To summarize: what exactly is 'power'
Summarize: what exactly is ‘power’
Hello, World Wide Steel, happy holidays! On May Day, we’re going to summarize the three books we’ve recently read. Today, with the help of the popular book “The Seven Rules of Power”, we are going to summarize the perceptions of “power” that have been taught in the Elite Daily Classes in the past few seasons. What is power? Is it leadership? What are the means of acquiring power? What are the side effects of power? It’s all in today’s article, and you can review the original article by clicking on the link. Elite Daily Lessons, have a productive day.
Book Title : 7 Rules of Power: Surprising–But True–Advice on How to Get Things Done and Advance Your Career
Author: Jeffrey Pfeffer, Professor of Organizational Behavior, Stanford University, author of Power: Why Some People Have It–and Others Don’t. Why Some People Have It-and Others Don’t
Publication date: June 2022, not yet available in Chinese.
Book topic: The best current scientific understanding of power.
★Three Sobering Understandings of Power★★
- The world is about power.
☆ No matter how developed the world is, it is also hierarchical. There are always fewer positions at the top than at the bottom, which is called ‘ranking scarcity’. Competition for good positions is always a zero-sum game, and there are always a few people with power, in any era and in any field.
☆ The higher up you go, the more important power becomes.
☆ The ground rules of power in the new era are unchanged.
- Power has nothing to do with morality.
☆ Power is actually a morally neutral tool. It’s like any tool, you can do something with it, you can’t do something without it, that’s all. You can do good things with it or bad things with it, there is no question of morality or immorality per se.
☆ A person who is good at using power techniques is not necessarily a bad person. It doesn’t matter if the person is a good or bad person, what matters is whether he is your ally or enemy.
☆ You’re just a PLAYER trying to win, don’t get too uppity.
- If you want to achieve great things, you must have power.
☆Power is just as important as talent. But power allows you to show off your talents, gives you a place to use your talents, and allows you to be seen and bring you benefits.
☆ Power is about control. Your own choices and actions are the only things you have absolute control over.
★Power Rule #1: Overcome the Submissive Mindset ★
- Overcome the mental barriers, break out of your ego, leave your comfort zone, and switch to a ‘power mindset’. You must be very clear that you want power, not comfort. *
4 Mental Barriers to Overcome:
- Be boastful, not humble.
☆ In the Game of Thrones, it is precisely boasting that can succeed.
☆ Your self-confidence not only works for you, but also for others.
☆ To overcome this obstacle, you need training. Self-promotion and self-presentation may make you feel uncomfortable, so practice until you are comfortable. Faking confidence can put you in a virtuous cycle.
☆ A key means of gaining power is to assert yourself and persuade others in discussions.
- Be self, not collective.
☆ You have to be willing to dominate others: let others do the work, dare to control them. And this requires you to overcome that mental block of collectivism and equality.
☆ You can think of it this way: the purpose of my pursuit of power is to better help the collective!
- Be strategic, not sincere.
☆The “true self” is an illusion.
Power manipulation requires you to do the right things - such as building social networks, flattering superiors, and bragging about yourself - instead of being true to yourself.
To gain power, strategic words and actions are necessary because you must gain allies and supporters.
- Be dominant, not likeable.
☆ Forced conformity, always fearing that the collective will not accept you, is a psychological barrier.
☆ How to overcome this obstacle? The researcher’s suggestion is to show ability first, then friendliness. If people already recognize that you are very capable, and you give a warm gesture, people won’t think you are weak, but rather find it a surprise.
★Power Rule #2: Don’t follow the rules★
- You have to get used to being more proactive. *
- you get special benefits from breaking the rules
☆ If you dare to clash, the other person will not dare to clash, and he will fulfill your demands in order to avoid clashing with you, so won’t you get what you want?
There are some things you can do without risk, such as asking for help. Those who are able to shamelessly ask for help, of course, seize more opportunities.
- Breaking the rules can improve your image.
Experiments have shown that people who are impolite, those who don’t care, those who infringe on other people’s turf, and those who flout the law are usually considered more capable.
- Breaking the rules is necessary because the rules limit you
☆ Every change is a redistribution of resources, and since you want to come in and get a share of the power, you have to change the existing rules.
★Power Rule #3: Maintain your image ★
- Power really has an aura, people who know what they’re doing casually look at the appearance to know if the person is good or not; the power aura is not beauty or ugliness in the sense of ordinary people. *
- This power aura is your image. You must maintain this image well, because it builds up an expectation for people.
☆ The most important thing for power is the first impression.
☆ One of the most important admonitions is to never apologize for something at work.
☆ The essence of this image is trust.
- How to show your air of power:
Use more speaking time;
:: Speak louder;
:: Increase the “visual dominance ratio”, which means that you try to look at someone when you are speaking to them, whereas you can not look at them when they are speaking to you;
Dare to interrupt others;
Speak directly with the facts, rather than looking the other way;
:: Be open in your body posture and use gestures more often;
:: Take the initiative to move closer to others;
Be calm, relaxed and take it easy ……
Keep your words simple, try to use monosyllabic words, don’t make long complicated sentences and clauses.
Don’t use weak words, but dare to use words that are particularly vivid and can stimulate emotions.
Be sure to give a clear conclusion, do not end with a question.
Repeat your conclusion and theme over and over again.
★ Power Rule #4: Build a personal brand ★
- There are three elements to a personal brand: your expertise, what you’ve accomplished, and your personal story. You should ideally be able to articulate these three elements in three words so that people know who you are right away. *
Fame can be broken down into four levels: recognition, fame, prestige, and brand.
Three ways to build a personal brand:
☆ Active storytelling: You have to take the initiative to tell people what your team is doing, often and repeatedly. You have to tell the story with the feeling of “Hero’s Journey” - we encountered difficulties, we overcame difficulties, we gained growth. Tell about your journey, and make it inspiring!
