Pfeffer Jeffrey 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.

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

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

You can’t be normal and expect abnormal returns.

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:

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.

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.

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

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

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

Planning is essentially unrelated to organizational performance

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.

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

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.

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

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

if power is to be used for good, more good people need power.

The first rule of power is about acknowledging and accepting who you are but not letting that identity define who you will be forever. It is about understanding the importance of social connection but not letting the need for acceptance overwhelm what you want to get done, and the necessity of pursuing your own interests and agenda. It is, in short, about getting out of your own way and getting on with the task of building the power base that will provide you the leverage to accomplish your goals.

The dilemma is that while people want to fit in and be accepted and not ostracized for violating social norms, people also want to stand out. If people blend in too perfectly, they become unnoticeable, undifferentiated from those around them competing for promotions. People also want to excel, and to excel is to be, almost by definition, different.

Workplaces are mostly—and there are obviously notable exceptions—not what many people apparently seek from them: communal settings in which people take care of each other, provide economic security and social support, and possibly even provide meaning and purpose from the work people do. Of course a few organizations—the best-places-to-work lists are a good source for many of them—do all these things. But don’t count on your place of employment being one of them. Unfortunately, most people are understandably reluctant to heed this message.

the behaviors required to ascend hierarchies may differ greatly from the optimal behaviors for someone ensconced in power.

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

most of the workplace exposures have health effects comparable to or even greater than exposure to secondhand smoke.

Employing a model designed to reduce the likelihood of double-counting, Goh, Zenios, and I estimated that the number of total excess deaths each year attributable to the ten workplace conditions was about 120,000 people. To put this number in perspective, this is more deaths coming from poor, unhealthful, stressful workplace conditions than the number of deaths resulting from diabetes, Alzheimer’s, influenza, or kidney disease and about as many deaths as were reported in 2010 from both accidents and strokes. The data on deaths by cause come from the Centers for Disease Control.28

For instance, “For men, prolonged exposure to work-related stress has been linked to an increased likelihood of lung, colon, rectal, and stomach cancer and non-Hodgkin lymphoma.”36 Moreover, we are increasingly understanding the mechanisms linking stress to disease.

Indirect costs from things such as disengagement, being physically present but not feeling well enough to do one’s best, and being distracted by stress are typically estimated to be about five times as large as the direct medical costs, an issue I return to toward the end of this chapter.

Doing this calculation showed that the United States experiences about fifty-nine thousand excess deaths and about $63 billion in incremental costs annually compared to what would be predicted given its per capita income level. Considering the total toll we previously estimated (of about 120,000 excess deaths and $180 billion in costs), our analyses indicate that about half of the deaths and about a third of the incremental costs from workplace conditions appear to be potentially preventable if the United States were more similar to other advanced industrialized economies.

A review of some 113 published studies concluded that there was good evidence for a relationship between health and productivity

Lawrence Katz and Alan Krueger found that the proportion of people working in alternative work arrangements had increased some 50 percent in the ten years from 2005 to 2015. Moreover, “94 percent of the net employment growth in the US economy from 2005 to 2015 appears to have occurred in alternative work arrangements.”4

Schoorman asked

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.

(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).

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

most mergers—some estimates are 70 percent or more—fail to deliver their intended benefits and destroy economic value in the process. A recent analysis of 93 studies covering more than 200,000 mergers published in peer-reviewed journals showed that, on average, the negative effects of a merger on shareholder value become evident less than a month after a merger is announced and persist thereafter.2

Siebel’s business development executive admitted that all of the company’s acquisitions have failed and noted that an internal study indicated that “cultural conflicts” were the cause in every case.5

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

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.

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.

By calling BS on so much of what goes on, this book gives people a closer, more scientific look at many dimensions of leadership behavior. Most important, it encourages everyone to finally stop accepting sugar-laced but toxic potions as cures.

airline executives who have created an experience so unpleasant that their best customers flee for private options and others avoid flying if they can;

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.

willingly forgo a substantial pay raise in exchange for seeing their direct supervisor fired.

First full day as Twitter COO tomorrow. Task #1: undermine the CEO,

thirteen months later, Costolo did take over as CEO from the then-CEO Evan Williams, a cofounder of the company.

statistically insignificant relationship between student evaluations and learning,

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

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;

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

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

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.

read Jack Welch’s books about General Electric and his management approach and never encounter the phrase “GE jerks.” Yet that is a term I first heard from a now-retired GE senior executive who reported directly to Mr. Welch.

people who first had the opportunity to demonstrate that they were nonprejudiced were subsequently more willing to express attitudes that showed bias.

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

Narcissism levels are higher for Americans than for citizens of many other countries and regions,

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.

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.

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

The way leadership gurus try to demonstrate their legitimacy is not through their scientific knowledge or accomplishments but rather by achieving public notoriety—be it the requisite TED talks, blog posts, Twitter followers, or books filled with leadership advice that might or might not be valid and useful.

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.

Leaders who have come up through the ranks and have done many if not most of the organization’s jobs are much more likely to look out for the interests of those they lead because they have been there themselves.

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.

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

the level of narcissism has increased in presidents over time.

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

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.

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.

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.

jobs that require employees to display (positive) emotions that they may not actually be feeling can be psychologically demanding and stressful.

is incredibly common and seemingly an important requirement for effective leadership.

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

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

Lincoln lied about whether he was negotiating with the South to end the war. . . .

He also lied about where he stood on slavery. He told the American public and political allies that he didn’t believe in political equality for slaves because he didn’t want to get too far ahead of public opinion, Mott says.45