knowing Gap.
Using Power Brings More Power
Jeffrey Pfeffer: Knowing-Doing Gap.
Lenny Rachitsky: The Knowing-Doing Gap. So let’s just spend a little time there. I think that’s really important. What are some examples of things that have come out of people doing these homework assignments, things that maybe led to something interesting?
Practice and Coaching: A Step-by-Step Approach
Jeffrey Pfeffer: Let me take my most extreme example. My most extreme example is probably Derek Kan, K-A-N. And Derek Kan was a little bit older when he went through the MBA program. And in 2012, his Doing Power project was to get appointed to be Mitt Romney’s, it was Mitt Romney was running for president, to be head of economic policy for the Romney campaign. Believe it or not, he was offered the job. Believe it or not, he turned it down for reasons which we could go into if you want, but aren’t that interesting. He wound up relatively soon thereafter as number three in the transportation department, working for Elaine Chao. And I have a picture of him when he comes to the class, I introduce him. I tell students, I give them a trigger warning and I introduce him. He wound up, at the end of the Trump administration, as the deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget. And since typical of the Trump administration, by that time there was no director. He essentially ran the $6 trillion US budget. This is six years out of business school.
Assignment: Bridging Knowledge and Action
Lenny Rachitsky: I was thinking whether he got that during his class. Amazing. Okay, so this is a success story of Doing Power. Let’s talk about this first power of building brand, and I think this is where people start to feel uncomfortable. They’re going to be like, oh no, I don’t want to be doing this. This doesn’t feel good to me.
Jeffrey Pfeffer: Why?
Rule Seven: Power Is Self-Reinforcing
Lenny Rachitsky: So let’s talk about it.
Jeffrey Pfeffer: Okay.
Trump and the Rules of Power
Lenny Rachitsky: Let’s see. So talk about this power of building a personal brand.
The Story of Laura Esserman
Jeffrey Pfeffer: There are by definition fewer positions at the top than at the bottom. The world, we might not like this, and I know people, the late Tony Hsieh, the Zappos tried to do holacracy or whatever, but the world is essentially hierarchical. The animal kingdom is hierarchical. It is better to be at the top than at the bottom for a number of reasons. Okay. If that is true, if there are fewer positions at the top and then at the bottom, then your job to advance your career is to figure out how to get promoted. There are many ways to get promoted, but I will guarantee you one thing, no one is going to promote Lenny if they don’t know who the hell you are. So it is not sufficient for them to know who you are. They have to know that you’re smart and personable and have whatever skills you’ve got, but they have to know you.
If they don’t know you, you cannot choose what is not in your head. You know that better than I do. So therefore you have to do something to differentiate yourself. You have to build a brand. So when I think of Lenny in your podcast, I think of something. Not just 25 billion podcasts. When I think of somebody in McKinsey or Bay or BCG, one of the consulting firms, a gazillion people start off as front-line consultants. What are you going to do so that somebody knows who you are? What are you going to do that creates value for the firm and for you? So my friend Keith Ferazzi, when he started at Deloitte Consulting, did not do the spreadsheet stuff that he was, by the way, not very good at and didn’t like. He started the Lincoln Quality Award. He decided to try to take Deloitte’s brand recognition from about one or 2% to 30%.
He was appointed, though he left before he actually took the job, to the position of partner and the first chief marketing officer at Deloitte. I have another friend, Tristan Walker, who wanted to get hired at Foursquare. He sent emails to the founder. The founder ignored him. So Tristan Walker did something I think very bold. Tristan Walker began signing up partnerships. So one day the founder says, holy God, he signed up Starbucks. Maybe I ought to hire this guy. So you have to do something that causes people to know who you are, and that is what building a brand is about.
Lenny Rachitsky: It sounds very benign put that way. When people hear, I need to build a personal brand, it sounds like I need to post on LinkedIn, I need to post on Twitter, start a newsletter, start a podcast, which I know is kind of a part of it. But what are some examples you’ve seen of ways to build a personal brand that are effective?
Power Rules and the Price of Autonomy
Jeffrey Pfeffer: So I have a friend who I bring to the class, a lovely tall Asian woman named Laura Chau, who made partner at a venture capital firm after four years, which is fast. Laura works for Canaan Partners, C-A-N-A-A-N. Laura said, I do not work for Andreessen Horowitz, I do not work for Sequoia, I don’t work for Greylock, I don’t work for any of these very visible large VC firms. So if I am going to get deals in the consumer space, that’s her domain of expertise is consumer and consumer tech, somebody is going to have to know who Laura Chau is. Because again, you’re not going to get the deal if nobody knows who you are. And so she basically did everything you talked about. She did writing. She started a podcast in which she invited influential people on. She contributed to a book. She helped people out.
She did networking dinners. She did everything she could so that people would recognize and know Laura Chau. And one of the things she did was she’s tall. In general, Asian women are not tall. She decided to play up the fact that she was, in the words of some people, the tallest Asian woman they’d ever seen. She wears heels. In her heels she’s six feet one inches tall. She also, when she comes to my class, many people come to my class with hoodies, God knows what. She has style and it’s a unique style. So she thinks about very strategically, how am I going to dress? How am I going to look? How am I going to show up? How am I going to do what I need to do so that people know who I am? Obviously there’s substance. If you have visibility without substance, people will know you’re useless. But if you have substance without visibility, no one will know the substance that you got.
Lenny Rachitsky: You also talk about how you can reframe this idea of not being self-promotional, but it’s amplifying the impact of the team that I work with, or it’s me scaling myself by sharing things I know and pointing people to it.
Power’s Scrutiny and the Trust Dilemma
Jeffrey Pfeffer: Absolutely, absolutely.
Lenny Rachitsky: Awesome. Okay, let’s move on to a different power. Let’s talk about power one, which is getting out of your own way. Talk about what that means and how someone can work on that.
The Family Toll of Power
Jeffrey Pfeffer: Well, you already have done a fabulous job of illustrating principle one by talking about how this is the topic that makes people uncomfortable. And when something makes people uncomfortable, in general, they’re going to shy away from it. So if I think power is dirty, if I think power is evil, if I think power is something I want nothing to do with, the first thing that’s going to happen is I’m not going to do what I need to do to be successful in my career. So that is one way in which we get in our own way. Another way in which we get in our own way, many people suffer from what is called in the psychology literature, imposter syndrome. They believe that they were the admissions mistake at Stanford. They were the hiring mistake in whatever company they’re working for. That somehow they got to this job, but they don’t really deserve to be there because they’re surrounded by people who are smarter and better than them, and therefore they will do things.
I can’t even believe that this goes on. So I will have students, not many, but a few. Now raise their hand, I’ll call them, and the first things out of their mouth will be, I don’t know if this comment is going to be useful. This is called pre-emptory apology. If the comment is not going to be useful, don’t say it. That’s number one, but number two, don’t apologize. Pardon me for interrupting. Pardon me for taking up your time. Stop all this apologizing. If you got the job you’re in, you probably are not only qualified, you’re probably overqualified. So don’t use descriptors of yourself that disempower you. Don’t think of yourself as not deserving of the job that you hold, because that attitude will leak out and other people will say, if Lenny doesn’t think he deserved the job, then maybe I shouldn’t think he deserves the job either.
Lenny Rachitsky: So basically the first power is you’re shooting yourself in the foot by worrying too much about whether people like you. This friend of mine who’s now the founder that I read some quotes from, she said her number one takeaway from your class is if you want to be liked, get a dog.
Jeffrey Pfeffer: That’s correct. That is a quote from my dear friend Gary Loveman, who for many years ran Harrah’s, which then became Caesars, the casino company.
Lenny Rachitsky: You also talk about this. Yeah, there’s this quote I have. “Acknowledge that others are often no better than you, because that makes you feel better about the story.” So for people that actually want to be liked, I like being liked. I don’t know if it’s a flaw in my upbringing. Is the lesson you’re capped on your power if you worry about if you want to be liked?
Jeffrey Pfeffer: At the end of the day, you don’t want to be intentionally disliked. You don’t want to violate my dear friend Bob Sutton’s book The No Asshole Rule and gratuitously be an asshole. But you are hired to get a job done. It’s interesting. I unfortunately am now too old. In the words of my chiropractor, I’m suffering from too many birthdays. So I have a lot of doctors who are doing a great job. Trust me, when I choose a doctor, I have a, unfortunately he retired, a neurosurgeon who did two surgeries on my spine. He’s considered to be one of the top 20 in the country. If you go on Yelp, you read about his personality and his office furniture. As I said to somebody, he’s doing microsurgery on my spine, I can wind up permanently paralyzed. I really don’t care about his personality. I don’t care about his office furniture.
That’s an extreme example, but it makes the point. When you are put in a role, you are put in a role because presumably you are supposed to perform in that role. If you get appointed to be a head coach, if we make you a quarterback on an NFL team, or we make you center on a National Basketball Association team, you did not get that job because people thought you had a cute personality. You got that job because you have the skills to make your organization successful. And if you do not use those skills because you’re worried about what everybody else is thinking, you are not only harming yourself, but you’re harming them because you are not doing what you were hired to do.
Lenny Rachitsky: So a simple way of thinking about this, which makes me feel better about. As we talk through this, I’m becoming less uncomfortable with these, which is a good sign. It’s don’t actively try to be disliked. Don’t prioritize being liked, prioritize competence and respect.
Jeffrey Pfeffer: Correct, absolutely.
Lenny Rachitsky: And doing the thing that needs to be done.
Jeffrey Pfeffer: Absolutely.
Lenny Rachitsky: Okay, great. Let’s talk about rule number two, which is break the rules. So basically again, these powers are ways to grow power, and you’re saying that if you break the rules, you get more power. Talk about why that’s the case, what that looks like.
Jeffrey Pfeffer: Well, for many reasons, number one, when you break the rules, you stand out. You become memorable when you do something that’s unexpected. And being memorable is of course important, as we’ve already discussed. That’s number one. Number two, the rules were made mostly by the people who are favored by the rules in place. So if we were talking about business strategy, we would talk about a word that is probably now overused. We would talk about being a disruptor. That you would disrupt an industry. And how do you disrupt an industry? By doing something that is different from the other industry incumbents. In Southwest Airlines, you don’t do hub and spoke. At Amazon, you provide an incredible level of customer service. Whole Foods, you don’t optimize on the cost of the stuff in your store, but you optimize on fitting local taste, whatever. You would be a disruptor, you would do things that are different.
The same principle holds for you, that if you are going to be successful, you have to do what number one, plays to your strengths, to use the title of a Gallup book. Number two, you have to do things again that cause you to stand out, and you have to do things that basically will make you more successful. One of the conventional wisdoms that people I think adhere to way too much, is don’t ask. Don’t ask, don’t ask for help. You need to show self-sufficiency. So my colleague, Frances Flynn, Frank Flynn, wrote an article with Vanessa Lake entitled, If You Need Help, Just Ask. And it turns out people overestimate how many people they’re going to have to ask to get help, and it turns out that asking for help makes people uncomfortable.
I was married, if you read the acknowledgments in Seven Rules of Power. For more than 35 years I was married to Kathleen Francis Fowler, who I could send you a picture. She looked literally like a supermodel and I never have been any particularly better looking than I am now. So somebody said to me, how’d you get her to go out with you? And the answer of course is, I asked. I asked, I asked, I asked. No one, well, maybe not no one. But few people are going to go out with you if you don’t ask them out. Few people are going to marry you if you don’t ask them to marry. Few people are going to do anything if you don’t ask. And what is the worst that could happen? If you ask and they say, no, you are no worse off than had you not asked in the first place. If you don’t ask, you’re not going to get it. If you ask and they say, no, you’re not going to get it. Get over your ego, ask.
Lenny Rachitsky: Is there another example that comes to mind of someone breaking the rules say in business, that ended up being really successful as a result, or just someone that is really good at this in business?
Jeffrey Pfeffer: I can give you many examples. One of my favorite examples would be Jason Calacanis. I don’t know if you know Jason.
Lenny Rachitsky: Oh yeah, I know you did a case study on him. I know him well. Yeah.
Jeffrey Pfeffer: So I think Jason, I think consistently breaks all kinds of rules. First of all, when he comes to my class, nobody likes him, but that’s okay. Almost nobody likes him. But…
Lenny Rachitsky: That’s power number one. He’s not worried about.
Jeffrey Pfeffer: Yeah, that’s number one. But also I think there’s a conventional wisdom in the venture capital industry which he defies almost completely. He makes a lot of little bets, not a few big bets. He runs a very lean operation. He doesn’t have a lot of partners. He doesn’t have actually any partners, so he can’t be fired by his partners. He began his career in journalism, which is interesting. Being a journalist is a wonderful job because you get to ask people all kinds of questions. And if you ask smart people questions, and you have some reasonable level of intelligence yourself, at the end of that process, you’re going to wind up incredibly smart and incredibly insightful. And he wound up incredibly smart and insightful around aspects of the internet industry.
Lenny Rachitsky: And he definitely has a lot of power. I think I am going to link to the case study in our show notes where you basically walk through how he went from nothing to a very powerful person.
Jeffrey Pfeffer: And by the way, a very rich person as well.
Lenny Rachitsky: Let’s talk about another power, power five, networking relentlessly. What does that look like and how do you get better at this?
Jeffrey Pfeffer: Well, I think there’s research that shows that many people find networking dirty, and that’s because I think they think about it in the wrong way. My friend John Levy, who has written a fabulous book, You’re Invited. Which is a book about how to put on events that people want to come to. Is a fabulous human being. Will tell you that the first principle of networking is in fact generosity. It’s generosity. What can I do for you? How can I be helpful? Who can I introduce you to? Either a company or a product or a person who can be helpful to you in your career.
But in order to be able to introduce you to someone who’s going to be useful to you, I have to know people. If I don’t know anybody, I can’t introduce you to anybody. And the more people I know, the more likely it will be that if you say, I need to know somebody in X, I will know that person. So the broader your social network, the more people and the more things you will know. If knowledge is power, networking is a fabulous way to get knowledge about people and about ideas.
Lenny Rachitsky: It’s funny to hear this where it’s like, yes, obviously this is right, but connecting it to if you want to become more powerful, more successful, you need to do this. I think that is a powerful point that we’re all making here, is just like this actually is necessary if you want to acquire more power.
Jeffrey Pfeffer: Of course. I have a funny story about networking. So we have a thing in Stanford called View From The Top, in which these fancy people come in and give a talk. And one of the people came in and give a talk and made my class instantly popular, because he’s an extraordinarily wealthy person. His name is Omid Kordestani, and so I reached out to him and I said, “Omid, let’s have breakfast.” So I can understand because during the thing, when somebody asked them what class was the most important in his success, he said mine. So I said, “Tell me your story.” He said, “Well, I graduated from Stanford. I’m Persian in background, immigrant background. An engineer, HP, all the things that would make you kind of a nerd or something.” He said, “I went to work for a couple of startups that didn’t do well. Then I found myself in the mid-nineties at Netscape.” The browser company, big deal. Anyway, Marc Andreessen.
Lenny Rachitsky: Oh yeah.
Jeffrey Pfeffer: Okay. “So I found myself in Netscape in marketing and business development. I was not making any progress. One day I decided to take your class to an extreme. I decided to stop doing my job.” So I said, “When people gave you projects to do or assignments or tasks and you didn’t do them?” He said, “It turns out that I spent my time, not obviously at the bar, but in networking first with people inside of Netscape. And it turns out if you’re well-connected to the senior leaders, they don’t really care if you do your job or not. That’s number one. Number two,” he said, “oftentimes I can find other people to do the work I was doing. So instead of basically spending time doing my job, I networked first within Netscape.” But Netscape was not that big of a company. So after a while he decided to go through, which is by the way, his job anyway, in marketing and business, he decided to basically drive through the Silicon Valley talking to people. And this is the rest of the browsers are just beginning.
