The paths to power: How to grow your influence and advance your career | Jeffrey Pfeffer (author of 7 Rules of Power, professor at Stanford GSB)

Transcript from https://podmenti.com/t/779e9334ce764fdc

We're gonna be talking about how to grow your power. The reason why you should pay attention to this is because it leads to a lot of good things.
South, getting promoted, being happy in your career, being less stressed. You're not describing how the world should work.
It's this is just how it is. Not only is, but how it was and how it will be. 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 not about personality.
These are skills that can be master. People might be hearing this and they're like, I don't wanna be this person. Well, you already have done a fabulous job of illustrating principle one. That is one way of
If I think power
is dirty the first thing that's gonna happen is I'm not gonna do what I need to do to be successful in my c 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. That's exactly right.

Today, my guest is Jeffrey Fefer.
Jeffrey's 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 NBA program called The Path to Power.
The other class, by the way, is Techy 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 talked 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 cringy 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 COVID.
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.
Thank you, Lenny. I am honored.
That you invited me on. I'm even more honored that you decided to come on.
We're gonna be talking about something that makes a lot of people uncomfortable.
I think it's gonna make me uncomfortable.
We're gonna 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?
Well it's important because a guy named Gerald Ferris
Yeah.

of kind of political skill.
And a bunch of he 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.
Sour.
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 w 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?
There's a lot of things here that are probably not uh how people want to
Want to live their life necessarily or want other people to act?
Yeah. So I I think it makes people uncomfortable.
Because the realities of what it takes to get power
Bear almost no resemblance.
To what you're talking.
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
Um they bear a little resemblance.
Yeah, to to our aspirations.
And
I think we look around the world and we see
People who have acquired
Enormous amounts of power.
And I've used it.
For bad.
You know, but I tell people
You know, 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 you can take a screwdriver and stab it into somebody's belly.
I 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 uh to cure cancer.
Muggers have knives, they use it to rob people.
So so the I so I think we've confused
The tool
For how it has been used.
You also have this quote that the people who need to understand power and build their power skills
Or people come from backgrounds or characteristics who would normally put them at a disadvantage.
I think that's exactly right.
You know, I I I will go I will go this Sunday.
Uh to Nashville, Tennessee.
It's a talk.
To a bunch of people of color.
And the NFL who are trying to rise up the ranks.
And I you know the Sanford runs a program.
'Cause the NFL is serious.
I think about
Trying to make more opportunity.
For people underrepresented minorities?
And but it but they these are folks
Will not?
succeed unless they learn
Power skills.
Because the world is stacked against them in lots of ways.
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Come.
Another element of your course that you try to make clear in your syllabus
It's to teach people not to be as judgmental.
You also talk you also have this whole huge bald.
Phrase this class is not for everyone.
Can you just talk a bit about maybe why it's not for everyone and then why that being less judgmental is important.
I mean the class is extremely popular. I have a long waiting list.
Kind of mythical.
And because of the principle of social influence
You know, we we are influenced by what other people do.
We're foods in our choices of restaurants, we're influenced in our choices of music.
You know.
I'm not sure I like Taylor Swift, but I certainly want to go see Taylor Swift because everybody else is um you know, and many people sign up for the class and one year in particular.
There were some people who sat
And 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 learn nothing.
If you come to the class and you're that much
psychological discomfort.
You're not gonna learn anything. And so what I
Try to do.
Із тел.
That in order to benefit from this class
You have to be
Oakland.
To learning the material. And if you're not
And by the way, this would be true for any class.
If you got a 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 gonna learn anything.
And so I 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 gonna benefit from it.
Rather than sit there and look like um
Look like guard paint.
And the judgmental thing.
Yeah.
If
Matthew seven.
Judge?
Not
He be not judged.
The Quran says only Allah can judge people.
The American poet Well Whitman.
Sa be curious.
Not judgmental.
Mother Teresa.
Sad.
If you judge people
You have no time to love them.
Judgment.
If I if I need to build a positive relationship with Lenny
Because you are on
My critical path in my job
And jobs.
It necessarily entail
A reasonable amount of interdependence, I get things done.
Through it with other people.
If I decide that Lenny
Yes.
Whatever set of bad adjectives you want to use.
the dumb and competent.
Immoral whatever.
My ability
To build a positive relationship with you.
And you are you remain on my critical path.
becomes almost zero unless you're a better actor and I'm a better actor than I think most people are.
So therefore
You should suspend judgment.
In 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
Yeah, one of the skills that they have mastered.
Is they they have a skill that you cannot tell what they think of.
And and that's important because because I I I need your collaboration. I need your cooperation.
If and if I leak out
you know, in ways that say, I don't respect you, I don't like you, I don't admire you, whatever
My odds of getting you to work productively with me
Oh, it's essentially.
So that's a judgmental story.
Does that make sense? Absolutely, and I have a quote from your syllabus along these lines.
Not everyone we encounter in Path to Power Summon you're gonna 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.
