Stanford University Professor Jeffrey Pfeffer

GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS Winter 2016

OB377: THE PATHS TO POWER

Although power is a topic that makes people, including some students in this
class, at least somewhat uncomfortable, power is a reality in much (maybe all) of
organizational and social life, in settings ranging from financial institutions to high
technology companies. People may believe they can escape power dynamics
by working in hedge funds, small (or large) high technology companies, the
military, or by founding their own venturesbut power is omnipresent and efforts
to avoid its ramifications invariably fail.

Insufficient sensitivity to and skill in coping with power dynamics have cost
Stanford GSB graduates (both MBA and MSx/Sloan) and many other talented
people promotion opportunities and even their jobs. My objective for this class is
simple: make sure this does NOT happen to you.

The course seeks to ensure that you will learn concepts useful for understanding
power and ways of analyzing power dynamics in organizations. Even more
importantly, the course and its projects and self-reflective assignments
encourage you to think about and develop your own personal path to power
(which can include, of course, a path away from power if you should decide that
you are not interested in doing what is required to become and remain powerful),
as well as to develop your skills in exercising power and influence.

A USERS MANUAL FOR THIS CLASS

This Class Is Not For Everyone. People have different interests, tastes, and
preferences. Not everyone likes the same food or the same movies. Just
because many people have benefited from taking this class doesnt mean that
you will also. An excerpt from the Publishers Weekly review of Power: Why
Some People Have Itand Others Dont also well describes this class: The
book has a realpolitik analysis of human behavior that isnt for
everyone.Brimming with frank, realistic insights on paths to the top, this book
offers unexpectedand aggressivedirections on how to advance and flourish
in an ever-more competitive workplace.

This is an elective! If you arent interested in the subject matter or have some
fundamental objections to aspects of the class, including the instructor, dont take
it!

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One of the questions sometimes raised is whether just reading Power (the
course text) is sufficient and what the value-add is from taking the class. That
depends, of course, on what you do during the quarter. But the short answer is
that the book and the other readings in the syllabus provide much of the social
science research, ideas, and examples that will enable you to cognitively
understand power. The course experience, including the self-reflective
exercises, individual projects, in-class discussions, and other activities are
intended to build your insight and skills in actually doing power.

The Material is Different

I hope so, as what would be the point of telling you what you already think you
know and have learned in the many other classes on leadership?

Everything we cover in this class, and I mean virtually every idea, no matter how
different or outrageous it may at first appear, I can assure you has ample,
sometimes vast, social science evidence to back it up. Some of that evidence is
in the text, some we will cover in class, and some ideas I encourage you to
explore on your own using www.scholar.google.com, and searching on terms or
phrases that cover the concepts we are discussing. Some of these ideas may at
first seem counterintuitive (for instance, that nice people do finish last, or at least
suffer from being too nice), but as you will discover, there is an enormous body of
research that speaks to many of those ideas and concepts as well as the
theoretical logics that make sense of these findings.

Leadership BS

Because so many people kept asking me about how I could teach things
seemingly at substantial variance with so much of the leadership literature, and
because numerous people commented that what they were learning in Paths to
Power and Power contradicted other material they had seen, I finally decided to
take the leadership industry pretty much head on. The result is Leadership BS:
Fixing Workplaces and Careers One Truth at a Time (HarperBusiness, 2015).
I encourage you to read that book (one of 15 nominated for the Financial Times-
McKinsey best business book of 2015 award), which is a prequel to Power. The
book includes, among other topics, the evidence on modesty v. self-promotion,
the pervasiveness (and effectiveness) of lying, and why being an authentic
leader is almost certainly neither possible nor desirable. We are NOT going to
cover this material explicitly in class, as we have enough to do to develop your
knowledge and skills in organizational power and politics. I refer this book to you
as background reading if you are interested or if you are confused or troubled by
any discrepancy between the material in this class and what you may have heard
or read elsewhere.

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Objectives

The objectives of this course are a) to have you see the world differentlyto
change what you notice and think about and how you apprehend the world
around youand b) to also change what you do as you navigate through that
world. If the class is successful, you will be better able to achieve your objectives
and never have to leave an organization or a position involuntarily.

To accomplish these objectives, we will spend some portion of many class

sessions and the out-of-class assignments helping you focus on building your
own action plan and skills for attaining power. It is important that you do all
the assignments and the readings on time. It is also useful if you actually
think about how this material applies to you in your current life as well as
in your future career. Learning the material requires engaging with it. If
you are not going to take the requirements seriously for whatever reason, I
recommend that you just read the book and not bother with the course.

My Teaching Philosophy and Approach

Involvement and Engagement. To accomplish our objectives, we need to be

partners in the learning process. The very design of the tiered classroom subtly
reminds people of settings such as theatres or auditoriums in which they are
entertained while seeing some lecture or performance. Then, in a desire to be
liked or seen as helpful, professors and their students become complicit in an
exchange in which faculty help students through outlines, notes, class
summaries, and a variety of teaching aids, and students reciprocate by praising
the help-givers, asking for more help, and in the end coming to evaluate the
classroom experience as they would any other service or entertainment
offering.

Voluminous empirical research summarized in a comprehensive meta-analysis

suggests that instructor ratings (as a measure of teaching effectiveness) and
student learning (as assessed on objective tests) are almost completely
uncorrelated, with the relationship between them being smaller the more
accurate are the measures of learning.

One way of understanding my job is that I am in the role of your personal

trainer. I will do my best to make available to you the tools that I hope will
motivate and encourage you to learn the material and put it into practice. But
learning is your responsibility. Moreover, it is your responsibility to decide what
is important for you to learn and retain, and how best to do that. For that
reason, you will find few if any handouts being distributed to summarize
the class sessions or other such aids such as summaries of readings or

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texts. Again, research strongly suggests that the act of taking notes significantly
helps with the absorption and retention of material.

This is not a briefing, a lecture, or a presentation, it is a course. When you

subsequently need to put the material of this course into practice, you probably
wont have the notes, handouts, the books, or me or my colleagues sitting near
by. It is, therefore, my hope that you will work to internalize the learning, ideas,
and the feelings and beliefs about power and influence that you develop during
our quarter together.

Role Models.

Not everyone we encounter in Paths to Power is an individual you are

necessarily going to like or maybe even want to emulate. This is a class about
how to get things done, how to build and wield influence, and the multiple ways to
accomplish these objectives. As former U.S. President Richard Nixon (quoting
Bismarck) once wrote, Those who love laws and sausages should not watch
either being made. The question is not whether you like or dont like some of the
people we will encounter, but what you can learn from them and their
experiences.

One of my implicit (now, much more explicit) objectives during the quarter will be
to get you to become much less judgmental, particularly about who you like or
dont like or who you approve or dont approve of. To paraphrase Caesars ex-
CEO and former Harvard Business School professor Gary Loveman, there
comes a time in your career where you can no longer afford to like or not like
colleaguescritical relationships simply have to work, regardless of your
personal feelings. The judgments you should make are whether or not someone
is on your critical path, whether they can be helpful or harmful to your job and
your career, whether you can learn anything from them, and most importantly,
how to get them on your side. If someone is critical to your success and you
have decided you dont like or approve of them, you will have (unnecessarily)
created an obstacle to building the sort of relationship with an individual that you
need.

Star Search and the Learning Process. As part of the GSB experience,
students see many high-profile CEOs in a variety of classes and settings. I have
for the most part intentionally not included such people in the class as visitors.
There are several reasons for this decision.

