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Power HCINDIA: Why Some People Have It―and Others Don't Paperback – Dec 5 2023
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“Pfeffer [blends] academic rigor and practical genius into wonderfully readable text. The leading thinker on the topic of power, Pfeffer here distills his wisdom into an indispensable guide.”—Jim Collins, author ofNew York Timesbestselling authorGood to GreatԻHow the Mighty Fall
Some people have it, and others don’t. Jeffrey Pfeffer explores why, inPower.
One of the greatest minds in management theory and author or co-author of thirteen books, including the seminal business-school textManaging With Power, Jeffrey Pfeffer shows readers how to succeed and wield power in the real world.
- Print length288 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherHarper Business
- Publication dateDec 5 2023
- Dimensions215 x 140 x 18 cm
- ISBN-100062312790
- ISBN-13978-0062312792

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“Jeff Pfeffer is of immense service to the world with his work, blending academic rigor and practical genius into wonderfully readable text. The leading thinker on the topic of power, Pfeffer here distills his wisdom into an indispensable guide.” — Jim Collins, author of Good to Great and How the Mighty Fall
“Talk about speaking truth to power! In refreshingly candid prose, Jeff Pfeffer offers brilliant insights into how power is successfully built, maintained, and employed in organizations. It’s well known that when Pfeffer speaks about power, smart people listen. This book shows why.” — Robert Cialdini, author of Influence
“Jeff Pfeffer nails it! Political skill, not just talent, is central to success in every field. In Power, this leading scholar comes down to earth with practical, even contrarian, tactics for mastering the power game.” — Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Chaired Professor, Harvard Business School, and bestselling author of Confidence: How Winning Streaks and Losing Streaks Begin and End and SuperCorp
“[Power] will help you get comfortable with challenging assumptions and lingering on the pause....[Pfeffer] draws on a wealth of social-science and psychology research.” — Inc.
“Its candor, crisp prose, and forthrightness are fresh and appealing... Brimming with frank, realistic insights on paths to the top, this book offers unexpected―and aggressive―directions on how to advance and flourish in an ever-more competitive workplace.” — Publishers Weekly
“[Academics and consultants] have an interest in presenting business as a rational enterprise.... This leaves the analysis of power to retired businesspeople...(who strive to present themselves as business geniuses rather than Machiavellis) and practicing snake-oil salesmen…Jeffrey Pfeffer of Stanford Business School is an exception to this rule.” — The Economist
“[Power] ought to be required reading for would-be leaders...[E]xcellent.” — Financial Times
About the Author
Jeffrey Pfefferis the Thomas D. Dee II Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University. He is the author or coauthor of fifteen books, including Leadership B.S., Power, The Human Equation, Managing with Power, and The Knowing-Doing Gap. Pfeffer has led seminars in thirty-nine countries and for numerous US companies, associations, and universities. He has won many awards for his writing, has an honorary doctorate from Tilburg University in the Netherlands, and was listed in the top 25 management thinkers by Thinkers50, and as one of the Most Influential HR International Thinkers by HR Magazine. He lives in Hillsborough, California.
Product details
- Publisher : Harper Business
- Publication date : Dec 5 2023
- Language : English
- Print length : 288 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0062312790
- ISBN-13 : 978-0062312792
- Item weight : 294 g
- Dimensions : 215 x 140 x 18 cm
- 鶹 Rank: #802,710 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #26 in Social Sciences Research
- #32 in Sociology Research & Measurement
- #42 in Business Research & Development
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Jeffrey Pfeffer is the Thomas D. Dee II Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University, where he has taught since 1979. Prior to Stanford, Pfeffer taught at the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Illinois. He has been a visiting professor at Harvard Business School, London Business School, Singapore Management University, and IESE in Barcelona. He has given talks in 39 countries around the world and received an honorary doctorate from Tilburg University in The Netherlands. Pfeffer currently writes a twice-monthly column for Fortune.com, and in the past has written for Business 2.0, the CEIBS Business Review (China), Capital Magazine (Turkey), and for numerous other blogs in the U.S.
At Stanford he teaches a popular second-year MBA elective, The Paths to Power. He currently serves on the board of Berlin Packaging and a nonprofit, Quantum Leap Healthcare.
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Customers find the book informative. They say the author provides useful information about power dynamics. Readers also mention the topic is well-covered from an academic perspective.