Nobody knows what a browser is, nobody knows what the internet is going to become. So he’s having all these fabulous conversations. All right, so he now knows basically everybody. It’s 1998 and a little tiny company decides 10 engineers, typical Silicon Valley company. 10 engineers, all engineers. I have a friend who went to work for a company, run a company that had 26 people. He didn’t have one sales and marketing person. Anyway, the company now has 10 engineers. They decide they need to hire their first business person. Being an analytically oriented company, they say, we’re going to do this very analytically. We are basically going to ask everybody we can think of, and a few people we can’t. Give us a list of the best technically oriented business people that you know. And there is of course one name that appears on every list. It is Omid Kordestani who becomes employee number 11 at Google and makes two and a half billion dollars.
Lenny Rachitsky: Great success from networking. Well done. When people hear about networking, it just feels like you said, very cringe. I don’t want to go to these networking events and try to pretend to talk and care about people. Do you have any advice for just how to make networking feel less cringy?
Jeffrey Pfeffer: One of the exercises I give my students is I say, write a list of 10 people who, if you knew them and if they knew you, would be important for whatever you’re trying to accomplish in your career. So maybe you’re trying to get into biotech, you need to know 10 executives in biotech or whatever. Make a list of 10 people. Then for each person figure out how you are going to meet them. By the way, not necessarily in a network event. Maybe you want to do what John Levy does, which is hold dinners. In which by the way, the guests do the cooking, which is a very interesting idea. That of course taps into the IKEA effect. You always like something better if you participate in creating it. Maybe you want to hold dinners, maybe you want to try to reach out to them at lunch.
Maybe you want to reach out to them and say, here’s an article I think you’d be interested in. Here is somebody who I think you’d benefit from meeting. So recently, I’m not a particularly good networker, though I’m better I guess than some people. I recently met Esther Wojcicki, I’m sure I killed her name. She’s considered the grandmother of Silicon Valley. She’s Susan Wojcicki’s mother. And she is interested in depression, particularly depression among teenagers. And I said, you should know Leanne Williams, who’s in the Psychiatry and Behavioral Science Department, who has done probably 300 articles on depression and has invented something which is called Precision Psychiatry. So I connected them to each other. Just send an email. I think you ought to know each other. They got together. I get credit for knowing people and connecting them, but I also benefit them. Leanne needs to raise money. Esther’s got money. Esther needs to understand the cutting edge research in depression and biomarkers of depression, which is what Leanne’s specialty is, so they benefit. So this is not some icky thing. This is connecting people who benefit from being connected.
Lenny Rachitsky: That touches on something you teach in the book is, in your networking you want to become a broker, you want to be central. That’s kind of what you want to work on. Can you talk a bit about what that means?
Jeffrey Pfeffer: Well, that means you want to connect people. So many people with benefits, and many groups with benefits for being connected, and they’re not connected. What does a venture capitalist do? Connects people with ideas to people with money, and takes a fee for doing it. What does an investment banker do? Connects people trying to sell businesses or raise capital with people trying to buy businesses or who have capital. What’s a real estate agent do? Connects buyers and sellers of houses. There are all kinds of examples where the person’s entire job is connecting people. But even for the people whose job it isn’t, you benefit from knowing people. The more people you know, the more things you know. As I sometimes say in my class, if leadership management, call it what you will, is getting things done through other people, it seems like common sense that the more other people you know, the more you’ll be able to get done.
Lenny Rachitsky: As someone that has become central to a lot of things in the product world, and has built a large network as a result of this podcast newsletter, I can tell you a thousand percent. This creates a lot of opportunity and power, you could say in quotes. So I’ve seen it happen.
Jeffrey Pfeffer: Of course.
Lenny Rachitsky:
Another lesson I guess you teach is to pursue weak ties. Talk a bit about what that means. What do you mean by that?
Jeffrey Pfeffer: Well, the people to whom you are strongly tied, your family, your spouse, significant other, your friends, the people who work with you at work will probably, because they are close to you, know the same things and the same people that you do. So to the extent that you build ties with people who are more different from you in every dimension, you are more likely to learn non-redundant information, and come in contact with people that you don’t already know. This again seems common sense. There’s a lot of research behind it. Mark Granovetter, a sociologist who still teaches at Stanford, wrote a book entitled The Strength of Weak Ties.
And basically, no, actually, pardon me. He wrote an article called The Strength of Weak Ties. His book was called Getting a Job. And he did a study, I guess it was at that time in Boston. He did a study of job seekers in Massachusetts, and he looked at people who got jobs through applying to ads, through more formal means. And then he looked at people who got jobs through referrals from their network. And it turns out, of course, the jobs that you get through your network referrals are much better jobs. And oftentimes the best jobs that people got were referred to them by people that were not particularly close to them. Because they had a view, that’s the word I was looking for, a view into the ecosystem of the Boston labor market, that the other people didn’t have because they weren’t in the same place as the other people.
Lenny Rachitsky: I love that lesson. Let’s talk about another power, which is using your power. So when people think of using your power builds more power, that’s not intuitive. You talk about how it creates this self-perpetuating growth of power the more you practice power. Can you talk a bit about that?
Jeffrey Pfeffer: Sure. So when you are given, it’s interesting, my friend Deborah Gruenfeld, who wrote a book called Acting with Power, talks a lot about people’s ambivalence to power. So sometimes people are put in a job. Herminia Ibarra who teaches now at London Business School, at one point taught in Seattle, at one point taught at Harvard, has an article in the Harvard Business Review in which she talks about a woman in a drug company who gets a promotion, and says to her colleagues, to whom she’s now overseeing, that she’s not sure why she got the job. She’s not sure she deserves the job. Needless to say, she didn’t do very well in this job because she got in her own way. But part of this is you are put in a position of power. You’re put in a position of authority in order to make things happen. So to the extent you mobilize your resources and get things to happen, you’ll get more resources.
People want to be associated with success. To the extent that you become successful, more people will want to work with you. To the extent that you get more stuff done, you’ll get more promotions, more opportunities. Nobody’s going to give you a job to do if the last five jobs like that they gave you, you couldn’t get done. So the more you are able to do, which oftentimes of course requires power and influence, the more you’re able to do, the more you’ll be asked to do. But better yet, the more resources you’ll be given to help you get things done.
Lenny Rachitsky: And I think there’s interestingly you teach that just showing that you have power creates more power. People see that you have this power and they start to follow your lead more, right? That’s a part of this.
Jeffrey Pfeffer: Yep. I just saw over the weekend the movie, the latest movie in the franchise of the Planet of the Apes. When Jim Collins left Stanford, he gave me a book called Chimpanzee Politics, which is of course not based on the Planet of the Apes, but it’s based upon the study of chimpanzees. We are the same. People are attracted to power, you know that. By the way, that will account for a lot of what is going to happen in the presidential election.
Lenny Rachitsky: Let’s save that for the end, because I think that’s an interesting piece of your book, of the connection to Trump. So let’s save that for a bit. I think that’ll be really interesting. Kind of along the same lines of the area we’re just talking about. And another rule of power is to show up in a powerful fashion. So look powerful, talk about what that looks like.
Jeffrey Pfeffer: So my colleague at Berkeley, Dana Carney, C-A-R-N-E-Y, is writing a book called Tell, which is about the importance of body language and how to master body language. There is some evidence that suggests we respond mostly to how people look, secondarily to how they sound, and by far the least important to the content of what they say. You can see this by turning on your TV and turning off the sound. Watch the presidential debates with the sound off. They’ll be much better. I have another colleague in marketing by the name of Baba Shiv, who talks about people’s freaky mind, or the idea that we are in fact descended from primates, and that we are controlled in lots of ways by our emotions. And so we respond affectively to other people. We respond to how they look. There’s evidence in economics that suggests tall people earn more salaries, control, earn more money, controlling for lots of things, attractive people.
As long as you’re not too attractive, you earn more money. Optimal level of attractiveness because people respond subconsciously to how people look, how they sound, how they show up, how they present themselves. In my class, I take the example of Tony Hayward of BP, the Macondo oil spill, and Lloyd Blankfein who was accused of shorting the securities that he was selling, which by the way, Goldman did. And before I let them hear Tony or Lloyd, we show about 60 seconds. And Lloyd’s case 34 seconds with no sound. And even if you did not know who these people were and I asked you to make a bet, who’s going to keep their job and who’s going to lose it? You would know just from their physical appearance.
Lenny Rachitsky: I love that.
Jeffrey Pfeffer: And by the way, what Dana Carney will tell you, and what common sense will tell you, is that these are skills that can be mastered. Robert de Niro was not born Robert de Niro, in the sense of acting skills are learned. How you show up, how you command the room. There’s a guy named Regis McKenna who is older than God, who’s famous for running a very, very, very fancy public relations firm in the Silicon Valley. And his biggest contribution to life, as well as by the way to his personal wealth, is that he made Steve Jobs Steve Jobs. When Steve Jobs began, Steve Jobs couldn’t convince you to buy water if you were dying of thirst. He could not give a presentation to save his life. And Regis McKenna and his team took Steve Jobs under their wing and created Steve Jobs, a man who could sell anything to anybody. These are skills. This is not about personality. This is not about undergoing some kind of cosmetic surgery or whatever. These are skills, everything we’ve talked about, networking, showing up, all these things. These are skills that can be learned.
Lenny Rachitsky: I have a list of some of the stuff you actually recommend for looking and appearing powerful. So I’ll read a few and I’m curious what else comes to mind. So do not read from notes. Make eye contact. Keep it brief. You say that anger can be a signal of power because it’s outside the norm. It’s kind of breaking the rules. Don’t apologize. It’s kind of the opposite. More gestures, which is interesting. Open body posture. Louder voice. Okay, I’m going to speak louder now. I like this. Okay, what else comes to mind as ways to appear powerful?
Jeffrey Pfeffer: Invading people’s personal space. So gentle touching, standing close to someone. We’re not talking about sexual touching, we’re talking touch on the arm or the shoulder, shaking people’s hands. That’s a way of I think being more powerful. But you’ve covered the main ones. Eye contact. One of the problems with Tony Hayward of BP is that he’s been given a statement to read. You cannot read something in front of you and make eye contact at the same time. So he looks like he’s scripted. He looks like he’s insincere. Jack Valenti, who I had the privilege of knowing, who for 38 years was the head of the Motion Picture Association of America, and typically rated one of the number one or number two most effective lobbyists in Washington DC, said to my class when he came to my class, which he did, “I never appeared before Congress with notes. I wanted them to believe, which was by the way, true, that I was in complete control and complete mastery of the material, and that I did not need notes or a bunch of assistants around me to help me.
That I, as the head of the MPAA, understood the motion picture industry.” And then he would give you a little aside about how it was the one industry that consistently had a budget surplus in trade. He would talk about how many jobs he created and he had all this stuff at his fingertips. But basically his command of the material made him more powerful. It’s interesting, Jack Valenti was five foot two inches tall and he came, talked to my class, and the next class I said to people, “What are your reactions? What are your thoughts?” And a woman raised her hand and said, “He feels taller than he is.” And I thought that was an assessment that was both true and insightful. When the five-foot-two Jack Valenti appeared, because of his presence, because of his body language, because of his Texas drawl, because of how he moved on the stage, he felt bigger. You would not say he did not feel five-foot-two.
Lenny Rachitsky: Let me read a couple more because this is a good example of stuff he did. Other ways to appear more powerful is more speaking time, longer gazing time, more disinhibited laughs. Is that just you laughing and feeling like you’re just…
Jeffrey Pfeffer: Well, humor. Humor. The famous author, Salman Rushdie said, and I quote Salman Rushdie, it’s a fabulous quote. “If you can get people to laugh, you can tell them anything.”
Lenny Rachitsky: Yeah, stand-up comedy is a great example that. So again, I think here people might be hearing this and they’re like, I don’t want to be this person. I don’t want to be talking all the time. I don’t want to be pretending like open posture. Is the advice here just you don’t need to do all these things. Just know this makes people more powerful. Don’t necessarily judge people, do some of these things maybe because it’ll add to your power? How do you think about just people that are turned off by this sort of thing?
Jeffrey Pfeffer: That’s a wonderful question. So I say to my class, on the very first day of class, that we will go through four stages. We’ll go through the stage of denial. It doesn’t work in my culture, it doesn’t work in my organization, doesn’t work for me, it doesn’t work in my religion, whatever. Then we’ll go through anger. When they get angry at me, how can you teach us this stuff? Then they’ll go into sadness. I actually believe this and I’m depressed. And if we’re successful, they will go through acceptance. And the process I have, again, I do not have the most popular class at Stanford Business School because I am good-looking, because I’m the smartest person at Stanford or anything else. I am strategic about thinking about if I have someone who’s going to come into this class, I have to get them from denial to acceptance in 10 weeks.
And how are we going to do that? The easiest way to do that, if I said, Lenny, I want you to become a better tennis player, or a better roller blader, or a better ice skater, whatever, a better piano player in 10 weeks, what would we do? If we have practice and coaching. And that’s what I do in the class, practice and coaching. I have executive coaches who work with the class and I give them assignments that ask them to practice what they’re learning. And therefore, by the end of the class, most people have made this transition because it is true. If you’ve never… I had a dinner the other night, this Israeli woman who’s like, I’ve done amazing stuff. Amazing. Which is fabulous. And she said at the dinner, she said, “I would’ve never done this before taking your class.” And the way you get them to do this is I don’t say, Lenny, you’re going to swim the English Channel tomorrow.
If I want you to swim the English Channel, we’re going to start by swimming in pools and make every day a little bit more challenging. That’s what we do. I don’t start by saying, you’re going to network like Keith Ferrazzi or John Levy, or you’re not going to be as bold as Jason Calacanis, who trust me is extraordinarily bold. You’re not going to necessarily do what I did. You’re going to begin where you can begin, and push yourself out of your comfort zone. Because, and again, this is common sense.
There’s also a ton of research behind it. If you always stay in your comfort zone, you’ll never do anything different or better than what you’re currently doing. This is true. If I said to you, I want you to, at the end of 10 weeks, lift a hundred pounds, I can’t do that by on the last day saying lift a hundred pounds. We have to work up to it. And that is, it’s the same principle here. So don’t do something that looks so off the wall or so out of character for you that you can’t conceive doing it. Push yourself a little, push yourself a little.
Lenny Rachitsky: There’s an interesting connection here too. What some say is kind of the opposite of your class at Stanford, which is Touchy-Feely. We had Carole Robin on the podcast and she has a framework, the 15% rule where you push yourself 15% beyond your comfort zone. Where it’s just a little bit, but it’s not too far, and it feels like you try to do a similar thing.
Jeffrey Pfeffer: Yeah, absolutely. So you begin by doing what you don’t think you can do.
Lenny Rachitsky: Let’s spend a little more time here around the homework assignments, and this kind of Knowing-Doing Gap that you talked about. So you shared a couple of homework assignments you give already, find 10 people, think of 10 people you want to meet that’ll help you with your career and then try to meet them. And then there’s this, I guess my friend started a podcast, I don’t know which homework it was. What other homework assignments do you give?
Jeffrey Pfeffer: So we begin, there’s a literature on goal setting that says if you set goals, you’re more likely to achieve them. This is, again, not some huge insight, but there’s an enormous scientific literature about this. And so I begin the very first homework assignment is, which is by the way, on the very first day of class, why are you here? Why are you here? It is now the end of this class. What would success look like to you? What would you like to accomplish in our 10 weeks together? Second assignment, I give them a reading from the Power book, which is the book before Seven Rules, which talks about the seven attributes of power. Go out and get people to rate you on these or rate yourself. Set for yourself a development plan, energy, focus, being willing to tolerate conflict, all these qualities. What are you strong on? What are you weak on? What do you want to build during our time together, and how are you going to do it?
So we begin with goal setting. One of the assignments I give them, which is the class that Jason comes to, what resources can you create? You’re at Stanford Business School, elite, fancy Stanford. What can you do in your 10 weeks here? I have people who created awards. A woman who created an award gave it to Karlie Kloss, the model. Got in trouble with the school. It turns out it’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission. So what can you do to create resources that will give you some leverage? That would be a third assignment. The networking is a fourth assignment. The acting with power. I show them the videos and I tell them in advance of the class, and I tell them they need to become Tony Hayward. They need to do a better job, which is, by the way, a low bar, representing BP. And give me a 60 to 90 second video and then share it with colleagues and get feedback on it. And then we’re going to call on people in the class.