Yeah.
So I've had two friends actually go through the course. One I asked about w about the course and the impact it had on her. She's actually a founder now.
And she told me that your class was her f 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 sugar sugarcoat life.
It told her how the world really works and that is helping her succeed with her startup right now.
I'm Thank you.
There is no higher praise than that.
I mean I mean, you know, I actually don't read, I shouldn't probably say this in 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.
I uh that is a is a good segue to Win Your Rules of Power. So let's just talk about
Your seven rule of power.
Uh I actually have your book right here. And if folks wanna learn more, here it is. Seven rules of power. You've had 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 gonna dive into a few of them. Does that sound good?
Sounds perfect.
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.
Everything.
Correct.
Oh 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, Raf.
And I saw that he started a podcast.
And he told me that it did it because it was
Uh part of the homework that you give students you call it um
Doing power, is that the name of the homework assignments? I I am
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 of what they're learning and put them in the practice.
And that is because
You know, everything I do I have to do for a reason.
That's because
If you don't use what you learn.
The learning will disappear.
So if I 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
Uh to do something with it.
While we're on this tangent,'cause I wanted to talk about this whole you have a book, The Doing
Knowing gap.
So let's just spend a little time there'cause I think that's really important.
What are some examples of things that have come out of people doing these homework assignments, things that have maybe led to something interesting?
Let me take
My most extreme example.
My most extreme example is probably
Derek Khan. Hey yeah.
And
Garrett Khan was a little bit older when he went through the MBA program.
And in two thousand and twelve
His doing power project
Was to get appointed.
To be
Mitt Romney's.
Yeah, it's a minute Romney was running for president to be had
of economic policy for the Ronley 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 a lane child.
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 six trillion dollar US budget.
This is six years.
Ouch.
A business.
I I was thinking whether he got that during his class.
Uh amazing.
Um, okay, so this is a 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 like comfortable. They're gonna be like, Oh no, I don't wanna be doing this. Why this doesn't feel good to me.
So let's let's talk about it. Okay. Let's see. So talk about this power of building a personal brand.
There are by definition.
Fewer positions at the top.
At the bottom.
The world we may not like this.
And I know people, you know, the late Tony Shay
It's Zappos.
Try to do, you know, holocracy or whatever.
But the world is essentially hierarchical.
The animal kingdom is our
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 th than 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 gonna promote money.
If they don't know who the hell you are.
So it is 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!
So
Therefore you have to do something.
to differentiate yourself. You have to build a brand.
So when I think of Lenny on your podcast, I think of something.
You know, not just, you know, twenty five billion podcasts.
You know, when I when I think of somebody
In McKinsey.
Or Bay or B C, one of the consulting firms.
Zillion people.
Start off!
As front frontline consultants.
What are you gonna do?
So that somebody knows who you are. What are you gonna do that creates value for the firm and for you?
So my friend Keith Farazzi when he started 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 War.
He decided
To try to take Deloitte's
Brand recognition.
From about one or two percent.
The thirty percent.
He was appointed.
Though he left before he actually took the job.
The position of a partner and the first
Chief Marketing Marketing Officer at Deloitte.
I have another friend, Tristan Walker.
Who wanted to get hired at Four Square.
You know, he
He he sent emails to the founder, the find my 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'd uh hire this guy.
So
So you have to do something.
It causes people
To to know who you are.
And that is what building a brand is about.
It sounds very benign uh 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 a kind of a part of it, but
What are some examples you've seen of ways to
Build a personal brand that are effective.
So I have a friend who I bring to the class.
A a lovely tall Asian woman named Laura Chow.
Who made partner at a venture capital firm after four years, which is fast.
L
What works for Kane and Parber. C A N A A.
Well I said I do not work for Andrece and Horitz.
I do not work for Sequoia.
I don't work for Grey Rock, I don't work for any of these
Very visible.
Large
You know
V C Farms.
So if I am going
to get deals
In the consumer space, that's her
Domain of expertise.
It's consumer and consumer tech.
Somebody is gonna have to know.
Who our Chow is?
Because again
You're not gonna get the deal.
If nobody knows who you are.
And so she
Basically did everything you talked about.
She wrote she would she did write it.
She started a podcast in which she invited influential people.
She
Contributed to a book.
She helped people out.
She
Did networking dinners.
She did everything she could so that people would recognize and no large house.
And one of the things she did.
What?
She's Paul.
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 and hoodies.
God knows what.
She has stuff.
And it's a unique style. So she thinks about very strategically
How am I gonna dress?
How are they gonna look?
How am I gonna show up?
How am I gonna do
What I need to do
So the people know who I am.
Sh obviously there's substance.
If you have
Visibility without substance?
People will know you're like useless.
But if you have substance without visibility, no one will know.
The substance that you got.
You also talk about how you can refrain this idea of being 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 pointing people to it.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Awesome.
Okay. So 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.
Well, you are ready.
Have done a fabulous job.

