5 Tricks to Be More Powerful at
Work
Power makes lots of us
uncomfortable, but that's no excuse for sticking your head in the sand and not
cultivating your professional clout.
"Power is a subject that makes
many people extremely uncomfortable," Stanford professor Jeffrey Pfeffer argues, but just because we don't like to think about
power doesn't mean it's not the lifeblood of business. "Power is in fact
all around...like air and water and gravity," he insists in a recent short video for Insights by Stanford Business.
Ignoring power, therefore, won't make it disappear any more than wishing
away gravity will help you fly. Instead of sticking your head in the sand,
Pfeffer suggests you get real and start thinking constructively about
accumulating power. How can you do that? In the video he offers a handful of
actionable (if not necessarily universally palatable) tips.
1. Build a power map
You can't gather more power to
yourself if you don't know who is currently in possession of it, Pfeffer points
out. Therefore, the first step to increasing your own power is to take a look
around and find out who really holds the reins. It might not be whom you first
suspect (or who the org chart indicates). "Often times, it's an assistant
or a secretary or people who aren't necessarily that high up in the
organization chart," he says.
2. Ease their burden
Once you know who has the power,
it's your job to get close to those people and make sure they support your aims.
That might sound Machiavellian, but Pfeffer insists that cultivating power in
this way is both practical and essential, and he offers commonsense approaches
to cozy up to the powerful, such as making sure you put your skills on show in
a way that's visible to them. For instance, he recommends "doing small
tasks that make those individuals' lives easier."
3. Strengthen social connections
Power is as much about who likes you
as what you can do, so if you're looking to cultivate power, you can't get away
from networking. Make sure you spend time with the individuals who you
identified as powerful so you can build closer personal relationships with
them. It might make
you feel grubby, but there areways
to network that are authentic and
honest.
4. Employ flattery
Pfeffer's next tip won't sit well
with everyone, but like it or not, it's effective, he insists. What's this
controversial trick? Simple flattery. "People like to think good about themselves, and we
all love people who make us think good about ourselves," he says.
5. Unearth underemployed resources
Not really comfortable with
brown-nosing? Then how about this idea: Search out underutilized resources
around you and figure out how to exploit them to their full capacity. Pfeffer
gives the example of an organization that has a fund for training or events.
Those looking to gain power could try to get a hold of some of that cash to
bring people they would like to network with to speak at the company. Or be the
one to organize
a dinner or other team-building occasion for
your colleagues. The aim is "to put yourself at the center of a series of
relationships," Pfeffer explains.
BY JESSICA
STILLMAN
http://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/5-tricks-to-be-more-powerful-at-work.html
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