Michelle: Here’s a fun, slightly terrifying thought for your Monday morning: that 'Employee of the Month' award on your desk? It might actually be a career death sentence. The person who gets it is often seen as too valuable in their current role to ever get promoted. Mark: Wow, thanks for that dose of morning dread, Michelle! So my reward for being great at my job is... staying in my job forever? That feels both deeply unfair and depressingly familiar. Michelle: It’s the kind of uncomfortable truth we're diving into today with Jeffrey Pfeffer's book, Power: Why Some People Have It—and Others Don’t. Mark: Pfeffer... he's a big name from Stanford's business school, right? I've heard his work is refreshingly blunt, almost a 'survival manual' for the real world, not the one we wish we worked in. It’s got a reputation for being both highly-rated and pretty controversial among readers. Michelle: Exactly. He wrote this after decades of teaching and realizing that most leadership advice is, in his view, feel-good nonsense. He wanted to write a book for everyone—not just CEOs—about how power actually works. And it starts with a brutal reality check. Mark: I'm bracing myself. Where do we begin? Michelle: We begin with the most decorated school superintendent in America... right before he got fired.

Michelle: The story of Rudy Crew is a perfect illustration of Pfeffer's first big point. In 2004, Crew was hired to turn around the massive, struggling Miami-Dade school district. And by all objective measures, he was a miracle worker. Mark: Okay, so what did he do? Michelle: He improved student performance, he fixed the district's terrible bond ratings, he built new classrooms. The district became a finalist for the prestigious Broad Prize for Urban Education three years in a row. And in 2008, he was named National Superintendent of the Year by his peers. He was, on paper, the best in the country at his job. Mark: That’s incredible. A true success story. I assume he got a huge bonus and a parade. Michelle: He got a severance package. Just a few months after being named the best in the nation, the Miami-Dade school board forced him to resign. Mark: Wait, what? He was literally the best in the country and they fired him? How is that even possible? Michelle: Because he made a classic, and fatal, mistake. He focused on his performance, but he failed to manage his relationship with his bosses—the school board. He didn't play the political game. He didn't make them feel important. He just did his job, brilliantly, and assumed that would be enough. It wasn't. Mark: That is infuriating. It feels so wrong. Michelle: It feels wrong because most of us are taught to believe in what social psychologists call the 'just-world hypothesis.' It's this deep-seated, almost delusional belief that the world is fair. That good things happen to good people who do good work, and bad things happen to those who deserve it. Mark: Ah, so this is the person in the office who does amazing work, hits all their targets, but gets passed over for a promotion because the boss's golf buddy gets it instead. Michelle: Precisely. Pfeffer’s research is ruthless on this point. The actual correlation between job performance and career outcomes—like promotions, pay, and even keeping your job—is shockingly weak. In many cases, it's almost non-existent. Mark: So all those late nights and extra hours I put in... they might not matter as much as I think? Michelle: They matter, but they are rarely the deciding factor. What matters more, Pfeffer argues, is your relationship with those in power. Do they like you? Do you make them feel good about themselves? Do you make their lives easier? Take the case of Michael Jeffery, the CEO of a company called LECG. Mark: Never heard of it. Was he a superstar? Michelle: Far from it. During his three-year tenure, the company was almost never profitable and the stock price fell 80 percent. An absolute disaster by any performance metric. Mark: So he was fired immediately, right? Michelle: He kept his job for three years and left voluntarily. Why? Because he had a great relationship with the chairman of the board. He was a master at managing up. He survived not because of his performance, but because of his political skill. Mark: This is a bleak picture of the corporate world. It sounds like being a good performer can even be a trap. Michelle: It often is. Pfeffer tells the story of 'Phil,' a brilliant IT executive who was a genius at delivering complex projects on time and under budget. His boss loved him. But when Phil asked to move to a different department to broaden his skills, his boss said no. He was too valuable right where he was. His outstanding performance trapped him. Mark: Okay, I'm convinced. The world isn't fair, and my performance review isn't my ticket to the top. So if being good at your job isn't enough, what is? This is starting to sound a bit dark.