Principle one, by talking about how this is the topic that makes people uncomfortable.
And when when something makes people uncomfortable.
In general.
They're gonna 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 not I want nothing to do with.
The first thing that's gonna happen
is I'm not gonna do what I need to do.
To be successful in my career.
So that is one way in which we gotta act, you know.
Another way in which we get in our own way.
Many people suffer from what is called an uh
Psychology literature impostors.
They believe
That they were the admissions was taken at Stanford.
Yeah, with the hiring mistake of 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.
And therefore
They will do things.
I can't even believe it just goes on. So I will have students. Not many, but a few.
Now raise your hand.
I have a call.
And the first things out of their mouth will be
I don't know if this comment is gonna be useful.
This is called preemptory apology.
Oh.
Yeah, if the comment's not really useful, don't say it.
That's number one. But number two, don't apologize.
You know, pardon me for interrupting.
Pardon me
For you know, taking up your time.
Pardon, you know, the
Stop all this
apologizing if you got the job
You're in.
You will probably
are not only qualified, you're probably overqualified.
So don't use
Descriptors.
Of yourself.
They're disempower you.
Don't think of yourself.
Із назві.
of the job that you hold.
Because that
attitude will leak out and other people will say
Yeah, if Linny doesn't think
He deserved a job.
Then uh maybe I shouldn't think he deserves a job.
So basically the first power is you're shooting yourself in the foot.
By worrying too much about whether people like you.
This uh friend of mine who's now the founder that I read some quotes for him, she said
Her number one takeaway from your classes, if you want to be like
Get a dog.
Yeah, that is a quote from my dear friend Gary Lovman.
Who for many years
We had
Uh Harris, which then became Caesar's, the casino company.
You also talk about this, yeah, there's this quote I have, acknowledge that others are often no better than you.
Yeah.
'cause that makes you feel better about the start.
So
For people that actually want to be like I like being liked.
Like a I don't know if it's a flaw in my
In my upbringing.
Is there
Is the lesson.
You can't you there's you're capped on your power if you worry about if you want to be liked.
At the end of the day, you don't want to be you don't want to be intentionally disliked.
You don't wanna
violate my dear friend Bob Sutton's book, The No Asshole Rule, and gratuitously be an asshole.
But you are high.
To do to get a job done.
You know, it's interesting. I unfortunately am now too old.
In the words of my chiropractor, I'm suffering from too many birthdays.
So I I I I have a lot of doctors.
Who are doing a great job.
Trust me, when I choose a doctor.
I you know I have a
Unfortunately he retired a neurosurgeon.
Who did two did two surgeries on my spine.
He's considered to be one of the top twenty in the country.
If you go on Yelp.
You read about
his personality and his office furniture.
You know, as I said to somebody, he's doing micro surgery 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.
You that's an extreme example.
But it makes the point.
When you are put in a role, you are put in a role'cause presumably you are supposed to perform in that role.
If you if you get appointed to be a head coach, if you if we make you a quarterback.
On an NFL team where we make you
You know
Center on a National Basketball Association team.
You know, you would 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.
So a simple way of thinking about this, which makes me feel better about like 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 dislike. It's don't prioritize being like, prioritize competence.
Respect.
Absolutely. And getting and doing the thing that needs to be done.
Absolutely.
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.
Uh 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 encompass.
In South West Airlines, you don't do hub and spoke.
Yeah, 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 suit on
Pitting local pace.
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 place your strengths
Use the title of a Gallu book.
Number two.
You have to do
You have to do things again that cause you to stand out.
And you have to do things that basically you know will make you more successful. One of the conventional wisdoms that people
I think adhere to way too much.
Yes.
Don't ask.
Don't ask, don't ask for help.
You need to show self sufficiency.
So my colleague Francis 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 gonna have to ask.
To get help.
And it turns out asking for help makes people uncomfortable.
But when you a you know
I was married, you know, and so if you if you read the acknowledgments
In um
Uh seven rules of power.
But for more than thirty five years I was married to Kathleen Frances Fowler.
Who I could send you a picture. I mean, she looks literally like a supermodel.
And I didn't 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 have.
Yes.
I guess.
I
No one
Well, maybe not no one, but few people are gonna go out with you.
If you don't ask them out.
Few people are gonna 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.
Then had you not asked in the first place.
'Cause if you don't ask you're not gonna get it.
If you ask and they say no, you're not gonna get it.
Get over your ego. Ass.
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?
Okay, I can give you many examples.
One of my favorite examples would be Jason Calacana.
I don't know if you know Jason.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So and so I think Jason
Jason
I think consistently.