First of all, with few exceptions, the higher the profile of the leader, the less likely
it is that s/he will tell you the truth about themselves and what they have done (or
are doing). In some instances, they are scripted by PR people. In many cases,

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they are, through their presentations, trying to establish a persona and legacy
that may have little connection with reality.

The second reason I choose the cases and visitors I do is because I hope to
expose you to people who have recently wrestled with or currently are
confronting issues that will have relevance and resonance for you at this
relatively early stage in your careers. I want you to learn what to do and how to
do it, from people who are a) willing to tell you the truth and b) are in a stage of
their careers, for the most part, similar enough to you so that the learning will be
useful as you consider your power strategies.

COURSE LOGISTICS

Executive Coaching:

This year, through the good auspices of the deans office and Professor Larissa
Tiedens and the leadership initiative, we have been able to obtain additional
resources to make individual coaching available on a limited, space-available
basis. Collins Dobbs, Ricki Frankel, Christine McCanna, and Yifat Sharabi-
Levine are the four highly-skilled executive coaches who are going to be helping
with the class.

Individual One-on-One Executive Coaching Sessions

Every member of the class is eligible (not required) to sign up for a 45-minute
personal coaching session with a highly experienced executive coach at no cost.
Each of these coaches has worked with company founders, corporate
executives, and non-profit leadersand most importantly, with past students
from this class. The intent of these sessions is to help you put the material you
are learning into practice.

PAST CLASS PARTICIPANTS HAVE FOUND THESE SESSIONS TO BE

EXTREMELY VALUABLE. I URGE YOU TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THIS
RESOURCE, AND TO THE EXTENT POSSIBLE, TO DO SO EARLY IN THE
QUARTER SO YOU CAN USE THE IDEAS AND PERSPECTIVES
GENERATED AS YOU GO THROUGH THE QUARTER, particularly on your
projects. However, it is important to note that availing yourself of the coaching
resources is completely optional and is not a required part of the class.

Sessions will be student-initiated and can cover the dilemmas you may
experience from the course material, the behavioral implications of decisions to
put the course material into practice, getting feedback on the self-reflective
assignments, and/or helping you commit to choices to behave differently. Some

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examples of the issues previous Paths to Power students have addressed in their
executive coaching sessions include: doing a stakeholder influence map to
assess potential members of a start-up team, seeking feedback on the coachs
perceptions of the person and strategize with them about how to improve first
impressions, and preparing to re-enter a former employer with greater personal
and positional power. Coaching sessions will be more effective when you
come prepared with something reasonably specific that you want to
discuss! All material covered in these sessions will be confidential, including
whether or not you avail yourself of this resource.

Sign-ups will be on a first-come, first-served basis, and are handled by a system

implemented by the coaches. People who have not yet had a coaching session
will receive priority over those who have already had such a session. In the past,
some people used this resource extensively to great (self-reported) benefit.

One-on-One Coaching Sign Up Process

Each coaching session will be 45 minutes with the leadership coach of

your choosing (subject to availability). This means you can sign up with
any of the four coaches.
Executive coaches will post their available time slots in a Google Doc
titled, 2016 Paths-to-Power Coaching Sign Up.
The process for securing a coaching session is:
1. Enter your name into one of the available coaching slots.
2. Send a Google invitation to the specific executive coach
verifying that you have signed up for a coaching session.
Please confirm at least 24 hours before the scheduled
coaching session.
If your desired coaching time slot is already taken, you can add your name
to the Waiting List with your contact information. In the event of a
cancellation, the next name on the waiting list will be scheduled.
Please sign up for only 1 session initially. Beginning Friday, January 23,
students will be free to sign up for additional coaching slots based on
availability.
Coaching sessions will be available beginning the second week of class,
Monday, January 11.

Peer Coaching in Class

On many occasions, we will use your self-reflective exercises as a starting point

to have a conversation with a classmate (or several) about the topic for that day.
On other occasions, we will have in-class exercises that ask you to engage in
peer coaching. We have found over the years that people are often willing to be

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more candid and open about their strengths and weaknesses, development
plans, and experiences in a smaller setting. You will note that often the
instructions for the self-reflective exercises ask you to bring two copies
one copy for you to refer to and one to show to your peer coach to
facilitate the in-class discussion.

Grading:

Grades will be based on four components: 1) Class participation (30%), 2) your

individual power diagnostic project (20%), 3) your final individual (doing-power)
project (30%), and 4) doing your various individual self-reflective assignments
(as described in the course outline) and turning them in as required and on time
(20%) (because these assignments are intended for your own use, they are not
evaluated except as whether or not they are completed on time).

Turning assignments in on time means turning them in when they are

assigned per the course outline (e.g., if something is to be turned in at the
start of class, after class would not be considered on time by most
people). However, since the assignments are designed to enhance your
learning and not just be evaluative, doing them at any point is preferable to not
doing them at all. All assignments are to be turned in using Canvas.

In order to help me keep track of your class participation as well as to learn your
names and something about you, we will use a seating chart. The seating
chart will be created on the third day of the class.

Attendance: Customarily, a relatively large number of students from the GSB

(and many from across the campus) who want to take this class are not able to
get in. I believe it is inconsiderate for a student admitted to the class to miss a
large number of class sessions. If you foreseeing missing a lot of class sessions
for any reason you should not take the course. If you miss more than 4
sessions during the quarter, the odds on your passing the class (in other
words, getting a grade other than a U) are negligible. Missing more than one
session may affect your grade. If you are going to miss class, please let me
know in advance and please let me know why.

Individual Power Diagnostic Project: To navigate organizational political

dynamics successfully, you need to build your clinical, diagnostic skills. One of
the reasons for career derailment is that people get blind-sided and are surprised
by who has the power to cause them problems and that persons interest in doing
so. One of the learning objectives for the quarter is to help you build your skills in
political diagnosis. The individual power diagnostic project assignment is
described in more detail on a page at the end of this course outline. The
individual power diagnostic project is due by 12 P.M. on Friday, March 4,

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2016. LATE PROJECTS WILL NOT BE GRADED AND WILL EARN ZERO
CREDIT.

Individual Doing-Power Project: In addition to the individual power

diagnostic project, there will be an individual project designed to have you put the
ideas of the course into practice during the quarter while the course is going on
and you can access resources to help you in your implementation. Past projects
have entailed everything from obtaining investors who are willing to retain the
class member as CEO of their start-up to building a reputation as one of the top
100 technologists and entrepreneurs in a country. The assignment is described
in an addendum to this document. Individual projects are due by 12 P.M. on
Friday, March 11, 2016, the last day of the course. LATE PROJECTS WILL
NOT BE GRADED AND WILL EARN ZERO CREDIT.

As noted in the instructions, ALL assignments must be submitted through

Canvas.

Self-Reflective Assignments. The various individual self-reflective assignments

are specified throughout the course outline. You are responsible for seeing
when they are due and doing them! They are designed to help you explore the
content of the course in the context of your own plans, objectives, values, and
experiences. If taken seriously, these self-reflective assignments will be useful
as work in process for your individual project. Previous experience suggests that
these are among the most useful course activities.

Administrivia:

My Office: Knight Management Center Faculty Office Building, E-235.

Phone: 723-2915
E-Mail: [email protected]

Course assistant: Elise Tak ([email protected]) is a third-year organizational

behavior doctoral student with a substantive interest in power and other concepts
relevant to the class. You should consider her as another resource available for
your learning and development.