Michelle: It's not about being dark, it's about being strategic. Pfeffer says power is a performance, and you have to learn to play the part. Which brings me to the fascinating story of Atoosa Rubenstein. Mark: An actress? What does she have to do with corporate power? Michelle: Everything. In 1993, she started as a fashion assistant at Cosmopolitan. By 1999, at just 26 years old, she was the editor-in-chief of CosmoGIRL!, the youngest in the history of the massive Hearst Corporation. Her secret? She said it herself: "I’m an actress. My chief trait in business is that I’m an actress." Mark: What does that even mean? She was pretending to be an editor? Michelle: It means she consciously crafted her persona to fit what her superiors needed to see. For her direct boss at Cosmo, who was all about fashion, Atoosa dressed the part, becoming a style icon in the office. For the president of the whole company, Cathleen Black, who needed a sophisticated brand ambassador, Atoosa played the role of the polished, articulate executive at black-tie events. She was playing the role required for her ascent. Mark: Hold on. 'Strategic anger'? 'Acting'? This sounds like being fake and manipulative. Is that really the advice? Michelle: I can see why this book is controversial. A lot of this can sound pretty cynical. But Pfeffer's view is pragmatic. It's not about being 'fake' in a deceptive way; it's about choosing the most effective behavior for a given situation. Think about it—a great diplomat doesn't always say what they're truly feeling. They say what is required to achieve their objective. Power, in this sense, is a skill. Mark: So it's less about lying and more about... emotional discipline? Michelle: Exactly. And it extends to how you speak and even how you carry yourself. Pfeffer talks about displaying anger instead of sadness or guilt. When Oliver North was caught in the Iran-Contra scandal, he went before Congress full of righteous anger, defending his actions as patriotic. He came out a hero to many and launched a new career. Around the same time, the president of Stanford, Donald Kennedy, faced a scandal over finances. He appeared apologetic, embarrassed, and guilty. He lost his job soon after. Same situation, different performances, dramatically different outcomes. Mark: So the lesson is, if you mess up, get angry, not sad. That's a wild piece of advice. Michelle: It's about projecting strength. Sadness and guilt project weakness. Anger, especially righteous anger, projects confidence and control. It's a power move. Another key tactic is simply asking for what you want, audaciously. Mark: People are afraid to do that. They don't want to seem needy or get rejected. Michelle: And that's a huge mistake. Pfeffer tells the story of Keith Ferrazzi, who, when offered a job at Deloitte, had one condition before accepting. He insisted on having dinner once a year, every year, with the CEO of the entire consulting practice. Mark: That is incredibly bold for a new hire. What did the CEO say? Michelle: He said yes! He was so impressed by the audacity that he agreed. Ferrazzi guaranteed himself access to the very top, just by asking. People in power are often flattered to be asked for advice or help. It reinforces their status. And research shows we dramatically underestimate how likely people are to say yes to a request. We focus on the cost to them, but we forget the social cost of them saying no. Mark: Okay, so the toolkit is: act the part, show strategic anger, and ask for what you want. It's a playbook, but it feels like you'd need to be a certain type of person to pull this off. Michelle: Pfeffer argues these are learnable skills. But you're right, once you start accumulating power, a new set of dangers emerges. The very things that get you power can become your undoing. It's a paradox.

Mark: A paradox? How so? You get good at the game, you should keep winning. Michelle: You'd think so. But power changes the player. And the most brilliant illustration of this is the famous 'Berkeley Cookie Study.' Mark: The Cookie Study? This I have to hear. Michelle: It's so simple and so revealing. Researchers brought three students into a lab to work on a task. They randomly assigned one student to be the "leader," whose only job was to evaluate the other two. It was a tiny, meaningless bit of power. Then, halfway through, an experimenter brings in a plate with four cookies. Mark: Four cookies for three people. A classic social dilemma. Michelle: Exactly. Each person takes one cookie, leaving one left on the plate. The question is, who takes the last cookie? Overwhelmingly, it was the randomly assigned "leader." Mark: Of course it was. They felt entitled. Michelle: It gets better. Not only did the leader take the extra cookie, but they were observed to eat it more sloppily. Chewing with their mouth open, dropping more crumbs. The small taste of power made them, literally, a Cookie Monster. Mark: That's hilarious and also deeply terrifying. So a tiny bit of power turns us into sloppy, entitled monsters? What does that tell us about actual CEOs with real power? Michelle: It tells us that power has a corrosive effect. Pfeffer argues it leads to three main problems. First, overconfidence. You start believing your own hype. Second, disinhibition. You stop caring about social rules, like chewing with your mouth closed, or more importantly, listening to others. And third, you become less empathetic. You start seeing other people as instruments to achieve your goals, not as people. Mark: And I'm guessing that's when you get into trouble. Michelle: That's precisely when you fall. You stop doing the very things that got you power in the first place—like listening, building relationships, and being sensitive to the political environment. You become the out-of-touch boss who didn't see the coup coming. Think of Hugh McColl at NationsBank, who promised his new partner David Coulter a "merger of equals," then systematically pushed him out once the deal was done. Coulter trusted him and lost his job. Power makes you less vigilant. Mark: So the skills you need to gain power are the opposite of the skills you need to keep it? Michelle: In a way, yes. You need ambition and a thick skin to get it, but you need humility and empathy to hold onto it. And that's the paradox. The journey up makes it harder to stay at the top. You get tired, you get complacent, and you forget the rules of the game.

Mark: So the arc of this book is almost a tragedy. First, you have this painful awakening that the world isn't fair and you need to play the game of power to survive. Then, you learn the uncomfortable, sometimes morally gray, rules to win. But the moment you win, the game starts playing you, and you're at risk of losing everything because power itself corrupts your ability to play. Michelle: That's a perfect summary. But I think Pfeffer would frame it more hopefully. Knowing the rules is the first step to not letting the game play you. His point isn't to become a monster; it's to be relentlessly self-aware. He even quotes a former chairman of Swiss Re who said the key to staying grounded is to "expose yourself to a social circle that really doesn’t care about your position." Go hang out with people who will tell you when you have cookie crumbs on your face. Mark: I like that. So what's the one big takeaway for someone listening who wants to be more effective, but also wants to be a good person? Michelle: I think it’s this: power isn't inherently good or bad. It's a tool. And like any powerful tool, say a chainsaw, it can be used to build a house or to cause destruction. It all depends on the user. The most powerful move you can make is to understand the tool, respect its dangers, and never, ever lose your self-awareness while you're using it. And remember, Pfeffer's research also shows that having power and control over your work is strongly linked to a longer, healthier life. So learning these skills isn't just about your career; it's about your well-being. Mark: A survival guide in more ways than one. We'd love to hear your own stories of power dynamics at work. Have you seen a 'Rudy Crew' get pushed out, or an 'Atoosa' act their way to the top? Share your thoughts with the Aibrary community on our socials. It’s a topic we all have to navigate. Michelle: This is Aibrary, signing off.