Why Nice People Stay Stuck | Dr. Jeffrey Pfeffer

21:22And, you know, I have a friend who was at one point a colleague at Stanford Business School and then went on to become president of Scripps College and then went to work for the Sportsman Fellows Program, Laura Tiedens. And Laura would show tapes of various parts of Bill Clinton's testimony on the Monica Lewinsky thing. And when he was when he was displaying anger, people saw him as much more powerful than when he was expressing sadness or remorse. And she wrote an article on that very, very theme. And then when she did a survey of people inside a high tech company, it turns out the most powerful people tended to display more anger.

22:04well it's easy to rally on somebody's side when you see that anger especially when it's directed at something as the enemy and it's been shown in psychology to to easily bond people and make them feel that hey i'm on the right side because this person hates the things that i hate as much if not more than I do. That's exactly right. I mean, Lucifer and Carolyn Sharif and the Robert Caves experiments in the 1930s showed that the way you got people to bond with each other is in fact, create a common enemy.

22:45Johnny:I think a blind spot, and we've heard it from many of our clients over the years, is as they progress through school and certification and gain skill, a lot of what they're taught in their communication patterns is to showcase intelligence and sophistication. And then when they get into leadership roles, that actually falls flat. And it's not as powerful as expressing yourself in simpler, more concise forms to rally people around you. And again, this is another strategy that Trump uses so effectively that confounds so many intellectuals. Why is he talking in a way that's so simplistic? But that actually garners power.

23:22Johnny:I think that's hard for many of us who have been conditioned to showcase our intelligence and our communication over the years to understand once we get into the workforce. Yeah, there is a there's a formula that people use to measure the level of the grade level of communication. And there's a wonderful YouTube video, which is I think has been now seen, I don't know, seven or more million times, which is from when Trump was running the first time. and he was on one of these late night television shows. And the individual who did this, analyzed the video, analyzed just a short clip. The title of the YouTube video is How Donald Trump Answers a Question.

24:05And it turns out that I think 70 or 75 % of the words in this one minute clip are single syllable words. And then there's a few, two syllable words and I think there are no four syllable words, which is completely consistent with what you just said. You want to use relatively simple language. And my recollection is that this person then ranked the various candidates. Bernie Sanders used the most high grade level language. Donald Trump, I think, used the lowest. But you want to communicate in simple words that everybody can understand.

24:43Johnny:This time of year makes me rethink what's in my closet. Fewer things, better ones. Pieces that are well made and easy to wear all the time. That's why I keep coming back to Quince. Quince makes high quality everyday essentials using premium materials like 100 % European linen and their Flowknit Activewear fabric. Their men's linen pants and shirts are lightweight, breathable and comfortable. The perfect layer for spring. I just stocked up before our trip. The pants strike the right balance between laid back and refined. You look put together without trying too hard. Their Flowknit Activewear is moisture-wicking, anti-odor, and soft enough that you'll want to wear it all day.

25:19Johnny:Prices are 50-60 % less than similar brands. Quince works directly with ethical factories and cuts out the middlemen. You're paying for quality, not brand markup. Quince Flowknit Activewear has become my go-to gym outfit. Breathable, comfortable, look more polished than I expected, and they don't cost nearly what I thought they would. Refresh your wardrobe with Quince. Go to quince.com for free shipping and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada too. Go to quince.com for free shipping and 365-day returns. quince.com. Tomorrow morning is knocking. Stock your fridge now. How about a creamy mocha frappuccino drink?

26:00Or a sweet vanilla? Smooth caramel maybe? Or a white chocolate mocha? Whichever you choose, delicious coffee awaits. Find Starbucks frappuccino drinks wherever you buy your groceries.

26:10Johnny:And with that, I think one blind spot that our clients have is this understanding of the importance of a personal brand. And again, not to beat a dead horse, but Trump, his entire career has been around building a strong personal brand. And as we saw that rallied people around him. But for those of us who are starting in our career, we think of the brand as the company that we're working for and not how to build a narrative for ourselves that actually earns us that power. But unfortunately, as we've seen this job market and how quickly things can change for you, it's important for you to build a strong narrative that can carry beyond your role or your current company to grow your power and to be successful in your career.

