Jeffrey Pfeffer > Quotes

“Your most important task as a leader is to teach people how to think and ask the right questions so that the world doesn't go to hell if you take a day off.”
― Jeffrey Pfeffer

“The sun’s rays, focused, are much more powerful than they are without focus. The same is true for people seeking power.”
― Jeffrey Pfeffer, Power: Why Some People Have it and Others Don't

“Being memorable equals getting picked.”
― Jeffrey Pfeffer, Power: Why Some People Have it and Others Don't

“a large body of empirical research conducted over decades suggests that student evaluations are more than unhelpful; instead, they are likely to change the behaviors of presenters in ways that make learning and personal growth less likely. That is one reason why Armstrong concluded that “teacher ratings are detrimental to students.”
― Jeffrey Pfeffer, Leadership BS: Fixing Workplaces and Careers One Truth at a Time

“The two fundamental dimensions that distinguish people who rise to great heights and accomplish amazing things are will, the drive to take on big challenges, and skill, the capabilities required to turn ambition into accomplishment. The three personal qualities embodied in will are ambition, energy, and focus. The four skills useful in acquiring power are self-knowledge and a reflective mind-set, confidence and the ability to project self-assurance, the ability to read others and empathize with their point of view, and a capacity to tolerate conflict.”
― Jeffrey Pfeffer, Power: Why Some People Have it and Others Don't

“Michael Schrage is right: “A collaboration of incompetents, no matter how diligent or well-meaning, cannot be successful.”
― Jeffrey Pfeffer, Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths, and Total Nonsense: Profiting from Evidence-based Management

“When two people always agree, one of them is unnecessary.”
― Jeffrey Pfeffer, Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths, and Total Nonsense: Profiting from Evidence-based Management

“Deming argued that if there are performance problems and quality defects, one needs to understand how those problems arise almost naturally as a consequence of how a system has been designed—and then fix those design flaws. Put simply, attack the problems by fixing the system, not scapegoating the necessarily fallible human beings working in and operating that system—whether or not they deserved it.”
― Jeffrey Pfeffer, Leadership BS: Fixing Workplaces and Careers One Truth at a Time

“Asian professionals are frequently held back from senior positions by the perception that they don’t have “executive presence,” a factor that similarly operates against other minority groups in the workplace, including women.39 And what constitutes executive presence? Certainly not modesty:”
― Jeffrey Pfeffer, Leadership BS: Fixing Workplaces and Careers One Truth at a Time

“Believing that the world is fair, people fail to note the various land mines in the environment that can undermine their careers.”
― Jeffrey Pfeffer, Power: Why Some People Have it and Others Don't

“Thinking is very hard work. And management fashions are a wonderful substitute for thinking.”
― Jeffrey Pfeffer, Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths, and Total Nonsense: Profiting from Evidence-based Management

“One study of relatively highly paid contractors in Silicon Valley found that free agents didn’t really feel free because of the need to be always searching for their next gig and therefore frequently took less leisure time than regular employees.”
― Jeffrey Pfeffer, Dying for a Paycheck: How Modern Management Harms Employee Health and Company Performance—and What We Can Do About It

“that leaders inspire trust, be authentic, tell the truth, serve others (particularly those who work for and with them), be modest and self-effacing, exhibit empathic understanding and emotional intelligence, and other similar seemingly sensible nostrums.”
― Jeffrey Pfeffer, Leadership BS: Fixing Workplaces and Careers One Truth at a Time

“You can’t be normal and expect abnormal returns.”
― Jeffrey Pfeffer

“Measuring the wrong thing is often worse than measuring nothing, because you do get what you measure. So if the assessments focus on how much people “enjoy” the experience—be that reading a book, watching a talk, or going to a training session—those same books, talks, and trainings will respond to those measurements by prioritizing the wrong outcomes: making participants feel good and giving them a good time. Simply stated, measuring entertainment value produces great entertainment, not change; measuring the wrong things crowds out assessing other, more relevant indicators such as improvements in workplaces. Improvement comes from employing measurements that are appropriate, those that are connected to the areas in which we seek improvement. In the case of leadership, that appropriate measurement would include assessing the frequency of desirable leader behaviors; actual workplace conditions such as engagement, satisfaction, and”
― Jeffrey Pfeffer, Leadership BS: Fixing Workplaces and Careers One Truth at a Time