First of all, when he comes to my class, nobody likes him. But that's a that's okay. Almost nobody likes him.
But you know, one he's not wearing it. But also
I think there is a conventional wisdom
In the venture capital industry
Uh which he defies almost completely.
You know, he makes a lot of little bets, not a few big bets.
He is um
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?
And which is interesting.
You know
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 gonna wind up incredibly smart.
And incredibly insightful.
And he wound up incredibly smart and insightful around aspects of the internet.
And he definitely has a lot of power. It is I think that I'm gonna link to the case study in our show notes where you basically walk through how he
Went from nothing to a very powerful person. And by the way, a very rich person as well.
Let's talk about another power
Power five networking relentlessly.
What does that look like and how do you get better at this?
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.
Um
Which is a book about how to put on events that people want to come to.
And the fabulous human thing.
Well tell you that the first principle of networking
Is in fact generosity.
It is 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 gonna 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.
It's funny to hear this where it's like, Yes, this like obviously this is right.
But
Connecting it to if you want to
become more powerful, more successful, like you need to do this. Like 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.
Of course.
I have a funny story about networking. So
We have a thing in Sanford called View from the Top.
in which these fancy people come in and give a talk. And one of the people came in and gave a talk.
And
Made my class instantly popular'cause he's a extraordinarily wealthy person.
His name is Oid Cordistani.
And so I said I reached out to him and I said I'm
Let's have breakfast.
So I can understand.
'Cause d during the thing when he somebody asked him what class was the most
Important.
And his success, he said mine.
So I said, Well then tell tell me your story. He said, Well you know, I
I graduated from Stanford.
I'm Persian in background, immigrant background.
An engineer.
H V.
All the things that would make you kind of a nerd or something.
He said I went to work.
For a couple of startups they didn't do well.
Then I found myself in the mid nineties at Netscape.
The browser company
Big deal anyway. Mark Anderson.
Oh yeah.
Okay, so I I found myself a Netscape.
In marketing and business development.
I was not
Making any progress.
So one day I decided
To take your class.
to an extreme.
I decided
To stop doing my job.
So
I said when when people give you projects to do or assignments or
Yes.
And you didn't do them?
He said it turns out that I spent my time not obviously at the bar.
But networking first with people inside of a Netscape and
Turns out if you're well connected to the senior leaders
You don't really care if you do your job or not.
Number one.
Number two.
He said, You know, oftentimes I can find other people.
To do the work I was getting.
So instead of basically spending
Time doing my job.
I networked first within Netscape.
The Netscape was not that big.
So after a while
He
decided to go through, which is by the way his job anyway.
And marketing the business.
He decided to basically drive to the Silicon Valley talking to people.
This is you know, the br so the browsers are just beginning.
Nobody knows what a browser is. Nobody knows what the internet is gonna become.
So he's having all these fabulous conversations.
Alright, so he's the he now knows basically everybody. It's nineteen ninety eight.
And a little tiny company.
decides ten engineers, typical Silicon Valley company.
Ten engineers.
All engineers.
I have a friend that went to work for a company run a company, had twenty six people, he didn't have one sales and marketing person.
Anyway the company's now have ten engineers, they decide they need to hire their first business.
Being an analytically oriented company.
They say we're gonna do this very analytically. We are basically gonna 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.
It appears on every list.
Is Omid Kortostanic.
Who becomes?
Employee number
Eleven.
Hey Google.
It makes two and a half billion.
Great great success from networking.
Uh well then.
When people hear about networking it just feels like you said, like very cringe.
Like I don't wanna go to these networking events and try to like pretend to talk and care about people. Do you have any advice for just how to make networking feel
What's cringy.
One of the exercises I give my students is, you know, I say
Write a list.
Of ten 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 ten executives of biotech.
Whatever.
Make a list of ten people. Then for each person.
Figure out.
how you're going to meet them.
You know, and by the way, not necessarily the networking events.
Maybe
Maybe you want to do what John Levy does, which is hold dinners.
And 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
Participating in creating it.
Maybe you wanna hold dinners. Maybe you wanna hold
Um
Maybe you want to try 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.
Here is
Here is somebody who I think you benefit.
From media.
You know, so recently I mean, I'm not a particularly good networker, though I'm better, I guess, than some people.
I recently met Esther Wojski.
I'm trying.
you know, killed her name. She's considered the grandmother
Of Silicon Valley, she Susan was just uh mother.
And she is interested
In depression.
Uh, particularly depression among teenagers.
And I said you should know
Leanne Williams.
who's in the psychiatry and behavioral science department.
Who is
Done probably three hundred articles on depression.
And has invented something which is called precision psychiatry.
So I connected them to each other.
You know, I d uh just send out email. I think you ought to know each other. They got together.
I get I get credit for knowing people and connecting them.
But I also benefit them.
Uh Leanne needs to raise money. Esther's got money.
Uh Esther needs to understand the cutting edge.
Research in in depression.
And uh biomarkers of depression, which is what Lead specialty is.
So they benefit.
So this is not
This is not some icky thing.
This is connecting people.
Who benefit from being connected.
It touches on something you teach in the book is
In your network you wanna
Become a broker.
You wanna be central. That's kinda what you want to work on. Can you talk a bit about what that what that means? Well that well that means you want to connect people.
So many people would benefit and many groups would be
With the with benefit from being connected.
And they're not connected.
What is a venture capitalist?
Connects people with ideas.
The people with money.
And takes a fee for doing it.
What if an investment banker do?
Next people trying to sell businesses.
I raise capital.
With people trying to buy businesses.
Or who have cap.
What's a real estate agent?
Can I have buyers and sellers of houses.
I mean there are all kinds of examples where person's in the where the person's entire job
It's kind of thing.
But even for the people whose job it isn't
You know, you you you benefit from
Knowing people
The more people you know, the more things you know.
Because I sometimes say in my class
If leadership
Management, call 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.
Yeah.
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 uh a thousand percent this
uh creates a lot of opportunity and
power, you could say in in quotes.
So I've seen it happen.
Of course.
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Another lesson I guess you teach us to pursue weak ties. Talk a bit about what that means. What do you mean by that?
Well
The people to whom you are strongly tied.
Your family?
Your spouse significant other.
Your friends
You're work the people who work with you at work.
Well 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.
Uh Mark Grandavetta, a sociologist who still teaches at Stanford, wrote a book entitled
The strength of weak ties.
And that's and basically
Uh no, actually pardon me, he wrote an article.
Call the strength of retirement.
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.
True.
Applying to ads.
Um
Through more formal means.
And then he looked at people
Who got jobs to
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 that people got.
were referred to them by people that were not particularly close to them.
Because they had
They hadn't.
They they had a
A view.
Somewhere 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
Please.
As the other people.
I love that lesson.
Let's talk about another power, which is
Using your power.
So when some people think of using your power builds more power, I wouldn't that's not intuitive.
You talk about how it creates this like self perpetuating growth of power the more you practice power. Can you talk a bit about that?
Sure.
Um
So when you were given you know, it's interesting. My friend Deborah Gunfeld who wrote a book
Collacing with power.
Talks a lot about people's ambivalence to power.
So sometimes people are put
And a job. Hermenia Barra, who teaches now at London Business School, at one point thought at East Yeah, at one point thought at Harvard.

