Jeffrey Pfeffer Quotes

Your most important task as a leader is to teach people how to think and ask the right questions so that the world doesn't go to hell if you take a day off.

The sun’s rays, focused, are much more powerful than they are without focus. The same is true for people seeking power.

Being memorable equals getting picked.

When two people always agree, one of them is unnecessary.

Michael Schrage is right: “A collaboration of incompetents, no matter how diligent or well-meaning, cannot be successful.

a large body of empirical research conducted over decades suggests that student evaluations are more than unhelpful; instead, they are likely to change the behaviors of presenters in ways that make learning and personal growth less likely. That is one reason why Armstrong concluded that “teacher ratings are detrimental to students.

Thinking is very hard work. And management fashions are a wonderful substitute for thinking.

If doctors practiced medicine the way many companies practice management, there would be far more sick and dead patients, and many more doctors would be in jail.

Believing that the world is fair, people fail to note the various land mines in the environment that can undermine their careers.

No one who is unmemorable is going to be chosen for an important job, because one cannot select what one cannot remember.

The two fundamental dimensions that distinguish people who rise to great heights and accomplish amazing things are will, the drive to take on big challenges, and skill, the capabilities required to turn ambition into accomplishment. The three personal qualities embodied in will are ambition, energy, and focus. The four skills useful in acquiring power are self-knowledge and a reflective mind-set, confidence and the ability to project self-assurance, the ability to read others and empathize with their point of view, and a capacity to tolerate conflict.

Asian professionals are frequently held back from senior positions by the perception that they don’t have “executive presence,” a factor that similarly operates against other minority groups in the workplace, including women.39 And what constitutes executive presence? Certainly not modesty:

that leaders inspire trust, be authentic, tell the truth, serve others (particularly those who work for and with them), be modest and self-effacing, exhibit empathic understanding and emotional intelligence, and other similar seemingly sensible nostrums.

Deming argued that if there are performance problems and quality defects, one needs to understand how those problems arise almost naturally as a consequence of how a system has been designed—and then fix those design flaws. Put simply, attack the problems by fixing the system, not scapegoating the necessarily fallible human beings working in and operating that system—whether or not they deserved it.

Planning is essentially unrelated to organizational performance

You can’t be normal and expect abnormal returns.

companies with high levels of workplace trust enjoy higher stock market returns.

Nortel—another troubled networking company that suffered operating problems as a result of botched mergers.

Condoleezza Rice is right: people will join your side if you have power and are willing to use it, not just because they are afraid of your hurting them but also because they want to be close to your power and success.

One study of relatively highly paid contractors in Silicon Valley found that free agents didn’t really feel free because of the need to be always searching for their next gig and therefore frequently took less leisure time than regular employees.

Using both experiments and field data, a recent study found that economic insecurity was associated with increased consumption of painkillers and produced actual physical pain and reduced pain tolerance, with the absence of control providing one mechanism explaining these results.

Measuring the wrong thing is often worse than measuring nothing, because you do get what you measure. So if the assessments focus on how much people “enjoy” the experience—be that reading a book, watching a talk, or going to a training session—those same books, talks, and trainings will respond to those measurements by prioritizing the wrong outcomes: making participants feel good and giving them a good time. Simply stated, measuring entertainment value produces great entertainment, not change; measuring the wrong things crowds out assessing other, more relevant indicators such as improvements in workplaces. Improvement comes from employing measurements that are appropriate, those that are connected to the areas in which we seek improvement. In the case of leadership, that appropriate measurement would include assessing the frequency of desirable leader behaviors; actual workplace conditions such as engagement, satisfaction, and

(like the BMW mechanic who handed Robert Sutton a survey and pleaded for a five on a five-point scale, because otherwise he would get in trouble).

Research by Cornell’s Robert Frank and his colleagues showed that the percentage of students choosing unethical options on an honesty test increased dramatically among students taking microeconomics courses, but not among students in astronomy classes.