I do all of the grading of the final two projects, and am the only human
being who will read them. Elises job is to handle various logistics and make
sure you do your individual self-reflective assignments on time.

Faculty Assistant: Nanci Moore ([email protected]); Phone: 725-3214;

Office: Knight-Management Center Faculty Office Building, E-324.

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Office Hours: By appointment made directly with me, by either phone or e-
mail. I DO NOT USE ANY OF THE CALENDAR SOFTWARE. I would love to
get to know you better during the quarter. I am happy to do lunches or dinners,
particularly on the days when we have class.

Coaches contact information:

Collins Dobbs [email protected]

Ricki Frankel [email protected]
Christine McCanna [email protected]
Yifat [email protected]

Required Materials:

Power: Why Some People Have Itand Others Dont, by Jeffrey Pfeffer, New
York: Harper Business, 2010.

Course reader. You will find that the reader contains, in addition to cases
prepared specifically for this class, chapters from books (several of which have
won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and other recognition) and
magazine and newspaper articles.

COURSE OUTLINE AND SCHEDULE OF SESSIONS

I. THE PATHS TO POWER: FINDING YOUR WAY

AND PREPARING YOURSELF

January 4. Session 1. Introduction: What Is Power and Why Is It

Important?

The objectives of our first session together are to show you the evidence that
good job performance is not enough to ensure career success or even survival,
that power is important, and most importantly that contrary to what you may
believe (or want to believe), the idea that power dynamics are different either
across different cultures or in different time periods (like the present) is quite
likely to be incorrect.

The class reading also provides you a wonderful article that illustrates many of
the concepts we will cover during the courseparticularly the importance of

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building a brand, how perception becomes reality, and how (and why) founders
get pushed out of their companies.

Reading: Power, Introduction, Be Prepared for Power and Ch. 1, It Takes

More than Performance.

Jeffrey Pfeffer, Youre Still the Same: Why Theories of Power Hold Over Time
and Across Contexts, Academy of Management Perspectives, 27 (2013), 269-
280.

Case: Nick Bilton, All Is Fair in Love and Twitter, New York Times Magazine,
October 13, 2013.

This article describes much about the culture of Silicon Valley and a lot about
Jack Dorsey in particular and how he gained control of Twitter and also built a
reputation that has stood him in good stead over time. As you read the article,
consider the following questions:

1. How did Dorsey go about becoming a technology visionary and high-

profile entrepreneur?
2. How was Dorsey able to wrest control of Twitter from Williams, a co-
founder and CEO?
3. How and why was Dorsey able to attract allies and supporters to help him
in his Twitter effort? And why was he eventually forced out?
4. How much about Dorseys successes, and being forced out, seem to be
related to performance?
5. Why do the strategies Dorsey has so successfully used to build his power
bases work? In other words, what needs to be true about the audience,
colleagues, and the protagonist for perceptions of great success to
become reality?
6. What lessons are there for you in the Twitter example?

Come to class prepared to think about how power has played out in your life,
power struggles you have won and lost, and most importantly, what stands in
your way of being even more powerful than you are. And also come prepared to
discuss with someone sitting near you what you would like to get out of the class
during our quarter together.

January 8, Session 2. The Personal Qualities that Bring Power

You are not born a networker, someone comfortable with conflict, or an individual
with empathic understanding and the ability to read others. For that matter, you
werent born walking or using the toilet. Power skills, like most skills and
behaviors, are learned. In our second session together, we want to consider

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what personal qualities seem to produce power, which of those qualities you
have, and thus, what personal development plan you want to make for yourself
to guide your activities during the quarter.

Reading: Power, Ch. 2, The Personal Qualities that Bring Influence

Case: Peter Stevenson, Tina Brown Is Still Hungry for Buzz, New York Times,
May 6, 2011.

Luke OBrien, How to Lose $100 Million, Politico Magazine, May/June,

2014.

1. Describe Tina Brown. What attributes/characteristics does she

possess? What are her strengths? Her weaknesses?
2. What has made her successfulable to obtain positions of high
visibility and influence at a relatively young age and then to occupy a
series of important positions in the media almost continually for more
than three decades?
3. What actions/strategies has Brown employed to enhance her
effectiveness and influence?
4. Do you think you would react differently to Browns behavior if she
were Tim Brown instead of Tina Brown?
5. How has Brown handled a) new jobs and new opportunities and
challenges, and b) setbacks and reversals? What has helped her in
this process?
6. How has Browns approach and her personal qualities fit, or not, with
the particular sector in which she has worked, media and specifically,
magazines?
7. What can you learn from Tina Brown about building your path to
power?

During class we will see a segment on the Today show (NBC) with Tina Brown
shortly after Talk magazine closed.

First Individual Assignment (due by the start of the second class):

1. Write a brief, one page essay about those aspects of your personality,
skills and abilities, and character that you believe are and have been
most important in helping you get ahead in life (both in the past and in
the future). In other words, what personal attributes or qualities do you
possess that you value highly and believe have and will make you
more effective in obtaining your goals?
2. Consider the material from Ch. 2 from Power and the material you have
read for the first two sessions. Now write a second one-page essay

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 indicating how you see yourself with respect to each of the attributes
described in the chapter. Rate yourself on those dimensions on a 1-5
scale, where 1 means you possess little of the attribute and 5 means
you possess a lot of it.
3. Compare and contrast the two essays. What do they suggest to you
about things you might want to do to develop more power and
influence?
4. What are you going to do during the quarter to develop those personal
qualities and dimensions of yourself?

January 11. Session 3. Getting Over Yourself: Asking for Things and Not
Obsessing About Being Liked

The Stanford culture, and certainly the GSB culture, at least on the surface, is
one of being polite, nice, not being too pushy or aggressive, and presenting an
implicit theory that success comes from not offending anyone, least of all your
classmates. Much research and many case examples should throw these ideas,
at least in their most extreme, noncontingent formulation, into question. The
material in this session asks you to think about how breaking the rules is an
important part of a path to power.

Readings: Sam Borden, Where Dishonesty Is Best Policy, U.S. Soccer

Falls Short, New York Times, June 15, 2014.

Gerben A. Van Kleef, Astrid C. Homan, Catrin Finkenauer, Seval

Gundemir, and Eftychia Stamkou, Breaking the Rules to Rise to Power:
How Norm Violators Gain Power in the Eyes of Others, Social
Psychological and Personality Science, 2 (2011), 500-507.

Malcolm Gladwell, How David Beats Goliath: When Underdogs Break the
Rules, New Yorker, May 11, 2009,
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/05/11/090511fa_fact_gladwell

Case: Keith Ferrazzi

Keith Ferrazzi is a graduate of Harvard Business School who has enjoyed a

meteoric career trajectory. The case explores his first 10 or so years after
business school, before he opened his own marketing and organizational
consulting firm, Ferrazzi Greenlight (that employs MBA graduates).

1. Describe Keith Ferrazzi, in terms of a) the personal qualities that

distinguish him, and b) the strategies and behaviors he has used to
build a successful career.