In other words, for every idea, I try to think of something. And this is all, by the way, this is all front-loaded. And by the end of the class we’re not doing this so much. But I try to give them an exercise that causes them to actually take that idea and implement it. Find people, oh, for branding. Write a personal brand statement, get some feedback on it, then write it again. How do you want to be known? Which is by the way, useful to you because you’re a second-year MBA, you’re going to go in the job market. What do you want people to think about you? How do you want people to respond to you? How do you want to be known? So I basically take for every topic and have them do it. And then the coach, their person, their coach, who is responsible for 23 of these people, give them feedback on this.
Lenny Rachitsky: I could see how this makes a big impact on someone’s life.
Jeffrey Pfeffer: Yeah. And so at the end, I had a student a couple years ago said to me, “It is not that I got more feedback and more useful feedback from your class than I did in any other class. I got more useful feedback in your class than I did on every other class I took combined.”
Lenny Rachitsky: I can see why. Let’s talk about the last power. So we’ve talked through six already. We have only one more to go, which is maybe the one that probably upsets people most, which is that once you have power, people will forget what you did to get there. Talk about what that looks like and is that a power or is it more just like this is what you should know about.
Jeffrey Pfeffer: And I put in rule seven for the following reason. In spite of everything that you and I have been talking about, many people in a stage of, I don’t know, denial or something, say, I’m worried that if I do this, at the end… People believe that the world is homeostatic. It is not. That it’s going to adjust, but whatever. At the end I will be brought low. They have the myth of Icarus in their head. You fly too close to the sun, your wings are going to melt, you’re going to be brought down. And so I try to convince them, partly through a lecture and partly through rule seven. And some of the principles that I talk about in rule seven. That, in fact, life is not homeostatic at all. That life is actually self-fulfilling. If I believe you’re powerful, you will become more powerful.
If I believe you have no power, you will wind up with almost no power, and that therefore it is all forgotten and forgiven. And I begin, I believe I begin. But if not, I could begin with the story of the South Carolina Senator who says nasty things about Trump, and then Lindsey Graham, and becomes Trump’s biggest acolyte. And the New York Times, of course, is fascinated by this. How can you say all these horrible things about Trump and now be his, basically have your lips affixed to some part of his anatomy? And Lindsey’s answer is, I want to be relevant. He’s the President of the United States. This goes back to the judgment. I like him, this, that, the other thing. He’s the president. If I want to get legislation passed, he, by the way, has taken over the Republican Party.
If I want to get stuff done, I need to have him on my side. And like many narcissists and egomaniacs, it is not a good way to get them on your side by saying nasty things about them. So this is the pragmatics. People forget that Bill Gates stole the code on which Microsoft has built. People forget that Jeffrey Epstein, after being convicted of sex offenses, was still having dinners with members of the royal family and members of the New York media elite. People forget that Martha Stewart, who served time in jail, has a brand that’s never been more valuable. People forget all this stuff.
I still remember sitting in the office of someone whose name I won’t use, but I’ll use enough that if somebody wanted to search it out, you could. So I am sitting in this guy’s office and he’s, by the way, a Jewish man. He’s got pictures of him with the Pope, he’s got pictures of him with Ronald Reagan. He’s got pictures with him, with all these people. What is his secret? He, by the way, took a company into bankruptcy. People lost literally billions of dollars. He was fined. He lost money, but he walked away with about 700 million makes you a big deal. Lives at the biggest house in Los Angeles or one of the biggest houses in Los Angeles. I can’t keep up with the construction of the big houses. People want to be close to money, power, and success, and they will overlook your flaws to be close to you.
Lenny Rachitsky: And again, you talk about this in the book. You’re not describing how the world should work. This is just how it is, and this is how you can be successful in the world that we live in.
Jeffrey Pfeffer: And by the way, this is how the world not only is, but how it was and how it will be. Because these ideas are not something that I sat down one day and made up or something. These ideas, everything that I talk about, including this last one, has social science and logic behind it. So you can explain not only what is, but why it is.
Lenny Rachitsky: So, let’s talk about Trump for a bit. At the beginning of your book, you say that basically you were going to write a book about why Trump is so successful and what he’s done so well. And your realization is no one’s going to pay attention if here’s how to be like Trump. And essentially, if you think about all these rules, it’s clear he is very good at all of these things.
Jeffrey Pfeffer: That’s correct. By the way, not because he read the book, but because he does it through trial and error or something.
Lenny Rachitsky: So when people hear that, they’re like, I don’t want to be Trump. I don’t like how Trump is. I don’t want to be seen that way. Do you have any thoughts on just how to make people feel comfortable following some of these powers and building power, knowing that, oh wow, maybe he’s the epitome of some of this stuff?
Jeffrey Pfeffer: I will tell you a story. In 1993, a woman named Laura Esserman, who’s a doctor, took my class. She claims publicly that this is the only class at Stanford for which she did all the reading. By the way, while she was getting her MBA at Stanford, she was having her first child and practicing medicine full time. Laura Esserman said to me one day, “You have a case. You have cases on all these people doing evil things. Why don’t you ever write a case about somebody doing good things?” And of course, I wrote a case about her. So she comes to the class. Case was published in probably 2003, 2004.
She comes to the class and the students are, what is the right word? Hard on her? That would be a modest thing. The students eviscerate her because she is incredibly smart, incredibly well-intentioned, but she will not network. She says, “I don’t have time for schmoozing.” She will not do almost any of the stuff that we talk about today. So she and her husband, Michael Endicott, two of my closest friends in the world, and I go out to lunch afterwards. And smoke is coming out of her ears and she is pissed off. And this is a very accomplished woman and a very smart woman. And she’s pissed. I said to her, “Laura, you have boundless energy and boundless intelligence. You’re a force of nature. Let me discuss something from the past subject of physics.
You are creating friction. With enough force you can overcome the friction. If you reduce the friction, just think how much more you could accomplish.” And she looked at me and changed. And I will tell you, and I’ve said this publicly, because I get to introduce her for all the awards she’s won, and she’s now won a ton of them. Including Time Magazine 2016 list of a hundred most influential people in the world. And I say to people, and I say it with pride, that of all the things I’ve done in my life, the thing I’m most proud of and most proud of is creating Laura Esserman.
Lenny Rachitsky: That is an awesome story and a really good way of thinking about this from a different angle.
Jeffrey Pfeffer: Yeah, no, and I said to Laura, I said, “You want to make profound changes in the drug development process. You want to make profound changes in whether or not we learn from the treatments that are being given to people. You want to make profound changes in the connection between research and teaching, research and practice. You want to do all these things. If you are going to accomplish any of these things, you need to cross the bridge.” And she hasn’t crossed the bridge completely and she and I joke about it. But she crossed the bridge a lot and she has accomplished incredible things. She’s won every cancer award that can be given. And by the way, she’s won all these awards for the American Cancer Society, who she fought with. She’s won these awards from the Susan Cohen Foundation, who she fought with.
Lenny Rachitsky: This is an incredible example of the opening quote to your book that I have here. “If you want power to be used for good, more good people need to have power.”
Jeffrey Pfeffer: That’s exactly right.
Lenny Rachitsky: And I like the, it’s like a quote attributed to me, is how you…
Jeffrey Pfeffer: Yeah. Well, I don’t remember saying it, but somebody said, I said it. I’ll take credit for it. I said to Laura, “You want to change medicine? Medicine is not going to change without the application of power and influence.” If change was going to happen, it would’ve happened already. You have to take on entrenched interests. She has a whole thing, which we need not go into because it’s pretty technical, on screening. She said, everybody’s getting a mammogram every year beyond a certain age, which is stupid for a variety of reasons. You can read, she was on the PBS NewsHour about this. This is what got her in trouble with the radiologists. The radiologists, of course, are selling screening. She said, there’s some people that need to be screened every month, and there’s some people that need to be screened never because of their genetics. She wants custom tailored screening or precision screening. Anyway, she fights everybody.
Richard Blum, Dianne Feinstein’s husband, both Dianne and Richard Blum are now deceased, was at a thing where she launched the Athena Project. The Athena Project, she’s now, with her collaborators, collecting data on the diagnosis and treatment and outcome for 150,000 patients in the University of California Healthcare System. So I’m supposed to give some opening talk to provide entertainment. And Dick Blum is there. Dick Blum, of course is wealthy. He’s Dianne Feinstein’s husband. I said to him, “Dick, how did Laura get you here?” And I still remember, I think this is a quote in one of the books I wrote. He said to me, he said, “Look.” He said, “I’ve learned that at the end of the day when Laura asks you to do something, you may say no, but at the end of the day, you’re going to do it anyway. Save yourself the aggravation.”
Lenny Rachitsky: Oh man, I feel like you’re just endlessly full of good stories that we could just keep going on and on. Let me try to summarize the rules of power real quick and see if anything else emerges. And then have just a couple more questions. So the Seven Rules of Power, get out of your own way, break the rules, show up in a powerful fashion, create a powerful brand, network relentlessly, use your power, and understand that once you’ve acquired power, that what you did to get there will be forgiven, forgotten, or both. Let me ask you a question, maybe half in jest. You teach people how to acquire power. Why aren’t you the most powerful man in the world?
Jeffrey Pfeffer: Ah, that’s a very good question. To which I have a very good answer. I have a colleague who’s unfortunately now deceased, by the name of James G. March, who was a very, very distinguished scholar. And James March said to me many, many years ago, something which is completely true. You can have power or you can have autonomy, but you cannot have both. And I have chosen to live a life of freedom, autonomy. I could tell you stories that would bring tears to your eyes. I’ll tell you one. We had a dean of the Business School whose wife was dying of cancer, and she was projected to die in the fall. So the Business School goes to him and says, we’ll give you the fall off to be with your wife. She lives until June. It’s now winter.
You have responsibilities as the Dean of the Business School. You have to meet with alumni. You have to go around and raise money. You have to show up at events, university events. I do not necessarily think that is how he wanted to spend the winter and spring quarters, but that’s what you have to do. When I wanted Jack Valenti to come to my class, I did not call Jack Valenti. I called Judy Dickey. Judy Dickey was his assistant. Judy Dickey controlled his schedule. I meet Jack on such and such a day. He can’t make it on that day. Fine. I can adjust the schedule. Can he make it on this day?
When I wanted my friend Gary Loveman, who ran Harrah’s and Caesars and then was the number two executive at Aetna, I want him to come to my class. I called Reggie Kirk. I didn’t call Gary Loveman. And that’s all you need to know. I do not have an assistant who controls my schedule. I control my schedule. You will not find my Outlook calendar on any website, on any computer. I want autonomy. If I said to you, “Lenny, I will give you 10 billion if you can buy-”
Lenny Rachitsky: Yes.
Jeffrey Pfeffer: Wait, if you can have last week again. You can’t. You can’t. Time goes in only one direction. I want control of my time. It is much more important to me, being a Dean or an Associate Dean, a job that I was asked to do. I took one academic administrative job. I’m actually memorialized, believe it or not, in the Stanford Record, as having led, and this is according to my expenses, the Nobel Prize winner who was Dean at the time, that I led the biggest and most successful transformation in the history of higher education. I did it. I did it once. I didn’t like it. Life is too short. I want to do what I like.
Lenny Rachitsky: That’s a really profound point that I think people don’t think about, is there’s always this drive to acquire power. And your point is that there’s a big downside, which is a lack of autonomy. Yeah. You think about the, as I was trying to get Satya Nadella on the podcast, and I talked to his comms people, and they’re like, every hour for the next three months is booked already. We know what he’s doing. He’s extremely booked. And you think about the president, obviously at Elon. I totally get what you’re saying.
Jeffrey Pfeffer: It is true, and I don’t want to do that. And by the way, power also comes with enormous visibility. Donald Trump has done, for 40 years, what he’s now being accused of doing, the tax stuff, all this stuff. He’s been a grifter all his life. But when you become President, people are going to look at things that in the past they would not have looked at. You become president of a university, you’re going to have scrutiny as the President of Harvard Law and the President of Stanford Law, when they both had to resign, in one case because of plagiarism, in another case because of research misconduct.
Power comes. You’re going to be put under a microscope. People are going to look at what car you drive. They’re going to look at who you go out with. They’re going to look at how you spend your time. They’re going to look at how you associate with, you’ll have no privacy. You’ll have very little control over your life. Everybody will feel completely free to dissect you in public, in private, whatever. And you’ll face the trust dilemma. When you are rich and powerful the question will be, are people praising you, are people associating with you because of you or because of the position you hold?
Lenny Rachitsky: Yeah. Do you spend any time, just to follow this thread in your class, convincing people stop being so obsessed with power, stop being so obsessed with becoming the top of everything? Is that a part of the class?
Jeffrey Pfeffer: No.
Lenny Rachitsky: Or is it just…
Jeffrey Pfeffer: No. I teach them, they see we have a class on the price of power. I bring out Rudy Crew. Rudy Crew was the New York School’s Chancellor under Rudy Giuliani. By the way, he tells many interesting stories about Rudy Giuliani, who did not just become the joke that he is overnight. He’s worked hard to become that. But in any event, he tells. And one year, one year, because his daughter at that time was living in the Bay Area, when I asked him about the effect of the positions he held, Head of Miami Dade County Schools, Head of New York City schools.
Had Hillary ever won, he would’ve been Secretary of Education. Literally. There’s Lauren in the room. And he said to the class, Jeffrey asked me the question, “Why don’t we let Lauren answer it?” By the time she was finished, there was not a dry eye in the room. What is it like to be the child? What is it like to be the significant other of these people? And you know the answer to that because you can see the suicides, the divorce rates. There is a price that not only you pay, but a price that your family pays.
Lenny Rachitsky: I think that’s a really good balance to the entire conversation. Maybe just as a last question, what if we give the audience a homework assignment to work on these power rules? What’s something that you’d recommend someone try to do? I know it’s probably dependent on what they’re good at, not good at. What’s something that they could do to start moving towards one of these rules?
Jeffrey Pfeffer: So what I would say, and it comes from something that you talked about in our conversation at several times, which is this is uncomfortable. Okay. So if I want you to do something uncomfortable, I could say, “Lenny, go do this uncomfortable thing on your own.” Or I can say, “Lenny, I want you to do this with help, with social support.” And so the first thing I would say to someone is, if you think this is uncomfortable, or if you think you’re not skilled at this, get coaching. Get a coach.
I send out regularly the list of the coaches who work with my online and on-campus classes. Happy to do it. And they’re happy to have the business. Get a coach. Get a personal board of directors like they talk about in the Wall Street Journal. In other words, get people who will give you advice, give you social support, and hold you accountable. That’s the very first thing I would tell people to do. It’s hard to do anything on your own. If I said to you, “Lenny, I want you to start an extraordinarily successful podcast and I want you to do it without any help.” You would not be where you are today. So that simple principle, get help.
Lenny Rachitsky: It feels like a part of rule number one. Get out of your own way. Ask for help. Jeffrey, I was nervous for this podcast because I thought this was going to be super uncomfortable stuff. It turns out all of this makes so much sense, and there’s a really nice way of framing all of these rules, and there’s so much reason to actually invest in these skills. So I really appreciate you putting in the time being here, sharing all these stories and insights. Is there anything else you want to share as a kind of a final note or something to leave listeners with before we wrap up? We did it. We covered everything?
Jeffrey Pfeffer: No, I’m happy. I’m happy you’re a very good interviewer, which is why your podcast is so successful.
Lenny Rachitsky: I appreciate that.
Jeffrey Pfeffer: I’m happy to spend the time with you, and I hope whoever listens to this will, I hope, first of all, there’ll be a lot of listeners, but I also hope that they will find it useful.
Lenny Rachitsky: I know they will. Two final questions. Where can folks find you online if they, or find your book, I guess, if they want to learn more? And then how can listeners be useful to you?
Jeffrey Pfeffer: So you can find my book anywhere where books are sold. Don’t look at a physical bookstore because nobody carries it, including actually Stanford bookstore, where they run out of it if people… And you can find it on Amazon. Seven Rules of Power. So that’s how you can find the book. By the way, at the end of the book I talk about, I have a personal website, jeffreypfeffer.com. If you go to that website, you can find my course outline. So you can take the course on your own if you want, or get somebody or take it in a group of people.