And when she talks about a
Woman in a
Drug company.
Who gets a promotion
And says to her colleagues
Who to whom she's now all overseeing
Uh that she's not sure if she
Why she got the job?
She's not sure she deserves a 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 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 will get more resources.
People 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.
Yeah, you get more stuff done.
You'll get more promotions, more opportunities.
I mean nobody's gonna give you
A a job to do.
If the last five jobs like that they gave you, you couldn't get done.
So the more you're able to do
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.
And I think there's interesting way 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. Yeah.
I just saw over the weekend the um
Movie.
Uh the latest the movie in the franchise of The Planet of the Apes.
It's you know.
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.
We are the same.
People are people are attracted to power, you know that.
By the way, that will account for a lot of what is gonna happen in the presidential election.
Let's save that for the end'cause 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 one other another rule of power is to show up in a powerful fashion.
So look powerful.
Talk about what that looks like. So my colleague at uh Berkeley, Dana Carney.
C or any wise 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.
Uh watch the presidential debates with the sound off. That'll be much better.
I have another colleague in marketing by the name of Baba Shiv.
Um
Who talks about
People's
Freaky mind.
Or you know.
The I the idea that we are in fact
Descended.

Yeah.
In lots of ways by our emotions.
And so we respond.
A too.
To other people.
We respond we respond to how they look.
You know, there's evidence in economics that suggest
How people earn more salary.
Control earn more money.
Control and for a bunch of things.
Attractive people, as long as you're not too attractive.
You earn more money.
Optimal.
level of attractive.
Because because people respond
Subconsciously.
So how people look, how they sound
Um
How they show up, how they present themselves.
In my class.
I take the example of Tony Hayward of BP.
McCanda oil spell.
Lloyd Blankfine.
He was accused of shorting the securities that he was selling, which by the way, Goldman did.
And before I let them hear, Tony
Oh Lloyd.
We show about sixty seconds.
And Lloyd's case thirty four seconds.
With no sound.
And even if you did not know.
Who these people were.
And I ask you to make a bet.
Who's gonna keep the job?
And who's gonna lose it?
You would know.
Just for their physical appearance.

I love that.
And but by the way.
What Dana Carney will tell you
And what common sense will tell you.
And these are skills.
It can be mass.
Robert De Niro was not born Robert De Niro.
In the sense of you know, acting skills alert.
How do you show up?
How you command the route.
There's a guy Regis McKenna who
Older than God.

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 we just 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
You know, undergoing some kind of cosmetic surgery or whatever. This is these are skills.
Everything we've talked about.
Networking.
Showing up.
All these things, these are skills that can be learned.
I have a list of some of the stuff you actually recommend for
Uh 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 kinda breaking the rules.
Uh, don't apologize. It's kinda the opposite.
More gestures, which is interesting. Open body posture.
Louder voice? Okay, I'm gonna speak louder now. I like this. Okay.
Uh.
What else what else comes to mind as ways to appear powerful? Invading people's personal space?
So
Gentle touching.
Standing close to someone we're not talking about sexual touching, we're talking of touch on the arm or the shoulder.
You know, shaking people's hands.
Um that's a that's a way of I think
Being more powerful.
But uh you covered the main ones. I mean eye contact
Uh one of the problems with Tony Hayward of a B P
Is that they 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
Script it?
He looks like he's insincere.
Yeah you know, so I did you know, so I
Jack Valini, who I had the privilege of knowing.
For thirty eight years
Was the head of the motion picture association of America.
A typically rated
One of the number one or number two most effective lobbyists in Washington, D C
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.
But I was in
Complete control and complete mastery.
Of the material.
And that I did not need.
Notes?
Are a bunch of assistants around me.
To help me.
That I
It's 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 bunch surplus in trade.
He would talk about how many jobs he created and he had all the stuff at the his fingertips.
But basically his command of the material.
Made him
More powerful.
It's interesting. Jackalene
Was
Five foot two inches tall.
And
He came.
Talk 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 ass an a an assessment.
It was both true.
And it's
When when when the five for two Jack Villetti
Appear.
Because

Presence.
Because of his body language.

Because of his
Taxes draw.
Because of his how he moved.
On the stage.
He felt
Bigger.
You would not say he f he did not feel five foot two.
Let me read a couple more'cause that that's this is a good example of stuff he did.
Uh 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 Well the way the way humor. Humor. The famous author Salman Rushdie.
Said
And I quote Solomon Russian, it's a fabulous quote.
If you can get people to laugh.
You can tell them anything.
That's uh yeah. Stand up comedy is a great example of that.
So
Again, I think here people might be hearing this and they're like, I don't wanna be this person. I don't wanna be
Talking all the time.
I don't wanna be pretending like open posture.
Is is the advice here just
You don't need to do all these things. Just know this is makes people more powerful. Don't necessarily judge people. Do some of these things maybe'cause it'll add to your power. How do you think about just people that are like turned off by this sort of thing?
That's a wonderful question.
So I say to my class on the very first day of classes.
Yeah, we will go through four stages.
We'll go through the stage of denial.
Doesn't work in my culture, doesn't work in my organization, doesn't work for me, doesn't work in my religion. Whatever.
Then we'll go through anger.
Teach us his stuff.
There no goes of sadness. I actually believe this.
And the crest.
And if we're successful
Uh, they will go through acceptance.
And the process I have, I'm getting.
You know, I am not
I do not have the most popular class in 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 if I have someone who's gonna come into this class, I have to get them.
From denial.
To accept it in ten weeks.
And how are we going to do that?
Why well the easiest way to do that if I said Lenny
I want you to become.
A better
Tennis player.
Alright, better
Rollerblader!
Or a better ice gear, whatever.
A better piano player in ten weeks.
What would we do?
We had a 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, you know, if you've never
I had dinner the other night. This
Israeli woman who's like I done amazing stuff.
Amazing.
Which is fabulous.
And she said at the dinner, she said, I would have never done this.
Before taking your class.
And the way you get them to do this is I don't say
Lenny
You're gonna swim the English channel.
Tomorrow.
If I want you to swim the English shell.
We're gonna start
By swimming in pools.
And make
Every day a little bit
More challenging.
What we do.
I don't start by saying you're gonna network like Keith Farazzi or John Levy or
You're not gonna be as bold as Jason Calicanus, who trust me is extraordinarily bold. You're not gonna necessarily do what I d
You're gonna begin
Where you can begin.
And push yourself out of your comfort zone.
Because
And again awful.