26:49That's exactly right.

27:19for the job that you either hold or that's the job that you seek. And it's interesting how people don't do that. I had an African-American student in my class, and I randomly called on him on the day we do the brand exercise assignment. And he said, you know, he said, I'm obviously, I'm an African-American. I came from a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri. In the suburb in which I lived, people were low income and disadvantaged, and their health was horrible. I went to Stanford Medical School to learn how to provide medical services. I went to Stanford Business School to learn how to scale that and provide medical services to the community from which I came.

28:04And there it was. A simple statement that, by the way, and now once you have a brand, once people know what you're about and what you're trying to do, they can offer you help. If I don't know anything about you, if I don't know what you're trying to do, if I don't know where you came from and where you're going, it is impossible for me to offer you help, to connect you with people who may be useful to you because I don't know enough about who you are and what you're doing to be of any help.

28:34Johnny:And with that, what we teach our clients in the X Factor Accelerator is how important it is to allow that personal brand to be something that can be shared by someone else. So we often feel really good about our personal brand and we can share it with other people. But it's real power is when someone hears your personal brand and then can play that game of telephone and share it with someone else who could help you and motivate them to come back to you. And that's where I think it gets lost. I think the concept of a personal brand, well, it is deeply personal. So we feel like we know ourselves really well.

29:05Johnny:So we overcomplicate it. We explain ourselves again to showcase this high intellect and sophistication. But it's actually in the simplistic game of telephone that those weak ties can emerge in your network and strengthen your ability to find your next opportunity. So if we're not designing that personal brand as something that is shareable and something that you could hear from me and then go past to your network and motivate people to take action, well, that's not a personal brand that's very powerful. That is exactly right. And I think the other thing that people sometimes overlook is they say, I don't want to be a self-promoter.

29:44I don't want to, you know, put myself out there in that way. But if you don't tell your story, someone else will tell the story about you. And so you need to be in control of your own narrative or else people will make stuff up.

29:58Johnny:Or they won't share any narrative about you, which is even worse. You're completely invisible. That's correct. Right. So I think many of us, we have a blind spot there because that self-promotion feels icky. It feels like, oh, people should already know this because I'm working hard. They should see my performance for what it is and the results that I'm driving. But in actuality, everyone is so concerned about their own results. They're not paying attention enough to your results. You have to champion yourself and make yourself visible to move ahead. That is completely correct. And, you know, if you won't advocate for yourself, or at least to some extent, other people are not going to advocate for you.

30:36And if you won't stand up for yourself, other people are unlikely to stand up for you. So people look to you to understand how you, you know, if you don't think well of yourself, it's unlikely that I'm going to think that you're fabulous. the other part to go along with that is these people also need to get comfortable being in their own minds rather than uh in everybody else's head trying to figure out how they are being viewed which they have no control over how other people view them they have control over their behaviors how they're going to go about it and everyone else will interpret it as they interpret it.

31:15Yeah, that is such an important point because the only person whose behavior you can even remotely control is your own. And you're exactly right, John. You cannot control what other people think about you, what other people are going to say about you. You can only control your own behavior. And therefore, you are responsible. You are responsible for building your brand. You're responsible for mastering the skills of power. You are responsible, you know, you are responsible for your career. The other piece that goes along with that as well is there was this, the old saying of all publicity is good publicity.

31:58And everyone can sort of have an understanding of that at some level, but there's always the piece of, well, I don't want to be looked bad upon. Well, no one does. The part about the no publicity, all publicity is good publicity is even if people are talking bad about you, for those who don't know you, that only makes them curious if you are as bad as everyone says you are. And then you have your opportunity to be in front of that person to behave in the way that you want to behave. and still at the end of the day they will interpret it as they will interpret it either yes i can confirm i met that person they are as horrible as everyone said they were or oh my god i met that person and i didn't get that vibe at all in fact i was pleasantly surprised yeah and also yeah the other piece of that is that we we we love we love what is familiar And, you know, so in advertising, what is the measure of advertising effectiveness?

