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SPOTLIGHT ON THE EFFECTIVE ORGANIZATION ARTWORK ArtistRune Guneriussen, Name, Artwork One Name, Can Rely year on the Prudence Spotlight ofDescription His Decisions of materials, #04, 2008, size c-print/aluminum, 84 x 124 cm Name of show if available, location Power Play 84 Harvard Business Review July–August 2010 11252252 JJulAug10ulAug10 PPfeffer.inddfeffer.indd 8844 66/8/10/8/10 11:39:42:39:42 PPMM HBR.ORG Jeff rey Pfeff er (pfeff er_ jeff [email protected]) is the Thomas D. Dee II Professor of Organizational Behavior at Stanford Univer- sity’s Graduate School of Business in California. His latest book, Power: Why Some People Have It—And Others Don’t, is forthcoming from HarperCollins. WHENWHEN LAURA ESSERMAN, MD,MD, MBA,MBA, becameb the director ooff the Carol Franc Buck BreastBrea Care Center at the University of California at San FrFrancisco,a in 1997, she had big plans—for both the centececenterr and medicine more generagenerally.lly. SShehe hhopedoped to bboboostoost ttheh institution’s prominence anandd patient tthroughthroughputhroughput bby delivering in- tegrated care in one attractive setting.se Women would not have to go ffromrom place to place ffor the various diagnosticdiaiagnosticgnostic proceduresprocedures andand tretreatmentreatmentst they needed, enduringduring anxious, multiday delays asa they waited fforor test resultsresults.. A woman couldco arriarrivev in the morn- iningg with a suspicious lump and lealeavev at the end of tthehe day withwith a treatmenttreatment pplan.lan. TToo accaccelerate overall progress in treating breast cancer, Esserman wanted to increase the ease and speed of enrolling patients in clinical trials and to build an informatics system that would capture data about treatment outcomes Wfrom many sites. All of this represented a sensible strategy, and it has worked out well: The center now sees many times more patients than when Esserman took over; a new website has led to increased and easier enrollment in clinical trials; and the Athena project, which collects data from multiple UC medical centers, is under way. None of this was easy to accomplish. For Laura Esserman, as for all executives working in interde- pendent systems full of strong-willed people with their own agendas, having a plan was only the fi rst step. Although she was the center’s director, she Acquiring real clout—the kind that helps had little say in many personnel decisions. Each of the departments she wanted to bring together had you get stuff done—requires bare-knuckle its own objectives and concerns. While she and her strategies. by Jeff rey Pfeff er team were thinking about patients’ outcomes and service experiences, the CFO had to worry about the budget and bond ratings. The facility was housed in a state building, so even if Esserman raised private July–August 2010 Harvard Business Review 85 11252252 JJulAug10ulAug10 PPfeffer.inddfeffer.indd 8855 66/8/10/8/10 11:40:01:40:01 PPMM SPOTLIGHT ON THE EFFECTIVE ORGANIZATION money to refurbish it, she would have to navigate scribed it, she notes, as “inherently divisive, stress- myriad approval processes and constraints. In sum, ful, and a cause of dissent and reduced performance.” Esserman was in a position similar to that of anyone Some evidence supports this view. A perception who has tried to shepherd a cross-functional project, that politics predominates in a workplace tends to such as a new information system or product off er- decrease job satisfaction, morale, and commitment ing, through a large organization: She had lots of re- and increase intentions to quit. sponsibility but virtually no line authority to compel But empirical research shows just as clearly that anyone to do anything. being politically savvy and seeking power pay off. We could soft-pedal what is needed in such situ- A study by David McClelland and David Burnham ex- ations by talking about leadership skills and emo- amined the correlations between managers’ primary tional intelligence—but why not tell it like it is? What motivations and their success. Some managers were Laura Esserman needed was power. motivated primarily by affi liation—they had a funda- Strategies don’t implement themselves, of course. mental desire to be liked. Others were motivated by And not everyone in an organization agrees about achievement—attaining goals and gaining personal what should be done: As the aphorism goes, “Where recognition brought them satisfaction. Still others you stand depends on where you sit.” We all make were interested in power—they wanted to be able decisions based on the information we have and to infl uence others. The managers in the third group the objectives we’re pursuing, and these things vary were the most effective. (See “Power Is the Great from position to position. Many leaders in both gov- Motivator,” HBR January 2003.) Consider also the ernment and