If you always stay in your comfort zone.
You will never do anything.
Different.
Or better
And what you're currently doing.
This is true. If I said to you I want you to at the end of ten 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 ex 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.
What should I do?
Push yourself a little.
There's a interesting connection here to what some say is kinda the opposite of your class at Stanford, which is touchy feely. We had Carol Robin on the podcast.
And she has a framework, the fifteen percent.
uh rule where you push yourself fifteen percent beyond your comfort zone, where just a little bit, but it's not too far.
And it feels like you try to do a similar
Yeah, absolutely.
So you you you begin by doing what you don't think you can do.
Let's spend a little more time here around the homework assignments and this kinda knowing doing gap that you talk about.
So you shared a couple of homework signs you give already, w find ten people, think of ten people you want to meet that'll help you with their career and then
Try to meet them.
And then there's this like
I guess my friend started podcast. I don't know which homework assignment that was. What other uh homework assignments do you give? So we begin
It's a literature on goal setting.
If you set goals, you're more likely to achieve them.
This is again not
You know.
Not some huge insight, but there's an enormous scientific literature about this.
And so I begin the very first homework assignment.
Is and 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.
Вот суслой тою.
What would you like to accomplish in our ten weeks together?
Second assignment.
I give them a reading from the r 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.
Yeah, set for yourself a development plan.
Energy
Focus
Being willing to tolerate conflict, all the 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 gonna do it?
So we begin.

One of these servants 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 ten weeks here.
I have people
Who created awards?
A woman who created a war.
Gamblet.
The uh Carly Kloss, the model.
Got in trouble with the school. It turns out it's easier to ask forgiveness than permission.
So you know
What what can you do?
To create resources that will give you some leverage.
That would be a third assignment.
The networking is a fourth of set.
V
Acting with power.
I show them the videos.
And I tell 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 little bar.
Yeah.
And then you know give me a
Sixty to ninety second video.
And then share it with colleagues and get feedback on it.
And then we're gonna call on people in the class.
In other words, for every
idea I try to think of something and
This is uh by the way, this is all front loading.
And by the end of the class, we're not doing this so much.
But I try to give them
And exercise that causes them.
To actually
Take that idea and implement it.
Fine people.
Oh, for branding.
Right a personal brain state.
Get some feedback on it.
And 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 gonna go in the damn job market.
What do you want people to think about? How do they want how do you want people to respond?
How do you want to be known?
So I basically take for every topic.
And have them have them do it.
And then the coach.
Their person their coach.
Who is responsible for twenty three of these people.
Give them feedback on this.
I could see how this uh makes a big impact on someone's life.
Yeah, and so at the end I 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.
that I did on every other class I took.
Come by.
I can see why.
Let's talk about the last power. So we've talked it 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 in
And ha is that is that a power or is it more just like this is what you should know about So and I d 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
You know, people believe that the world is homeostatic and it's not.
Yeah, th it's gotta adjust, but whatever.
You know at the end.
You know, at the end I will be brought well.
They have
The myth of Ecarus.
in their head. You know, you fly too close to the sun.
Your whims are gonna melt.
You're gonna be brought down.
And so I tried to convince them
Partly through a lecture.
And partly through rule seven.
And some of the principles that I talk about are rule seven.
Then in fact
Life is not homeostatic.
At all.
Yeah, 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.
It becomes Trump's
Biggest acolyte.
And the New York Times, of course, is fascinated by
How can you call
How can you say all these horrible things about Trump?
And now
B his you know, basically
And your lips attacks to some part of his anatomy.
And Lindsay's answer.
Yes.
I want to be relevant.
He's the president of the United States.
If I I I make it.
You know, this goes back to the judgment.
I mean I like out my mouth, this, that, and the other thing. He's the president.
If I wanna get legislation passed.
He, by the way, has taken over the Republican Party. If I wanna get stuff done
I need
To have him on my side.
And like many
Narcissists and ego maniacs.
It is not a good way to get them on your side by saying nasty things about them.
So
This is this is the pragmatics.
You know.
People forget.
Yeah, Bill Gates.
stole the coda which Microsoft built.
People
For guess.
Jeffrey.
After
Bin.
And
Of sex offenses.
But still
Having dinners.
With members of the royal family.
And members of the New York Media Elite.
People forget.
Then Martha Stewart.
Who serve time in jail.
As a brand that's never been more valuable.
People forget
All this stuff.
You know, I still remember remember.
Sitting in the office of someone whose name I won't use.
But I'll use enough set. If somebody wanted to search it out, you could.
So I am sitting in this guy's office.
And he's got he's by the way a Jewish man. He's got pictures of him with the poke.
He's got pictures of him with Ronald Reagan.
He's got pictures with him with all these people.
What is the secret?
He by the way
Took a company into bankruptcy. People lost
Literally billions of dollars.
He was fine. He lost money, but he walked away with about seven hundred million dollars. It turns out seven hundred million dollars.
Makes you
A big deal.
Lives in the biggest house in Los Angeles. So one of the biggest houses in Los Angeles.
I can't keep up.
But the construction of the big houses.
People want to be close to money, power and success.
And they will overlook.
Your flaws.
To be closed.
Yeah, and again, you talk about this in the book. This doesn't
You're not describing how the world should work. It's this is just how it is.
And this is how you can be successful in the world that we live in. And 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.
Have
Social science and logic behind
So you can explain not only what is
But why it is.
Mm.
So let's talk about Trump for a bit.
At the beginning of your book, you say that basically you're gonna write a book about why Trump is so successful and what he's done so well.
And you're
Realization is no one's gonna pay attention if like 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. That's correct.
By the way, not because he read the book, but because he does it, you know, through trial and error or something.
So when people hear that, they're like
I don't wanna be Trump. I don't like how Trump is. I don't wanna be
Seen Latway. Do you have any thoughts on just how to make people feel comfortable?
uh following some of these powers and building power knowing that oh wow, maybe he's the epitome of some of the stuff.
I will tell you a story.
In nineteen ninety three
A woman?
Name Laura Esserman.
Who's that doctor?
Took my class.
She claims
Publicly.
That this is the only class
It's Stanford.
For which he did all the reading.
By the way, while she was taking
Getting her MBA effort.
She was having her first child.
And practicing medicine full time.
I would Vaughn 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.
Hace was published in probably two thousand or three, two thousand or four.
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 schmuzing. 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.
Yeah.
Smoke is coming out of her ears.
And
She is pissed off.
And this is a very
accomplished woman and a very smart woman.
Mm.
She's pissed.
I said to a law.
You have boundless energy and boundless intelligence.
You're a force of nature.
Let me
Discuss something.