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 2. Why do you think these qualities and strategies and behaviors have
been helpful for Ferrazzi? Or if you think he has succeeded in spite of
some of what he has done, provide an argument as to what about his
activities have been detrimental to his success.
3. What rules or precepts of leadership does Ferrazzi seemingly
violate? With what effect?
4. Keith is, by his own admission, a consummate networker and someone
who is ambitious, who wants to make a big difference and have a big
impact on the world. Why hasnt this ambition and networking activity
(which is often quite visible to othersfor example, at one event in San
Francisco, an assistant with a clearly visible list on a clipboard
escorted Keith around the room as he chatted up the people on the
list he had pre-selected as being important) created more problems for
Ferrazzi?
5. Could you do what Ferrazzi does? Why or why not? Should you do
more of what Ferrazzi does? Why or why not?
6. If you encountered someone like Ferrazzi as an organizational peer,
what would your reaction be? What would you do? Would this be
helpful? Why or why not?
7. Do you like Keith Ferrazzi? Is this a relevant question?
8. What lessons are there for you in the Keith Ferrazzi case? What might
you think about doing more of, less of, or doing differently?

During class, we will see a video of Ferrazzi when he visited an earlier iteration of
this class.

II. BUILDING A POWER BASE

January 15. Session 4. Finding the Right Place

Reading: Power, Ch. 3, Choosing Where to Start

Case: Zia Yusuf at SAP: Having Impact

Update on Zia Yusuf

1. In a company, SAP, dominated first by technology and then by marketing

and sales, Zia Yusuf had a very successful career without being in either
one of these units. What advantages, and disadvantages, have his
various organizational positions provided him?
2. How was Zia able to overcome any career stigma or setback from his first
position in a unit, SAP Markets, that was a failure?

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 3. How has Zia Yusuf been able to survive turmoil at the top? He has
worked for a number of different powerful SAP figures, but has maintained
his positive career trajectory even as some of them have left. Why?
How? And most importantly, what lessons are there for you, Yusufs
ability to transition to different bosses?
4. What qualities have helped Yusuf be so successful at SAP and
subsequently? Do you think these personal qualities would be as helpful
anywhere, or are there particular features of the environments that Yusuf
has chosen that make them particularly relevant?
5. What are the advantages, and disadvantages, in terms of advancing his
career from Yusufs moves first to Streetline and then to the Boston
Consulting Group?
6. What lessons are there for you, as you choose where to start your own
career and what subsequent moves to make, from the case of Zia Yusuf?

January 20, Session 5. Acquiring Resources

Reading: Power, Ch. 5, Making Something Out of Nothing: Creating

Resources.

Case: Sally Bedell Smith, In All His Glory: The Life of William S. Paley, New
York: Simon and Schuster, 1990, The Prince, Sections 10 and 13.

This reading describes Frank Stantons (1908-2006) background and early

career at CBS. Stanton would go on to serve as president of CBS (1946-1971),
Vice Chairman of CBS (1971-1973), Chairman of the RAND Corporation ((1961-
1967), and Chair of the American Red Cross (1973-1979). Stanton led the fight
for color television and is widely considered to be a revered spokesperson for the
broadcast industry and an industry visionary.

1. What was the reputation that Frank Stanton developed that helped him
gain power? How did he go about building that brand?
2. What were Stantons (re)sources of power and how did he develop
them?
3. What does the reading reveal about the personal qualities of Stanton?
Which of these qualities do you believe were the most important in his
success?
4. Many people in this class like or prefer the tactics and qualities of
Stanton to some of the other people we have (and will) studied. Is this
your reaction? Why?

Case: Robert A. Caro, Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson,
New York: Knopf, 2002, Ch. 17, The Nothing Job, pp 383-419.

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Lyndon Johnson, considered by many to be one of the most effective politicians
in U.S. history, would go on after this reading to become the youngest majority
leader in the history of the Senate, Vice President, and then President of the
United States following the assassination of President John Kennedy. He then
was elected President in 1964, winning an overwhelming majority of the votes
(more than 60%) and carrying 44 of the 50 states. This chapter describes one of
Johnsons enduring abilities, demonstrated throughout his career from a very
early age: how to make something out of nothing.

1. What about the situation gave Johnson some advantages in building power
from a position, Assistant Democratic Leader, that traditionally had neither
power nor visibility?
2. What sources of power and resources did Johnson develop? How?
3. What similarities and differences do you see between Johnson and Stanton?
4. What actions and what personal attributes are required to accomplish what
Johnson and Stanton did, transforming seemingly marginal jobs and roles
into significant sources of power?
5. What lessons are there for you, from this material, on what you might do
early in your career to build your brand and resources that can serve as
sources of power?

During the class, we will see an edited segment from the American Experience
four-hour television biography of Lyndon Johnson.

January 22, Session 6. Getting Others on Your Side

Reading: Jerry M. Burger, Nicole Messian, Shebani Patel, Alicia

Del Prado, and Carmen Anderson, What a Coincidence!
The Effects of Incidental Similarity on Compliance, Personality
and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30 (2004), 35-43.

Benedict Carey, You Remind Me of Me, The New York Times,

February 12, 2008.

Brett W. Pelham, Mauricio Carvallo, and John T. Jones, Implicit

Egotism, Current Directions in Psychological Science 14 (2005),
106-110.

Case: Bryan Burrough and John Helyar, Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of
RJR Nabisco, New York: Harper and Row, 1990, Chapter 1.

1. What did Ross Johnson do to attract allies and supporters?

2. What did Johnson do to neutralize his opponents?
3. What did it take to be successful in Ross Johnsons group?

15
Case: Reginald F. Lewis, Blair S. Walker, and Hugh B. Price, Why Should White
Guys Have All the Fun? How Reginald Lewis Created a Billion-Dollar
Business Empire, New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1994. Ch. 4, No
Application Needed: Breaking Down the Doors at Harvard Law.

1. How would you describe Reggie Lewis? What personal characteristics did
he have and what were his actions that helped him get noticed?
2. What did Lewis do to get powerful allies and supporters to back him?
3. How do you feel about his behavior? Were his actions fair? Ethical?
4. Would you want to hire someone like him? Why or why not?
5. Could he have achieved the same results any other way?
6. Why did Lewis want to go to Harvard Law School?
7. What are the lessons for you in the material on Johnson and Lewis? What
was similar, and what was different, in their approach to gaining notice and
leverage early in their careers?
8. Could you do what they did? Would you want to? Why, or why not? I want
you to reflect on the extent to which your attitudes and
inhibitions may be keeping you from doing things that could make you
more influential.

January 25. Session 7. Building Efficient and Effective Social Networks

Readings: Power, Ch. 6, Building Efficient and Effective Social Networks

Jennifer Miller, Want to Meet Influential New Yorkers? Invite Them

To Dinner, New York Times, October 9, 2013.

1. What value does Jonathan Levy provide to his dinner party attendees?
2. Why do people, even relatively high status people, come to his dinner
parties?
3. How are Levys activities helping his career? How much are they
helping?
4. Why dont more people do some version of what Levy is doing?
5. What lessons are there for you from Millers article about Jonathan Levy?

Case: Ross Walker

Ross Walker is a 2005 graduate from the Stanford Graduate School of Business
who obtained an alumni position on the Stanford University Board of Trustees
and has established himself with a good position, excellent network, and a stellar
reputation in the real estate and hospitality industry. He also is someone
sometimes described as a networker, and shares some similarities but also has
some important differences from Keith Ferrazzi. This case provides us the

16
opportunity to consider some of the issues and principles in not only building
networks, but in getting what you want for yourself.