You can find research, you can find articles, you can find columns. You can follow me on LinkedIn or I don’t do Twitter anymore, but you can follow me on LinkedIn. So there are a lot of resources available for this. A company was once thinking of hiring me to give a talk in their organization, and the woman who wound up hiring me said, “When I was discussing you and arguing that we should hire you for this presentation, one of the people in the committee said, is he a good presenter?” And her answer, I love this. I remember this. Her answer was, “He’s a fabulous educator.” My job is to educate. That is why I have done what I have done for now more than 50 years.
Lenny Rachitsky: Holy moly. I didn’t even realize that.
Jeffrey Pfeffer: For more than 50 years, I have been in the business of education. Not just about power, but about many other things as well. But I’m in the education business, so I’m happy to provide people with the resources, with the readings. The Seven Rules of Power is well footnoted. It talks at the end about we could reach out for the coaches. You can go to the website and get the book. But I think consistent with what you and I have talked about, if all you do is read, you’re not going to make very much progress. You have to do it. You cannot learn tennis by reading about tennis, or by watching a movie about Serena or Venus Williams. You have to actually get out on the court and do it.
Lenny Rachitsky: Which is a good plug for your other book, the Knowing-Doing Gap, which actually helps you with the skill, which you can also find all your finer retailers. Jeffrey Pfeffer, thank you so much for being here.
Jeffrey Pfeffer: Thank you for having me on your show.
Lenny Rachitsky: Bye everyone. Thank you so much for listening. If you found this valuable, you can subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Also, please consider giving us a rating or leaving a review, as that really helps other listeners find the podcast. You can find all past episodes or learn more about the show at LennysPodcast.com. See you in the next episode.
Glossary
| English | 中文 |
|---|---|
| Acting with Power | 《带着权力行动》 |
| Aetna | 保留原文(美国保险公司) |
| American Cancer Society | 美国癌症协会 |
| Andreessen Horowitz | 保留原文(风险投资公司名) |
| Athena Project | 保留原文(Laura Esserman 发起的医学研究项目) |
| Baba Shiv | 保留原文(斯坦福营销学教授) |
| Bill Gates | 比尔·盖茨(国际知名人物,公认中文译名) |
| Bob Sutton | 保留原文(斯坦福大学教授) |
| BP | 保留原文(英国石油公司) |
| broker | 掮客/中间人 |
| Caesars | 保留原文(赌场/酒店品牌) |
| Canaan Partners | 保留原文(风险投资公司名) |
| Chimpanzee Politics | 《黑猩猩政治学》 |
| Dana Carney | 保留原文(伯克利学者) |
| Deborah Gruenfeld | 保留原文(斯坦福大学教授) |
| Derek Kan | 保留原文(课程学员/案例人物) |
| Dianne Feinstein | 保留原文(美国参议员) |
| Doing Power | 践行权力(课程作业名称) |
| Elaine Chao | 保留原文(美国政治人物) |
| Esther Wojcicki | 保留原文(被称为”硅谷教母”) |
| Frank Flynn / Frances Flynn | 保留原文(斯坦福大学教授) |
| Gallup | 盖洛普 |
| Gary Loveman | 保留原文(Harrah’s/Caesars 前CEO) |
| Gerald Ferris | 学者,政治技能量表开发者,保留原文 |
| Getting a Job | 《找工作》 |
| Goldman | 保留原文(Goldman Sachs 简称) |
| Greylock | 保留原文(风险投资公司名) |
| Harrah’s | 保留原文(赌场/酒店品牌) |
| Herminia Ibarra | 保留原文(伦敦商学院教授) |
| holacracy | 合弄制(一种去中心化的组织管理方式) |
| hub and spoke | 轮辐式(航空业航线模式) |
| IC (Individual Contributor) | 个人贡献者 |
| IKEA effect | 宜家效应 |
| imposter syndrome | 冒名顶替综合征 |
| Jack Valenti | 保留原文(美国电影协会前主席) |
| James G. March | 保留原文(斯坦福大学学者) |
| Jason Calacanis | 保留原文(企业家/投资人) |
| Jeffrey Epstein | 保留原文 |
| Jim Collins | 保留原文(管理学者) |
| John Levy | 保留原文(作者,You’re Invited) |
| Judy Dickey | 保留原文(Jack Valenti 的助手) |
| Kathleen Francis Fowler | 保留原文(Jeffrey Pfeffer 前妻) |
| Keith Ferazzi | 保留原文(课程案例人物) |
| Knowing-Doing Gap | 《知行差距》 |
| Laura Chau | 保留原文(课程案例人物) |
| Laura Esserman | 乳腺癌外科医生,保留原文 |
| Lauren | 保留原文(Rudy Crew 的女儿,课堂学生) |
| Leanne Williams | 保留原文(斯坦福精神病学学者) |
| Lindsey Graham | 保留原文(美国参议员) |
| Lloyd Blankfein | 保留原文(Goldman Sachs 前CEO) |
| Macondo | 保留原文(墨西哥湾漏油事件地名) |
| Marc Andreessen | 保留原文(Netscape 联合创始人、投资人) |
| Mark Granovetter | 保留原文(斯坦福大学社会学家) |
| Martha Stewart | 保留原文 |
| Matthew | 马太福音(圣经书卷名) |
| Michael Endicott | 保留原文(Laura Esserman 的丈夫) |
| Mitt Romney | 保留原文(美国政治人物,虽有一定知名度但非全球公认中文译名级别,保留原文更准确) |
| MPAA | 保留原文(Motion Picture Association of America) |
| Netscape | 保留原文(浏览器公司) |
| Omid Kordestani | 保留原文(Google 早期员工) |
| Paths to Power | 《权力之路》 |
| PBS NewsHour | 保留原文(美国公共电视新闻节目) |
| Planet of the Apes | 《人猿星球》 |
| political skill | 政治技能 |
| Precision Psychiatry | 精准精神病学 |
| Reggie Kirk | 保留原文(Gary Loveman 的助手) |
| Regis McKenna | 保留原文(硅谷公关人物) |
| Richard Blum | 保留原文(Dianne Feinstein 的丈夫,投资家) |
| Robert de Niro | 保留原文(美国演员) |
| Ronald Reagan | 罗纳德·里根(国际知名人物,公认中文译名) |
| Rudy Crew | 保留原文(前纽约市学校总监) |
| Rudy Giuliani | 保留原文(前纽约市长) |
| Salman Rushdie | 保留原文(英国作家) |
| Satya Nadella | 保留原文(微软 CEO) |
| Sequoia | 保留原文(风险投资公司名) |
| Serena Williams | 保留原文(网球运动员) |
| Seven Rules of Power | 《权力的七条法则》 |
| Southwest Airlines | 保留原文 |
| Steve Jobs | 保留原文(苹果联合创始人) |
| Susan Cohen Foundation | 保留原文(基金会名) |
| Susan Wojcicki | 保留原文(前 YouTube CEO) |
| Taylor Swift | 保留原文(国际知名歌手) |
| The No Asshole Rule | 保留原文(书名) |
| The Strength of Weak Ties | 《弱关系的力量》 |
| Tony Hayward | 保留原文(BP 前CEO) |
| Tony Hsieh | 保留原文(Zappos 创始人) |
| Touchy-Feely | 斯坦福商学院热门课程名,保留原文 |
| Tristan Walker | 保留原文(课程案例人物) |
| Vanessa Lake | 保留原文(学者) |
| Venus Williams | 保留原文(网球运动员) |
| View From The Top | 保留原文(斯坦福活动名) |
| Walt Whitman | 保留原文(美国诗人) |
| Whole Foods | 保留原文 |
| You’re Invited | 保留原文(书名) |
| 唐纳德·特朗普 | 原文 Donald Trump(国际知名人物,公认中文译名) |
| 希拉里 | 原文 Hillary(国际知名人物 Hillary Clinton,公认中文译名) |
Reformatted by reformat_english.py
权力之路:如何扩大影响力、推进你的职业发展 | Jeffrey Pfeffer(斯坦福)
访谈实录
Lenny Rachitsky: 我们要聊的是如何增长你的权力。
Jeffrey Pfeffer: 你之所以应该关注这个话题,是因为它能带来很多好处——薪水提升、获得晋升、对职业更满意、压力更小。
Lenny Rachitsky: 你描述的不是世界应该怎样运转,而是它实际怎样运转。
Jeffrey Pfeffer: 不仅是现在怎样,还有过去怎样,以及将来会怎样。
Lenny Rachitsky: 《权力的七条法则》(The Seven Rules of Power):别给自己设限、打破规则、以强有力的姿态出场、打造强有力的个人品牌、毫不松懈地拓展人脉、运用你的权力,以及理解一旦你获得了权力,你为获得权力所做的事情会被原谅、被遗忘,或者两者兼有。
Jeffrey Pfeffer: 这无关性格。这些都是可以被掌握的技能。
Lenny Rachitsky: 人们听到这些可能会想,“我不想成为这种人。”
Jeffrey Pfeffer: 嗯,你已经非常出色地示范了第一条原则——那就是给自己设限的一种方式。如果我认为权力是肮脏的,那首先我就不会去做那些让职业获得成功所必须做的事。
Lenny Rachitsky: 你书中的开篇引言我这里有:“如果你希望权力被用于善,就需要更多好人拥有权力。”
Jeffrey Pfeffer: 完全正确。
嘉宾介绍
Lenny Rachitsky: 今天的嘉宾是 Jeffrey Pfeffer。Jeffrey 是斯坦福大学商学院组织行为学教授,讲授整个 MBA 项目中最热门、超额选课人数最多的两门课程之一——《权力之路》(Paths to Power)。顺便说一下,另一门课叫 Touchy-Feely,我们上个月深入聊过。在课堂上以及他最近出版的《权力的七条法则》一书中,Jeffrey 教授的是你在生活和工作中有哪些事情可以做来建立权力,进而推动事情落实、推进职业发展。正如一位学生描述这门课的:它是商学院的鱼肝油——你知道它对你有好处,但你会感到有点紧张。在我们的对话中,我们逐一深入了七条权力法则,以及为什么即使你感到不适也应该培养这些技能。我们通过大量实例讨论了权力在实践中的运作及其对人们生活的影响,以及为什么它并不像你可能认为的那样令人尴尬或恐惧。说实话,在对话之前我很紧张,但最终我成了 Jeffrey 及其工作的超级粉丝。我们在对话最后谈到了你今天就可以开始做什么来构建自己的权力。这期播客基本上适合任何想要在职业上有所发展的人,无论你是个人贡献者(IC)还是 CEO,我非常高兴能把它带给你。如果你喜欢这期播客,别忘了在你最喜欢的播客应用或 YouTube 上订阅和关注。这是避免错过未来节目的最佳方式,同时也对播客帮助极大。好了,接下来为您带来 Jeffrey Pfeffer。Jeffrey,非常感谢你来到这里,欢迎来到播客。
Jeffrey Pfeffer: 谢谢你,Lenny。很荣幸受到你的邀请。
Lenny Rachitsky: 你决定来参加节目让我更感荣幸。我们要聊的话题会让很多人感到不舒服,我觉得它也会让我不舒服。我们要聊的是如何在生活和商业中增长你的权力。让我先问一下,为什么这些东西会让人不舒服,以及为什么学会做好这件事依然很重要?
为什么权力让人不适
Jeffrey Pfeffer: 之所以重要,是因为一位名叫 Gerald Ferris 的学者开发了一套政治技能(political skill)量表。多年来,他和他的同事们做了大量实证研究,证明政治技能与许多积极结果相关——薪水更高、获得晋升、对职业更满意、对工作更满意、压力更小。所以你之所以应该关注这个话题,是因为它能带来很多好处。至于为什么让人不舒服——你说它让你不舒服,也许我应该反过来问你,它为什么让你不舒服?
Lenny Rachitsky: 这里面的很多东西可能并不是人们想要的生活方式,也不一定是他们希望别人采取的行为方式。
Jeffrey Pfeffer: 是的,所以我认为它让人不舒服的原因是,获取权力所需的现实与你主日学校或清真寺或任何地方学到的几乎毫无相似之处,也与你父母养育你的方式几乎毫无相似之处。它们与我们认为世界应该如何运转几乎毫无相似之处,与我们的抱负也只有微弱的相似。而且我认为我们环顾四周,看到一些人获得了巨大的权力并将其用于作恶。但我告诉人们,我看到有人拿锤子砸别人的头,但这并不意味着锤子不是一件有用的工具。你可以拿一把螺丝刀捅进别人的肚子。我有一位非常亲密的朋友,我们稍后在播客中可能还会谈到——Laura Esserman 是一位乳腺癌外科医生,我告诉人们,Laura 手里有一把刀,她用它来治愈癌症。抢劫犯也有刀,他们用它来抢劫。所以我认为我们把工具本身和工具被如何使用搞混了。
弱势群体更需要权力技能
Lenny Rachitsky: 你还有这样一句话:最需要理解权力、培养权力技能的人,恰恰是那些出身背景或个人特质通常会让他们处于劣势的人。
Jeffrey Pfeffer: 我认为完全正确。这个周日我就要去田纳西州纳什维尔,给 NFL 中一群试图往上晋升的有色人种做演讲。斯坦福开设了一个项目,因为我认为 NFL 是认真的,想为代表性不足的少数群体创造更多机会。但如果这些人不学习权力技能,他们就不会成功,因为这个世界在很多方面都对他们不利。
课程不是为所有人开设的
Lenny Rachitsky: 你的课程大纲中另一个试图明确的要素,是教导人们不要那么爱下判断。你还写了一句很大的粗体字:“这门课不是为所有人开设的。“你能谈谈为什么它不是为所有人开设的,以及为什么少做评判很重要吗?
Jeffrey Pfeffer: 这门课非常受欢迎,我有一个很长的候补名单,几乎带有传奇色彩。而根据社会影响的原则,我们会受他人行为的影响——我们选择餐厅会受影响,选择音乐会受影响。我不确定自己是不是真的喜欢 Taylor Swift,但我当然想去看看她的演唱会,因为其他所有人都在去。很多人因此报了这门课。有一年尤其明显,有几个学生坐在大约第三排正对着我,他们每天看起来就像是有什么可怕的东西被塞进了什么糟糕的腔体里一样——他们看起来真的是痛苦万分。当然了,他们什么也没学到。如果你来上课却处于那么大的心理不适之中,你是什么都学不到的。
所以我试图告诉人们,要想从这门课中受益,你必须对学习这些内容持开放态度。如果不是的话——顺便说一句,这对任何课程都适用——如果你去上物理课,然后说我不喜欢物理,我讨厌物理,我不相信物理,我不相信物理的理论,诸如此类,你同样什么都学不到。所以,鉴于候补名单那么长,我试图让这门课招到的是那些真正能从中受益的人,而不是坐在那里一脸痛苦的人。至于评判这件事,马太福音第七章说:“你们不要论断人,免得你们被论断。“古兰经说:“只有真主才能审判世人。“美国诗人 Walt Whitman 说:“保持好奇,不要评判。”
特蕾莎修女说:“如果你忙于评判别人,就没有时间去爱他们。“评判——如果我需要与 Lenny 建立积极的关系,因为你在我的工作关键路径上,而工作本质上必然包含相当程度的相互依赖——我通过他人、与他人一起完成事情。如果我认定 Lenny 是各种你想得到的贬义词——愚蠢、无能、不道德,随便什么——那我与你建立积极关系的能力,而你仍然在我的关键路径上,就几乎为零了,除非你是一个比我所以为的大多数人更好的演员,或者我是一个更好的演员。
因此,你应该暂缓评判。意思是说,如果某人处于你的关键路径上,你唯一应该做出的判断就是:他在我的关键路径上。如果我想要完成某件事,我需要他的配合与协作,而我可不喜欢他这个事实实际上是无关紧要的。这些年来我在教高管们的过程中非常清楚地看到,他们所掌握的一项技能就是——你无法看出他们对你有什么看法。这很重要,因为我需要你的协作,我需要你的合作。如果我以某种方式泄露了我看不起你、不喜欢你、不欣赏你,诸如此类,那么让你和我高效合作的可能性基本就归零了。这就是关于评判的道理。这样解释清楚吗?