You are creating friction.
With enough force you can overcome the friction.
If you reduce the friction.
Just think how much
More you could have got.

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.
Inc including Time Magazine.
Two thousand and sixteen list of hundred most influential people in the world.
And I say to people, and I say it with
Right.
But of all the things I've done in my life.
The thing I'm most proud of.
The most private stuff.
It's creating RS.
That is an awesome story.
Thinking about this from a different angle.
Yeah. No, I mean and and she
You know, so I said the basically I said the law, I said you wanna 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 wanna make
Profound changes.
in the connection between research and teaching.
You know, research and and practice.
You wanna
You want to do all these things.
If you if you're gonna 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 Collins Foundation.
Who she fought with?
This is a 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.
That's exactly right.
And I like the it's like a quote attributed attributed to me is how you
Yeah, well I I don't remember saying it, but somebody said I said it, so I'll take credit for it.
You know, I've I said to Lauren, you wanna change medicine?
Medicine is gonna change.
Without
The application of power to influence.
If change was gonna happen, it would've happened already.
I mean 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.
You know, she's everybody's getting a mammogram every year beyond a certain age.
Which is
For a variety of reasons. You can read she was on the CB uh PBS News Hour about this.
Yeah, this is what got her in trouble with the radiologists. The radiologists, of course, sell our selling screening.
She said there's some people that need to be screened every month.
And there's some people who need to be screened never because of their genetics.
So you know she wants custom tailored screening or precision screen.
Anyway.
You can
She's
She's fighting everybody.
Richard Blahm.
Diane Feinstein's husband, both Diane and Richard Blumber now deceased.
Was that a thing?
Where she launched
The Athena project.
The Athena project.
She is now
With her collaborators.
Collecting.
Data
On the diagnosis and treatment and outcome for a hundred and fifty thousand patients.
And the University of California healthcare system.
So I'm supposed to give some opening talk.
To be provide entertainment.
And Dick Gorman's there.
Dick Well, of course, is wealthy Diane Feinstein's husband.
I said to him, Dick, how did Laura get you here?
I still remember I think it was quote in one of the books I wrote.
He said to me, He said, Look.
He said I've learned.
But at the end of the day.
When Laura asked you to do something.
You may say no, but at the end of the day you're gonna do it anyway. Save yourself the aggravation.
Oh man. I feel like you're just uh endlessly full of good stories that we could just keep going on and on.
Let me try to summarize the s 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 but
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?
No.
That's a very good question.
To which I have a very
Good answer.
Yes. 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 Marge said to me many, many years ago, something which is completely true.
You can have power.
Or you can have autonomy.
Can I have.
And I have chosen
To live a life of freedom.
A time.
I mean I could tell you stories
They were bring tears to your eyes. I'll tell you one.
We had a dean at 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 alumna.
You have to go around and raise money.
You have to show up.
Any vents.
University events.
I d I do not necessarily think.
That is how he wanted to spread.
Spend the winter and spring quarters.
But that's what you have to do.
But I want a Jack Valene to come to my class.
I did not call Jack Fellini.
I call Judy Dicky.
Judy Dickie was his assistant.
Judy Deffie controls the schedule.
I meet Jack on such and such a day.
He can't make her on that thing.
Fine, I can adjust the schedule. Can he make it on this?
But I wondered my friend Gary Lovin, who ran Harris and Caesars.
And then
Was the number two executive in it?
I want him to come to my class.
I call Reggie Kirk.
I didn't call Gary Mowban.
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 owl calendar on any website or on any computer.
I want autonomy.
If I said to you Lenny, I will give you one billion dollars.
Or for that matter, ten billion dollars.
If you can if it wait.
If you can have
Last week again.
You can't.
You can't.
Time.
goes in only one direction.
I'm I want control of my time.
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've actually memorialized
Believe it or not, in the Stanford
Uh record.
As having well this is according to my expenses and noble private but are we deemed it to time that I led the biggest
And most successful transformation in the history of higher education.
I
I did it.
Get a once.
I didn't like it.
Life is too short.
I want to do what I like.
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 lock of autonomy. Yeah, you think about
The pr like I was I was trying to get Satya Nadell on the podcast and I talked to his comps people and they're like
His every hour for the next three months is booked already.
We know what he's doing. He's extremely booked and you know, you think about the president obviously
Elon, I totally get what you're saying.
