Jeffrey Pfeffer: Coaching the Seven Rules of Power

thank you Sue and welcome to everyone from around the world good afternoon good morning good evening from wherever you're joining us as Sue indicated my name is Jeffrey Hall I'm the executive director of The Institute of coaching and I am thrilled to be kicking off our fall season of webinars um with Dr Jeffrey pfeffer from Stanford University who has an amazing new book out called seven rules of power surprising but true advice on how to get things done and Advance your career so I am sure that many of you are familiar with Jeff's work and um I was looking over some of the many many books he's written the best sellers that he's written and I remember my own introduction to his work came when he was writing uh leadership I'm trying to remember it leadership BS was one of my favorites um I don't remember how many years ago that that you wrote that Jeff but it really got me definitely thinking it was provocative um as someone who was originally in HR became a psychologist and then worked in leadership development I was uh animated to say the least by your thought-provoking um research and writing in that book and in many other books so Jeff has asked me today to conduct our webinar as uh fireside chat format so rather than doing a formal presentation I'm going to get to play Oprah and uh interview Jeff which is really an honor because I've been reading his books for many many years and I think many of us are familiar with his work so I'm very excited to have the opportunity to be in discussion dialogue with him and to that uh and we're also going to be looking to have a lot of dialogue with you so we will encourage you I want to repeat what Sue said earlier which was we will encourage you to try to use the Q a box so that we can a number of folks we're going to have probably up to or upwards to a thousand of you so between Jeff and me we're going to do our best to read the chat read the Q a and before we kick off though for anyone who is not familiar with Jeff pfeffer's work let me just give you a little bit of background he is the Thomas d d the second professor of organizational behavior at Stanford Graduate School of Business he's the author or co-author of 16 books on topics evidence-based management and what he calls The Knowing doing gap which I'm sure he'll refer to today when we talk he receives his PhD from Stanford and taught at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of California Berkeley But ultimately returned to Stanford in 1979 as a full Professor he is the author of many many articles and books chapters and has won numerous awards for his scholarly research including an honorary doctorate from tillberg University in the Netherlands which is right down the street from where I am right now so that's quite an honor he has taught seminars in 40 countries and been a visiting professor at Harvard Business School London Business School Singapore management University and for many years iese in Barcelona serves on the board of directors of several human capital software companies and other public and private company non-profit boards and he lives in California which he's joining us today from Northern California and for those of you that are not familiar you may want to look into his website and get not only grab this wonderful new book but I've also read dying for a paycheck um his original book called Power why some people have it and others don't and I think this current book kind of updates that but they're all really excellent reads especially for us coaches who are looking to support our clients to be effective in their leadership roles and to really work towards success both in profession and in life so with that I want to welcome Jeff thank you for joining us thank you for having me as part of the as part of this event it's a pleasure to have you and uh I want to just take a minute to say hello to folks that are saying hi from all over the world so you get a chance to see we have people calling in I mean uh joining us from oh my God I can't even begin everywhere from Boston to Sacramento to South Africa to Atlanta from Canada Winnipeg Canada Germany Chicago the Bahamas ooh that's nice Philadelphia I can't uh Brussels so people from all over the world and um I think needless to say uh this is such an honor for me to get an opportunity I've read a number of your books I'm excited to be with you today I'd love to start Jeff with um asking you to recount maybe the story and I know it's early in the book you meant you do you describe this but what led you to want to write about power one more time well um several things number one is I've you know taught both an online and then of course the on-campus version of this class for many years um I've slowly evolved in my ability to convey the material and to uh and to understand where people are challenged by this material as they often are and so I thought I would try to take that learning and try to present the material in a more effective way I think that's number one number two I hear all the time statements that I don't actually believe have any empirical evidence behind them but I hear them all the time their power is different that we live in a world of social media which we obviously do that we have a new generation etc etc and so that the rules of power have changed there have been books called new Power co-written by my dear friend Henry Tims there's Moses naims book the end of power the power has changed there's no evidence for that um but uh so I wanted to take that challenge head on as well and so that's really why I wrote another book on on power to really try to um explain things I think more effectively and to deal in the introduction with this idea that things are different which they aren't the other thing I've done in this book which which began really in power but this book opens um you know I hear also the other story which I think is also incorrect is that you know the my perspective on power is only good if you're a um a white man and so the book begins with an example of an African-American woman ends with an example of an African-American woman has you know a Nigerian woman who works for or worked and she doesn't anymore for the largest Italian Oil Company etc etc so this book is filled with examples in addition to of course being filled with the latest social science research it's filled with examples of diverse people from literally around the world to try to get away from this idea um that that these principles and these ideas apply only to um you know dominant you know white males yeah I can totally appreciate that I think that obviously