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"Well written book with deep insights. This book helped me in my career advancement." Read more
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"I enjoyed reading this book - the author provides a lot of useful information about power dynamics in an easy to read, well structured format." Read more
Customers find the content of the book good and well-written. They say it provides deep insights.
"Well written book with deep insights. This book helped me in my career advancement." Read more
"I enjoyed reading this book - the author provides a lot of useful information about power dynamics in an easy to read, well structured format." Read more
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Top reviews from Canada
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- Reviewed in Canada on January 17, 2025Verified PurchaseWell written book with deep insights. This book helped me in my career advancement.
- Reviewed in Canada on April 28, 2021Verified PurchaseImportant topic, well covered from academic point of view
- Reviewed in Canada on August 5, 2020Verified PurchaseInsightful.
- Reviewed in Canada on July 5, 2021Verified PurchaseExcellent
- Reviewed in Canada on April 26, 2016Verified PurchaseI enjoyed reading this book - the author provides a lot of useful information about power dynamics in an easy to read, well structured format.
- Reviewed in Canada on July 9, 2016Verified Purchaseused this book for school
- Reviewed in Canada on March 15, 2017Verified PurchaseAs expected!
- Reviewed in Canada on September 18, 2010I have read and reviewed all of the previous books that Jeffrey Pfeffer wrote or co-authored and consider this one his most valuable because his focus is much less on dysfunctional organizations and how to resuscitate them; indeed, he focuses almost entirely on what any ambitious person needs to understand about what power is...and isn't. Unlike his approach in any other of the previous books, Pfeffer establishes a direct rapport with his reader and seems to be saying, in effect, "Over the years, I've learned a great deal about power will now share with you what I hope you will find most interesting and, more to the point, most useful." In the Introduction, for example, he suggests that having power is related to living a longer and healthier life, that power and the visibility and stature that accompany can produce wealth, and that power is part of leadership and necessary to get things done, whatever the nature and extent of the given objectives may be. "Power is desirable to many, albeit not all, people, for what it can provide and also a goal in and of itself."
Although Pfeffer does not invoke the core metaphor from Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" in The Republic, I think it is especially relevant to the various misconceptions about power that Pfeffer refutes. The situation in Plato's allegory is that people are located in a darkened cave watching shadows dance on a wall. (The source of light is outside the cave.) They think they are watching ultimate realities. Rather, what they observe are images, yes, but also distortions. The same is true of the "just world hypothesis" that the world is predictable, comprehensible, and therefore potentially controllable. Worse yet, it implies that "people get what they deserve; that is, that the good people are likely to be rewarded and the bad to be punished. Most important," Pfeffer adds, "the phenomenon works in reverse: if someone is seen to prosper, there is a social psychological tendency for observers to decide that the lucky person must have done something to deserve his good fortune."
Pfeffer insists that the world is neither just nor unjust: it is. He also challenges "leadership literature" (including his contributions to it) because celebrity CEOs who tout their own careers as models tend to "gloss over power plays they actually used to get to the top" whereas authors such as Pfeffer offer "prescriptions about how people [begin italics] wish [end italics] the world and the powerful behaved." Pfeffer also suggests that those aspiring to power "are often their own worst enemy, and not just in the arena of building power" because of self-handicapping, a reluctance (perhaps even a refusal) to take initiatives that may fail and thereby diminish one's self-image. "I have come to believe that the biggest single effect I can have is to get people to [begin italics] try to become powerful." Pfeffer wrote this book as an operations manual for the acquisition and retention of power. Of even greater importance, in my opinion, he reveals the ultimate realities of what power is...and isn't...and thereby eliminates the shadows of illusion and self-deception that most people now observe in the "caves" of their current circumstances.
Here are a few of Pfeffer's key points that caught my eye, (albeit out of context):
In the workplace, "as long as you keep your boss or bosses happy, performance really does not matter that much and, by contrast, if you upset them, performance won't save you." (Page 21)
"Asking for help is something people often avoid. First of all, it's inconsistent with the American emphasis on self-reliance. Second, people are afraid of rejection because of what getting g turned down might do to their self-esteem. Third, requests for help are based on their likelihood of being granted." (Page78)
"Power and influence [within social networks] come not just from the extensiveness of your network and the status of its members, but also from your structural position within that network. Centrality matters. Research shows that centrality within both advice and friendship networks produces many benefits, including access to information, positive performance ratings, and higher pay." (Page 119)
"Not only are reputations and first impressions formed quickly, but they are durable. Research has identified several processes that account for the persistence of initial reputations or, phrased differently, the importance of the order in which information is presented. All three processes are plausible. We don't need to know which is operating to worry about making a good first impression." (Pages 150-151)
Note: The three processes are attention decrement, cognitive discounting, and a version of the self-fulfilling prophecy, joined by a fourth (biased assimilation), all of which Pfeffer explains on Pages 151-153.
