David Pennington

How can one stick out from a crowded field of engineers looking to move away from coding everyday and into a highly competitive environment of engineering management? Why would an engineer want to do something like that? What is the best way to protect status at a company that could hire 5 new grads willing to grind to do your job? How do I move up the chain and build a concrete foundation for a new career in managing people?

These are all reasons that I've picked up the book "Power: why some people have it and others don't" by Jeffery Pfeffer. I wont be an engineer forever, and that timeline always feels shorter every quarter, and if anything, moving between companies has taught me that you really need to hit the ground running when it comes to building good relationships with the people around you. What I am hoping to get out of this book is some knowledge about how to grow the scope of my work outside of general software development efficiently and in a way that sets myself up for future growth.

I've believe that career growth comes from building influence you have on others and using it to broaden the vision of work beyond what you currently work on. This however is something that I have struggled with so far in my career. I find myself focused on my own throughts about products and worklife, and not on my own over-arching career progression. I chose this book to help give myself perspective on what the most efficient means to gaining power looks like, so that I can work those methods into my own version of influence building.

what follows is loose notes on the book, and my own personal thoughts, they dont neccessarily represent how I feel about what the author is recommending, especially because I dont agree morally with some of it, but one theme of the book is that in order to gain power, one must want power above other objectives. How I will personally reconcile that I'm not sure yet. As I write this I have only finished 1/3rd of the book itself.

Notes

Chapter 1

• The world is not just. once you see that you won't expect the right things to happen to the right people by default.
• Self image is the worst enemy of power. the expectation that you need to preseve self inmage in order to be the person you want to be results in failure to gain power due to inflexibility.
• the people who are powerful became that way because they strived to be powerful. They practice being powerful constantly without worring about failing.
• Dont take advice without a grain of salt. Leaders are masters of "self presentation" and that results in discussion about positive outcomes and hiding of negative ones in any management book.
• Performance does not lead to promotions. Keeping your boss happy and performing the tasks required of someone in that new role is a better path.
• The path to getting power requires enhancing the egos of those around you.
• Be memorable, stick out in some way. define what makes you successful and gives you an advantage over your peers.
• Care about what your boss cares about. Build a model of what their version of sucess is and work towards it. Ask directly and then act on it.
• Flattery works even in cases where it may seem insincere.
• Attacking the character of others does not give you an advantage especially when the character flaw you are attacking is a shared insecurity of those listening to you. They percieve you as a threat to them via your position on that character flaw.
• Similar to the growth mindset, you need to believe that you can change before you can start to make changes. genetics or predisposition be damned.

Chapter 2

• Seven of the most important personal qualities that build power
• Will and skill are the 2 most important factors in doing big things.
• Ambition. You need to directly focus on building influence. Ambition can be the driving factor in overcoming the temptation to give up.
• Energy. Almost all powerful people have boundless energy. Energy is important because; it is contagious and inspirational to those around you, allows you to work long hours and build up an advantage of getting more things done.
• Confidence, self reflection, Focus, Empathy, and Capacity to tolerate conflict are some of the other traits, but Intelligence is explicitly left out. The reasoning behind this is that intelligence is not a precursor to power. Having superior intelligence can lead to adverse behaviors like independence, pride, and overconfidence. Intelligence can also be intimidating and seen as a threat to other's insecurities.
• Being intelligent is not a blocker for gaining power, but careful considerations must be made in order to directly circumvent drawbacks of intelligence like explicitly asking for help, and watching for when one is holding on to work and not looking at the bigger picture.

Chapter 3

• What is the best way to deploy these traits to gain power? where should you start? Not all career paths are efficient paths to power. The best paths are often under exploited niches which are going to be more important in the future than they are today.
• In many cases that means examining which of the areas of the business provide the most power. If the business is highly dependent on the engineering or product then those are good places to build a power base, but if the companys financial arm is more important to the overall success then that may be a better strating place. I don't think this applies to me personally, im not interested in being a manager for the financial team which what all of the examples in this chapter are. CEOs of Fortune 500s seem to be picked from the arm of the company that is currently hot in that market which is usually the aquiring of capital these days.
• Important factors to consider are relative pay, proximity to people currently in power, and positions that leaders in an org hold in the upper levels of management.
• sometimes choosing teams that can build a strong power base are not as efficient as choosing areas with less competition. It can be extremely hard to move up in a competitive market so finding side channels that give you a shortcut to more important positions can be a valid way to build a power base as well.

Chapter 4

• Standing out and breaking some rules is very important, especially early in your career. Not many people have the courage to reach out to those in power, especially when it means using the time of someone who is extremely powerful.
• The Squeaky wheel gets the oil. asking for something, especially in a public setting works, first its flattering. asking for someones help or favors shows that you value what they do and it shows that person has influence, something they value. People also find it uncomfortable to ask for help/favors so those that do it stick out.
• many people believe that standing out should be done once you are successful but in reality those that are successful are that way because they found a way to stand out.
• breaking rules of the corporate world are good ways to stand out, especially if breaking these norms is seen as couragous and not rebellious.
• Likeability is overrated, machiavelli is quoted in this book to lol. between love and fear a leader should pick fear as is way of getting and keeping power.
• likeability comes from having power. people will join your side if you show that you have power and you are willing to use it.
• People forget and forgive. Even in situations when conflicts can become heated or someone gets personally hurt, they usually forget that the conflict occured with time. What they remember is the power that was wielded and with proper handling they can even come to your side or become allys.

Chapter 5