diversity is a crucial diversity inclusion Equity social justice are crucial topics in the last couple of the last few years they have been for decades but really coming to a pivotal moment and the fact that you're very clear throughout the book with your case studies that these principles are applicable to everyone and in fact can really support the elevation and the movement towards success and power and Leadership of minorities of women of people of color is is a really powerful Testament I'm curious to hear you say a little bit more about what your thoughts on are on why supposedly in the last few years the literature on power or in leadership development has changed what what brought that about do you think um I think people are looking for um positive messages I think people are looking for a subject that you and I talked about when we talked the other day they're looking for in quotes principal leadership or ethical leadership or all kinds of words in in advance of the word leadership and I would just remind you know I would say two things number one I use executive coaches in both my on-campus and online versions of this class the on-campus version I have six coaches three for each section and for the online version which has an enrollment of 400 I use or 17 or 18 coaches or would call them course facilitators but they are essentially executive coaches so this is a class and my course has been built around uh the idea that we will use executive coaches to help people with their doing power project number one and number two to get over any self doubts or self-inhibitions that get in their way of um of being as powerful as they can be and so I am quite comfortable with the the idea of coaching around power because because I use coaches in the class both the online and the on-campus version and and one of my coaches who I had dinner with when I was in Spain recently pointed out to me that now 70 percent of his clients um are women or people from underrepresented groups in the U.S maybe African Americans or Latinos in other countries uh different groups that would also be considered uh disadvantaged or in some way in the minority so so so the um the clientele of my coaches has really I think reflected the fact that this is a book that tries to empower people to um to be more successful in their careers right yeah no I can appreciate that and having read the book I can I can say that I appreciated that the at the very end towards or towards the very end of the book you actually point to the value of coaching um when you had a case study of a woman who was uh put in a very difficult position and given um but but the you're also quite pointed in the way you uh described the coaching dynamic in that the coach offered a lot of empathy and uh um compassion and you said you probably should have fired that coach I I think people need to I think you uh you all obviously we need to be empathetic but we also need to teach people how to deal with these situations and and let them understand you know I mean one of the principles that I try to teach in my class and I think one of the principles that underlies this book is the idea that we are responsible as HR people have told us for 50 years we are responsible for our careers and the only person whose Behavior we can actually really control is our own and so therefore we really have a responsibility and a and a task to be as effective as possible in dealing with difficult situations and maybe people are going to not be nice or Fair maybe they will be presidents maybe there will be many things maybe they will do all kinds of things to try to outmaneuver us but you know and and none of this is of course very nice but the only person who we can the only the only way to really deal with that is to be in control of our own behavior and to be as effective as we can be yeah and I think that that's what you were pointing to in that little vignette about the coach that the a really powerful coach would have been both empathetic and compassionate but also having a dialogue with that individual about what they could potentially do what Their practices could be to take that situation and turn it around and to exert their power and influence right yep that's right so I would love to jump in already to our questions because Suzanne cook greater who I know well and is a very well-known coach and a thought leader for the Institute of coaching has the code the question that I had on the tip of my tongue so thank you Suzanne which is to start right off with y7 um we're gonna ask you to walk us through what the seven principles are but she's asking why not eight why not ten why not six it seems to her a bit limiting and a bit over certain so I'm curious what your response is to that well you know in 1956 a guy published an article called the magic number seven plus or minus two you can keep about seven things in your head um more than that is too many fewer than that is probably too few um there are there are many as I point out in the book many examples of seven there are the seven wonders of the world uh you know the seven C's the seven this the seven that um I think seven habits um so um so seven seemed like a good number um and of course you can expand or contract depending upon how you want but seven seemed like a good number to capture what needed to be captured and and to be things that people can remember in their head right yeah there's seven things which you kind of led me into so I I will go over them very quickly and then we can talk about them if you wanted more detail the first the first rule of power is the the first rule which I think is the most important or maybe the second most important is to get out of your own way to not engage in what I would call preemptory apology to not in any way describe yourself in ways that disempower you uh to not say I'm not you know I can't do this or I can't do that I'm an introvert or I'm a you know whatever um a power is basically a skill that people can learn we're not asking people to change um their race their gender their personality or anything else these are skills and just as you can learn tennis or to play the piano or to speak a different language you can learn the skills of power so the first rule is to get out of your own way the second rule of course is to break the rules because Malcolm Gladwell wrote this famous article in the New Yorker many years ago how David beats Goliath and of course how David beats Goliath is they David is not going to fight Goliath using Goliath's rules because otherwise he wouldn't be able to probably move in the armor and the sword with the sword and so David is going