1. Describe Ross Walker. What personal qualities does he have that have
contributed to his success.
2. One concern with networking is that takes too much time and encroaches
on peoples personal lives. How has Walker handled this trade-off?
3. How has Walker balanced the activity of meeting new people and
maintaining relationships with the technical aspects of his work in the real
estate and hospitality industry?
4. In what ways is Walker different from Ferrazzi? In what ways is he
similar?
5. What about Ross Walkers path could you emulate? What do you think
you couldnt do? Why?
6. In what ways is Walkers strategy consistent with the principles of Chapter
6? Do you see any inconsistencies or discrepancies?

Second Self-Reflective Assignment. It is useful to think about how we

spend our time, with whom, and how our contacts and networks are, or are
not, consistent with the social relations we might need to build our power
base.

Write a short one- or two-page essay in which you consider the following
questions:
1. With whom (other than family or significant others) do you spend the
most time? Why?
2. Given your career ambitions and what you want to accomplish in
your life, who (not necessarily by name, but by position or location
in the social space) are the most important individuals for you to
build relationships with?
3. What is the structure of your network? Do you occupy many
brokerage positions? If so, which ones, and how have you come
to occupy them? Do you have lots of weak ties or connections to
people who can provide you nonredundant information? Are you
central in any networks? Which ones?
4. Considering the foregoing, what might you do differently if you
wanted to increase your influence and build more efficient and
effective social networks?

January 29, Session 8. Creating a Reputation and Gaining Visibility

Reading: Power, Ch. 8, Building a Reputation: Perception is Reality.

17
Case: Walter Isaacson, Kissinger: A Biography, New York: Simon and
Schuster, 1992, Ch. 4, Harvard: The Ambitious Student, 1947-1955.

1. What was the context or environment at that time, both in the country
generally and in the political science department at Harvard, at the time
Kissinger was a student? What opportunities did this environment present?
2. What were Kissingers apparent goals while he was at Harvard, first as an
undergraduate student and then as a doctoral student? What was he trying
to accomplish?
3. What did Kissinger do, what specific actions did he take, how did he spend
his time, with what effects? Why were his actions apparently so effective?
4. What bases of power was Kissinger able to develop?
5. What personal strengths and weaknesses did Kissinger have? How self-
aware was he of them? What did he do to capitalize on his strengths and
mitigate his weaknesses?
6. What is your personal learning from Kissingers experience at Harvard?
How do you feel about your use of your time at the GSB when you think of
what Kissinger did? Or put more directly, what else could you have done, or
still do, to leverage your time at Stanford?

Case: Nuria Chinchilla: The Power to Change Workplaces

In 1993, Nuria Chinchilla had just completed her doctoral degree at IESE
Business School in Barcelona. In less than 12 years, Professor Chinchilla would
become one of the most prominent public figures in the world on the subject of
work-family and work-flexibility policies, exercising influence not only over
numerous companies but also changing the laws and regulations in Spain and
having influence over public discussion of this issue in numerous other countries
including Chile, Portugal, Brazil, and even countries in Africa. The case
describes Chinchilla and how others see her and the strategies she has
employed to build her reputation as a leader in the work-family conciliation
movement.

1. What strategies and personal qualities have permitted Nuria Chinchilla

to be as influential as she has been in pushing work flexibility
changes?
2. What has made Chinchilla so central in this public policy arena? What
has she done to build her reputation?
3. How has Nuria Chinchilla been able to get the media on her side, and
with what effect? How has her use of language been effective?
4. The particular policy domainwork-family balance and work
flexibilityis often seen as quite controversial (for instance, employers
in the U.S. have vigorously opposed even the granting of unpaid leave

18
 to employees to attend to family responsibilities). How has Chinchilla
dealt with opposition and potential opposition?
5. What similaritiesand differencesdo you see between Chinchilla
and Henry Kissinger in terms of their strategies for building a
reputation?

Third Individual Assignment:

Getting ahead necessarily entails some degree of differentiation, of

standing out. But people, as social creatures, tend to seek social
acceptance and to be part of the group. Write a page or so in which you
briefly reflect on the following questions: 1) Think back to a previous job
and the people in that organization who had higher status/power. What
factors seemed to be associated with those with more notoriety, more
status, more success? 2) How comfortable or uncomfortable are you with
standing out? 3) How comfortable or uncomfortable are you with being
disliked by your peers? 4) Describe a time when you needed to trade off
being liked for being effective. How/why did you make this trade-off? How
did you feel? What did you learn? 5) What, if anything, inhibits your
choosing effectiveness? Please bring a written copy of this assignment
to use in a peer coaching exercise.

February 1, Session 9. Speaking with Power

Reading: Power, Ch. 7, Acting and Speaking with Power.

During this class, we will watch the public testimony of people caught up in
various political scandals and public relations nightmares. First we will briefly
consider Oliver North in the Iran-Contra issue and Donald Kennedy, president of
Stanford, which was caught up in a scandal of over-billing of the government for
indirect costs on research contracts. Ironically, Stanford was eventually found to
owe very little money, while Oliver North avoided being convicted of a felony
because of technicalities concerning the use of evidence produced under
guarantees of immunity. But North went on to run for the Senate from Virginia
(barely losing the race and setting a record at the time for fundraising) and
Kennedy was forced from office. The readings provide important background on
the situations facing these people.

Then we will look at two more contemporary examples: Tony Hayward, at the
time the CEO of BP, testifying about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and Lloyd
Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs, testifying about Goldman's actions during the
financial crisis and specifically allegations that it traded against its customers. To
paraphrase the subject line from a former student's e-mail, we will look at the
advantages and disadvantages of being "forceful or remorseful."

19
Finally, we will see a brief clip of Hillary Clinton while she was Secretary of State
testifying about the deaths of four department employees, including the
Ambassador, in Libya. What we will do in class is watch these individuals use of
language and symbols and compare and contrast their styles, approaches, and
effectiveness. Also during the session, randomly selected individuals will have
the opportunity to present what they might have done differently had they been
in the Stanford presidents or Tony Hayward's role.

Case: Joel Brinkley, Birth of a Scandal and Mysteries of Its Parentage, New
York Times, December 25, 1991, p. A11.

Oliver North, Businessman? Many Bosses Say That Hes Their Kind of
Employee, Wall Street Journal, July 14, 1987, p. 35.

An Iran-Contra Guide: What Happened and When, New York Times,

March 17, 1988.

Anthony DePalma, Stanford President at Brunt of Storm, New York Times,

May 10, 1991, p. A10.

Rich Jaroslov, Called to Account, Stanford Magazine, June, 1991.

We will be assisted during this class by David Demarest, Vice President of Public
Affairs at Stanford University. His biography is part of the course materials.
Demarest has held very senior communications positions at Visa International
and the Bank of America and was director of communications in the White House
for the first President Bush.

February 8 , Session 10. Acting with Power.

In many situations, how much power you actually have is ambiguous and
uncertain. Therefore, how you conduct yourself, what emotions you display, how
you come across all affect how much power you have and will be granted by
others. Moreover, research shows that your power pose affects your
physiological and psychological responses. And leadership is about acting with
power. Andy Grove of Intel, in a session with Clayton Christensen from Harvard
Business School, said this about managing oneself and ones emotional displays:

I think it is very important for you to do two things: act on your temporary conviction as
if it was a real conviction; and when you realize that you are wrong, correct course very
quicklyAnd try not to get too depressed in the part of the journey, because theres a
professional responsibility. If you are depressed, you cant motivate your staff to
extraordinary measures. So you have to keep your own spirits up even though you well
understand that you dont know what youre doing.

