Must keep bosses happy: relationships are more important than performance
If you are too good at your job, no real incentive to move up
Get noticed: bosses dont always know what you have accomplished
Have to stand out and be memorable
Define performance dimensions: cannot be perfect at everything, so emphasize what you did well
What matters to the boss is paramount: ask those in power what they think is crucial for the job and how you should do it
Never make the bosses feel bad
Flatter them
Personal Qualities - Influence
Can always change personality into power personality
Critically objective of about yourself: feedforward feedback (what I need to work on to get ready for later)
Confucius: “Real knowledge is to know the extent of your own ignorance”
Qualities of will
Ambition: gives drive
Energy: contagious, useful for hard work and shows loyalty (NEED TO WORK ON)
Focus: ability to stay in 1 company and specialize. Median tenure of exec in company is 15 years. Focus on a few skills and be the best. Focus on the most critical aspects of your job (NEED TO WORK ON)
Skills in power aquisition
Self knowledge: be critical after every meeting. Write everything down, what you did well, bad and who talked and outcome of meeting
Confidence: assert yourself to seem like you have power. People will always look toward confident person
Empathize: do not get too carried away by goal and realize how your goal impacts others
Conflict tolerance: be able to stand up for yoursel
Intelligence: often leads to headstrong personality that cannot empathize
Choosing Where to Start
Chose a niche and develope leverage with less resistance and a power base
Not necessarily what the company specializes in (finance in tech company…)
Source of departmental power: unit cohesion and ability to solve current problems (able to provide value)
Diagnosing departmental power:
Relative pay: who has the highest starting salary and exec salary
Physical location: better location, windows or proximity to C-suit is more power
Committees: who is most likely on board of directors
First mover advantage: choose departments that are risky and not developed as well
Getting In
Need to ask and be bold: stand out and recieve the rewards
Nothing bad will happen if turned down
People are likely to grant requests because it makes the benevolent and powerful
Flattering works, especially if you have a casual connection
Stand out: build personal brand and promote yourself
Only way to compete against superiors
Likability: nice = fragile, tough = power
Power creates likability, not other way around
Creating Resources
Power and resources beget more pwoer and resources
Choose positions with control over budget and staff
Power <— resources from current position
Creating resources out of nothing
Provide attention and support
Small but important tasks —> be indispensible
Focus on resource building in and out of organization
Leverage prestigious intsitution
First move advantage is crucial
Networking
Lots of jobs require networking ability
Cycle: networking —> visibility —> status and power
Make a list of people/orgs. you want more contacts in
Go out of your way to meet new people —> lead out-of-work meetup
Need to have weak ties that are able and willing to help you
Optimal: know lot of people from different circles, multiple organizations, geographically dispersed. Diverse weak ties
Try for high status ties
Control flow of informationa and become person that people seek advice from
Be the person that can link between different groups (engineering business, English speakers, other language speakers, etc.
Small networks are useful in trying to gain tacit, experiential knowledge
Acting and Speaking
Need to act like you have power in order to recieve it
Authority is 20% given and 80% taken
Use reflexive and contagious quality of emotions to influence others around you
Give full attention to people
Express anger in negative situations
Look your best. Short and powerful gestures
Set the stage such that it conveys your power
Always be prepared for speeches
Contest and challenge the premise of the discussion —> power
Linguistic techniques for persuasiveness
Us vs. them: paint others as enemy
Pause
Enumeration: especially lists of threes
Use contrastive pairs and false dichotomies
No notes
Simple, clean and concise sentences are best
Seek out opportunities in company for public speaking
Building a Reputation
First reputation/impression is often fast and accurate
Impression is durable <— attention decrement (people dont care about later behaviour), cognitive dissonace (disregard contradicting impressions later
If first impression is bad, leave
Try to put yourself in many different contexts to create a great impression
Build and emphasize dimensions of image —> more powerful
Build and maintain image with medium (write articles, do interviews on behalf of organization)
Get people to prpmote you on your behalf
Reputation and image creates reality
Overcoming Opposition and Setbacks
Be graceful and find a way to use opposition as allies (eg. graceful exits)
If irrelevant to your agenda, do not fight it. You are making unnecessary enemies
Do not take personally and make relationships work regarldess
Use impartial, data-driven analysis for curing relationship
Don’t give up, like how water erodes rocks
Advance on multiple fronts
First mover advantage —> seize intiative to oust opponents
Use rewards and punishments to shape opponent behaviours
Don’t give up when setback hits you
Tell as many people ASAP —> densitived and move forward
When hit with a setback, keep doing what you wer doing before that made you successsful
Act like a winner
The Price of Power
Visibility and scruting: harder to do better tasks, distraction and no risks
Loss of autonomy: cannot control schedule, so block time for yourself
Time and effort: might ruin relationships
Trust dillemas: more yes-man. Be ruthless to people who are trying to take job
Power is addictive
How and Why People Lose Power
Power gets to head ⇒ corrupts, no inhibition, more risks, rude
Be humble and pay attention to less power. Expose yourself to group that doesnt care about status
Do not forget where you came from
Trust misplaced/too much:
Look at actions, not works
Lost patience: keep demeanor always
Get tired: leave if too tired
Be vigilant of changing times: strategies need to change
Power Dynamics
Do not care about company/others in path to power
2 facts about hierarchy
Status is imported when you move, cannot restart easily
People intrinsically like hierarchies
Responsibilities and authority do not always overlap
Need influence skill
Democracy does not work in companies
Its Easier Than You Think
Building path to power
Be brutally honest about strength and weakness to choose where to star