课程的真实影响
Lenny Rachitsky: 完全清楚。我这里有你教学大纲中的一句话与此相关:“在《权力之路》中我们遇到的人,并非每个人都值得你去效仿。这是一门关于如何把事情做成、如何建立和运用影响力的课程,而达成这些目标有多种途径。“实际上我有两个朋友上过这门课。其中一位我问她这门课对她产生了什么影响——她现在是一位创始人。她告诉我你的课是她在整个斯坦福商学院最喜欢的一门课,因为它真实、适用于创始人的生活。它没有给商业涂糖衣,也没有给生活涂糖衣。它告诉她世界究竟是如何运转的,并且正在帮助她的创业公司取得成功。
Jeffrey Pfeffer: 谢谢你。没有比这更高的赞誉了。我其实不怎么看——这话大概不应该在公开场合说——但我其实不看我的课程评估,因为我想要产生的影响不是让人们喜欢我,而是产生那种影响——让人们在生活中更成功、更高效。
权力七法则
Lenny Rachitsky: 这正好可以自然过渡到你的权力法则之一。那我们就来谈谈你的权力七法则吧。我手边就有你的书,如果大家想了解更多,就是这本,《权力七法则》(Seven Rules of Power)。这是你关于权力的第四本书,也是你关于权力最好的一本书,因为它基本上把所有你学到的内容以一种非常有条理的方式做了总结。让我先列出这七条法则,然后我会深入其中几条,可以吗?
Jeffrey Pfeffer: 听起来很完美。
Lenny Rachitsky: 好,七条法则是:第一,不要给自己设限;第二,打破规则;第三,展现权力;第四,打造强大的个人品牌;第五,毫不松懈地拓展人脉;第六,运用你的权力;第七,成功几乎可以开脱……
Jeffrey Pfeffer: 一切,没错。
Lenny Rachitsky: 好的,成功几乎可以开脱一切。明白了。那我从第四条开始,关于个人品牌。我想从这里开始是因为,我有一个朋友现在正在上你的课,他叫 Ralph,我看到他开始做播客了。他告诉我,这样做是因为你布置给学生的作业的一部分。你把它叫作”践行权力”(Doing Power)。作业是叫这个名字吗?
“践行权力”作业
Jeffrey Pfeffer: 对。我们在整个课程中会给他们布置一系列作业,是一些自我反思性质的作业,但这门课最重要的事情是他们必须去”践行权力”。他们必须在一个学期内做些什么,把课堂上的原则和所学的东西付诸实践。这是因为我做每一件事都有我的理由——如果你不去运用你学到的东西,学习就会消退。就像你去上法语课学了法语,但从来不说法语,在相当短的时间内你就会把学到的东西全部忘掉。所以我希望学习内容能留在他们身上,因此我努力让他们去实际运用。
Lenny Rachitsky: 既然聊到这个话题,我想谈谈你有一本书,讲的是”行动——知行”差距。
Jeffrey Pfeffer: 《知行差距》(Knowing-Doing Gap)。
Lenny Rachitsky: 对,《知行差距》。那我们就在这里稍微多花一点时间,我觉得这很重要。能举一些例子吗?学生们做这些作业时产生了什么成果,有没有什么导致了有趣的结果?
Derek Kan 的故事
Jeffrey Pfeffer: 我举一个最极端的例子。我见过最极端的案例大概是 Derek Kan,K-A-N。Derek Kan 读 MBA 的时候年龄稍大一些。2012 年,他的”践行权力”项目目标是争取被任命为 Mitt Romney——当时 Romney 正在竞选总统——竞选团队的经济政策负责人。信不信由你,他真的拿到了这个职位的邀请。信不信由你,他拒绝了,原因如果你们想知道可以聊聊,但没什么特别有意思的。没过多久,他就进入了交通部,担任第三把手,给 Elaine Chao 做下属。我有一张他来课堂上时的照片,我介绍他的时候,还特意给学生发了”预警”。到 Trump 政府末期,他成为了管理与预算办公室的副主任。而 Trump 政府的典型特征是,到那时候已经没有正职主任了。他实质上掌管着 6 万亿美元的美国联邦预算。这距离他从商学院毕业才六年。
Lenny Rachitsky: 我还以为这些成就是他在上课期间完成的呢。太厉害了。好,这是一个”践行权力”的成功案例。我们来谈谈第一个权力——建立品牌。我觉得到了这里人们就开始觉得不自在了,他们会说,哦不,我不想做这种事,这让我感觉不好。
Jeffrey Pfeffer: 为什么?
Lenny Rachitsky: 我们来聊聊吧。
Jeffrey Pfeffer: 好。
Lenny Rachitsky: 来吧。那就谈谈建立个人品牌这项权力。
为什么需要建立个人品牌
Jeffrey Pfeffer: 顶层的位置天然就比底层少。这个世界——我们可能不喜欢这一点,我也知道有些人,比如已故的 Zappos 创始人 Tony Hsieh,尝试过搞什么”合弄制”之类的——但本质上,世界是等级化的。动物界也是等级化的。处于顶层比底层好,原因有很多。好,如果这一点成立——顶层位置比底层少——那么你推进职业发展的任务就是弄清楚如何获得晋升。获得晋升的方式有很多,但我可以向你保证一件事:如果没人知道你是谁,没有人会提拔 Lenny。所以仅仅让别人知道你是不够的——他们得知道你聪明、有亲和力、具备各种技能——但首先他们得认识你。
如果他们不认识你,你就无法被人选择——你脑子里不存在的东西就不可能被选中。这一点你比我更清楚。因此你必须做一些事情来让自己与众不同。你必须建立自己的品牌。所以当我想到 Lenny 和你的播客时,我脑海中会浮现出某个具体的东西,而不是 250 亿个播客中的又一个。当我想到麦肯锡、Bain 或 BCG 这些咨询公司中的某个人时——成千上万的人都是从一线咨询师起步的——你要怎么做才能让别人知道你是谁?你要怎么做才能既为公司又为自己创造价值?
建立品牌的策略案例
我的朋友 Keith Ferazzi 刚加入 Deloitte 咨询的时候,没有去做那些电子表格的工作——顺便说一句,他本来就不擅长也不喜欢那些。他发起了 Lincoln Quality Award 项目。他决定要把 Deloitte 的品牌认知度从大约 1% 提升到 30%。后来他被任命为合伙人以及 Deloitte 首任首席营销官——虽然他在正式上任之前就离开了。我还有一个朋友 Tristan Walker,他想被 Foursquare 录用,给创始人发邮件,创始人不理他。于是 Tristan Walker 做了一件我觉得非常大胆的事:他开始自己去签合作伙伴关系。有一天创始人说,天哪,他把星巴克都签下来了,也许我应该雇这个人。所以你必须做一些让别人认识你的事情,这就是建立品牌的含义。
Lenny Rachitsky: 你这样说起来听起来很温和无害。当人们听到”我需要建立个人品牌”时,他们觉得这意味着:我需要在 LinkedIn 上发帖,需要在 Twitter 上发帖,开始写 newsletter,开始做播客——我知道这也是其中的一部分。但你见过哪些有效的建立个人品牌的方式,能举些例子吗?
Jeffrey Pfeffer: 我有一个朋友,我会请她来课堂上,一位很高挑的亚裔女性,名叫 Laura Chau。她四年就成为了风险投资公司的合伙人,速度很快。Laura 在 Canaan Partners 工作,C-A-N-A-A-N。Laura 说,我不在 Andreessen Horowitz,不在 Sequoia,不在 Greylock,不在这些知名度很高的大型风投公司。所以如果我要在消费领域拿到项目——那是她的专业领域是消费和消费科技——就必须有人知道 Laura Chau 是谁。因为同样,如果没人知道你是谁,你就拿不到项目。于是她基本上做了你刚才提到的所有事情。她写文章,做了一档播客,邀请有影响力的人来做嘉宾,参与了一本书的撰写,帮助他人。
她组织社交晚宴,尽一切可能让人们认识和记住 Laura Chau。其中一件事是——她个子很高。一般来说,亚裔女性没有这么高。她决定利用这一点,用一些人的话说,她是他们见过的最高的亚裔女性。她穿高跟鞋,穿上高跟鞋后有六英尺一英寸。还有,她来我的课堂时——很多人穿帽衫来上课,各种随意的打扮——她有自己的风格,而且是独特的风格。她会非常策略性地思考:我该怎么穿?我该怎么呈现自己?我该如何出场?我该怎样做才能让人们认识我?当然,前提是有实质内容。如果你只有曝光度而没有实质,人们会知道你没本事。但如果你有实质而没有曝光度,没有人会知道你拥有的实力。
重新框定自我推广
Lenny Rachitsky: 你还谈到可以重新理解这件事——不是在自我推销,而是在放大我所在团队的影响力,或者说是在通过分享我所知道的知识并引导他人来扩展自己的影响力。
Jeffrey Pfeffer: 完全正确,完全正确。
权力法则一:不要自我设限
Lenny Rachitsky: 好,我们进入下一个权力法则。来谈谈权力法则一——“不要自我设限”。讲讲这是什么意思,以及一个人该如何在这方面改进。
Jeffrey Pfeffer: 其实你刚才已经出色地说明了这个原则——你谈到这个话题让人感到不适。当某件事让人不舒服时,人们通常会回避它。所以如果我认为权力是肮脏的,如果我认为权力是邪恶的,如果我认为权力是我不想沾边的东西,那么首先发生的事情就是:我不会去做那些事业成功所需要做的事。这就是我们自我设限的一种方式。另一种自我设限的方式是——很多人患有心理学文献中所谓的冒名顶替综合征(imposter syndrome)。他们相信自己当初是被 Stanford 错误录取的,是被所在公司错误聘用的。他们不知怎的得到了这份工作,但其实并不配待在这里,因为周围的人都比自己更聪明、更优秀,所以他们会有某些行为模式。
我简直不敢相信这种事会不断发生。我会有学生——不多,但有几个——举手,我叫他们发言,他们张口第一句话就是:“我不知道这条评论是否有用。“这叫作先发制人的道歉。如果这条评论没有用,就别讲——这是第一。第二,不要道歉。“请原谅我打断一下。""请原谅占用您的时间。“停止所有这些道歉。如果你得到了现在这份工作,你很可能不仅合格,而且是资历过高的。所以,不要用那些削弱自己力量的词语来形容自己。不要认为自己不配拥有你所在的职位,因为那种态度会流露出来,别人会说:如果 Lenny 自己都觉得他不配这份工作,那也许我也不该认为他配。
Lenny Rachitsky: 所以基本上,第一个权力法则就是——你因为太担心别人是否喜欢你而在自我破坏。我那位现在是创始人的朋友——就是我之前引用过她话的那位——她说从你的课上学到的第一课就是:如果你想被人喜欢,养条狗吧。
Jeffrey Pfeffer: 没错。这句话出自我的好朋友 Gary Loveman,他经营 Harrah’s 很多年,后来这家公司变成了 Caesars,就是那家赌场公司。
被喜欢 vs 被尊重
Lenny Rachitsky: 你也谈到了这一点。我这里有段话——“承认别人往往并不比你强,因为这会让你对自己的处境感觉好一些。“对于那些确实想被人喜欢的人——我喜欢被人喜欢,我不知道这是不是我成长中的某种缺陷。你想要传达的教训是——如果你在意被人喜欢,你的权力就会受限吗?
Jeffrey Pfeffer: 归根结底,你不需要刻意让人讨厌。你不需要违反我的好朋友 Bob Sutton 那本书《The No Asshole Rule》里的原则,毫无来由地做一个混蛋。但你是被雇来完成一项工作的。说起来很有意思,我现在已经太老了——用我的脊椎按摩师的话说,我正遭受”太多生日”之苦。所以我有很多医生,他们都做得很好。相信我,当我选择医生的时候——我有一位神经外科医生,可惜他已经退休了,他给我的脊椎做过两次手术。他被公认为全美排名前二十的医生。如果你去 Yelp 上看,人们评论的是他的性格和他的办公室家具。就像我跟别人说的——他在给我的脊椎做显微手术,我有可能永久瘫痪。我真的不在乎他的性格,也不在乎他的办公室家具。
这是一个极端的例子,但说明了问题。当你被放到一个角色中,你之所以被放到这个角色中,按理说是因为你应该在这个角色中有所表现。如果任命你当主教练,如果我们让你当一支 NFL 球队的四分卫,或者让我们让你当一支 NBA 球队的中锋——你得到这份工作不是因为人们觉得你的性格很可爱。你得到这份工作是因为你有能力让你的组织取得成功。如果你因为担心其他所有人怎么想而不去运用这些能力,你不仅损害了自己,也损害了他们——因为你没有做你被雇来做的事情。
Lenny Rachitsky: 所以一个简单的理解方式是——这让我感觉好多了。随着我们聊下去,我对这些东西越来越不觉得不舒服了,这是个好迹象。就是——不要主动去让人讨厌,不要把被人喜欢放在优先位置,优先考虑能力和尊重。
Jeffrey Pfeffer: 没错,完全正确。
Lenny Rachitsky: 还有做需要做的事。
Jeffrey Pfeffer: 完全正确。
权力法则二:打破规则
Lenny Rachitsky: 好,我们来谈谈权力法则二——“打破规则”。同样,这些权力法则都是积累权力的方法,你说打破规则能获得更多权力。讲讲为什么会这样,具体是什么样的。
Jeffrey Pfeffer: 原因有很多。第一,当你打破规则时,你会脱颖而出。做一些出人意料的事会让你变得令人难忘,而令人忘不了当然很重要,我们之前已经讨论过了。这是第一。第二,规则大多是由那些从现有规则中获益的人制定的。如果我们谈论商业战略,我们会谈到一个现在可能被过度使用的词——我们会谈到做颠覆者。你要颠覆一个行业,怎么做?通过做一些与行业中其他既有者不同的事情。Southwest Airlines 不做轮辐式航线。Amazon 提供极高水平的服务。Whole Foods 不去优化店里商品的成本,而是优化对本地口味的契合度,诸如此类。你要做颠覆者,你要做与众不同的事。
同样的原则也适用于个人。如果你想要成功,第一,你必须做发挥自己优势的事——借用盖洛普(Gallup)一本书的书名来说。第二,你必须做那些让你脱颖而出的事情,你必须做那些从根本上让你更成功的事情。有一种被太多人奉为圭臬的传统观念——不要开口。不要开口,不要寻求帮助。你需要表现出自给自足。我的同事 Frances Flynn,也就是 Frank Flynn,和 Vanessa Lake 合写了一篇文章,标题叫《If You Need Help, Just Ask》。结果发现,人们高估了需要问多少人才能获得帮助,而且寻求帮助会让人感到不舒服。
如果你读过《权力的七条法则》(Seven Rules of Power)的致谢部分,我曾结婚——与 Kathleen Francis Fowler 结婚超过三十五年。我可以发照片给你看,她长得真的像个超模,而我从来都不是特别好看。所以有人问我,你是怎么让她答应和你出去的?答案当然是——我开口问了。我问了,问了,再问了。没有人——好吧,也许不是没有人——但很少有人会在你没有约他们的情况下和你约会。很少有人会在你没有求婚的情况下嫁给你。很少有人会在你没有提出要求的情况下为你做任何事。而最坏的结果是什么?如果你开口问了,对方说不,你的处境并不比当初没问更糟。如果你不开口,你得不到。如果你开口了,对方说不,你也得不到。放下你的自尊心,开口问。
Lenny Rachitsky: 你能想到商业中有人打破规则并因此大获成功的另一个例子吗?或者商业中在这方面特别擅长的人?
