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is simply no question that the desire to believe that flattery is at once sincere and accurate will, in most instances, leave us susceptible to being flattered and, as a consequence, under the influence of the flatterer. So, don’t underestimate—or underutilize—the strategy of flattery. University of California–Berkeley professor Jennifer Chatman, in an unpublished study, sought to see if there was some point beyond which flattery became ineffective. She believed that the effectiveness of flattery might have an inverted U-shaped relationship, with flattery being increasingly effective up to some point but beyond that becoming ineffective as the flatterer became seen as insincere and a “suck up.” As she told me, there might be a point at which flattery became ineffective, but she couldn’t find it in her data.

This chapter has emphasized managing up—both the importance of doing so and some ways of being successful at the task. That’s because your relationship with those in power is critical to your own success. Best-selling author and marketing guru Keith Ferrazzi says that, contrary to what most people think, they are not responsible for their own careers. As he noted, your driving ambition and even your great performance are not going to be sufficient to assure success in a typical hierarchical organization. The people responsible for your success are those above you, with the power to either promote you or to block your rise up the organization chart. And there are always people above you, regardless of your position. Therefore, your job is to ensure that those influential others have a strong desire to make you successful. That may entail doing a good job. But it may also entail ensuring that those in power notice the good work that you do, remember you, and think well of you because you make them feel good about themselves. It is performance, coupled with political skill, that will help you rise through the ranks. Performance by itself is seldom sufficient, and in some instances, may not even be necessary.

2

The Personal Qualities That Bring Influence

RON MEYER, the president and chief operating officer of Universal Studios since 1995, is the longest serving head of a major motion picture company. A powerful figure in the film industry, Meyer also provides an example of a life transformed. Ron Meyer dropped out of high school when he was 15 and a couple of years later joined the U.S. Marines. After leaving the Marines he got a job at a talent agency as a chauffeur, a position that permitted him to learn a lot about the entertainment business as he listened to the conversations of clients. After working as an agent for the William Morris Agency, Meyer and some friends founded the Creative Artists Agency, a position that helped establish him as a power broker in Hollywood.1

Meyer, like many successful people, profoundly changed over the course of his life. He developed qualities that permitted him to obtain and hold on to influence. If you are going to do likewise, you need to successfully surmount three obstacles. First, you must come to believe that personal change is possible; otherwise, you won’t even try to develop the attributes that bring power—you will just accept that you are who you are rather than embarking on a sometimes difficult path of personal growth and development. Second, you need to see yourself and your strengths and weaknesses as objectively as possible. This is difficult because in our desire to self-enhance—to think good things about ourselves—we avoid negative information and overemphasize any positive feedback we receive.2 And third, you need to understand the most important qualities for building a power base so you can focus your inevitably limited time and attention on developing those.

CHANGE IS ALWAYS POSSIBLE

People often think that whatever qualities are needed for building a path to power, either you have them or you don’t, at least by the time you are an adult. But the biographies of Ron Meyer and scores of other figures in political and business life belie that idea.