to fight the battle as he would as a shepherd and the general principle I think is that you want to break the rules because oftentimes the rules disadvantage you if you're not already in a powerful position yeah you talk in the book a lot about the I think you called it appropriate inappropriateness or something like that I think then then rule three is to act and speak with power as we know from studies of communication the most important aspect is how you look your body language second is how you sound by far the least important in terms of persuading other people is the content of what you say believe it or not and so you know again my colleague Dana Carney at Berkeley has and Amy Cuddy of course has done this fabulous Ted Talk on presence and body language and Dana's writing a book on body language these are also things that can be mastered rule four is to build a powerful brand because I think just as we are we are all in the business of selling ourselves and selling our ideas all the time and brand and and building a brand and promoting that brand is important for people certainly in their careers rule five is to network relentlessly most people spend insufficient time building social relationships if leadership or manage is getting things done through other people the more other people you know and the more others the more supporters you have the better off you're going to be that seems pretty obvious to me rule six is to use your power uh the the more power is not something that some kind of scarce resource that the more you use it the less you have to the extent that you're actually use your power and get things done more people will want to be associated with you uh you know to the extent that you're able to start things initiatives inside of companies or startups if you're talking about being an entrepreneur to the extent that you're able to be successful you're going to get more backers you're going to get more Talent wanting to work with you and uh and the processes will become like sometimes it's called the flywheel effect and Rule seven because many people say you know what will happen once you have power when people Envy you won't people try to bring you down won't there be some kind of homeostatic process and the answer to that is no as we know and I try to illustrate in rules um in rule seven once you have power and success what you did to get it will be for the most part A forgotten forgiven or both so those are the seven rules of power yes excellent and uh I I want to actually jump into all of them but let's quickly look at one thing that jumped out at me um I'm not sure which rule this is under but you have quite a lot in the book about um your challenge to those of us who like to think of ourselves as working towards authenticity authentic leadership I thought that was really interesting and provocative that you're basically saying that this whole idea of there's being an authentic self is sort of uh unprovable well you know I mean first of all in the leadership quarterly there's a thing that uh basically eviscerates authentic leadership but I would Point people to Adam Grant's column in the New York Times some years ago which is entitled something like unless you're Oprah uh be yourself as terrible advice you do not actually I think as a leader you do not need to be authentic to who you are you need to be authentic to what the human beings around you need from you so to take a simple example if you don't feel well if you've had a setback if you've had um you know if uh your significant other has left you or your children have acted up or you know you've got all kinds of trouble I don't think you necessarily need to bring that to work uh you know people around you want your energy they want your confidence uh they want your they want you to be attentive to their needs not necessarily to your own needs so to me the idea of authenticity is to both self-referential Antigua and too egocentric you know leaders leaders need to be true to what do human beings around them need from them yeah I thought that you did a really nice job in the book of describing the paradoxes of vulnerability you know a lot of leadership work these days talks about the value of being willing especially like during the pandemic of having empathy as a leader and being more vulnerable being more vulnerable but you gave quite a few good examples of where showing your vulnerability actually backfires you can talk a little bit more about that yeah no I think you know there's some social science research that suggests that um that that I I think people confuse God people confuse everything one of the things I think people confuse is what you want to do in interpersonal relationships maybe with your friends your children your significant other and what you want to do at work I mean work is a work is different you know and I don't think you want to you know you don't show up most of us don't show up to work in our pajamas most of us don't you know well these days I don't know about that but the work I think the work context is different and that's what this research shows the research that I'm citing and that I signed in the book is a study which demonstrates that yes you want to be you know I mean vulnerability builds a interpersonal closeness but in tasks and you know particularly if you're in a powerful position people don't want to necessarily see that vulnerability they want to see that you know what you're doing that they that you have that you have confidence you know Cameron Anderson has a lot of research on how confidence often gets associated with competence and so they want they want you to show up in a way that says you know I I can follow Jeffrey Hull not because he's you know sweet but because he actually knows what the hell he's doing and he's going to lead us to success against opposition and oftentimes against conflict as well so and it doesn't it doesn't have to be an either or right I mean there yeah there are appropriate but we may have swung because of the pandemic or or current trends or whatever we may have swung a bit too far in the other action that uh yeah vulnerability is key there was an article let me say one other thing that I'll let you talk again there was an article I posted in LinkedIn uh on this vulnerability thing um from The New York Times which talks about you know the bosses is crying even as they're lying people off which is kind of an interesting you know an interesting mix of you know ostensible vulnerability or kind of virtue signaling even as people are not treating their employees particularly well well that would be sort of out of Integrity I think at the