☆ Content output: such as writing a public website, blogging, doing short videos, podcasting, publishing a book or whatever. Most people do it out of interest, some do it to get income. And as an aspiring power user, the most important role of content output is to help you build your personal brand.
☆ Leverage.
- the real role of power is to expose and amplify your character:
Psychologists have done many experiments and surveys to come to this conclusion. When you don’t have power, you have to rely more on others, then some bad desires have to be held back, and some good ambitions can’t be realized – you, not the real you. With power, you are more able to act according to your own wishes, and your true self comes out.
With power, selfish people will be even more selfish, domineering people will deliberately suppress potential rivals, and individualistic people may even abuse their subordinates. But on the other hand, selfless people, people who are concerned about prestige, people who are concerned about personal morality, will be more cooperative, do more good, and provide more support to their subordinates when they have power.
★Power Rule #5: Develop Social Relationships ★
- You need to be persistent in building a social network. *
- Four ways to build a social network:
☆ Cooperation: You can think of cooperation as an end in itself, but you can also think of cooperation as a means to build relationships. Studies have shown that cooperation creates cohesion. When people work together to do something, it naturally brings them closer together.
☆ Find common ground and a sense of community: find someone you both know to introduce you. For example, if you have an investment deal you’re looking for someone to work on, and your former college friend happens to know that potential partner, you can ask him to match you up.
☆ Become an “intermediary”: Two groups of people who are otherwise unconnected need an intermediary figure to connect them. To become such a social network pivotal figure.
☆ Getting close to the center of power: There are two benefits. One is that the top brass can see you. Two, you have access to a lot of key information and you know how the company is run. So always try to choose a position where you have access to the core. It’s best to go to a real power department that holds key resources, or a business department that solves key difficulties.
A caveat: social networks are not as big as they are.
Another caveat: Power brings brain damage. Power, even a small sense of “power,” impedes an important function of our brains, which is the ability to see things from other people’s perspectives. A sense of power impairs our ability to empathize with others, makes us insensitive to their thoughts and feelings, and makes us headstrong. Power is a good thing, but a sense of power is not. It’s very difficult to actively eliminate power, and the best way to do that is to surround yourself with people who can knock you back down in a minute.
★Power Rule #6: Use your power quickly.
*You should not only use it, but you should use it in a big way, and you should use it in a big way, and you should use it in a big way. *
- There are three aspects to using power:
☆ “A new official is appointed to carry out reforms to the organization.
☆ “Once a ruler, always a minister”, to install one’s own people.
☆ “A strong man has no successor”, suppressing competitors.
- Five general rules of power proposed by The Dictator’s Handbook:
☆ Keep the coalition as small as possible. The smaller the coalition, the less money it will cost to buy them off.
☆ The more nominal voters you have, the better. With more nominal voters, you can easily replace someone in the coalition should they become disgruntled with you.
☆ Control income. The leader must know where the money is and must be able to control its flow.
☆ Pay back the coalition well for their support of you. Be sure to give enough, but not too much.
☆ Never take money out of the Coalition’s pocket and give it to the people. This means that any reforms that hurt the Coalition will be difficult to carry out. Julius Caesar once tried to do this and was assassinated. Historically, reformers have often failed.
★Power Rule #7: Original sin will be forgiven ★
- You’re going to do whatever it takes to gain power, and don’t be too concerned about breaking the rules in the process - if you’re punished in the future, it won’t be because you ever broke the rules, it’ll be because you lost the power. *
power is a product of human cognitive deficiencies: there is blind obedience to power.
Powerful people support power as rational support, while ordinary people support power as emotional. Three psychological mechanisms why ordinary people are so inclined to believe in power and embrace it even when they clearly have no stake in it:
☆ “Cognitive Consistency”, that is, you think that good things should be good everywhere, and people with good qualities should have good qualities all over them. When you see a person who is powerful, rich, and successful, you will imagine that this person is capable, virtuous, smart, and hardworking, just like a romance novel portrays a domineering president.
☆ “Just World Assumption We always think that the world is just and that this person must be successful because he did something good; that person failed because he did something wrong. We believe that following the rules will be rewarded and breaking the rules will be punished.
☆ ‘Moral Rationalization’ and ‘Moral Decoupling’. Moral rationalization is when the person has obviously done something bad, but you have to make excuses for him, saying that he didn’t do it on purpose, that he had no choice, that his actions were justified, that he played a small role, and so on, in order to absolve him. Moral decoupling, on the other hand, separates a person’s morality from his abilities.
★ Worth Remembering ★
☆ “If you want power to be used for good, you need more good people to have power.”
☆ Having a position is not the same as having power, and true power is never earned.
☆ You can refuse to play soccer. But you can’t say you want to play a non-confrontational kind of soccer - because there is no such thing as non-confrontational soccer in the world.
☆ Being proactive, breaking the script, and making your own decisions outside of the process is called power. Power is not given to you to conform to the norms of the world, it’s given to you to test the boundaries of the world; it’s not given to you to adapt to the world, it’s given to you to change the world.
☆ “Power is when it’s logical that you should kill this person, but you don’t.”
☆ “Instead of asking for permission, you should ask for forgiveness.”
☆ Work is work, life is life; cooperation is cooperation, personality is personality. We are all people with multiple identities . We only need to invest a limited amount of emotion and engage in a limited amount of competition.
☆ The more power you have, the less likely you are to be retaliated against.
☆ “It is safer for a monarch to be feared than to be loved.”
☆ As long as you haven’t exposed your weaknesses, you won’t be retaliated against. That’s the biggest secret of power.
☆ All in all, it’s a world that’s very friendly to power.