Power_ Why Some People Have Itand Others Don't - Jeffrey Pfeffer [11]
So great job performance by itself is insufficient and may not even be necessary for getting and holding positions of power. You need to be noticed, influence the dimensions used to measure your accomplishments, and mostly make sure you are effective at managing those in power—which requires the ability to enhance the ego of those above you.
GET NOTICED
People in power are busy with their own agendas and jobs. Such people, including those higher up in your own organization, probably aren’t paying that much attention to you and what you are doing. You should not assume that your boss knows or notices what you are accomplishing and has perfect information about your activities. Therefore, your first responsibility is to ensure that those at higher levels in your company know what you are accomplishing. And the best way to ensure they know what you are achieving is to tell them.
The importance of standing out contradicts much conventional wisdom. There is a common saying that I first heard in Japan but since have heard in Western Europe as well: the nail that sticks up gets hammered down. Many people believe this statement and as a consequence seek to fit in and not do anything to stand out too much. This rule may make sense in some places and at some times, but as general career advice, it stinks.
For you to attain a position of power, those in power have to choose you for a senior role. If you blend into the woodwork, no one will care about you, even if you are doing a great job. As one former student commented:
I am the guy you notice when he is gone, but necessarily while he is there. I call this phenomenon becoming “the foundation guy.” The foundation is necessary for the house and all goes to hell without it, but it is buried underground and works just fine about 95 percent of the time. It usually goes unnoticed. Quiet work, or heads-down work, which is efficient and effective—but never flashy—usually fails to get noticed. You can make a great career as a middle manager doing quiet work, but can you gain a lot of power? The answer is most definitely, “no.”
In advertising, one of the most prominent measures of effectiveness is ad recall—not taste, logic, or artistry—simply, do you remember the ad and the product? The same holds true for you and your path to power. That’s because of the importance of what is called “the mere exposure effect.” As originally described by the late social psychologist Robert Zajonc, the effect refers to the fact that people, other things being equal, prefer and choose what is familiar to them—what they have seen or experienced before. Research shows that repeated exposure increases positive affect and reduces negative feelings,12 that people prefer the familiar because this preference reduces uncertainty,13 and that the effect of exposure on liking and decision making is a robust phenomenon that occurs in different cultures and in a variety of different domains of choice.14
The simple fact is that people like what they remember—and that includes you! In order for your great performance to be appreciated, it needs to be visible. But beyond visibility, the mere exposure research teaches us that familiarity produces preference. Simply put, in many cases, being memorable equals getting picked.
An Italian executive who has worked in numerous large multinational corporations and has risen quickly through the ranks is an outspoken and provocative individual. Consequently, he sometimes irritates people. But as another manager told me, “decades from now I will remember him, while I will have forgotten most of his contemporaries.” It is obvious whom that manager would choose to fill a position—the memorable Italian leader. You can’t select what you can’t recall.
DEFINE THE DIMENSIONS OF PERFORMANCE
Tina Brown served as editor of Vanity Fair and The New Yorker before founding Talk magazine and more recently starting the popular website The Daily Beast. A great editor