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This class session will involve a tutorial on acting with power, presented by Bill
English, co-founder and artistic director of the San Francisco Playhouse, and
Susi Damilano, the other co-founder of the SF Playhouse and winner of
numerous Bay Area Theatre Critics awards for her acting. In the last 11 years,
Damilano has won the Bay Area Theater Critics Circle award for best actress five
times. The syllabus includes their biographies as well as an article about
Damilano and an article about the SF Playhouse.

Readings:

Harriet Rubin, Shall I Compare Thee to an Andy Grove, Strategy + Business,

Issue 49, Winter, 2007, pp. 26-31.

Larissa Z. Tiedens, Anger and Advancement Versus Sadness and

Subjugation: The Effect of Negative Emotion Expressions on Social Status
Conferral, J. of Personality and Social Psychology, 80 (2001), 86-94.

Dana R. Carney, Amy J. C. Cuddy, and Andy J. Yap, Power Posing: Brief
Nonverbal Displays Affect Neuroendocrine Levels and Risk Tolerance,
Psychological Science, 21 (2010), 1363-1368. (Amy Cuddys TED Talk on power
posing is the second most-viewed TED talk. You might consider watching it at
some point).

Karen DSouza, Megawatt Director/Actress Susi Damilano Powers One of San

Franciscos Hottest Small Theaters, San Jose Mercury News, September 24,
2011.

Chloe Veltman, A Small, Young Theater Company Aims High, The New York
Times, November 25, 2010.

For your amusement and enjoyment, you might want to see a play at the
San Francisco Playhouse ( www.sfplayhouse.org) near Union Square in
San Francisco to appreciate the work of Bill English and Susi Damilano, in
actionmaybe even before this class.

February 12. Session 11. Using the Lessons of Power in Your Life and
Career: Alumni Panel.

We are just past the half-way point in the course. If you are going to make a
significant power play (as suggested for your Individual Project) or, for that
matter, if you are going to become more comfortable with and use the material in
the future, you need to become at ease with power and also develop some
specific guidance on how to use it. The purpose of this session is to provide you

21
the opportunity to ask questions of a panel of people each of whom has, in his or
her own way, experienced setbacks or challenges of varying kinds, learned the
power material, and incorporated it, in varying ways, into their strategies and
actions for their careers.

The panel has been chosen because they are similar to you, albeit a few years
farther alongand because they are a) willing to be completely candid in
answering questions that you may be wrestling with and b) are on excellent
career trajectories..

The four panelists are David Bowman, Deborah Liu, Marcelo Miranda, and Tito
Hubert. Their biographies are included in the syllabus materials.

Your assignment is to come to class prepared to ask questions about

how to use the course material in your life, and how these individuals
overcame their reluctance and inhibitions in doing so. What do you want
to learn about how to actually implement the material we have been
studying?

Nothing that is substantive is off the table, and certainly no question should be
considered politically incorrect. Consider this an opportunity to access the
experience and expertise of some interesting people wrestling with how to be
more powerful.

III. COPING WITH CONFLICT AND OPPOSITION

February 17, Session 12. Dealing with Conflict and Opposition

Reading: Power, Ch. 9, Overcoming Opposition and Setbacks.

During class, we will do an exercise that I facetiously refer to as desensitivity

trainingto get some practice in dealing with difficult situations without
experiencing the emotional arousal that makes strategic thought and action
difficult or even impossible.

Fourth Self-Reflective Assignment. This section of the course is about

overcoming obstacles and coping with setbacks. It is important to
integrate this learning into your own life and experience. Write a brief, one
page essay in which you:

1. Describe an organizational situation in which you faced substantial

difficulty (for example, you were fired (not laid off, fired), you were
demoted, you failed to get a job or a promotion you wanted and

22
 thought you deserved, you were embarrassed or lost face because
of some situation, etc.).
2. What did you do that contributed to the problems you experienced?
To what extent were the obstacles and difficulties the result of
chance events over which you had no control?
3. Based on the course material, what would you do differently if you
encountered the same situation today? In other words, what is the
learning or what are the ideas that have emerged in the class that
you would use to help you in similar situations?

February 19, Session 13. Turning Setbacks Into Victories.

Case: Laura Esserman (A)

Katie Hafner, A Breast Cancer Surgeon Who Keeps Challenging the Status
Quo, The New York Times, September 29, 2015.

Lisa Cisneros, American Cancer Society to Honor Breast Cancer Specialist

Laura Esserman, March 18, 2013.
https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2013/03/13683/american-cancer-society-honor-
breast-cancer-specialist-laura-esserman.

Deborah Franklin, Esserman: On the Front Lines Fighting Breast Cancer,

http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/news/bmag/sbsm1005/feature-esserman.html.

This case describes the efforts of a physician who also has an MBA from
Stanford to change a number of aspects of medicine and the treatment of breast
cancer at the University of California, San Francisco. At the time the case was
written, Dr. Esserman, a former student in Paths to Power, had learned all of the
material from the class but felt uncomfortable about applying it. As nicely
described in the case, she believed she should be who she was and that her
intelligence and honorable, even noble, objectives would win others over. The
case describes the interpersonal challenges she was facing in making progress
on her ambitious agenda.

The assigned articles describe some of what has occurred in the ensuing years,
as Dr. Esserman has become more willing to employ and more skilled at using
the material you are learning in the class. She has accomplished an enormous
amount and has achieved a great deal of visibility and power.

Although the particular situation is health care, the task that Dr. Esserman
confronts is similar to many situations where there is dispersed power, conflicting
objectives, and entrenched interests in a setting populated by highly educated
professionals.

23
 1. What are Laura Essermans strengths?
2. What are some of her weaknesses, of difficulties?
3. What about the situation makes changing things difficult? What about the
situation makes it political?
4. What do you think Esserman has done well so far in her efforts? What do
you think she has done less well?
5. What should she do now? Be specific, so someone could actually
implement your suggestions. Provide a rationale for why you think the
suggestion will work and how it will help her accomplish her objectives?
6. Why would you place a bet (in terms of hiring or supporting her) on
someone like Esserman? Why might you not?
7. What similarities and differences do you see between Laura Esserman
and an earlier case, Nuria Chinchilla, in their approach to attracting
support and overcoming opposition?
8. What lessons do you draw from this case for your own efforts to get things
done in organizations?

February 22. Session 14. Developing Resilience

No career, no individual, unless unusually lucky, goes through life without facing
setbacks and reversals. After all, Steve Jobs was fired from Apple, successful
San Francisco politician Willie Brown lost his first election for the California
Assembly and badly lost his first attempt to become Speaker, and Martha
Stewart went to jail.

Success depends, then, somewhat on being able to avoid career reversals, but
mostly on developing the persistence and resilience to bounce back. Some
portion of resilience comes from not worrying too much about what others think
and say, and also, as in the last case, maintaining a strategic focus on what you
are trying to achieve and not getting diverted. Developing that skill and the
personal psychological resources to do so is the topic of this class session.

Reading: Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and Andrew J. Ward, Firing Back: How Great
Leaders Rebound After Career Disasters, Harvard Business Review,
January, 2007.

Ann Friedman, Martha Stewarts Best Lesson: Dont Give a Damn,

New York Magazine, March 14, 2013.

William D. Cohan, A Private Equity Gamble in Vegas Gone Wrong,

Fortune, Jun 6, 2015.