"Michael Marmot's study of 18,000 British civil servants - all people working in office jobs - in the same society - uncovered that people at the bottom of the hierarchy had [begin italics] four times [end italics] the risk of death as those at the top. [Check out Marmot's The Status Syndrome: How Social Standing Affects Our Health, published by Times Books.] Controlling for risk factors such as smoking or obesity did not make the social gradient in health disappear, nor did statistically controlling for longevity of one's parents. As Marmot concludes, `Social circumstances in life predict health.' So seek power as if your life depends on it. Because it does." (Page 236)
Much of great value has been written about how to establish and then sustain a "healthy" organization. The fact remains, that cannot be achieved without enough people who possess sufficient power. In my opinion, Jeffrey Pfeffer is determined (obsessed?) to increase the number of such people, one reader at a time. Hopefully those who read this book will help others to acquire the power they need to be successful, influential, and most important of all healthy.
Top reviews from other countries
- Rajiv PantReviewed in the United States on November 26, 2011
5.0 out of 5 stars The truth can be a bitter pill to swallow; Buy and read this book especially if you despise the findings it presents
Verified PurchaseThis is an excellent, educational and effective business book, like Professor Pfeffer's previous book The Knowing-Doing Gap: How Smart Companies Turn Knowledge into Action You will learn useful things from this book whether you agree with or abhor the practices it educates us about.
Many people will not like what this book teaches about how things work in business, government and other organizations in the real world. I did not like many of the lessons this book teaches. Many of us want to believe what's in this book to be not true. Most reviews of this book are highly favorable with 5-star ratings, and it seems that a small handful of reviewers have given this book a one-star rating because they are uncomfortable with and dislike the findings presented in this book. The truth can be a bitter pill to swallow.
The lessons taught in this book constitute an accurate, frank and honest description of reality: An ugly reality of how humans have interacted for centuries and continue to. Similar content has appeared in scholarly works for thousands of years. Here are some examples: The First Great Political Realist: Kautilya and His Arthashastra , Essentials of Indian Statecraft; Kautilya's Arthasastra for Contemporary Readers and Niccolo Machiavelli's The Prince (Dover Thrift Editions) These ancient books are taught in universities. Professor Pfeffer's modern treatise deserves to be taught at universities across the world.
I did not assume that the methods described in this book are the only way to power and success. On that note, having power and being successful or happy are not always the same thing. This book does not present laws of mathematics that always hold true. It is a book about human behavior and its results, things that have different results in different situations. What this book describes has been true of many people in many situations throughout human history. I do personally believe there are other nice, kind and ethical ways to power too: However, what this book teaches can not the disputed as history corroborates it. To not believe this book's findings would be like believing that every person is a caring, kind and ethical human being.
In a fair, balanced and research-based style, the book also describes the negative results of having power. It presentes findings from evidence based research. Knowledge of the behaviors described in this book will be helpful to those who do not subscribe to the philosophy of power it describes: It will enable ethical, good-hearted and nice people to know what's going on when interacting with those who use the methods described in this book.
Many of us want to believe in things different from what this book teaches. This is a not a "feel good about the world" book, but a book about some of life's harsh realities. If you want a "feel good" book about leadership, I recommend Steven Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
I recommend that you buy a copy of this book and read it once a year, especially if you hate what this book teaches :-) If you are against the behaviors described in this book, you need to recognize, understand and counter them.
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Frank Gimeno RuizReviewed in Spain on September 13, 2019
3.0 out of 5 stars Sobrevalorado
Verified PurchaseEl libro no está mal, pero tiene demasiada fama para lo que realmente es.
Si el autor fuese más al grano, podría haber escrito un libro la mitad de largo.
Sin embargo no es un mal libro.
- Zoe E. RouthReviewed in Australia on February 23, 2021
4.0 out of 5 stars Hierarchy and power dynamics are inevitable
Verified PurchaseSimilar to Robert Greene’s approach to power, that it’s inevitable and unavoidable so why not play the game, this book shows power struggles in a matter of fact way.
This book does not propose unethical behaviour, but simply a realistic approach. There are also key benefits to seeking power, such as doing good and improving health.
Overall a good manual for power.