Jeffrey Pfeffer: 我可以给你很多例子。我最喜欢的一个例子是 Jason Calacanis。不知道你认不认识 Jason。
Lenny Rachitsky: 哦认识,我知道你做过关于他的案例研究。我很了解他。是的。
Jeffrey Pfeffer: 我觉得 Jason 持续不断地打破各种各样的规则。首先,每次他来我的课上,没人喜欢他——不过没关系。几乎没人喜欢他。但是……
Lenny Rachitsky: 这就是权力法则一。他不在乎这个。
Jeffrey Pfeffer: 对,这就是法则一。而且我认为风险投资行业有一套传统智慧,而他几乎完全反其道而行之。他做很多小赌注,而不是少数几个大赌注。他的运营非常精简,没有很多合伙人——实际上他没有任何合伙人,所以不会被合伙人解雇。他职业生涯始于新闻业,这一点很有意思。当记者是一份很棒的工作,因为你可以问别人各种各样的问题。如果你向聪明的人提问,而你自己也有一定的智力水平,那么这个过程结束后,你会变得极其聪明、极其敏锐。而他在互联网行业的各个方面确实变得极其聪明和敏锐。
Lenny Rachitsky: 他显然拥有很大的权力。我想我会在节目笔记里链接那份案例研究,你在里面详细讲述了他是如何从一无所有变成一个非常有权力的人。
Jeffrey Pfeffer: 顺便说一句,也变得非常富有。
法则五:毫不松懈地拓展人脉
Lenny Rachitsky: 让我们聊聊另一条权力法则,法则五——毫不松懈地拓展人脉。这具体是什么样的?怎样才能做得更好?
Jeffrey Pfeffer: 嗯,有研究表明很多人觉得拓展人脉很”肮脏”,我认为这是因为他们想错了方向。我的朋友 John Levy 写了一本很棒的书叫 You’re Invited,讲的是如何举办人们愿意来的活动。他是个非常棒的人。他会告诉你,拓展人脉的第一原则其实是慷慨。就是慷慨。“我能为你做什么?我能怎么帮到你?我能把你介绍给谁——无论是一家公司、一个产品,还是一个人——谁能在你的职业发展中对你有所帮助。“但要想能够把你介绍给对你有用的人,我必须认识人。如果我谁都不认识,我就无法把任何人介绍给你。我认识的人越多,当你说”我需要认识某个领域的人”时,我认识那个人的可能性就越大。所以你的社交网络越广,你认识的人就越多,你知道的事情也越多。如果说知识就是权力,那么拓展人脉就是获取关于人和关于想法的知识的一条绝佳途径。
Lenny Rachitsky: 听到这个觉得挺有意思——没错,显然这是对的,但如果把它和”如果你想变得更强大、更成功,你就需要这样做”联系起来,我觉得这才是我们这里最有力的观点:如果你想要获得更多权力,这确实是必要的。
Jeffrey Pfeffer: 当然。我有一个关于拓展人脉的有趣故事。斯坦福有一个活动叫 View From The Top,请那些大人物来做演讲。有一次来了一位演讲者,他让我的课一下子火了,因为他是一个极其富有的人。他叫 Omid Kordestani。于是我联系了他,说”Omid,我们吃个早餐吧。“因为在演讲时有人问他哪门课对他的成功最重要,他说是我的课。所以我说,“给我讲讲你的故事。“他说:“我从斯坦福毕业。我是波斯裔移民背景。工程师,在 HP 工作过——总之就是那种让人觉得你是书呆子之类的经历。“他说:“我去几家创业公司工作过,做得不太好。然后到了九十年代中期,我进入了 Netscape。“就是那个浏览器公司,了不起的公司。总之,Marc Andreessen 也在那里。
Lenny Rachitsky: 哦,对。
Jeffrey Pfeffer: “所以我进入了 Netscape 做市场和商务拓展。我没有任何进展。有一天我决定把你的课上到极致——我决定不再做我的本职工作了。“我说:“就是别人给你项目、任务,你都不做了?“他说:“结果我把时间花在了——当然不是在酒吧——而是先去跟 Netscape 内部的人建立关系。事实证明,如果你跟高层领导关系很好,他们其实并不在乎你做不做自己的工作。这是第一。第二,“他说,“很多时候我能找到其他人来做我的工作。所以我基本上没有花时间做自己的工作,而是先在 Netscape 内部拓展人脉。“但 Netscape 公司并不大。所以过了一段时间,他决定——这反正也是他的工作职责,市场和商务方面的——他决定开车在硅谷到处跑,跟各种人交谈。那是浏览器刚刚起步的时候。没人知道浏览器是什么,没人知道互联网会变成什么样。所以他进行了大量精彩的对话。好,现在他基本上认识了所有人。到了1998年,一家很小很小的公司——十个工程师,典型的硅谷公司——十个工程师,全是工程师。我有一个朋友去了一家公司工作,那家公司有26个人,没有一个销售和市场人员。总之,这家公司现在有十个工程师,他们决定雇佣第一个商务人员。作为一家注重分析的公司,他们说,我们要非常分析式地做这件事。我们基本上要问我们能想到的所有人——还有几个我们想不到的——给我们列出你们认识的最好的、有技术背景的商务人员。当然,有一个名字出现在每份名单上——就是 Omid Kordestani。他成为了 Google 的第11号员工,赚了25亿美元。
Lenny Rachitsky: 拓展人脉带来的巨大成功。做得好。但当人们听到拓展人脉,就像你说的,会觉得很尴尬。我不想参加那些人脉活动,假装跟人交谈、假装关心别人。你有什么建议能让拓展人脉不那么令人尴尬吗?
让拓展人脉不再令人尴尬
Jeffrey Pfeffer: 我给学生布置的一个练习是:列出10个人的名单——如果你认识他们,他们也认识你,这些人对你想实现的职业目标会很重要。比如说你想进入生物技术领域,你就需要认识10位生物技术领域的高管之类的。先列出10个人的名单。然后针对每个人,想清楚你要怎么认识他们。顺便说一句,不一定非要在人脉活动上。也许你想像 John Levy 那样举办晚宴——而且有趣的是,由客人来做饭,这个想法很有意思。这当然利用了宜家效应(IKEA effect)——你参与创造的东西,你总是更喜欢。也许你想举办晚宴,也许你想约他们吃午饭。也许你想主动联系他们说:“这是一篇我觉得你会感兴趣的文章。“或者”这是一个我觉得你会受益于认识的人。“比如最近——我不是一个特别擅长拓展人脉的人,不过比一些人强一些——我最近认识了 Esther Wojcicki,她的名字我大概念错了。她被称为硅谷的教母,是 Susan Wojcicki 的母亲。她对抑郁症很感兴趣,尤其是青少年抑郁症。我就说,你应该认识一下 Leanne Williams,她在精神病学与行为科学系,大概发表了300篇关于抑郁症的论文,还发明了一种叫做精准精神病学(Precision Psychiatry)的东西。于是我把她们介绍给了彼此。就是发了一封邮件:“我觉得你们应该认识一下。“她们见面了。我因为认识人并把她们连接起来而获得了功劳,但我也让她们受益了。Leanne 需要筹款,Esther 有资金。Esther 需要了解抑郁症和抑郁症生物标志物方面最前沿的研究——这正是 Leanne 的专长——所以她们都受益了。所以这不是什么令人不适的事情。这是在连接那些因被连接而受益的人。
成为人脉网络中的枢纽
Lenny Rachitsky: 这涉及到你在书里教的一个概念——在拓展人脉时,你想成为一个掮客,你想居于中心位置。这基本上是你需要努力的方向。你能谈谈这意味着什么吗?
Jeffrey Pfeffer: 这意味着你要去连接人。有很多人能从被连接中获益,有很多群体能从被连接中获益,但他们并没有被连接起来。风险投资人做什么?把有想法的人和有钱的人连接起来,并从中收取费用。投资银行家做什么?把想出售企业或融资的人,与想收购企业或拥有资金的人连接起来。房产经纪人做什么?连接房屋的买方和卖方。各种例子中,有些人的整个工作就是连接人。但即使对那些本职工作不是连接人的人来说,你也会从认识人中获益。你认识的人越多,你知道的事情就越多。正如我有时在课堂上说的,如果领导力、管理——随便你怎么叫——就是通过他人把事情做成,那么一个常识性的推论就是:你认识的人越多,你能做成的事情就越多。
Lenny Rachitsky: 作为在产品领域很多事务中居于中心位置、并通过这个播客和Newsletter建立了庞大人脉网络的人,我可以百分之千地证实这一点。它创造了大量的机会和权力——你可以给”权力”加个引号。我亲眼见证了这一切的发生。
Jeffrey Pfeffer: 当然。
追求弱关系
Lenny Rachitsky: 你教的另一个法则是追求弱关系。谈谈这意味着什么。你指的是什么?
Jeffrey Pfeffer: 那些与你强关系密切的人——你的家人、配偶、伴侣、朋友、与你共事的同事——因为他们和你关系亲密,很可能认识同样的事情、同样的人。因此,如果你与在各个维度上与你更不同的人建立联系,你就更有可能获得非冗余的信息,并接触到你原本不认识的人。这同样看起来是常识。但它背后有大量的研究支持。Mark Granovetter,一位至今仍在斯坦福任教的社会学家,写了一篇题为《弱关系的力量》(The Strength of Weak Ties)的文章。不,实际上,抱歉——他写了一篇叫《弱关系的力量》的文章。他的书叫《找工作》(Getting a Job)。他做了一项研究,当时应该是在波士顿地区。他对马萨诸塞州的求职者做了研究,考察了通过投递广告、更正式的渠道获得工作的人,然后也考察了通过人脉网络推荐获得工作的人。结果当然表明,通过你的人脉网络推荐获得的工作要好得多。而且很多时候,人们得到的最好的工作,恰恰是由那些与他们关系并不特别亲近的人推荐的。因为这些人拥有一个视角——这正是我一直在找的词——一个对波士顿劳动力市场生态系统的视角,而其他人没有这个视角,因为他们不处于和其他人相同的位置。
Lenny Rachitsky: 我很喜欢这个道理。我们来聊聊另一种权力,就是使用你的权力。当人们想到”使用权力能创造更多权力”时,这并不直观。你谈到过这如何创造一种自我增殖的权力增长——你越践行权力,权力就越大。你能谈谈这个吗?
使用权力会带来更多权力
Jeffrey Pfeffer: 当然。很有意思的是,我的朋友 Deborah Gruenfeld 写了一本叫《带着权力行动》(Acting with Power)的书,她谈到了很多人们对权力的矛盾心理。有时候人们被放到一个职位上。Herminia Ibarra,现在在伦敦商学院任教,之前先后在西雅图和哈佛教过书,在《哈佛商业评论》上发表过一篇文章,讲的是一个制药公司的女性获得升职后,对她现在管理的同事说她不确定自己为什么能得到这个职位,不确定自己是否配得上。不用说,她在这个职位上做得不好,因为她自己阻碍了自己。但部分原因在于,你被放到一个权力的位置上,你被赋予一个权威的职位,是为了让事情发生。因此,你越是调动资源把事情做成,你就会获得更多的资源。人们愿意与成功者为伍。你越是成功,就越多人想和你合作。你完成的事情越多,就越能得到更多晋升和机会。如果之前交给你五件类似的事情你都没搞定,没有人会再交给你这样的工作。所以你越有能力做事——当然这往往需要权力和影响力——你越有能力做事,就越会被要求做更多的事。更好的是,你会被给予更多的资源来帮助你把事情做成。
Lenny Rachitsky: 而且我觉得有趣的是,你教的一个观点是:仅仅展示出你拥有权力,就能创造更多的权力。人们看到你拥有这种权力,就会更倾向于追随你的引领,对吧?这也是其中的一部分。
Jeffrey Pfeffer: 是的。我刚刚周末看了那部电影——《人猿星球》(Planet of the Apes)系列的最新一部。Jim Collins 离开斯坦福的时候,送了我一本叫《黑猩猩政治学》(Chimpanzee Politics)的书——当然这不是基于《人猿星球》,而是基于对黑猩猩的研究。我们是一样的。人们会被权力吸引,你知道的。顺便说一句,这也能解释总统大选中即将发生的很多事情。
Lenny Rachitsky: 这个我们先留到最后再聊,因为我觉得这是你书中一个很有意思的部分——与 Trump 的关联。我们先放一放,后面再谈,我觉得会非常有意思。顺着我们刚才讨论的思路,权力的另一条法则是以强有力的方式出场。就是看起来有权力。谈谈具体是什么样的。
Jeffrey Pfeffer: 我在伯克利的同事 Dana Carney 正在写一本叫 Tell 的书,讲的是肢体语言的重要性以及如何掌握肢体语言。有证据表明,我们对人的反应主要取决于他们的外表,其次是声音,而最不重要的是他们说话的内容。你可以打开电视、关掉声音来验证这一点。把总统辩论的声音关掉看,效果会好得多。我还有一位营销学的同事叫 Baba Shiv,他谈到人的”freaky mind”——也就是我们实际上是灵长类动物的后代,在很多方面被情绪所控制。所以我们对他人的反应是情感性的。我们会对他们的外表做出反应。经济学有研究表明,控制了各种变量之后,个子高的人赚更多工资,长得好看的人赚更多钱。
当然,只要你不是太好看了,你就能赚更多钱。存在一个最优的吸引力水平,因为人们在潜意识中会对别人的外表、声音、出场方式、自我展示做出反应。在我的课上,我举了 BP 公司的 Tony Hayward——Macondo 漏油事件——以及 Lloyd Blankfein 的例子,他被指控做空自己正在出售的证券,顺便说一句,Goldman 确实这么做了。在他们听到 Tony 或 Lloyd 说话之前,我们先播放大约60秒的画面。Lloyd 的案例是34秒,没有声音。即便你不知道这些人是谁,我让你打赌谁能保住工作、谁会丢掉工作,你仅凭他们的外在表现就能判断出来。
Lenny Rachitsky: 我喜欢这个。
Jeffrey Pfeffer: 顺便说一句,Dana Carney 会告诉你,常识也会告诉你,这些都是可以掌握的技能。Robert de Niro 并非生来就是 Robert de Niro——表演技能是后天习得的。你如何出场,如何掌控全场。有一个人叫 Regis McKenna,年纪大得不得了,以在硅谷经营一家非常非常非常高端的公关公司而闻名。他对人生最大的贡献——顺便说一句,也包括对他个人财富的贡献——就是他塑造了 Steve Jobs。Steve Jobs 刚起步的时候,就算你渴得要死,他也说服不了你买水。他做演讲的能力差到无法挽救。Regis McKenna 和他的团队把 Steve Jobs 纳入麾下,一手打造了 Steve Jobs——一个能把任何东西卖给任何人的人。这些都是技能。这不是关于性格。这不是关于做什么整容手术之类的。这些都是技能——我们讨论过的所有内容:建立人际网络、出场方式,所有这些。这些都是可以学习的技能。
Lenny Rachitsky: 我列了一些你推荐的具体方法,关于如何看起来和表现得更有权力。我读几条,然后想听听你还能想到什么。不要照稿念。眼神交流。言简意赅。你说愤怒可以是权力的信号,因为它打破了常规。有点打破规则的意思。不要道歉——正好相反。更多的手势,这很有意思。开放的身体姿态。更大的声音。好,我现在说话要大声一点了。我喜欢这个。还有什么让人看起来更有权力的方法?
Jeffrey Pfeffer: 侵入他人的个人空间。比如轻轻的触碰,站得离某人近一些。我们说的不是性方面的触碰,而是拍拍手臂或肩膀,和人握手。这也是一种我认为更能体现权力的方式。不过你已经涵盖了主要的部分。眼神交流。BP 的 Tony Hayward 的一个问题是,他拿到一份声明稿来念。你不可能同时念面前的东西又保持眼神交流。所以他看起来像是在念稿子。他看起来不真诚。Jack Valenti,我有幸认识他,他担任美国电影协会(MPAA)主席38年,通常被评为华盛顿特区排名第一或第二的最有效说客。他在来我的课时对学生说——他确实来过我的课——“我从不会带着笔记出现在国会面前。我希望他们相信——顺便说一句,这也是事实——我对材料完全掌控、完全精通,我不需要笔记或一大堆助手在身边帮我。
作为 MPAA 的主席,我了解电影产业。“然后他会跟你聊个小插曲,说电影业是唯一一个持续保持贸易顺差的产业。他会谈论他创造了多少就业岗位,所有这些信息都烂熟于心。但基本上,他对材料的驾驭让他更有权力。有趣的是,Jack Valenti 身高只有五英尺两英寸,他来我的课上讲话后,下一节课我问学生,“你们有什么反应?有什么想法?“一位女生举手说,“他感觉比实际身高要高。“我觉得这个评价既准确又深刻。当五英尺二英寸的 Jack Valenti 出现时,因为他的气场,因为他的肢体语言,因为他的得州口音,因为他在台上移动的方式,他感觉更大。你不会觉得他只有五英尺二英寸。
Lenny Rachitsky: 我再读几条,因为他正是做这些事的好例子。其他让自己看起来更有权力的方法包括:更多的发言时间、更长的注视时间、更不受约束的笑声。这是不是说你可以大笑、感觉很自在……
Jeffrey Pfeffer: 对,幽默。幽默。著名作家 Salman Rushdie 说过——我引用 Salman Rushdie 的话,这句引用非常精彩——“如果你能让人笑,你就能告诉他们任何事。”
Lenny Rachitsky: 没错,脱口秀就是一个很好的例子。话说回来,我觉得听到这里,有些人可能会想:我不想成为这样的人。我不想一直说个不停。我不想假装什么开放姿态。这里的建议是不是说:你不需要做所有这些事情。只要知道这些会让人更有权力就好。不一定要因此评判别人,也许可以做一些,因为它能增加你的权力?你怎么看那些对此感到反感的人?