end of the day right I mean that's certainly people are asking for you to go into a little more detail about number seven understand yep okay so number seven so one of the one of the things that I hear from my students is you know if we do this what's going to happen you know are we going to suffer you know first of all I would say the first thing I would say in response to that is that you know I think uh you know getting out of your own way um breaking the rules uh acting and speaking with power building a powerful brand networking Etc none of this really I would consider to be unethical I don't think it's unethical to build strategic relationships I don't think it's unethical to learn how to speak in a more forceful fashion I don't think it's unethical to break the rules particularly if the rules disadvantage you I will point out that um you know Nelson Mandela became the father of South Africa while he was in jail so not only did he apparently break the rules but I guess he was breaking the law which is why he was sentenced to prison um you know so I thought you know so I don't think any of this is particularly unethical but um what the what the rule seven says is that and you can see a billion examples of this um is that once you have power um that what you did to get it will be mostly forgotten forgiven or excused um you know Martha Stewart served time in jail her brand has never been more valuable Michael milkins sort of time in jail not that I'm suggesting that you go to jail but you got the point uh Jeffrey Epstein uh prior to his committing suicide and serving time in jail after he was convicted as a sex offender was a um you know continued to associate with some of the most powerful people in the world including apparently members of the royal family and again I'm not advocating that you be a sex offender or that you do any of these horrible things but I'm just pointing out that we tend to because of a variety of psychological dynamics that I explore in that chapter we tend to We tend to reconstruct people in ways that justify their deservingness of what they've achieved uh you know I mean it has been documented several different times and in several different places that Bill Gates stole the code on which Microsoft has built people forget that people have forgiven that Etc again that doesn't say you ought to go steal the code but it does say that what you do that your first responsibility in Machiavelli really talked about this a zillion years ago the first responsibility of a leader is to keep his or her position you know Stanford's business school's motto which I love changed lives change organizations change the world in order to do that you have to be in a position of Leverage you're not going to change lives change organizations or change the world unless you have some power and influence and so your first responsibility is to get that power and influence and what you've done once you've done that people will people want to associate with success people want to associate with winning and so that will absolutely yeah I think that uh the other thing that you describe beautifully in the book is about uh rule number five um networking relentlessly I think that there's always been a lot of talk about the importance of networking and I think everybody knows that is almost a cliche these days and I know as coaches where I know I am in a position where I'm often having discussions with my clients about what they should be doing to build their brand be networking building relationships and I thought you did a really masterful job of breaking down networking in terms of focus time effort all of those kinds of key elements you want to talk a little bit about that sure I think people you know I mean the evidence suggests that people don't spend enough time on the on building relationships they spend more time on uh the technical if you will aspects of their job than they do on building relationships which is you know not a a good thing to do and and and then I think you know I think people spend um too much time with the people that they know well with the strong ties and insufficient time with the weak ties which are oftentimes much more helpful because they bring you non-redundant information and contacts the strong ties tend to be people who travel in the same circles and know the same things that you do and you need to learn from different people we talk about learning from diversity but oftentimes our networks are insufficiently diverse and I'm not talking about race and gender though that's of course one aspect but I'm also talking about diversity in terms of experience background industry Etc so absolutely and then the other thing I think people can do as they network is they can connect people you know you can Bridge you can Bridge people who would profitably interact with each other and if you connect them to each other you've actually performed an amazing right yeah I thought that you sort of took apart this theme of networking beautifully with uh key elements that can help anyone be more focused and actually sort of stretch themselves without feeling overwhelmed because so so much of the time clients will say to me I just don't have time to network but of course their definition of networking there is just going around glad handing or you know going to parties or whatever and you're much more focused on that strategically and also I think you know one of the things well the suggestions that um Keith ferazzi who wrote the famous book Never Eat Alone recommends and we recommended when he came to my class and I now have my students do an exercise on this which is you know write out 10 people list out to 10 people or 15 or 20 however many you want that if you had a connection with them they could be helpful to you either they could teach you stuff or they could provide you social support or they could help you in in terms of linking up with other people who could Advance your career and then figure out how you're going to meet them and you know I have a friend who you know I'm starting a podcast series next week it's going to launch called fefer on power it will be available on all the things on all the normal platforms Spotify and apple Etc and one of the people I interviewed for that podcast is a guy named Benjamin Fernandez who was um a student at Stanford one of the youngest students in the MBA program he started a payments company in Tanzania because his family is from Tanzania I hope one day that he will become the president of Tanzania he may who knows and he talked about how he reached out to people including you know people from some of the largest digital banks