“No one who is unmemorable is going to be chosen for an important job, because one cannot select what one cannot remember.”
― Jeffrey Pfeffer, Leadership BS: Fixing Workplaces and Careers One Truth at a Time

“If you want power to be used for good, more good people need to have power.”
― Jeffrey Pfeffer, 7 Rules of Power: Surprising--but True--Advice on How to Get Things Done and Advance Your Career

“If doctors practiced medicine the way many companies practice management, there would be far more sick and dead patients, and many more doctors would be in jail.”
― Jeffrey Pfeffer, Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths, and Total Nonsense: Profiting from Evidence-based Management

“are frequently based on hope or fear, what others seem to be doing, what senior leaders have done and believe has worked in the past, and their dearly held ideologies—in short, on lots of things other than the facts.”
― Jeffrey Pfeffer, Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths, and Total Nonsense: Profiting from Evidence-based Management

“Condoleezza Rice is right: people will join your side if you have power and are willing to use it, not just because they are afraid of your hurting them but also because they want to be close to your power and success.”
― Jeffrey Pfeffer, Power: Why Some People Have it and Others Don't

“prioritizing the wrong outcomes: making participants feel good and giving them a good time. Simply stated, measuring entertainment value produces great entertainment, not change; measuring the wrong things crowds out assessing other, more relevant indicators”
― Jeffrey Pfeffer, Leadership BS: Fixing Workplaces and Careers One Truth at a Time

“career prospects of employees who report corporate malfeasance are so dismal that it is surprising that people whistleblow at all.”
― Jeffrey Pfeffer, Leadership BS: Fixing Workplaces and Careers One Truth at a Time

“companies with high levels of workplace trust enjoy higher stock market returns.”
― Jeffrey Pfeffer, Leadership BS: Fixing Workplaces and Careers One Truth at a Time

“Using both experiments and field data, a recent study found that economic insecurity was associated with increased consumption of painkillers and produced actual physical pain and reduced pain tolerance, with the absence of control providing one mechanism explaining these results.”
― Jeffrey Pfeffer, Dying for a Paycheck: How Modern Management Harms Employee Health and Company Performance—and What We Can Do About It

“our ability to accurately discern who is taking advantage of us is remarkably poor.”
― Jeffrey Pfeffer, Leadership BS: Fixing Workplaces and Careers One Truth at a Time

“qualities we actually select for and reward in most workplaces are precisely the ones that are unlikely to produce leaders who are good for employees or, for that matter, for long-term organizational performance.”
― Jeffrey Pfeffer, Leadership BS: Fixing Workplaces and Careers One Truth at a Time

“overconfident individuals achieved higher social status, respect, and influence in groups.”
― Jeffrey Pfeffer, Leadership BS: Fixing Workplaces and Careers One Truth at a Time

“Nortel—another troubled networking company that suffered operating problems as a result of botched mergers.”
― Jeffrey Pfeffer, Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths, and Total Nonsense: Profiting from Evidence-based Management

“But I no longer believe that trust is essential to organizational functioning or even to effective leadership. Why? Because the data suggest that trust is notable mostly by its absence. Nevertheless, organizations continue to roll along, as do their leaders who seemingly suffer few consequences for being untrustworthy.”
― Jeffrey Pfeffer, Leadership BS: Fixing Workplaces and Careers One Truth at a Time

“to change the world of work and leadership, we need to get beyond the half truths and self-serving stories that are so prominent today.”
― Jeffrey Pfeffer, Leadership BS: Fixing Workplaces and Careers One Truth at a Time