33:05This is brand recall. I mean, you know, I'm thinking of the Energizer Bunny commercial. I mean, nobody particularly loves the Energizer Bunny commercial, but you understand that they're advertising Energizer. You know, so you want people to recall you. You would like them to recall you favorably, but if they don't recall you at all, they're not going to recall you favorably either because they don't remember you.

33:28Johnny:Well, I think that's what trips up a lot of us. And Johnny and I have the same thing in the company is it feels repetitive for us to say the same things over and over about ourselves. But unfortunately, we are inundated with information. And if you are not championing yourself repeatedly and saying the same things over and over again, you become invisible. So yeah, you may think on that one time a year in your performance review, I'm going to come out with my personal brand and I'm going to share all of my accomplishments and everything that I've achieved. Well, guess what? You're going to be stuck in the same position because the other 11 months of the year, you have not been repeating that personal brand and what you've delivered, what those outcomes were tied back to that brand.

34:14Johnny:And for us, it can feel exhausting to get on short form videos and podcasts and have to keep touting all the work that we do at the Art of Charm. But that's the only way to cut through the noise and to be memorable is that repetition. That is exactly right. The late Jack Welch, who was the CEO of General Electric, used to talk about, you know, if you were going to build a strong organizational culture, the phrase he would use is you have to be relentless and boring because because the cultural message, you know, gets forgotten. And so it needs to be repeated a billion times, you know, because people do forget and people get distracted and whatever.

34:53And so that's why, you know, the most effective advertising is, in fact, advertising that you recall. And you recall it because it does something to annoy you or something to become memorable. And it's repeated often. You know, that's why I've never understood why companies spend a gazillion dollars to run one ad during the Super Bowl. Because one ad during the Super Bowl isn't going to do anything. Because, you know, you'll see one ad, maybe people will talk about it for a week if it's very memorable, and then it's completely forgotten.

35:30Johnny:Firestone Complete Auto Care's Spring Tire Spectacular is here, and it's time to get in on some serious savings. Get up to$300 in savings when you buy four eligible Bridgestone or Firestone tires. Firestone Complete Auto Care. Book now at FirestoneAuto.com. Conditions apply. See store for details. Um, are you stuck staring at your W-2? Are tax refund worries holding you back? You probably have FOMO. The fear of messing up. The fix? Using TurboTax on Intuit Credit Karma. They find every credit and deduction to help you get every refund dollar you deserve. or your money back. It's time to overcome your fear of messing up and get your taxes done right.

36:11Start filing today in the Credit Karma app.

36:15Johnny:Yeah, and the ones that stick with us, we're hearing over and over again across radio, TV, billboards, social media. It is that omnipresence that actually allows us to stand out through all the noise. And you need to do that in your own career. You need to recognize that that repetition is important 365 days a year. And with that, you know, one of the things that we talk a lot about on the show is the importance of growing your network. And we hear from clients that, well, networking feels icky. It feels like transactional. And we've been on the receiving end of networking where someone is trying to take advantage of us or get something from us.

36:52And we felt we don't want to do that.

36:54Johnny:But unfortunately, that is a very important step towards power. And it's one of the rules in the book. So talk about the importance of networking and what we should be looking at it as instead of something that's icky. Yeah, well, networking, the most effective networking is in fact an act of generosity because, you know, the best networkers will see, you know, John and AJ and they'll say, John can profit from knowing AJ and vice versa. And so you connect people who could benefit from being connected or you connect organizations that could benefit from being connected. You basically are bringing something.