in the UK to get to get advice to help him build his digital payments system and the reason why he's building a digital payment system in Africa is Africa has two qualities it is a relatively poor continent and the transfer of money into Africa has some of the highest fees in the world so it is inconsistent to be a relatively economically poor continent and have to pay the highest fees to transfer money and so that's why you started this payment company which is a great example of the kind of impact that a powerful leader can have right in terms of as you described and he did I mean he's just a wonderful story uh so when um when guests would come uh to the class uh not to my class but to any class he was in he would always wear a very colorful African you know themed of African print shirt he would go up to them after class he would connect with them on something they had written on LinkedIn or some other medium on their posts and he would say can I take a picture with you and after a while of course he had built his brand he went from about three or four thousand people to over a hundred thousand connections by the time he graduated everybody Associated him with power this of course permitted him to be relatively more successful in raising money to start this payments company which is called Nala Nala nala.com in Africa great story in terms of what's possible right when you do these kinds of use as you would say the use of power yeah I'm getting a lot go ahead go ahead no go ahead no we're just starting to get a lot of really good questions and uh so I kind of want to turn um to the audience and remind you all out there that we will try to get to as many of your questions as we can but I'm going to start right away um with the question I asked you when we chatted before so I'm not surprised Michael Mata is asking why is rule number seven not unethical um rule number seven I so I really have so others so first of all I'm not a moral philosopher I'm trained as a social scientist so I always try to stay in my Lane so to speak with respect to uh what I can explain and I think rule number seven i i people need to understand why the world is the way it is because if you're going to change lives change organizations change the world you have to begin with an understanding of how the world works and why it works the way it does people were surprised that Donald Trump Not only was elected but you know unless he's in jail he has a reasonable chance of being elected to a second term and they say this man lies well you know you need to understand the social science research online um this man is apparently broken law some people believe he's committed treason well you know that's interesting and maybe true you need to understand why people are willing to forgive him for that you need to understand why the never trumpers became pro-trumpers and by the way what is true for Donald Trump is true for CEOs as well you see examples of this really all the time there is as I pointed out to you when we had our conversation the other day almost no overlap between the most admired CEOs or for that matter the most admired companies and the companies that are on the best places to work list isn't that interesting so instead of having some kind of emotional moral reaction you know um I would quote um what the American poet Walt Whitman be curious not judgmental I would quote Mother Teresa if you judge people you don't have time to love them I would you know I would quote to Matthew 7 judge not that ye be not judged I would quote the Quran that says only Allah can judge people I think we are filled with moral judgments which oftentimes you know it's fine to have a moral judgment but before you have the moral judgment you need to understand and and be a very good and and shrewd Observer of the world and a very good and and understand how that world works and why it works that way if I'm going to drive from San Francisco my house in Hillsboro to San Francisco I not only need to know you know what the root is I need to understand what the barriers and obstacles are going to be one of the reasons why I wrote apparently your favorite book leadership BS is is that 50 years of leadership training has accomplished almost nothing uh you know companies will tell you I mean the survey evidence companies will tell you they have a shortage of leaders leaders are losing their jobs you know leaders are getting fired people are suffering the euphemism is called Career derailments and I believe it is the responsibility of coaches to help people not have career derailments to help people be in position so they can change lives change organizations and change the world and that's that's our first responsibility so before I say to you Jeffrey I think you ought to think this way or that way my first responsibility is to take you from wherever you are and to make you the most effective version of Jeffrey hole I can yeah and when you talked with me the other day and I press you on this about the moral component of leadership and people are commenting that you know we to a certain extent we can't completely sidestep the moral side of things but I think what you're also trying to do is get us to take off our blinders to the way the world really works right and uh you describe sort of the stages that people go through when they hear these rules and it reminded me of the stages of death and dying in uh Elizabeth that's exactly right so I tell my students on the first day of the class that they will go through you know first denial this doesn't apply to me it doesn't apply in my culture it doesn't apply here it doesn't apply in today's world Etc that's the denial then they will go through anger often directed at me which is fine then they will go through sadness you know isn't it terrible that the world works the way it is isn't it terrible the Democracy it's the monsterably on in Retreat all over the world the strong leader is often strong men frankly uh you know have you know have have taken over isn't it terrible that the Philippines have elected Ferdinand Marcos Jr I mean his father you know and by the way I recommend to people watching the king maker this amazing documentary on Imelda Marcos who at the age of 90 made her son president again by the way in an election which he won by an overwhelming majority so yes people get sad and finally if we are successful and that's one of the reasons why I use coaches to help people make this kind of you know get comfortable with all this material if they are if we are successful by the end of the class eight weeks for online 10 weeks for on campus people come to a stage of acceptance that this