Between 1999 and 2002, the Yankees paid over three times what the A’s paid for the average player on their roster. The Yankee payroll was $130 million in 2002; that of the A’s, just $40 million. Yet the difference in performance between the two teams was surprisingly small considering the vast difference in salaries. The Yankees made the championship playoffs in 2000, 2001, and 2002, but so did the A’s. The Yankees did go all the way to the World Series in 2000 and 2001, and won it in 2000. But during the 2002 regular season, the A’s and the Yankees each won 103 games. Just think what the A’s might have accomplished with the combination of evidence and unlimited budget.

Sometimes, the best management is no management at all. Jeffrey Pfeffer likes to say that managers should be required to take something like the physician’s oath: “First, do no harm.

Jeffrey Pfeffer and I found that many ineffective companies suffer from this disease, which we call the “smart talk trap.”17 This a syndrome where companies hire, reward, and promote people for sounding smart rather than making sure that smart things are done. In such organizations, talking somehow becomes an acceptable—even a preferred— substitute for actually doing anything. Inaction is bad for any company. But it is especially devastating when innovation is the goal, because so many ideas need to be tried to find a few that might work.

We prefer to say that Larry has a problem with tenses. For example, ‘our product is available now’ might mean it’ll be available in a few months or that Larry was thinking about one day developing the product.

the level of narcissism has increased in presidents over time.

the higher one rises in an organization, the more likely it is that people will tell you you’re right. People will agree with powerful leaders as a strategy of ingratiation, as nothing is as flattering as others’ telling you how right and how smart you are.

a tale about America’s first president not lying is itself apparently a lie.

one in 10 text messages involves a lie of some kind. . . .

although most people believe they can reliably discern when they are being lied to, the evidence suggests that they can’t.

Now consider the essence of the management education process—the business school experience—as practiced at leading institutions in the United States as well as those throughout the world. The essence of this education process is talk—learning how to sound smart in case discussions or to write smart things (talk turned into writing) on essay examinations based on business cases. In business school classes, a substantial part of students’ grades is based on how much they say and how smart they sound in class discussion. Robert

most workplace learning goes on unbudgeted, unplanned, and uncaptured by the organization…. Up to 70 percent of workplace learning is informal.

Dumping technology on a problem is rarely an effective solution.

ONE OF THE MAIN BARRIERS to turning knowledge into action is the tendency to treat talking about something as equivalent to actually doing something about it. Talking about what should be done, writing plans about what the organization should do, and collecting and analyzing data to help decide what actions to take can guide and motivate action. Indeed, rhetoric is frequently an essential first step toward taking action. But just talking about what to do isn’t enough. Nor is planning for the future enough to produce that future. Something has to get done, and someone has to do it. Yet,

Just as mission statements and talk can substitute for action rather than informing such action, planning can be a ritualistic exercise disconnected from operations and from transforming knowledge into action. Of course, planning can facilitate developing knowledge and generating action. But it does not invariably do so and often does the opposite.

very wary of judging people just on the basis of how smart they sound, and particularly on their ability to find problems or fault with ideas. These are dangerous people. They are smart enough to stop things from happening, but not action oriented enough to find ways of overcoming the problems they have identified.

We don’t reject informal talk, formal presentations, and quantitative analysis. These are often important precursors to intelligent action. It’s just that they are not substitutes for action.