37:31You're bringing people together. You're bringing units together. You're bringing organizations together who will mutually benefit from knowing each other. And so generosity is actually, and pardon me, networking is actually an act of generosity. It's not getting something from someone. It is being helpful to people by connecting people who, you know, who learn, who can learn from each other. And one of the interesting paradoxes of networking is that, you know, we tend to spend most of our time, both at work and in our social life, with people who we know well, our close friends, our family, the people we work with closely.

38:11The problem with the people that we know well is that they tend to know the same things and the same people that we do. So the most important ties are the weak ties. There was a group I used to teach a class. I taught this class on power. There were three women who would sit together. And every Monday morning, I would say, how did you spend your weekend? And they'd say, we spend it with our friends. And then I would always joke around that. I would say to them, if you spend all your time with your friends, how are you ever going to make new friends? So the only way you make new, you know, the people that you know well now, and I'm sure this is true for both of you, there are people that you know well now that 10 or 15 years ago, you didn't know at all.

38:51And if you had stayed, if you spent all your time with the people that you knew well, you would have never met these other people that you now know well. So in order to expand what you know, and in order to expand who you know, you need to get out of your comfort zone and basically be willing and able to connect with new people, people who are not close to you in any way, because it's the people who aren't close to you that can teach you new things. You know, if I spent all my time with social scientists, I would never learn anything about medicine. If I spent all my time with social scientists, I would not learn anything about technology.

39:29You have to get, you have to expand your horizons and meet a bunch of people who know different things and different people than you do.

39:39Johnny:Well, I think what's paradoxical for many of us in that situation is we often think that the best opportunities in our network are going to come from the people who know us the best and we are the closest with. But the science is actually the opposite. It's the weak ties and the people that are acquaintances that hold all of the power in our careers, our social life, our romantic life. It's those introductions and those opportunities that aren't close to us that have the largest impact. That is exactly correct. I met, I mean, I met, you know, I, after my wife of 35 years died, I was looking to build a new relationship.

40:20And I had, I had a breakfast with a woman who I had never met before, that a mutual friend had said, you know, I want you to meet this person. I met her, we talked about, she's raising a venture capital fund at the end of the meeting. She said, well, she said, you're not very helpful because you can't help me raise money. But she said, I appreciate your time. Is there anything I can do for you? And I said, yeah. I told her the story of what had happened with Kathleen. And I said, you know, I'm trying to meet people. She said, well, I have a friend, you know, who's had a very bad divorce and is not dated for a while.

40:57But I saw her at a birthday party and I asked her if she was interested in meeting someone. And she said, maybe. and she introduced me to the woman to whom I'm now married. So that is a weak tie. Basically, if you want to meet new people and learn new things and find new friends and whatever, you have to be willing and able to reach out, to connect with people. And it is, in fact, the weak ties who are more likely to introduce you to people that are going to be interesting, whatever.

41:37Johnny:Now, many of the people listening to this have found themselves in a new leadership role and they're now having power for the first time in their career, whether it's leading a group, leading an organization, founding a startup. And to those in our audience who are in that role, walk us through how they should think about wielding that newfound power and set themselves up for success? Well, I think the first thing they should decide is, you know, everyone has a boss. Even if you're the CEO, you have a board of directors. So I think the first thing people need to understand is what their boss or bosses, in the case of a board of directors, is looking for.

42:21How are your bosses measuring success? How are they evaluating you? And you want to do something to influence how they evaluate you. So they emphasize the evaluation on things that you're good at. That's number one. But number two, you need to understand what they expect of you so that you can fulfill their expectations. There's no way I can fulfill your expectations. You know, what's the old saying? We have two ears and one mouth for a reason. So I think you need to ask people questions. And you need to understand in a very profound way, how are they measuring success? And people talk about effectiveness and success in way too aggregate a way.

43:04I mean, if you look at a company, a company has return on sales, return on assets. They have growth. They have total shareholder return. There are multiple measures of even company success. There are multiple measures of individual success. There are multiple measures. You're responsible for doing a number of different things. And you need to understand how you're going to be evaluated along these multiple dimensions. What are the dimensions that are the most important? So, you know, figure out, you know, it's how you would plan your day. What are the most critical things I need to do today? I need to emphasize the critical things.