24
 William D. Cohan, Losing Las Vegas, Fortune, June 15, 2015.

Kate OKeeffe, Caesars CEO Loveman Leaves Divided Legacy,

Wall Street Journal, June 29, 2015.

During class, we will have the opportunity to interact with Gary Loveman, former
CEO and now chairman of Caesars, the large casino company. A former HBS
professor (who taught human resources classes, which is how I came to know
him), Loveman is one of the most thoughtful and insightful individuals I know on
the topics of likeability, using analytics in management, coming in and building a
power base as an outsider, managing relationships with important stakeholders,
and most recently, coping with the intellectual and emotional challenges that
arise from the substantial financial problems of the company he was running.
Always thoughtful and insightful, I eagerly await his thoughts on how he has built
up his resilience over the years.

IV. THE CHALLENGES OF POWER

February 26. Session 15. Whats Different for Women and Other
Minorities?

Reading: Jeffrey Pfeffer, Womens Careers and Power: What You Need to
Know, OB-86 Note, 10/09/12.

Jodi Kantor, A Brand New World In Which Men Ruled, The New York Times,
December 23, 2014.

Sylvia Ann Hewlett, Asians in America: Whats Holding Back the Model
Minority? http://www.forbes.com/sites/sylviaannhewlett/2011/07/28/Asians-in-
america-whats-holding-back-the-model-minority/

One of the questions that frequently arises is whether the tactics and approaches
that work for men are equally effective for women. Throughout this class we
have seen (and will see) numerous female protagonists and I would ask you to
reflect on the extent to which they used strategies that were similar or distinctly
different from their male counterparts. But it is also useful to review the extensive
and growing literature on women and power and consider how to navigate what
is clearly a more difficult path to power for many women and for that matter other
minorities.

Contrary to what some may wish to believe, there is no evidence that the path to
power for women has gotten easier over the past several decades or that power
dynamics are fundamentally different in high technology. For those interested in

25
the facts and in even more background on this issue, data on womens careers in
business can be found at the Catalyst website (www.catalyst.org) and both the
Kauffman Foundation (www.kauffman.org) and the Diana Project
(www.dianaproject.org) provide information documenting the absence of senior
women in the venture capital industry and the disadvantages women confront in
obtaining financing for start-ups.

The readings for this class include a) a teaching note I wrote that summarizes the
social science research on this topic, b) an interesting New York Times profile of
the Stanford undergraduate class of 1994, which includes one of our visitors for
today as well as many other prominent people in technology, and c) an article on
the barriers facing Asian-Americans in their careers, which are, in many ways,
quite similar to those confronting women.

During the class, a panel of three women will speak about their perspectives on
women and power and lead a discussion with the class about what men and
women might do to ensure greater success for women. The panelists have been
chosen for their insight and candor on these important issues. The women who
will be joining us are Gina Bianchini, Alison Davis-Blake, and Dafina Toncheva.
Their biographies are in the syllabus.

February 29. Session 16. How (and Why) Power is Lost and Kept

Reading: Power, Ch. 11, Howand WhyPower is Lost.

Case: Connie Bruck, The Personal Touch, The New Yorker, August 13, 2001.

Arshad Mohammed, Valentis Credits Keep on Rolling, The Washington

Post, February 3, 2006.

Jena McGregor, Why Mens Wearhouse Fired George Zimmer, The

Washington Post, June 25, 2013.

David Gelles, George Zimmer Takes on Mens Wearhouse With Tuxedo

Start-Up,: The New York Times, September 14, 2015.

1. Jack Valenti, in theory, existed in a very tenuous position. He served

always at the pleasure of the motion picture studio heads. Nonetheless,
Valenti was able to maintain his position as head of the MPAA for almost
four decades. How was he able to do this? (It is possibly instructive to note
that his successor, former Congressman and cabinet secretary Dan
Glickman, held the job for only one, five-year term).
2. Contrast Zimmer with Jack Valenti. Why is it possible that Valenti was
better able to maintain his position?

26
 3. What lessons do you take away from these examples for your own
behavior, both early and late in your career?

During class, we will see an edited excerpt from Jack Valentis appearance the
last time he came to talk to this course.

March 4. Session 17. The Price of Power.

Reading: Power, Ch. 10, The Price of Power.

Jacques Steinberg, "Schools Chancellor Reflects on the Job, and the Rift That
Helped End It," New York Times, January 6, 2000, p. A20.

Matthew Pinzur, "School Chief Wins Support With Words and Actions," Miami
Herald, October 10, 2004.

"Crew's Blues," Administrator Magazine, November-December, 2008.

"Mimi-Dade's School Superintendent Receives Death Threats,"

http://www.wsvn.com/news/articles/local/MI57639, August 8, 2007.

Nancy McCarthy, Crews Debut Speech Demands Change, The Daily Astorian,
June 25, 2012.

CUNY Board Appoints Rudolph Crew President of Medgar Evans College,

CUNY Newswire, June 24, 2013.

Hannah Hoffman, Kitzhaber Knew Risks with Rudy Crew Hire, Statesman
Journal, July 31, 2013.

Dr. Rudolph Crew has done heroic work in American education. He led the New
York City school system, which had a budget of more than $13 billion, more than
100,000 teachers, and served a million children at the time he held his leadership
position. He subsequently was named the best school superintendent in America
while in charge of the Miami-Dade County school district and its $4.5 billion
budget. Crew is personally close to a large number of prominent and powerful
people including Richard Parsons, the former chairman of Time Warner and the
Clintons (had Hillary Clinton won the nomination and the presidency, he would
have been on a very short list to be Secretary of Education, as one example). He
has wielded and still has enormous power, not just in education but in
government and the nonprofit world. The readings for this class are selected
newspaper articles that describe his career, including the scrutiny, criticism, and
even death threats and epithets he has received. During class, Dr. Crew will be

27
with us to discuss his views on being in the arena, what is required, the price it
extracts, and why he continues to give so much of himself.

V. SUMMING UP

March 7, Session 18. Leading with Power

Case: Amir Dan Rubin: Success from the Beginning

As Harvard Business School professor Rakesh Khurana documented in his book,

Searching for a Corporate Savior (Princeton University Press, 2004), companies
more frequently hire senior executives, including CEOs, from outside the
company today than in the past. But these outside hires often end badly for both
the individual and the company. One reason is that the outsiders do not have
enough firm- and industry-specific knowledge to do a good job. But another
problem is that outsiders often face resentment and resistance from insiders
executives already in the companywho believe they are more qualified for the
job the outsider now fills and who sometimes see the outside as an interloper and
as someone different from them and their colleagues.

Many GSB graduates will at some point in their careers move to a new company,
sometimes at very senior levels (for example, from a position in a management
consulting firm to a senior operating or strategic role inside an organization).
Some GSB graduates will move to companies that are not filled with other MBAs
and/or where inside succession is more the norm. Success in these new roles
depends on being able to get company insiders to respect and accept you.
Simply put, you arent a leader if others dont agree that you are and willingly
follow you. Hence, the relevance of this case for your subsequent careers in
which you will need to turn skeptics and possible rivals into at least grudging
allies, and also possibly make important changes in strategic direction to
enhance the organizations performance.

1. What qualities and attributes does Rubin have that have made him a
success?
2. How, and why, did he get the job at Stanford?
3. What did Rubin do to help overcome the resentment that might
accompany his arrival as CEO?
4. Why was SMC, at the time of the case, a good fit for Rubins skills and
capabilities? Were there ways in which it wasnt a good fit?
5. What did Rubin do to make himself successful at SMC?
6. What lessons are there in this case for you as you think about starting
your job after you complete business school?