Jeffrey Pfeffer: 这个问题问得好。所以我在第一天上课就对学生说,我们会经历四个阶段。第一阶段是否认:这在我的文化中不管用,在我的组织中不管用,对我不管用,在我的宗教中不管用,等等。然后是愤怒:他们会对我生气——你怎么能教我们这些东西?然后是悲伤:我真的相信了,我很沮丧。如果我们成功了,他们会进入接受阶段。我的整个过程是——再说一次,我在斯坦福商学院的课不是最热门的,因为我长得好看,或者因为我是斯坦福最聪明的人什么的。我有策略地考虑的是:如果有人走进这门课,我必须在10周内让他从否认走到接受。
练习与辅导:循序渐进的方法
Jeffrey Pfeffer: 那我们怎么做呢?如果我跟你说,Lenny,我想让你在10周内成为一个更好的网球选手,或者更好的轮滑选手,或者花样滑冰选手,或者钢琴演奏者,你会怎么做?我们需要练习和辅导。这就是我在课堂上做的——练习和辅导。我请了高管教练来配合课程,我给学生布置作业,让他们练习课堂上学到的东西。因此到课程结束时,大多数人已经完成了这个转变,因为事实就是如此。如果你从来没有……前几天我吃了一顿饭,一个以色列女性,她说她做了一些非常了不起的事,真的很了不起,这太棒了。她在晚餐上说:“在上你的课之前,我绝对不会做这些事。“而我让他们做到这些的方式,不是我跑来跟你说,Lenny,你明天就游过英吉利海峡。
如果我想让你游过英吉利海峡,我们要从在游泳池里游开始,每天增加一点难度。这就是我们的做法。我不会一开始就说,你要像 Keith Ferrazzi 或 John Levy 那样去拓展人脉,你也不必像 Jason Calacanis 那样大胆——相信我,那个人大胆得不得了。你也不一定要做我做过的事。你要从你能做到的地方开始,把自己推出舒适区。因为——同样,这是常识。
这背后也有大量的研究支撑。如果你一直待在舒适区里,你永远不会做出跟现状不同的、更好的事情。这是事实。如果我跟你说,我要你在10周结束后举起一百磅,我不可能在最后一天才说”举一百磅”就让你做到。我们必须循序渐进。这里的原理是一样的。所以不要去做那些看起来太离谱、太不符合你性格、以至于你根本无法想象自己会做的事。推自己一把,再推自己一把。
Lenny Rachitsky: 这里有一个有趣的关联。有些人说的某种意义上是你在斯坦福的课的对立面,就是 Touchy-Feely。我们之前请过 Carole Robin 上过播客,她有一个框架叫15%法则——把你推出舒适区15%,就一点点,但不要太远。感觉你在尝试做类似的事情。
Jeffrey Pfeffer: 对,完全正确。所以你要从做那些你以为自己做不到的事开始。
作业设计:知行合一
Lenny Rachitsky: 我们再多聊聊作业的事情,还有你说的那种《知行差距》。你已经分享了几个你布置的作业——找10个人,想出10个你想认识的、对你的职业有帮助的人,然后试着去认识他们。还有一个,好像是我朋友开了一个播客,我不确定是哪个作业。你还布置了哪些作业?
Jeffrey Pfeffer: 我们一开始——关于目标设定有大量的文献,说你如果设定了目标,就更有可能实现它们。这也不是什么惊天动地的见解,但确实有极其庞大的科学研究支持这一点。所以我的第一个作业就是——顺便说一句,这在第一天就布置了——你为什么在这里?你为什么来这里?现在是这门课的结束。对你来说成功是什么样的?你希望在我们共处的10周里达成什么?第二个作业,我让他们读《权力之路》里的一个章节——就是《权力的七条法则》之前那本书——里面讲了权力的七个属性。出去让别人在这些属性上给你打分,或者自己给自己打分。给自己制定一个发展计划——精力、专注力、是否愿意承受冲突,所有这些品质。你哪些方面强?哪些方面弱?你想在我们共处的这段时间里提升什么,打算怎么做?
所以我们从目标设定开始。我布置的一个作业——就是 Jason 来的那堂课——你能创造什么资源?你在斯坦福商学院,精英的、高级的斯坦福。你在这10周里能做什么?我有人创建了奖项。一个女生创建了一个奖项,颁给了超模 Karlie Kloss。结果跟学校惹了麻烦。事实证明,请求宽恕比请求许可更容易。你能做什么来创造能给你带来杠杆效应的资源?这是第三个作业。拓展人脉是第四个作业。还有带着权力行动。我给他们看视频,在课前就告诉他们,他们需要变成 Tony Hayward,需要做得更好——顺便说一句,那个门槛很低——来代表 BP。给我一段60到90秒的视频,然后跟同事分享,获取反馈。然后我们在课堂上点人来做。
换句话说,对于每一个概念,我都试图想出一个练习。顺便说一下,这些都集中在课程前半段,到课程后期我们就不太做这些了。但我尽量给他们一个练习,促使他们真正把那个概念付诸实践。找人,哦,还有个人品牌。写一段个人品牌宣言,获取一些反馈,然后重写一遍。你希望别人怎么看待你?顺便说一下,这对你们很有用,因为你是二年级MBA学生,你马上要进入就业市场了。你希望别人怎么看待你?你希望别人对你有什么反应?你希望以什么方式被认知?所以基本上我对每个主题都让他们实践。然后他们的教练——每个教练负责23个学生——会给他们反馈。
Lenny Rachitsky: 我能想象这会对一个人的人生产生很大影响。
Jeffrey Pfeffer: 是的。所以到课程结束时,几年前有个学生跟我说:“不是说我从你的课上得到了比任何其他课更多、更有用的反馈。而是我从你的课上得到的有用反馈,比我所有其他课加起来还多。“
第七条法则:权力的自我强化
Lenny Rachitsky: 我能理解为什么。我们来聊聊最后一条权力法则吧。我们已经讨论了六条,只剩最后一条了。这大概是让人最不舒服的一条——一旦你拥有了权力,人们会忘记你是怎么得到它的。聊聊这是什么意思,这是一条权力法则还是更多只是一个你应该知道的事实?
Jeffrey Pfeffer: 我把第七条法则放进去,原因如下。尽管你我一直在讨论这些,许多人仍然处于某种——我不知道,否认还是什么状态——会说,我担心如果我这样做了,最终……人们相信世界是稳态的。其实不是。他们觉得一切会自动回归平衡,不管怎样。最终我会被拉下来。他们脑子里有伊卡洛斯(Icarus)的神话——你飞得太靠近太阳,翅膀就会融化,你就会坠落。所以我部分通过一次讲座,部分通过第七条法则,以及我在第七条法则中讨论的一些原则,试图让他们明白:事实上,生活根本不是稳态的。生活实际上是自我实现的。如果我相信你有权力,你就会变得更加有权力。
如果我相信你没有权力,你最终几乎会失去所有权力,因此一切都会被遗忘和原谅。我开头——我相信我讲过开头了。如果没有的话,我可以用那位南卡罗来纳州参议员的故事开头,他曾经说特朗普的坏话,然后 Lindsey Graham 成了特朗普最忠实的追随者。《纽约时报》当然对此很感兴趣——你怎么能说特朗普那么多难听话,现在却基本上把嘴唇贴在他身体的某个部位上了?Lindsey 的回答是:我想保持影响力。他是美国总统。这又回到了判断力的问题。我喜欢他吗,这个那个——他是总统。如果我想让法案通过——顺便说一下,他已经接管了共和党。
如果我想做成事情,我需要他站在我这边。和许多自恋者和自我膨胀者一样,说他们的坏话不是把他们拉到你这边的好办法。这就是务实主义。人们忘了比尔·盖茨偷了构建微软帝国的代码。人们忘了 Jeffrey Epstein 在因性犯罪被定罪之后,仍然在与王室成员和纽约媒体精英共进晚餐。人们忘了 Martha Stewart 坐过牢,但她的品牌价值比以往任何时候都高。人们忘了这一切。
我仍然记得坐在某人的办公室里——他的名字我不会提,但我会透露足够的信息,如果有人想查,是能查到的。我坐在这位先生的办公室里,顺便说一下,他是一位犹太人。墙上有他和教皇的合影,有他和罗纳德·里根的合影,有他和所有这些大人物的合影。他的秘诀是什么?顺便说一下,他曾经把一家公司搞到破产。人们实实在在地损失了数十亿美元。他被罚款了,他也亏了钱,但他带着大约七亿美元离开了。事实证明,七亿美元让你成为大人物。他住在洛杉矶最大的房子里——或者洛杉矶最大的房子之一,我跟不上那些大房子的建造速度了。人们想要接近金钱、权力和成功,他们会为了接近你而忽略你的缺陷。
Lenny Rachitsky: 你在书里也谈到了这一点。你描述的不是世界应该怎样运作,而是世界本来就是这样,以及在你身处的这个世界里如何取得成功。
Jeffrey Pfeffer: 顺便说一下,这不仅是世界现在的样子,也是世界过去的样子,以及世界将来的样子。因为这些想法不是我某天坐下来凭空编造出来的。我讨论的所有这些想法,包括这最后一条,都有社会科学和逻辑的支撑。所以你不仅能解释现象是什么,还能解释为什么是这样。
特朗普与权力法则
Lenny Rachitsky: 那我们来聊聊特朗普吧。在你书的开头,你说你本来打算写一本关于特朗普为什么如此成功、他做对了什么的书。但你意识到,如果写一本”如何成为特朗普”这样的书,没有人会买账。而如果你仔细想想所有这些法则,很明显他在每一方面都非常擅长。
Jeffrey Pfeffer: 没错。顺便说一下,不是因为他读过这本书,而是因为他通过试错或其他方式做到了。
Lenny Rachitsky: 当人们听到这个说法时,他们会说,我不想成为特朗普。我不喜欢特朗普的做派。我不想被别人那样看待。对于那些知道”哇,也许他正是这些东西的缩影”的人来说,你有什么想法能让他们在运用这些权力法则、建立权力时感到更自在?
Laura Esserman 的故事
Jeffrey Pfeffer: 我给你讲个故事。1993 年,一位名叫 Laura Esserman 的医生上了我的课。她公开声称这是她在斯坦福唯一一门读了所有指定阅读材料的课。顺便说一下,她在斯坦福读 MBA 期间,正怀着第一个孩子,同时还全职行医。Laura Esserman 有一天对我说:“你有案例。你写了所有这些人做坏事的案例。你为什么不写一个做好事的人的案例?“当然了,我写了一个关于她的案例。她来到课堂上。案例大概在 2003、2004 年发表的。
她来到课堂上,学生们的反应——怎么说呢?对她苛刻?这还是轻的。学生们把她批判得体无完肤,因为她极其聪明、极其好意,但她不愿意社交。她说:“我没时间搞应酬那一套。“她几乎不愿意做我们今天讨论的任何这些事情。于是她和她的丈夫 Michael Endicott——他们是我世上最亲密的两个朋友——和我一起出去吃午饭。她气得头顶冒烟,怒不可遏。她是一个非常有成就、非常聪明的女人,而且她非常愤怒。我对她说:“Laura,你有无限的精力和无限的智慧。你是一股不可阻挡的力量。让我用物理学的一个概念来说明。你正在制造摩擦力。凭借足够大的力量,你可以克服摩擦力。但如果你减少摩擦力,想想你能多做成多少事情。“她看着我,发生了改变。我可以告诉你——我在公开场合也说过,因为我有幸为她的所有获奖做介绍,她现在已经赢得了无数奖项。包括 2016 年《时代》杂志全球百大最具影响力人物。我骄傲地对人们说——我真心以此为傲——在我一生所做的所有事情中,最让我感到自豪的就是塑造了 Laura Esserman。
Lenny Rachitsky: 这是一个了不起的故事,也是一个从不同角度思考这个问题的绝佳方式。
Jeffrey Pfeffer: 是的。我对 Laura 说:“你想在药物开发流程上做出深刻的变革。你想在我们是否从人们正在接受的治疗中学到东西这个问题上做出深刻变革。你想在研究与教学、研究与实践之间的联系上做出深刻变革。你想做所有这些事情。如果你要实现其中任何一件,你都需要跨过那座桥。“她还没有完全跨过那座桥,我们还会拿这件事开玩笑。但她已经跨过了很多,取得了令人难以置信的成就。她赢得了所有能颁发的癌症奖项。顺便说一下,她从美国癌症协会那里赢得了所有这些奖项——而她曾经和他们对抗过。她从 Susan Cohen 基金会那里赢得了这些奖项——而她也曾经和他们对抗过。
Lenny Rachitsky: 这是你书开头那句引言的绝佳例证,我这里就有这句话:“如果你希望权力被用于善,就需要更多善良的人拥有权力。”
Jeffrey Pfeffer: 完全正确。
Lenny Rachitsky: 我很喜欢这句——这就像被认为是你说的一句话,你是怎么……
Jeffrey Pfeffer: 是的。嗯,我不记得自己说过这句话,但有人说是我说的。那我就认下这个功劳吧。我对 Laura 说:“你想改变医学?医学不会在没有权力和影响力作用的情况下自行改变。如果改变会自然而然地发生,它早就发生了。你必须对抗根深蒂固的利益集团。“她在筛查方面有一整套想法——我们不需要展开讲,因为涉及很多技术细节。她说,每个超过一定年龄的人都在每年做乳腺X光检查,这从多个角度来看都是愚蠢的。你可以去了解——她上过 PBS NewsHour 谈论这个问题。正是这件事让她和放射科医生们起了冲突。放射科医生们当然在推销筛查服务。她说,有些人需要每个月筛查一次,而有些人因为基因原因根本不需要筛查。她主张定制化筛查,或者说精准筛查。总之,她和所有人对抗。
权力的法则与自主的代价
Jeffrey Pfeffer: Richard Blum,Dianne Feinstein 的丈夫——Dianne 和 Richard Blum 如今都已去世——当时出席了她发起 Athena Project 的一个活动。Athena Project 是她现在与合作伙伴一起,正在加州大学医疗系统中收集 15 万名患者的诊断、治疗和预后数据的项目。我当时被安排去做一个开场演讲来活跃气氛。Dick Blum 也在场。Dick Blum 当然很有钱,他是 Dianne Feinstein 的丈夫。我对他说:“Dick,Laura 是怎么把你请来的?“我至今还记得,我想这句话被我写进了其中一本书里。他对我说:“听着,“他说,“我已经明白了,当 Laura 让你做一件事的时候,你可能会说不,但到头来,你终究还是会去做。不如省省那个折腾。”
Lenny Rachitsky: 天哪,我觉得你肚子里有无穷无尽的好故事,我们可以一直聊下去。让我试着快速总结一下权力的法则,看看是否还能引出别的话题。然后我还剩几个问题。《权力的七条法则》:别给自己设限、打破规则、以有力的方式出场、打造强大的个人品牌、毫不松懈地建立人脉、运用你的权力,以及明白一旦你获得了权力,你为获得权力所做的事情将被原谅、被遗忘,或者两者兼有。让我问你一个问题,可能有一半是在开玩笑。你教人们如何获取权力。那你为什么不是世界上最强大的人?