43:41How am I being evaluated by my board, by my boss, by my set of bosses? And I need to optimize on what is important to them. Not necessarily what is important to me, not necessarily what I guess I think they ought to be interested in. I need to figure out what they're actually interested in and optimize on that.

44:00Johnny:Well, I think many of us, when we find ourselves in that position, we try again to fit into the hierarchy and we try not to rock the boat. We try to, OK, establish. Let's take some time. Let's be patient. Let's read everything. And in actuality, the quickest way to power is to actually aggressively make an impact to shorten the time from you getting into that role and actually the impact being seen. We don't want to wait until that one year review to finally start making an impact. If we've now moved into a position of power, we have to show that not only is that power earned, but it is valued by us to impact what's going on around us.

44:38Johnny:And I think that's a big blind spot for a lot of our audience and certainly our clients of like, OK, now I'm in a leadership role. I don't want to rock the boat. I got to keep my team happy. You know, I want to be seen as like not changing things, not shifting things. When in actuality, the fastest way to gain that power and to move yourself politically is to wield that power towards impact. Well, my colleague and good, very good friend, Robert Cialdini, who wrote the book Influence, has a saying, you only get one chance to make a first impression. And so and that is, of course, not only true, but I think it's a very important insight.

45:14how you show up. First impressions matter because first impressions are extraordinarily durable. Once I decide that John is brilliant and AJ isn't, I will then process every piece of information consistent with that. It's called confirmation bias. I will process every piece of information consistent with that. When John does something, I will say, oh, God, that's wonderful. And when AJ something. So we assimilate all information consistent with our initial impressions. And so therefore, if that's true, which it is, the initial impression is the most important impression you're going to make. Once I form an impression of who you are and what your competency levels are and everything else, it is extraordinarily hard to change.

46:00So therefore, how you show up in that first days or weeks is what's going to determine your success years out.

46:08Johnny:and with that i think we're now touching on a really important piece extending that first impression is recognizing that success actually excuses your faults and i think that's a real tough pill for many to swallow like they want to see people in power people are successful taken down we we see these movements by the media to take down these people that have had a fault had a personal issue. But in actuality, when you reach a level of success, that becomes the confirmation bias. Even your mistakes get seen as successful mistakes. And I think that is kind of hard for many of us to wrap our head around when we think that we're under the microscope and that allows us to freeze up and not rock the boat, not make an impact like we should.

46:57Johnny:When in actuality, a successful impact pays off way more in your career than the status quo. That is completely correct. You know, I mean, it's a it's a it's a shockingly hideous example. But, you know, you could look at Jeffrey Epstein and and what has come out about him with the with the release of the files. And what is interesting is not the people who never knew what he was doing and who he was, but the people who knew that he had been arrested and that he had been convicted of having relationships with underage girls and still associated with him. People like Prince Andrew and people, many, many people in the media and many people in academia who wanted his money, who wanted the flight on the private jet, who wanted to go to the island, who wanted this, that and the other thing.

47:50And basically, even though they knew he was, you know, a convicted felon, they didn't really care. I love the documentary Martha. It's a documentary on Martha Stewart. and Martha Stewart, towards the end of the documentary, says, why do we spend so much time talking about the fact that I did time for lying about my insider trading? It's never the crime. It's always the cover-up that gets you. She said, I'm 72 years old. Why do we talk about two years out of a 72-year life? But Martha Stewart, it's interesting. There's an article about her also. Even after serving time, her brand was never as valuable.

48:30So the idea that, you know, you're going to be convicted and or and I'm not, by the way, telling anybody that they need to commit crimes. But but but I think, you know, I think people don't understand the extent to which you have. You have money and power. People want to be close to that money and power and they will they will overlook many of your sins or maybe even all of them.

