Latest Jeffrey Pfeffer Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• Everyone faces defeats, setbacks, reversals of fortune. But just like water wearing away rock, persistence triumphs. Resilience is one of the most important qualities I would look at in trying to predict who is going to be ultimately successful.

  Jeffrey Pfeffer

  Successful, Persistence, Water

  Source: bobmorris.biz

• Nothing comes without trade-offs. Do you want to spend time with people who like, or with people who might be useful to you? Do you really want to put in the long hours and constant attention required to be successful in your quest for power? Do you really want to be under the microscope on a daily basis, with people commenting on the car you drive, where you live, where you go on vacation, and so forth? There is no way to avoid the price of power. It's up to you to decide if it is worth it, and to change course when it isn't.

  Jeffrey Pfeffer

  Successful, Vacation, Long

  Source: bobmorris.biz

• In any branding strategy, you need to figure out what is the image you want to project. Then behave accordingly. And above all, cultivate the media and those who will help you burnish your reputation.

  Jeffrey Pfeffer

  Helping, Reputation, Strategy

  Source: bobmorris.biz

• We give up and don't try. We don't take sufficient chances or risks. We aren't resilient in the face of failure. We follow the "rules" too much and don't push the envelope.

  Jeffrey Pfeffer

  Giving Up, Risk, Trying

  Source: bobmorris.biz

• The individual attributes of warmth and competence are often perceived to be negatively correlated. That doesn't mean they actually are, but that's how people perceive the world. So, cruel people, those who gave negative book reviews, for instance, were seen as less likeable but as more intelligent.

  Jeffrey Pfeffer

  Book, Mean, Intelligent

  Source: bobmorris.biz

• People, to maintain their self-esteem, tend to believe they are above average on all positive qualities - height, income, intelligence, sense of humor, negotiating ability, you name it. The problem is that if we are going to really build our skills, we need to know which skills are most deficient. So, I advise people to find confidantes to tell them the truth. And then act on that knowledge to build the abilities they need to be more successful.

  Jeffrey Pfeffer

  Believe, Successful, People

  Source: bobmorris.biz

• Career success depends on people's educational credentials, their length of service (job tenure), unfortunately it is still the case on their race, gender, and similarity to those in power, and of course, on their political skills. Job performance matters, but less than most people think.

  Jeffrey Pfeffer

  Educational, Thinking, People

  Source: bobmorris.biz

• To become "memorable" do things that are somewhat unexpected. Dress, or talk, in ways that draw attention. And mostly, don't follow all the "rule for behavior" so closely.

  Jeffrey Pfeffer

  Memorable, Attention, Unexpected

  Source: bobmorris.biz

• People clearly want to believe that the world is a just and fair place. It provides them a sense of control and makes them psychologically comfortable. But believing that the world is a just and fair place causes people to not do enough to take care of themselves and to be unprepared for when it isn't so nice. So, people need to understand their tendencies to see the world as just and fair and then be realistic about the actual conditions in which they find themselves.

  Jeffrey Pfeffer

  Nice, Believe, People

  Source: bobmorris.biz

• One way to feel good about oneself is to not fail. The easiest way to not fail is to not try in the first place. So, I see lots of people give up before they start. That way they don't have to face uncomfortable failures. They can sort of "remain on the sideline while the game is going on." While this may make people feel good about themselves, it won't get them any power or success. As any successful salesperson will tell you, if you haven't been rejected, you haven't tried enough with enough people.

  Jeffrey Pfeffer

  Giving Up, Successful, People

  Source: bobmorris.biz

• Part of strategy is figuring out what you're good at, figuring out what you're not good at, and then getting yourself in position to succeed by doing mostly what you have a competitive advantage doing.

  Jeffrey Pfeffer

  Succeed, Strategy

  Source: bobmorris.biz

• Take care of your customers, and you will have a successful business. Don't, and you won't. The airlines need to figure this out - soon.

  Jeffrey Pfeffer

  Successful, Care, Airline

  Source: bobmorris.biz

• Great strategy, not executed, can't possibly have any effect on performance because it doesn't actually affect anything. It's like planning for a successful surgery to remove a tumor. If no one picks up the knife and actually operates effectively, the diseases will persist.

  Jeffrey Pfeffer

  Successful, Planning, Strategy

  Source: bobmorris.biz

• Many companies believe incentives, financial incentives, are the answer to every problem or issue. But people are motivated by much more than money. In particular, people like to feel good about themselves and maintain their self-esteem. If companies spent more time working on people's feelings of self-worth, they wouldn't have to try, often unsuccessfully, to bribe people to do work.