is that I do understand the way the world works I understand the social science verities which by the way have not changed and I'm going to use this knowledge as I would use a tool power is in fact a tool to accomplish amazing things to you know start up you know money payments uh organization in Africa or to start up you know whatever kind of startup they are starting up in Stanford of course is a hotbed of Entrepreneurship and I'm gonna I'm gonna use these rules to be more successful in my fundraising in my recruiting in my managing of my VC relationships uh in my managing my relationships with my suppliers and customers Etc so the questions that we're getting related to this I'm just I think you've kind of touched on it but I just want to honor the question Tandy uh zimande is asking is having a strong value system in congruent with becoming powerful ah no I but I but I think I think one thing is inconsistent with becoming powerful I the powerful people that I have seen are extraordinarily pragmatic that doesn't mean you don't have values but it does mean you understand you know how to navigate through through the world and not you know I would say you need you you obviously need a compass and you need a gyroscope but you also need to you also need to meet people where they are you need you you cannot you know so my friend Gary loveman who for many years was a professor at Harvard and then he went on to become CEO of Caesars Harris first and then it became known as Caesars and then he became a senior executive at Aetna the health insurance company and now he's got a startup called well he pointed out that critical relationships have to work that if that if you are on my critical path in order to get things done and I decide I don't like you I don't respect you I think you're unethical I think you're all kinds of things all this judgment stuff that gets in people's way is not going to be helpful and you know unless I can somehow get rid of you or get convince the organization to get rid of you if you're on my critical path to get things done that relationship has to work and it is my responsibility to make that relationship work and let me suggest that unless people are a hell of a lot better actors than most of them are if I lead with this idea that I think you know I I have contempt for you that relationship is probably not going to be very effective and so I have to say you know you're you're here I have to figure out how to deal with you and I have to um I have to figure out a way to make critical relationships work no it makes perfect sense it's not always easy to stomach but it makes perfect sense um Joe Gregory has a great question which is that you've said you know at the outset and in your book that the research really hasn't changed but has anything really changed in the 40 years that you've been working on this subject of leadership um well my understanding of it is is expanded and the research base has certainly expanded but the fundamental you know I think you know many of the principles of commitment and the principles that Robert cialdini who by the way is an endorser of this book as is the famous coach Marshall Goldsmith endorsed this book as well um I I think you know I think many of the principles of influence are fundamentally the same and I think the reason why they are the same is because the fundamental things that drive people uh you know I'm not a huge believer in evolutionary psychology but I think what people have learned to do intuitively over the years is fundamentally the you know in order to survive you have to be able to distinguish friend from foe you have to be able to distinguish who's going to win and you have to be able to align with your friends and with people who are going to be successful so yes Bob childini wrote basking and reflected glory in 1976 and it is still true that we love to be associated with a success I think he wrote a book on influence too right persuasion yeah the study of basketball versions of 1976 no he's written a zillion versions of influence and by the way I think his book persuasion is at least as good as his book on influence which talks about um how to become more persuasive it's a fabulous book yeah no I would agree I've worked with him in my uh teaching at NYU so I'm getting prompted to ask a question from Deborah and Deborah's question is floating by quickly so let me grab it hold on Deborah don't don't chat for a second guys okay so there are many professionals who assert that Donald Trump has mental health issues could be a psychopath a narcissist Etc where does mental health bit I'm going to skip this but fit into your world view with regard to leadership a great question Deb it is a great question so there is of course an enormous social science literature on the effects of narcissism on getting hired getting promoted becoming successful and of course narcissism positively affects almost every positive career outcome and by the way some of the studies have been done actually in the military as well there have been studies that look at you know psychosis psychopathy I just wrote an article for some obscure Journal but you can find it it's called The Dark Triad is not so dark you know I mean basically basically again this drives me nuts I mean we have this idea where we've classified people as mentally ill or mentally this or mentally that and you know and and we use all these value-laden terms as opposed to being willing to say okay you know is is you know it's not just Donald Trump Jeff Bezos Elon Musk Steve Jobs I mean you know many of these people did not exhibit leadership behaviors that we Advocate and we need to ask you know why were they successful what is there you know why do people follow them why do people follow them my friend Gene Lipman blumen you know wrote a book about the Allure of a the title of the book was the Allure of toxic leaders and you know if we're if we're going to change any of this we need to begin with that understanding of the of the social dynamics right no I agree with you on that it's sometimes shocking to the system to have to look right at the truth but Don is asking a question I would just I would just point out that you know that if that if I you know I've I'm surrounded by and I now actually I'm doing research on health because I think many workplaces are in fact toxic and they really are killing people but you know to the extent that I now have a lot of association with people in the medical profession the difference between medicine and management is clear I mean you know if I want to study pancreatic cancer that doesn't mean I approve of pancreatic cancer but by God if