Jeffrey Pfeffer: 啊,这是一个非常好的问题。我也有一个非常好的回答。我有一位同事,遗憾的是他已经去世了,名叫 James G. March,是一位非常杰出的学者。James March 很多年前对我说过一句话,至今完全正确:你可以拥有权力,也可以拥有自主,但两者不可兼得。而我选择了一种自由、自主的生活。我可以给你讲一些让你落泪的故事。我给你讲一个。我们商学院有一位院长,他的妻子当时因癌症濒临垂危,预计会在秋天去世。商学院找到他说,我们给你秋天这个学期假,让你陪妻子。结果她一直活到了来年六月。此时已经是冬天了。
你作为商学院院长,有你的职责。你需要会见校友,你需要四处去筹款,你需要出席各种活动、大学的活动。我认为那并不一定是他想度过冬天和春天学期的方式,但那是你必须要做的事。当我想要 Jack Valenti 来我的课堂时,我没有打电话给 Jack Valenti,我打给了 Judy Dickey。Judy Dickey 是他的助手。Judy Dickey 掌控着他的日程。我约好 Jack 在某一天来。他那天来不了。好,我可以调整日程。他这一天能来吗?
当我想要我的朋友 Gary Loveman——他当时运营 Harrah’s 和 Caesars,后来是 Aetna 的二号高管——来我的课堂时,我打给了 Reggie Kirk。我没有打给 Gary Loveman。这就够了。我没有一个掌控我日程的助手。我自己掌控我的日程。你不会在任何网站、任何电脑上找到我的 Outlook 日历。我要的是自主。如果我对你说:“Lenny,我给你 10 亿美元,或者干脆 100 亿美元,如果你能买回——”
Lenny Rachitsky: 好。
Jeffrey Pfeffer: 等等,如果你能重新过上上周——你做不到。你做不到。时间只有一个方向。我要掌控我的时间。这对我来说重要得多。当院长或副院长,那是别人邀请我做的职位。我接受过一个学术行政职务。说起来你可能不信,我在斯坦福的记录中留有一笔:我领导了——这是根据我的经费支出记录、那位当时是院长的诺贝尔奖得主所说的话——高等教育史上最大、最成功的转型。我做过。我做过一次。我不喜欢。人生太短了。我要做自己喜欢的事。
Lenny Rachitsky: 这确实是一个非常深刻的观点,我觉得人们很少去想——人们总是有一种获取权力的冲动,而你的意思是这有一个很大的代价,就是自主性的丧失。我想到我之前试图邀请 Satya Nadella 上播客的时候,我跟他的公关团队聊,他们说:未来三个月每个小时都已经被排满了。我们知道他在做什么。他的日程极其满。你再想想总统,显然还有 Elon。我完全理解你说的。
权力带来的审视与信任困境
Jeffrey Pfeffer: 确实如此,而我不想那样。而且话说回来,权力还伴随着极大的可见性。唐纳德·特朗普 40 年来一直在做他现在被指控的那些事情——税务方面的问题,所有那些事。他一辈子都是个骗子。但当你成为总统,人们就会去审视那些过去他们不会去看的事情。你当上大学的校长,你就会受到审视——哈佛法学院院长和斯坦福法学院院长都不得不辞职,一个是因为抄袭,另一个是因为学术不端。
权力来了。你会被放在显微镜下。人们会看你开什么车,看你和谁约会,看你怎么花时间,看你和谁来往——你将毫无隐私可言。你对自己生活的掌控将微乎其微。每个人都会觉得完全有权在公开或私下场合剖析你。而且你将面临信任困境:当你富有且有权势时,问题就变成了——人们赞扬你、人们与你交往,是因为你这个人,还是因为你所占据的位置?
Lenny Rachitsky: 是啊。沿着这个话题追问一下——在你的课上,你会花时间说服人们不要那么执着于权力、不要那么执着于爬到顶峰吗?这是课程的一部分吗?
Jeffrey Pfeffer: 不会。
Lenny Rachitsky: 还是说只是……
权力对家人的代价
Jeffrey Pfeffer: 不。我教他们——我们有一堂关于权力代价的课。我请来 Rudy Crew。Rudy Crew 曾在 Rudy Giuliani 手下担任纽约市学校总监。顺便说一下,他讲了很多关于 Rudy Giuliani 的趣事——Rudy Giuliani 不是一夜之间变成现在这个笑话的,他是花了很大力气才变成这样的。但无论如何,他讲了。有一年,因为他女儿当时住在湾区,当我问他关于他担任的那些职位——迈阿密戴德县学校负责人、纽约市学校负责人——带来的影响时。
如果希拉里当年赢了,他就会成为教育部长。真的是这样。当时 Lauren 就在教室里。他对全班说,Jeffrey 问了我这个问题,“为什么我们不请 Lauren 来回答?“等她说完的时候,在场的人没有一个不流泪的。作为一个孩子是什么感受?作为这些人的另一半是什么感受?你是知道答案的,因为你可以看到那些自杀事件,那些离婚率。这不仅仅是你自己付出的代价,还有你的家人付出的代价。
Lenny Rachitsky: 我觉得这给整场对话提供了一个非常好的平衡。也许作为最后一个问题——如果给听众布置一个课后作业来实践这些权力法则,你会推荐什么?我知道这可能取决于他们擅长什么、不擅长什么。有什么是他们可以做来开始朝其中某条法则迈进的吗?
Jeffrey Pfeffer: 我想说的是,这其实呼应了你在我们对话中多次提到的观点——做这些事情会让人不舒服。好,那如果我想让你做一件不舒服的事,我可以说,“Lenny,你自己去做这件不舒服的事吧。“或者我可以说,“Lenny,我希望你带着帮助、带着社会支持来做这件事。“所以我想对大家说的第一件事就是,如果你觉得这让你不舒服,或者你觉得你不擅长这些,那就去找教练。请一个教练。
我会定期把那些为我的线上和校内课程提供辅导的教练名单发出去。我很乐意分享,他们也很乐意接到生意。请一个教练。组建一个个人董事会,就像《华尔街日报》里说的那样。换句话说,找一群人给你建议、给你社会支持,并且监督你执行。这是我会告诉人们去做的第一件事。一个人很难做成任何事。如果我对你说,“Lenny,我想让你做一个极其成功的播客,而且不许借助任何帮助。“你不可能走到今天这个位置。就是这么简单的道理——寻求帮助。
Lenny Rachitsky: 这感觉像是第一条法则的一部分。别让自己成为自己的障碍。寻求帮助。Jeffrey,我做这期播客之前其实挺紧张的,因为我以为会是一些超级让人不舒服的内容。结果发现这一切都非常合情合理,而且这些法则的阐述方式非常好,确实有充分理由去投入培养这些技能。所以非常感谢你抽出时间来这里,分享所有这些故事和洞见。在结束之前,你还有什么想分享的吗,作为最后的寄语留给听众?我们完成了,所有内容都覆盖到了?
Jeffrey Pfeffer: 没有了,我很开心。你是一个非常出色的采访者,这就是为什么你的播客如此成功。
Lenny Rachitsky: 谢谢你的夸奖。
Jeffrey Pfeffer: 我很乐意和你共度这段时光,也希望听到这期节目的听众——首先,希望听众会很多——同时也希望他们觉得这些内容有用。
Lenny Rachitsky: 我相信他们一定会的。最后两个问题。如果人们想在网上找到你,或者找到你的书来了解更多,应该去哪里?另外,听众怎样才能对你有帮助?
Jeffrey Pfeffer: 你可以在任何卖书的地方找到我的书。不过别去实体书店找,因为没有人会进货,包括斯坦福书店在内——一旦有人买就卖光了。你可以在亚马逊上找到。《权力的七条法则》。这就是找到这本书的方式。顺便说一下,在书的末尾我提到了我的个人网站 jeffreypfeffer.com。如果你访问那个网站,可以找到我的课程大纲。你可以自己学这门课,也可以找个人一起,或者组建一个小组来学。
你可以找到研究论文、文章、专栏。你可以在 LinkedIn 上关注我,我已经不用 Twitter 了,但 LinkedIn 可以关注。关于这个话题有大量资源可用。曾经有一家公司考虑请我去他们组织做一次演讲,最终决定聘请我的那位女士说,“当我在委员会上讨论你、主张我们应该请你来做这次演讲时,委员会里有人问,‘他演讲得好吗?‘“她的回答——我非常喜欢,我一直记得——她的回答是,‘他是一位卓越的教育者。‘“我的工作就是教育。这就是我五十多年来一直在做的事情。
Lenny Rachitsky: 天哪,我都没意识到。
Jeffrey Pfeffer: 五十多年来,我一直在从事教育。不仅仅是关于权力,还包括许多其他领域。但我做的就是教育这一行,所以我乐于为人们提供资源、提供阅读材料。《权力的七条法则》有详尽的注释,在书的末尾也提到了如何联系教练。你可以去网站获取这本书。但我想说的是,和我们今天讨论的一致——如果你只是读书,你不会取得太大的进步。你必须去实践。你不可能通过阅读关于网球的书,或者看一部关于 Serena 或 Venus Williams 的电影来学会打网球。你必须真正走上球场去打。
Lenny Rachitsky: 这正好也是你另一本书的好推荐——《知行差距》,它确实能帮助你培养这项技能,同样可以在各大零售商处找到。Jeffrey Pfeffer,非常感谢你来参加节目。
Jeffrey Pfeffer: 谢谢你邀请我上你的节目。
Lenny Rachitsky: 大家再见。非常感谢收听。如果你觉得这期节目有价值,可以在 Apple Podcasts、Spotify 或你喜欢的播客应用上订阅。也请考虑给我们评分或留下评论,这真的能帮助其他听众找到这个播客。你可以在 LennysPodcast.com 找到所有往期节目或了解更多关于节目的信息。下期再见。
术语表
| 原文 | 中文 |
|---|---|
| Acting with Power | 《带着权力行动》 |
| Aetna | 保留原文(美国保险公司) |
| American Cancer Society | 美国癌症协会 |
| Andreessen Horowitz | 保留原文(风险投资公司名) |
| Athena Project | 保留原文(Laura Esserman 发起的医学研究项目) |
| Baba Shiv | 保留原文(斯坦福营销学教授) |
| Bill Gates | 比尔·盖茨(国际知名人物,公认中文译名) |
| Bob Sutton | 保留原文(斯坦福大学教授) |
| BP | 保留原文(英国石油公司) |
| broker | 掮客/中间人 |
| Caesars | 保留原文(赌场/酒店品牌) |
| Canaan Partners | 保留原文(风险投资公司名) |
| Chimpanzee Politics | 《黑猩猩政治学》 |
| Dana Carney | 保留原文(伯克利学者) |
| Deborah Gruenfeld | 保留原文(斯坦福大学教授) |
| Derek Kan | 保留原文(课程学员/案例人物) |
| Dianne Feinstein | 保留原文(美国参议员) |
| Doing Power | 践行权力(课程作业名称) |
| Elaine Chao | 保留原文(美国政治人物) |
| Esther Wojcicki | 保留原文(被称为”硅谷教母”) |
| Frank Flynn / Frances Flynn | 保留原文(斯坦福大学教授) |
| Gallup | 盖洛普 |
| Gary Loveman | 保留原文(Harrah’s/Caesars 前CEO) |
| Gerald Ferris | 学者,政治技能量表开发者,保留原文 |
| Getting a Job | 《找工作》 |
| Goldman | 保留原文(Goldman Sachs 简称) |
| Greylock | 保留原文(风险投资公司名) |
| Harrah’s | 保留原文(赌场/酒店品牌) |
| Herminia Ibarra | 保留原文(伦敦商学院教授) |
| holacracy | 合弄制(一种去中心化的组织管理方式) |
| hub and spoke | 轮辐式(航空业航线模式) |
| IC (Individual Contributor) | 个人贡献者 |
| IKEA effect | 宜家效应 |
| imposter syndrome | 冒名顶替综合征 |
| Jack Valenti | 保留原文(美国电影协会前主席) |
| James G. March | 保留原文(斯坦福大学学者) |
| Jason Calacanis | 保留原文(企业家/投资人) |
| Jeffrey Epstein | 保留原文 |
| Jim Collins | 保留原文(管理学者) |
| John Levy | 保留原文(作者,You’re Invited) |
| Judy Dickey | 保留原文(Jack Valenti 的助手) |
| Kathleen Francis Fowler | 保留原文(Jeffrey Pfeffer 前妻) |
| Keith Ferazzi | 保留原文(课程案例人物) |
| Knowing-Doing Gap | 《知行差距》 |
| Laura Chau | 保留原文(课程案例人物) |
| Laura Esserman | 乳腺癌外科医生,保留原文 |
| Lauren | 保留原文(Rudy Crew 的女儿,课堂学生) |
| Leanne Williams | 保留原文(斯坦福精神病学学者) |
| Lindsey Graham | 保留原文(美国参议员) |
| Lloyd Blankfein | 保留原文(Goldman Sachs 前CEO) |
| Macondo | 保留原文(墨西哥湾漏油事件地名) |
| Marc Andreessen | 保留原文(Netscape 联合创始人、投资人) |
| Mark Granovetter | 保留原文(斯坦福大学社会学家) |
| Martha Stewart | 保留原文 |
| Matthew | 马太福音(圣经书卷名) |
| Michael Endicott | 保留原文(Laura Esserman 的丈夫) |
| Mitt Romney | 保留原文(美国政治人物,虽有一定知名度但非全球公认中文译名级别,保留原文更准确) |
| MPAA | 保留原文(Motion Picture Association of America) |
| Netscape | 保留原文(浏览器公司) |
| Omid Kordestani | 保留原文(Google 早期员工) |
| Paths to Power | 《权力之路》 |
| PBS NewsHour | 保留原文(美国公共电视新闻节目) |
| Planet of the Apes | 《人猿星球》 |
| political skill | 政治技能 |
| Precision Psychiatry | 精准精神病学 |
| Reggie Kirk | 保留原文(Gary Loveman 的助手) |
| Regis McKenna | 保留原文(硅谷公关人物) |
| Richard Blum | 保留原文(Dianne Feinstein 的丈夫,投资家) |
| Robert de Niro | 保留原文(美国演员) |
| Ronald Reagan | 罗纳德·里根(国际知名人物,公认中文译名) |
| Rudy Crew | 保留原文(前纽约市学校总监) |
| Rudy Giuliani | 保留原文(前纽约市长) |
| Salman Rushdie | 保留原文(英国作家) |
| Satya Nadella | 保留原文(微软 CEO) |
| Sequoia | 保留原文(风险投资公司名) |
| Serena Williams | 保留原文(网球运动员) |
| Seven Rules of Power | 《权力的七条法则》 |
| Southwest Airlines | 保留原文 |
| Steve Jobs | 保留原文(苹果联合创始人) |
| Susan Cohen Foundation | 保留原文(基金会名) |
| Susan Wojcicki | 保留原文(前 YouTube CEO) |
| Taylor Swift | 保留原文(国际知名歌手) |
| The No Asshole Rule | 保留原文(书名) |
| The Strength of Weak Ties | 《弱关系的力量》 |
| Tony Hayward | 保留原文(BP 前CEO) |
| Tony Hsieh | 保留原文(Zappos 创始人) |
| Touchy-Feely | 斯坦福商学院热门课程名,保留原文 |
| Tristan Walker | 保留原文(课程案例人物) |
| Vanessa Lake | 保留原文(学者) |
| Venus Williams | 保留原文(网球运动员) |
| View From The Top | 保留原文(斯坦福活动名) |
| Walt Whitman | 保留原文(美国诗人) |
| Whole Foods | 保留原文 |
| You’re Invited | 保留原文(书名) |
| 唐纳德·特朗普 | 原文 Donald Trump(国际知名人物,公认中文译名) |
| 希拉里 | 原文 Hillary(国际知名人物 Hillary Clinton,公认中文译名) |
此文档由 AI 分片翻译(translate_long_document)