The usual place to stand is in the existing set of constraints, issues, and opportunities that confront the organization…. Using this approach, managers typically conduct a financial and organizational analysis, identify what opportunities and threats exist, what strengths and weaknesses the organization has, and then formulate a strategy that is intended to exploit the opportunities and minimize or eliminate the threats…. The boat is patched but it is still the same boat and most likely will only continue on the old course at about the same velocity or a little faster…. Our recommended approach is to stand in a future that is not directly derived from present conditions and circumstances…. Although the future is informed by the past, it is as “past-free” as possible…. When I say the future is “past-free,” I mean that the future should not be an extrapolation, extension, or modification of the past.

you change people’s behavior by having them set some specific, measurable goals, reminding them of what they have committed to do, measuring their activities and providing frequent feedback, and providing positive reinforcement for progress. Effective

Rather, companies improve their quality by defining what the idea means in terms of specific operational measures, then routinely and frequently assessing those aspects of performance, sharing the outcomes with everyone (often in graphical form), and holding people accountable for improving the measures that are under their control. When

we are predisposed to trust and have an evolutionary need to do so. Therefore, people are motivated to overlook a violation of trust

For instance, even though entrepreneurs in technology often know the statistics that about 80 percent of founders are forced out of their companies by their venture capital investors, I have never heard anyone tell me that this would happen to them. In

qualities we actually select for and reward in most workplaces are precisely the ones that are unlikely to produce leaders who are good for employees or, for that matter, for long-term organizational performance.

to change the world of work and leadership, we need to get beyond the half truths and self-serving stories that are so prominent today.

systematic data on workplace bullying report widespread verbal abuse, shouting, berating others, and the general creation of a climate of intimidation.

is also famous for his outbursts of temper and his put-downs of employees,

The most fundamental principle of learning theory is that behavior is a function of its consequences. When

Moving to something else, whatever else the virtues of that new career path, will rob you of the resources and competence you have built doing what you do.

A toxic coworker can insert significant stress into your work life, and we know that workplace stress is a form of stress that takes a significant toll on your health. Management and organizational researchers Joel Goh, Jeffrey Pfeffer, and Stefanos Zenios examined the impacts of poor management on health and on the basis of their data concluded that over 120,000 deaths per year and between 5-8 percent of health care costs may be related to workplace management.

In a world of conceptual frameworks, fancy graphics presentations, and, in general, lots of words, there is much too little appreciation for the power, and indeed the necessity, of not just talking and thinking but of doing—and this includes explaining and teaching—as a way of knowing. Rajat

The problem is that there are too many organizations where having a mission or values statement written down somewhere is confused with implementing those values.

Eileen Shapiro suggested that one definition of a mission statement is “In some companies, a talisman, hung in public places, to ward off evil spirits.

The tendency for organizations to place too much value on people who seem smart and who talk a lot, and too little value on people who do smart things and get a lot of things done, is exacerbated by the way that MBAs and executives are taught and by the methods used in most management consulting firms.

Actually putting your people first and treating them as if they matter to the organization’s success, although easy to talk about and easy to understand, is notoriously difficult to implement.

Jeffrey Pfeffer, professor of organizational behavior at Stanford, has marshaled evidence that shows that when it comes to getting promoted in your job, strong relationships and being on good terms with your boss can matter more than competence.

If you want power to be used for good, more good people need to have power.

networking is not something that can, or should, be outsourced.

The unit of change in schools, the unit of change in any organization, is a personal relationship.

Necesitamos empresas saludables con valores que regeneren la cultura tóxica para construir una sociedad sostenible. Y la bisagra para el cambio necesario, la especie clave del ecosistema humano, el roble del que depende que crezcan y se desarrollen tantas otras especies, y que se oxigene o se contamine el ambiente, es el llamado «líder empresarial».

Systematic research supports the message of these cases. As noted in an article in the New York Times, “even in the most extreme circumstances—like the financial crisis—directors bore little consequence for their poor decisions.

narcissistic CEOs led firms to bounce back more successfully during the post-crisis recovery.42

Men tend to be more narcissistic than women, possibly because men are somewhat more competitive and women are more communal, and also because narcissistic behavior would be much more gender-role discrepant for women than for men.