It's true. And by the way, power also comes
With enormous visibility.
Donald Trump has done
For forty years.
But he's now being accused of doing.
You know, the tax stuff, all the stuff.
He's been a grifter all his life!
But when you become president, people are gonna look at things
that in the past they would not have looked at.
You become president of a university.
You're gonna have scrutiny.
Is the president of Harvard Lurk?
The president of Stanford, Lord.
When they both re had to resign.
In one case now the plagiarism.
In another case because of research misconduct.
Nobody
Then you're power comes.
You're gonna be put under a microscope.
People are gonna look
What car are you driving?
They're gonna look at who you go out with.
They're gonna look at how you spend your time. They're gonna look at how how you associate with.
They're gonna
You will have no privacy.
You'll have no
And very little control over your life.
Everybody will feel completely free.
To dissect you.
In public, in private.
Whatever.
And
You all face
The trust dilemma.
When you are rich and powerful
The question will be
Our people.
Prais you.
Are people associating with you?
Because of you?
Because of the position you hold.
Yeah.
Do you spend any time just to follow this threat 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? No. Or is it just Noah.
You know, they see we have a class on the price of power.
I bring out Rudy Crew. Rudy Crew was the New York Schools Chancellor under Rudy Giuliani.
By the way, tells many interesting stories about Rutta Giuliani.
Did not just become a the joke that he is overnight.
He's worked hard to become that.
I don't need that.
He tells me he tells.
Yeah, oh
He will tell
And one year.
One year because his daughter at that time was living.
In the Bay Area.
He when I asked him about, you know, the effect of it.
The position she held.
Head of Miami D County Schools, head of New York City schools, had Hillary ever won, he would have been secretary of education.
Literally.
There's one.
In the room.
And 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 of these people.
And you know the answer to that.
Because you can see.
Suicides.
Divorce rates.
Here is the price.
That not only you pay
But a price that your family pays.
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
This power
uh 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 roles?
So what I would say
And and it comes from
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
Yes.
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.
They have the business.
Get a coach.
Get a personal board of directors.
Like you talk about in the Wall Street Journal.
In other words, get people
Who will
Give you advice?
Give you social support.
And hold you account.
That's the very first thing I would tell people.
It is hard.
To do anything on your own.
If I set you running, I want you to start.
An extraordinarily successful podcast.
I didn't want you to do it without any help.
You would not be where you are today.
So
That simple principle.
Yeah.
Help.
Feels like a part of rule number one, get out of your own way.
Ask for help.
Jeffrey, I was nervous for this podcast'cause I thought this was gonna 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.
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. I'm I I'm happy. I'm happy you're a very good interviewer, which is why your podcast is so successful. And I appreciate it. I'm happy to spend the time with you and I hope
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 that useful.
I know they will.
Uh two final questions. Where can folks find you online if they w or find your book, I guess?
Uh, if they want to learn more and then how can listeners be useful to you?
So you can find my book.
Anywhere where books are sold, then don't look at a physical bookstore'cause nobody carries it, including Ashley Stanford bookstore.
We can run out of it if the people kinda
You could you can find it on Amazon.
Seven rules of power.
You know. So you can 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.
Jeffrey Pfeffer dot com.
If you go to that website
You can find my course outline.
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 um so there are a lot of resources available for this.
Um
Company was once thinking of hiring me to give a talk in their organization.
And the woman who wound up hiring me
Yeah, what I was discussing.
Uh 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 am done what I have done.
For now more than fifty years. Holy moly.
I did not even realize that. For more than fifty years.
I have been in the business of education.
Not just about power, but about many other things as well.
But you know I'm in the education business.
So I am happy
To provide people with the resources, with the readings.
The seven rules of power is well footnoted.
It talks at the end about, you know, we could reach out for the coaches.
You can go to the website and get the book.
You know, I think but I think
Consistent.
If all you do is read.
You're not gonna 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.
What
Which is a good uh plug for your other book, The Knowing Doing Gap, which actually helps you with the skill. Which you can also find all your uh finer finer retails.
Retailers.
Uh Geoffrey Pfeffer.
Thank you so much for being here.
Thank you for having me on your show.
Bye, everyone.
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