I'm going to figure out how to have more more effective treatments for any form of cancer I can't say oh cancer is bad I'm not going to look at it I need to understand the mechanisms that permit cancer to grow to thrive how cancer cells become literally Immortal I need to understand how they bring blood supply to them in other words the treatments require us to understand the mechanisms and I would argue that that's why medicine is made for made a hell of a lot more progress than management no that's that's that's interesting and then you know people are in the in the chat section I noticed a few people are concerned about using you know Bezos and other eat musk and others as in terms of defining them as successful and I you and I talked about this the other day that um you know it's not always easy for us to look at what is success because certainly those kinds of those folks have thousands of employees and are having an impact all over the world and by the way have people who are willing to work for them notwithstanding that when you go to work for Amazon there's Jody canner and David streetfield's article about how toxic not only the warehouses are but the white collar Workforce and and I've you know um they are still able and people understand you know what what Elon Musk is and they're still willing to go to work for them and you need to understand those social dynamics right right it's crucial to being a good coach and I'd like to do segue a little bit to our last few minutes because I think you'd have some great insights to offer coaches and um Amy Kimball has a great question here which is what are some of the interventions you believe can help that coaches can use to prevent their clients from career derailments and I would add to help them be more successful in gaining and utilizing power effectively so what my coaches mostly do is first of all help does it give the students feedback on the exercises I use in the class and my course outline is available on my website jeffreyfuffer.com and if you send me an email which is don't send to pfeffer because Suzanne pfeffer who is now related to me not related to me is a very famous biochemist and she's fever of stanford.edu I'm Feth at stanford.edu but she will forward your email to me she she said she and I said well someday should actually meet in person um you know because she did she gets more emails I mean you're probably right across campus from each other right well yeah but it's a large campus anyway um um so I'm happy to send you the course outline and I have a series of exercises and I think one thing the coaches do is they provide feedback on those exercises such as brand building you know I have an exercise on brand building I have an exercise on networking I have an exercise on you know acting and speaking with power how to show up in a more powerful way so I think one intervention or one set of interventions is around helping people Master the knowledge and master those skills you know how do you you know um how do you get out of your own way what are what are the things that you're doing you know are you saying which I see people do you know pardon me for interrupting I'm gonna make this comment I'm not sure the comment's valuable that I don't think is a good way to begin this thing you know pardon me for um you know uh the self-deprecating comments uh Golda Meir according to Bob cialdini and then I found the quote uh Golda Meir once said to somebody she's the of course now deceased prime minister of Israel don't be so modest you're not that good which is I think a very a very profound statement uh you know so so you know what are you doing to get in your own way what are you doing um how are you inhibiting yourself by saying you know there are people in my workplace that I don't like they are important they're critical to my success but I don't like them so I avoid them is that really the best response to make you know are there ways in which you can find something a way of relating to them in a way that doesn't you know compromise you too much but still build a positive relationship with people who are important to your career so I think there are a variety of things that coaches can do to help people get out of their own way and to and to help them think about who do I need to build relationships with how am I going to do it how am I going to show up in a more powerful fashion what is my brand you know what what are the three or four sentences that describe who I am and why I'm uniquely qualified for the job that I'm doing or for the job to which I Aspire and I can give you again a zillion examples of that you know what are the rules that I am taking too seriously you know many people you know my colleague Frank Flynn and Vanessa like wrote This research study it's entitled if you need help just ask I think people don't ask for enough people don't ask for help enough it's often flattering to say you know Jeff you're an expert you're a genius person tell me to give me some advice I want to follow in your footsteps I would like to be as successful as you can you help me do that you know most people I think are horrible mind readers you know I had a woman who was sent by Nike and I said to her what are you going to do when you go back to Nike and she said well whatever HR assigns me and of course I rolled my eyes and I said you know I said if you want a specific position when you go back to Nike maybe you should let them know you know they they've invested a quarter of a million dollars in your education maybe you should let them know what you feel qualified to do and what your aspirations are as soon as opposed to assuming that somehow they're going to figure this out by God knows what process and so she actually told them the job that she wanted and why she wanted that and how she thought her prior experience and her year at Stanford had helped her get ready for that job and they said thank you for telling us you know because he's invested in you the last thing we want to do is put you in a job that doesn't play to your strengths to use the Gallup book you know and so how can we the the best way to do that is to have conversations with people so yes they're a variety yeah there's a wonderful quote that uh I think Patricia just put in the chat from um gold in my ear don't be so modest you're not that good I think that's really excellent so folks are dying to hear you speak a little bit about diversity diverse Styles whether or not this applies in every country um and I know you and I talked about that and a number of your case studies in the book are with women people of color people from different parts of the world