Business school students seem to be particularly narcissistic, an important fact because many leaders in both the for-profit and the nonprofit world come from business school backgrounds, particularly in the more recent past.

overconfident individuals achieved higher social status, respect, and influence in groups.

narcissism levels have increased significantly among college students over the past several decades.

people with higher narcissism scores were more likely to emerge as leaders during four-person initially leaderless group discussions.

women tend to underrate their achievements, and have less confidence in their abilities than their line managers have for them.

the more objectively learning is measured, the less likely it is to be related to the evaluations.

evidence shows most workplaces filled with distrustful, disengaged, dissatisfied, despairing employees.

lying produces few to no severe sanctions, lying increases in frequency.

he was ultimately being pushed out of the company by his alumni mentor.

But I no longer believe that trust is essential to organizational functioning or even to effective leadership. Why? Because the data suggest that trust is notable mostly by its absence. Nevertheless, organizations continue to roll along, as do their leaders who seemingly suffer few consequences for being untrustworthy.

givers were not only among the most successful individuals,

statistically insignificant relationship between student evaluations and learning,

change the behaviors of presenters in ways that make learning and personal growth less likely.

were also among the least successful, and he provided advice about how to be generous without being a patsy.

our ability to accurately discern who is taking advantage of us is remarkably poor.

weight gain was dependent on the weight gains of others with whom that person was socially tied.

are frequently based on hope or fear, what others seem to be doing, what senior leaders have done and believe has worked in the past, and their dearly held ideologies—in short, on lots of things other than the facts.

when times are bad, administrators, closer to the locus of decision-making and with more power, protect their jobs disproportionately,

Cisco figured out that mergers between similar-sized companies rarely work, as there are frequently struggles about which team will control the combined entity (think Daimler-Chrysler or Dean Witter–Morgan Stanley). Cisco’s leaders also determined that mergers work best when companies are geographically proximate, making integration and collaboration much easier (think Synoptics and Wellfleet Communication, which were not only about equal in size, but 2,500 miles apart), and they also uncovered the importance of organizational cultural

80 percent of founders are forced out of their companies by their venture capital investors,

In everyday social relationships, people expect fair treatment and favors to be reciprocated.

SAS Institute has resisted going public because Jim Goodnight, the CEO, is concerned about the effects of public ownership on its employee-centric, family-oriented culture. So long as he holds all the cards, his workers’ loyalty is probably justified, but only so much as they can be certain that he’ll be in charge forever. Which

the percentage of people in administration inexorably increases.

in work settings, things become a lot more calculative. Specifically, people make more evaluations of whether or not coworkers and superiors could be useful in the future; likewise, people show more concern with the future than with repaying past kindnesses.

workplaces are primarily instrumental, calculative settings largely free of moral sentiments and even normative constraints.

the leadership industry also has its share of quacks and sham artists who sell promises and stories, some true, some not, but all of them inspirational and comfortable, with not much follow-up to see what really does work and what doesn’t.

a recent review of the evidence concluded that there is a very small and statistically insignificant relationship between student evaluations and learning, and that “the more objectively learning is measured, the less likely it is to be related to the evaluations.”48 Another review also concluded that “teacher ratings and learning are not closely related

career prospects of employees who report corporate malfeasance are so dismal that it is surprising that people whistleblow at all.

Individuals who wear fake (counterfeit) branded sunglasses cheat more often across a number of different tasks.

if little changes in the informational environment that people confront.

Another review also concluded that “teacher ratings and learning are not closely related

empirical research conducted over decades suggests that student evaluations are more than unhelpful;

prioritizing the wrong outcomes: making participants feel good and giving them a good time. Simply stated, measuring entertainment value produces great entertainment, not change; measuring the wrong things crowds out assessing other, more relevant indicators

SAS Institute, where the cofounder and CEO Jim Goodnight evaluates managers by their ability to attract and retain talent, and where people can lose their jobs if their units experience excessive voluntary turnover.

lying is then common, it becomes normative, in the sense that norms describe common behavioral patterns. Because lying becomes normative, it isn’t sanctioned,