48:58Johnny:So what do you say to those in our audience who feel allergic to that seeking of power and status, who prioritize keeping the peace? um well you know everybody gets to choose how they want to live their life and you know as i tell my students you know first of all there's a price of power power comes with visibility um you know there are probably a huge number of people um not a huge number but there i'm sure there are other people who did who did what jeffrey epstein did who are not in the news every day um as you know i'm sure there are people who have who are committing various kinds of whatever or a pet of peccadilloes and are not in the news.

49:39Power comes with a price. The price is one of the prices of the price of visibility. You're going to be watched. You're going to be scrutinized. You're going to be analyzed. Not everybody's going to like you. My friend Gary Loveman, who used to run Caesars, the casino company, has a saying, which I love. You want to be like a dog. A dog will love you unconditionally. Your job as a leader is not to win some popularity contest. Your job as a leader is to get things done, to make the organization successful, to make the people around you successful. So, you know, but people get to choose. Not everybody has to aspire to be in a position of power.

50:16Not everybody has to be as ambitious as some people are. Not everybody has to pay the price of working hard. And, you know, many people sacrifice at some point the personal relationships and maybe even aspects of their personal life. My friend Charles O 'Reilly, colleague at Stanford, did a study with Olivia O 'Neill in which they found one of the best predictors of salary was hours worked. That's, you know, that's, you know, and when you could, and one of the reasons why women typically, and at least in the past, did not earn as much as men is that because of their family responsibilities, they couldn't put in as many hours.

50:54Well, you know, that's a sad story, but it's true. So I think our job or my job and your job, My job as a social scientist, your job as running the company that you're running and helping people with this podcast is to describe to people how the world works and why it works that way. Your job is not to, you know, give them some kumbaya picture of a world that doesn't exist because, you know, we're not living in Oz. This is not the movie Wicked. You know, we're living in a world and people need to understand the rules. So, you know, if you say to me, you know, I don't want to play football. Football is a contact sport.

51:38The evidence suggests that if you play football, particularly at a high level, you're more likely to wind up with arthritis or concussions or all kinds of other things. I would say fine. In that case, don't go on the field. Don't play football. But if you want to play football, you have to understand what the game is. It's a contact sport. People are going to try to injure you. People are going to try to tackle you. You will probably pay some physical price, hopefully not a cognitive price, but you will almost certainly pay a physical price for getting hit, you know, as often and as hard as you are and, you know, possibly breaking things or dislocating things or spraining things.

52:15You know, over time, the body will not recover as well. You will pay a price for that. You have to decide, is that something you want to do? Do you want to, you know, boxing would be even a bigger level. You know, if you were going to be Muhammad Ali, at the end of the day, Muhammad Ali had Parkinson's. And many people believed Muhammad Ali's Parkinson's came in part from all the blows he had taken in the ring. On the other hand, he was Muhammad Ali, you know, with the money and the fame. So you have to decide. I cannot decide for you and you cannot decide for your clients what they are going to be willing to do.

52:49You can tell them how to become successful, but they have to decide what are they willing to do to achieve that level of success. And it goes to show and with skill building and skill stacking, there is rules that enable you to build those skills. Those rules change your outlook that creates a transformation within you. So you're not only acquiring these skills, but you're having a better understanding of how the rules play or better understanding or a new worldview that helps you activate these skills, deploy them. That's exactly correct. I mean, nobody, when you come out of it, when you come out of your mother's womb, you're not walking, talking or using the toilet.

53:41But, you know, Venus and Serena Williams were not born tennis players. Van Cliburn, the late Van Cliburn, was not born a fabulous pianist. People are not born conductors. But Patrick Mahomes was not born a fabulous quarterback. These are all trainable, learnable skills. Obviously, individual ability makes a difference. But we become what we do. So over time, the Williams sisters become professional tennis players. And that affects what they do. That affects their fame. That affects how they think about their life. Over time, I became a professor. Over time, we all become what we are. And absolutely, the skills that you build and the career that you pursue affects how you see the world, the lens through which you see everything.