so can you address this idea of whether or not power is um different in different parts of different cultures and different parts of the world and different genders what are your thoughts on that yeah well so I you know I wrote an article entitled you're still the same um based on The Bob Seger song um which basically makes the argument as to why power is both the relatively unchanged across cultures and across context now obviously you're going to show up differently I mean you know you're not going to dress the same uh people are going to speak in different languages uh there are different Customs uh they're different foods they're different all kinds of things so if I were going to do an event in the United States and I was going to do an event in you know Tanzania I would probably you know dress differently I would have different food I would you know make the invitations different but the fundamental underlying social science verities are the same Susan Fisk has done a study of interpersonal perception she's found two Dimensions which occur across countries warmth and confidence she is found by the way which many people don't like but it's true that warmth and confidence are often perceived as being negatively correlated even though of course they are obviously independent Dimensions you can be incompetent and cold and warm and competent and all other combinations but people tend to perceive warmth and competence as negatively related so you know I I you know I I so the manifestations and the playing it out is going to be different but the fundamental principles I think are the same what about cultures um I'm not clear I didn't get the person's name but they were asking that there are some cultures who value humility especially Asian cultures um indigenous cultures so I so so you know so years ago when I used to do group projects now I have everybody do an individual project some group said to me basically um Asian cultures value humility and I said do a group project you know go look at some Asian leaders and come back and they said well of course at the end you were right if you think about this you know oftentimes how do I say this so oftentimes we are told things um you know so I have colleagues at Stanford Business School who tell me who give talks to students who teach classes on modesty authenticity Etc and I say to myself to the students I say you know people are going to say all kinds of things go look you know go talk to people who work with them go look at how many times they've been sued by their Partners you know because suits are a matter of public record go you know I mean so yes you know people are going to tell you all kinds of things the question I would ask is when you go into an organization or a setting look who actually gets ahead so I I'll give you a couple of examples off the top of my head so in Australia they have what's called a tall poppy syndrome the tall poppy gets cut down okay look at Carrie Packer look at the Carrie Packer's son since Carrie Packer's dead look at Rupert Murdoch look at you know people who've succeeded in the Australian context go to go to Japan look at Morita the founder of Sony you know who wrote I think a book called The the Japan that doesn't say no or the Japan that shouldn't say no or something to that effect so there are all kinds of and what I would call conventional wisdom but before people buy into the conventional wisdom you need to be a good Observer of the world around you I can tell you from my experience my books have sold better in these countries that supposedly don't follow these principles than they have in America which includes both Japan and China so I you know yeah there's a cynical side of me that says that might be because there's an Americanization of the world that's happening that may or may not be a good thing they or may not be but whatever no I you know I I think you know you you look at look at China look at look at the ruler of China who's apparently now going to be ruler for life you know yeah nope there's certainly power the king of seven rules that's a good place for us to stop I think uh you know this is this is challenging and provocative and what I really appreciate about your work Jeff is that you you know you had you put it out there you have a strong stance but you also back it up with solid social science research so I encourage you all of you I can see in the comments some people are finding this challenging we're not surprised but we as coaches we really need to know the research we need to be looking not through rose-colored glasses around how power is acquired how it's used so that I think you're right so that we can help our clients acquire it and use it for good at the end of the day and hopefully to change the world so and I would end with one other thought I I I really think the job of an educator is not to tell people what they already know well said no I you know I mean my job is not to you know play into you know okay first of all it's all issues pointed out science and evidence-based which it is but it has lots of examples which which I do in all in in in seven rules of power but also you know if I tell you stuff that you already know my value add is zero well and what you're saying is so true for coaching right if a Coach is not being provocative and not being unsettling and not making his or her client somewhat uncomfortable then I don't think they're doing their job so you know I think that what goes for leadership goes for coaching in this in this domain and uh with that we've hit the hour and I just want to say I really really appreciate your taking the time to be with us this is our kickoff for the fall and I think your book is like I said provocative but important and I would encourage all of us to get out and get a copy send nasty letters to Jeff if we have to but I'm sure he's used to it foreign so anyway I want to thank everyone for joining us and uh thank you again Jeff for taking the time to be with the Institute of coaching it's been a privilege it's my pleasure and thank you for being such a great conversation partner well I appreciate the work so I'm glad I was able to do it it's an honor and thank you all and we will see you in a couple weeks um I think we're having a webinar on interculturalism so taking us in a completely different direction so that's great for our continuation of fall education at The Institute of coaching and we will look forward to seeing you then take care everyone bye

Channel: Institute of Coaching

Views: 13,564

Keywords: coaching

Id: ENaH2DZdGWA

Length: 57min 55sec (3475 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 13 2022