  Jeffrey Pfeffer

  Believe, People, Feel Good

  Source: bobmorris.biz

• Today, if the CEO thinks it's a good idea, it's done everywhere; if the CEO thinks it's a bad idea, it's done nowhere. We ought to be more agnostic and open to learning things that we didn't expect - and the only way to do that is to try things and be open-minded about how well they are working. And third, evidence-based management involves reading and learning - just like doctors do - and to do so not just in school but afterward, as well.

  Jeffrey Pfeffer

  Reading, School, Thinking

  Source: bobmorris.biz

• We need economic policies in the U.S. that produce jobs, first of all, but good jobs, second of all. Believe it or not, Germany, a country characterized by high wages, strong unions, a social safety net, and so forth is the second largest exporter (after China) in the world. The idea that the only way to succeed is by eliminating vacations, sick days, worker protections, and so forth is simply belied by the competitiveness rankings produced by the Economist magazine's intelligence unit and by the World Economic Forum.

  Jeffrey Pfeffer

  Country, Strong, Believe

  Source: bobmorris.biz

• I don't think eliminating the knowing-doing gap depends on the amount of knowledge around. It depends much more on people's attitudes and intentions - do they actually want to turn knowledge into action, or just go through the motions of acting as if they are busy or are accomplishing something.

  Jeffrey Pfeffer

  Attitude, Thinking, Acting

  Source: bobmorris.biz

• People need to be ready to have truly "global" careers. Just as companies now face world-wide competition, so, too, do people. Therefore, individuals need to get out in the world more - some large percentage of Americans don't even have a passport - and work in different countries.

  Jeffrey Pfeffer

  Country, People, Competition

  Source: bobmorris.biz

• To paraphrase the late management thinker and writer, Peter Drucker, thinking is hard work, which is why so few people (including actually senior managers) do it. Once there is some "conventional," seemingly-reasonable story, people just accept it and don't ask, "is this actually true? Is it consistent with the data?" And this extends to the highest reaches of organizational life.

  Jeffrey Pfeffer

  Senior, Hard Work, Thinking

  Source: bobmorris.biz

• Consider the many financial industry executives who walked away with many millions as their organizations failed - I think the expression is "failing upward." People also need to understand that their "technical" job performance is correlated with their career success, but again, many other factors such as educational credentials, length of service, and yes, political skills, also contribute to success. So people need to understand business and technical issues but they also need to master organizational dynamics.

  Jeffrey Pfeffer

  Educational, Thinking, People

  Source: bobmorris.biz

• I would give Obama a "C." He gets an "A" for understanding this country's profound problems in education, health care, infrastructure, and economic competitiveness, and for surrounding himself with extremely skilled and knowledgeable people who know what to do. He probably gets an "F," ironically, in his ability to sell these ideas to the American public and to be angry enough, conniving enough, and frankly mean enough to get them implemented and understood.

  Jeffrey Pfeffer

  Mean, People, Giving

  Source: bobmorris.biz

• We now live in an era of the permanent campaign - all marketing and messaging all the time. We clearly live in an era where the "truth" doesn't matter much - people tell lies about things ranging from the likelihood of "death panels" to the effects of the stimulus on saving this economy from a true calamity. In such a context, Obama himself needs to be "selling" all the time, as does his team, and also be more forceful in advocating their views. He needs to project that he and his ideas will win. And I don't think he has yet done that.

  Jeffrey Pfeffer

  Lying, Team, Winning

  Source: bobmorris.biz

• Business school graduates from the best schools earn large salaries and frequently rise to positions of great power. It would be nice if they used that power to truly make the world a better place - which entails more than just maximizing their own organization's profits and their own economic well-being.

  Jeffrey Pfeffer

  Nice, School, World

  Source: bobmorris.biz

• We need to reexamine and reassess the purpose of the corporation, and go back to the idea that senior leadership has responsibilities not just to shareholders but also to customers and employees.

  Jeffrey Pfeffer

  Senior, Responsibility, Purpose

  Source: bobmorris.biz

• As many people know, our job market problems began long before the latest recession. We have faced literally decades with no substantive increase in median wages, and job growth, except in health and government jobs such as education, has been stagnant for a while. People are now expected to travel more and to work at odd hours to coordinate with people all over the world. Simply put, companies have prospered, but for the most part, people have not.

  Jeffrey Pfeffer

  Long, People, Growth

  Source: bobmorris.biz