54:33Johnny:Well, Johnny touched on this earlier, and I think this is a tension that many feel, and that's the desire to be liked and then the introduction of rivals and saboteurs on their career. So as you start to gain power, whether it's through merit alone or you start to advocate for yourself and you're seen in a powerful way, this internal feeling of, yes, I want to be liked. I want my peers. I want my team to like me. I want everyone around me to feel good around me. But at the same time, that creates tension then with those who are your rival, who are competing for that power, who are judgmental of you, who want to take you down.

55:13Johnny:And I think that tension can often steer us off course and create blind spots that we don't actually see around the political games that are being played in our career. That's right. I really believe Gary Loveman is completely correct. If you want to be liked, get a dog. Your job is not to be liked. Your job is to be effective. You know, and if you think about if you think about the example I used earlier of my surgeon in order to make my back feel better, the first thing he had to do was actually make an incision in my spine. Actually, the first thing they had to do was give an injection in the spine to numb to numb me below the waist.

55:51But that is, I think, you know, in order to get things done, what's the old saying with the late New York City and State Parks Commissioner Robert Moses? In order to make an omelet, you have to break some eggs. And that is, and so in order to get things done, often you have to do things that not everybody will like. You have to do things that some people will find offensive for one reason or the other. But, you know, I think this this aphorism in order to make an omelet, you have to break eggs, I think is exactly correct. You want to break as few as possible and you want to break them as effectively as possible, but you cannot.

56:33It's what you're going to optimize for. And I think, you know, if you're in a if you're in a if you're in a job, if you're in a leadership role, you have to optimize on being effective, not on being popular.

56:46Johnny:So how should we view those rivals and those saboteurs? And what strategically should we be doing as we garner power? Well, you know, Lyndon Johnson, the late president, Lyndon Johnson, had, I think, a fabulous saying, which is, I think, completely counterintuitive to how we want to behave. You need to keep your friends close, but you need to keep your enemies closer. And the reason why you need to keep your enemies closer is you need to see you need to know at a very, very detailed level what they're doing and why and how they're thinking. Your friends, you don't need to worry about, but your enemies, you need to worry about.

57:21And therefore, you need to keep them close.

57:24Johnny:So recognizing that those are relationships that we shouldn't be severing or walking away from, but we should actually be investing in our enemies to understand what's going on, to get a better perspective, to set ourselves up to keep and continue gaining power. That is exactly correct. I mean, if somebody tells you that your rival has been spreading bad information about you, that's not a good thing because you should have known that from firsthand. And you do need to spend more time with the people who you find difficult. Who are jockeying. Well, thank you so much for joining us today, Jeffrey.

58:02Johnny:Where can our audience find out about the book and the work you do? So I have a personal web homepage, JeffreyPfeffer.com. You can also find me, of course, through the Stanford Graduate School of Business webpage. And, you know, I've written the book called Seven Rules of Power. I've written a number of books. I have a long career. You can email me at pfff at stanford.edu. If you send an email to pfeffer at stanford.edu, you'll reach Suzanne Pfeffer, who's not related to me, but who's a professor in the medical school. She forwards the emails over to me. So, you know, and I, you know, I love educating people.

58:46You know, somebody once said, I'm an educator first, And that's exactly correct. I love educating people about the social science, about human behavior. And I would be happy to be in contact with your listeners.

58:58Johnny:Well, thank you so much for explaining all the messiness around power and giving us actionable strategies. We appreciate it. Thank you. And thank you for inviting me on the show.

59:19Two kinds of fishing out here. One for fish, one for your data. Hackers try to hook you, but Cisco Duo keeps every user and device protected. Cisco Duo. Fishing season is over. Learn more at duo.com. Ready to transform your career in real time from where you are? Brown University's flexible online master's programs will help expand your business influence and your network in just 16 months. Choose from management, business analytics, or organizational leadership programs that will prepare you for today's most pressing business challenges without putting your life on hold. Scholarships available.

59:56Tap to learn more.