7 Rules of Power: What We’re Reading
7 Rules of Power: Surprising—but True—Advice on How to Get Things Done and Advance Your Career by Jeffrey Pfeffer
About the Book:
If you want to "change lives, change organizations, change the world," the Stanford Business School's motto, you need power.
Is power the last dirty secret or the secret to success? Both. While power carries some negative connotations, power is a tool that can be used for good or evil. Don't blame the tool for how some people use it.
Rooted firmly in social science research, Pfeffer's 7 rules provide a manual for increasing your ability to get things done, including increasing the positive effects of your job performance.
The 7 rules are:
Get out of your own way.
Break the rules.
Show up in powerful fashion.
Create a powerful brand.
Network relentlessly.
Use your power.
Understand that once you have acquired power, what you did to get it will be forgiven, forgotten, or both.
With 7 Rules of Power, you'll learn, through both numerous examples as well as research evidence, how to accomplish change in your organization, your life, the lives of others, and the world.
Curious Quotes:
“If you don’t tell your story, you cannot be sure that anyone else will either.”
“If you want power to be used for good, more good people need to have power.”
“People often worry about their organizational competitors for advancement, about what their bosses think of them, about their relative skills. All of these things are important. But possibly the single biggest barrier to having power is ourselves.”