28
March 11. Session 19. What Have We Learned, and What Will You Do With
What You Have Learned?

Reading: Power, Ch. 13, Its Easier Than You Think.

During our last class, I ask you to reflect on how your thinking about power has
changed during the quarter, what you have learned, and what you have done and
are going to do differently.

1. How have your ideas and feelings about power changed during the course of
our quarter together?
2. What did you do during the past ten weeks to implement some of the
concepts and ideas you were learning? How did worknot only in terms of
its effectiveness, but in its effect on your own thinking and feelings?
3. Going forward, what are you going to do even slightly differently as a result of
having taken this class? Why?

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 INDIVIDUAL POWER DIAGNOSTIC PROJECT

Due 12 P.M., Friday, March 4, 2016.

One of the important ways in which people get into trouble in their careers is
getting blindsided by organizational dynamics and from problems with personal
relationships that they did not see coming. Therefore, one of the most important
skills that will prevent you from ever having to leave a job involuntarily is the
ability to be aware of and knowledgeable about the specific political dynamics
occurring in your workplace environment.

This project asks you to use the course material to diagnose a situation which
might affect you in the future. The assignment also asks that you develop your
skills in asking for sensitive informationnot just using data gathered by others
(such as in a case) to diagnose political dynamics, but to build your skills at
uncovering such data for yourself, something that will be important going forward.

It is possible, although not required, to integrate this assignment with the

doing power assignment. You might use the diagnosis from this
exercise as you plan how to acquire power for the doing power project.
Or, you could do the assignments on separate organizationsyour choice.

Consider an organization that is, or might be, important for you in the futurethe
place where you are going to work after graduation, a company or non-profit you
are (or have) co-founding, a club or voluntary association where you are
developing your leadership skills, or, if your career plans remain unsettled, a
workplace that you are contemplating joining. Gather relevant information by
interviewing at least 3 and no more than 7 people who have or potentially
might have information relevant for addressing the questions below.

IN NO MORE THAN FOUR PAGES, using what you have learned from the
class, provide a brief analysis in which you consider the following questions:

1) Who are the major power players in this setting (including you)?
2) What are the interests and hidden agendas of those players? What do they
want to see happen?
3) What power resources or currencies does each possess? What are the
alliances or coalitions among those players? Where are you in this dynamic?
4) What are your bases of power?
5) What might you do to build (or not) relationships with your boss and these
power players?

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7) What assumptions/mental models do you bring into the situation that may
cause you problems?

EXPERIENCE SHOWS THAT THERE IS A REASONABLY HIGH

CORRELATION BETWEEN WHEN YOU START ON THIS PROJECT AND a)
YOUR GRADE AND b) HOW MUCH YOU GET OUT OF IT. IF YOU BEGIN
EARLY IN THE QUARTER, YOU WILL BE ABLE TO DO AMAZING THINGS
AND COME UP WITH SOME VERY HELPFUL INSIGHTS. IF YOU BEGIN IN
THE LAST WEEK BEFORE IT IS DUE, NOT SO MUCH.

SUBMIT YOUR PROJECT THROUGH CANVAS BY THE DEADLINE!

PLEASE PUT YOUR NAME ON YOUR PAPER!!!

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 INDIVIDUAL DOING-POWER PROJECT ASSIGNMENT
INSTRUCTIONS

Due by 12 P.M. Friday, March 11, 2016.

If the material from Paths to Power is going to stay with you and be useful, it is
imperative that you use it during our quarter together. The individual project,
therefore, asks you to take the material and put it into practice. Learning by
doing is one of the best ways to master both subject matter and skills. And while
you are still a student at Stanford, you have the potential to learn by trying things
out in setting where if you fail or suffer setbacks, the consequences are much,
much less severe than they will be later on. Also, trying out behaviors that you
have not done before or that you think you wont enjoy permits you to test your
assumptions. Just as you cant know if you wont like a food if you have never
sampled it, you dont know what you will like in terms of engaging in power
behaviors if you never try them. The individual project asks you to get a little
outside of your comfort zone (which is why we have coaching resources
available) and push yourself to build power and use the ideas of the class as you
are learning them.

In an organization where you currently work or are volunteeringsuch an

organization could be a nonprofit, a for-profit company, a student government
organization, a social club or religious organization, a start-up team, or any other
formal or informal organization in which you are currently involvedor in an
organization that you are planning to join upon graduation, during the Winter
quarter, try to exercise influence over some specific issue, using the concepts
from the course, and then write up your experience. You should keep notes
throughout the quarter, with new entries every time something important happens
as a way of making sense of your experience while it is still freshas opposed to
writing it all up at the end of the quarter. NOTE: FINDING A JOB IS NOT THE
SAME THING AS USING INFLUENCE ON OTHERS INSIDE AN
ORGANIZATION. NOR IS THIS ASSIGNMENT ABOUT YOUR DOING SOME
SELFREFLECTIONS ON WHAT YOU LEARNED FROM THE CLASS. THE
PROJECT REQUIRES THAT YOU ATTEMPT SOME INFLUENCE EFFORT IN
A CONTEXT IN WHICH YOU CONFRONT OPPOSITION OR RESISTANCE TO
YOU OR YOUR IDEAS.

In order to do this assignment, you will need to: a) begin with some specific
objective. What are you trying to change? What are you trying to accomplish?
Such an objective could involve either changing a policy or practice in the
organization or advancing your position to one of more power, or both; consider
how you might know if you have successfully achieved your objective--how are

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you going to assess your progress (as objectively as possible)? b) outline a set
of things you are going to do to try and influence the situation; c) describe what
you did, what worked, and what didnt, and why. Compare this to what was in
the literature and what we have discussed in class (i.e., integrate what you
learned through your experience with what you learned conceptually); d) What
were your personal lessons in power from this experience. YOUR WRITE UP
COULD FOLLOW THIS FORMAT AS JUST DESCRIBED.

This exercise is distinct from although congruent with the self-reflective exercises
you will do over the course of the quarter. Those exercises ask you to focus on
past experiences and what you might do differently, or to assess yourself and
design a personal development plan. This final individual project asks you to
actually do something during our quarter together--not just think or write about
it.

EXPERIENCE SHOWS THAT THERE IS A REASONABLY HIGH

CORRELATION BETWEEN WHEN YOU START ON THIS PROJECT AND a)
YOUR GRADE AND b) HOW MUCH YOU GET OUT OF IT. IF YOU BEGIN
EARLY IN THE QUARTER, YOU WILL BE ABLE TO DO SOME AMAZING
THINGS AND REALLY BUILD YOUR POWER SKILLS. IF YOU BEGIN IN
THE LAST WEEK OR TWO BEFORE THIS ASSIGNMENT IS DUE, YOU WILL
GET MUCH, MUCH LESS BENEFIT FROM IT.

There is no page limit. I will read as much as you submit.

Submitting Your Project:

SUBMIT YOUR PROJECT, BY THE DEADLINE (LATE PROJECTS EARN NO

CREDIT) BY USING THE CANVAS SYSTEM.

PLEASE BE SURE TO PUT YOUR NAME ON YOUR PAPER!

ALSO, PLEASE PROOFREAD YOUR WORK FOR TYPOGRAPHICAL AND

GRAMMATICAL ERRORS

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