the private sector have remarked on research of Florida State University’s Gerald Ferris Whenever you have control over resources important to others—things like money and information—you can build your power. large systems’ resistance to change. To succeed with and his colleagues. They developed an 18-item her ambitious agenda, Esserman had to develop her Political Skill Inventory (PSI) and used it to evalu- ability to build and wield power. This proved at least ate school administrators and branch managers of as important as her considerable medical acumen. a national financial services firm. The PSI proved Power is the focus of my teaching at Stanford— to be a good predictor of success in both instances: and not just power as a spectator sport. I aim to give The school administrators with high PSI scores were my students the insights and tools that will enable more likely to be considered effective leaders by them to bring about change, get things accom- those who reported to them, and the high-scoring plished, and, not incidentally, further their careers. branch managers typically had received favorable The learning occurs through studying powerful peo- performance reviews. ple, mining social science’s understanding of human Zia Yusuf is another case in point. At the software behavior, and practicing. In this article, I will outline company SAP, he built and ran the corporate consult- some of the most important principles involved. ing team—an internal strategy group—and an initia- I urge you to use them as you seek to implement tive called the “SAP customer-focused ecosystem,” your own goals. which linked suppliers, users, and developers. He had a successful career there even though he had no Make Your Peace with Power background in software or engineering, because he If you’re like many managers, you may already be was skilled at what he calls organizational dynam- uncomfortable with where this discussion is head- ics—the ability to get things done. As Yusuf says, you ing. As the organizational behavior expert Jo Silves- need two things to succeed: substantive business ter writes, politics is generally regarded as the “dark knowledge, so you know what to do, and organiza- side” of workplace behavior. Researchers have de- tional or political skills, so you can get it done. 86 Harvard Business Review July–August 2010 11252252 JJulAug10ulAug10 PPfeffer.inddfeffer.indd 8866 66/8/10/8/10 11:40:14:40:14 PPMM POWER PLAY HBR.ORG Idea in Brief Any new strategy worth Learning to wield power You can also push past You may fi nd such power plays implementing has some eff ectively begins with obstacles through sheer and the politicians behind controversy surrounding understanding the resources relentlessness. You should them unsavory—and they it and someone with a you control. Money is not avoid wasting political capital can be. But you’ll have to get counteragenda fi ghting the only one. Whatever you on side issues and dispense over your qualms if you want it. When push comes to have—a valuable network, with opponents in ways that to bring about meaningful access to information—can be allow them to save face. change. shove, you need more meted out or denied to gain than logic to carry the leverage. day. You need power. The eff ective use of power is becoming increas- little experiment not only worked but caused no ingly important. Yes, we have fl atter organizations resentment—the other committee members were and more cross-functional teams than we had in the glad someone else had stepped up. By the time the past. But getting things done in a less-hierarchical applicants arrived, she was enjoying the recognition system actually requires more influence. And as and praise she was receiving and had concluded that strategies become more complicated, the impor- she liked this power stuff after all. tance and diffi culty of eff ective execution increase accordingly. When he ran SAP’s corporate consult- The Exercise of Power ing team, Zia Yusuf was able to prevail when recom- What constitutes power? Simply put, the ability mending diffi cult strategic changes, such as reorga- to have things your way. And having things your nizations that would cause people and groups to lose way when others’ best eff orts are also required, and power. In putting together the ecosystem function, when those others may have their own ideas about he had to enlist cooperation across the company. what should be done, means that you need some How did he succeed? First, he brought in exception- basic forms of leverage. ally talented people and held them to high standards. When push comes to shove, powerful people do Second, he tried to defuse interpersonal tensions by several things to advance their agendas: focusing on data and analysis, and by ensuring that Mete out resources. Whenever you have the analysis was unimpeachable.

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