Jeffrey Pfeffer – författare

Over decades of consulting with corporations and the people who run them and 30 years teaching MBA students the nuances of organisational power, Jeffrey Pfeffer has watched numerous people suffer career reversals even as others prevail despite the odds. The most common mistake: most of us don't have a realistic understanding of what makes some people more successful than others. We tend to subscribe to the just world phenomenon, believing that life is fair, rendering us unprepared for the challenges and competition of the real world. Now, Pfeffer brings decades of research and incredible insights to a wide audience. Brimming with counterintuitive advice, numerous examples from a variety of countries, and surprising but research-based findings, his groundbreaking guide reveals the strategies and tactics that separate the winners from the losers. Power, he argues, is a force that can be used and harnessed for individual gain, but also for the benefit of organisations and society. Power, however, cannot be learned from those in charge - their advice often puts a rosy spin on their ascent and focuses on what should have worked, rather than what did.Instead, he reveals the actual paths to power and career success. Iconoclastic and grounded in the realpolitik of human interaction, "Power" is an essential organisational survival manual and a new standard in the field of leadership and management.

If you want to 'change lives, change organisations, change the world,' the Stanford business school’s motto, you need power.Is power the last dirty secret or the secret to success? Both. While power carries some negative connotations, power is a tool that can be used for good or evil. Don’t blame the tool for how some people used it.Rooted firmly in social science research, Pfeffer’s 7 rules provide a manual for increasing your ability to get things done, including increasing the positive effects of your job performance.With 7 Rules of Power, you’ll learn, through both numerous examples as well as research evidence, how to accomplish change in your organisation, your life, the lives of others, and the world.

This is a comprehensive analysis of the present state of organization theory. The author traces the evolution and particularly the more recent history of the field, and its scope and content. He then considers the relevant literature organized by major issues and concepts. Jeffrey Pfeffer makes the point that the world of organizations the book surveys has changed in four important ways: the increasing externalization of the employment relation and the development of the "new employment contract;" the change in the size distribution of organizations, with a comparative growth in the proportion of smaller organizations; the increasing influence of external capital markets on organizational governance and decision making; and the increasing salary inequality within organizations in the U.S. compared both to the past and to other industrialized nations. These changes make it especially important to understand the organizations themselves. The author is a major scholar in the field of organizations and his perspective should be of considerable interest to scholars and students in the field.

Among the most widely cited books in the social sciences, The External Control of Organizations has long been required reading for any student of organization studies. The book, reissued on its 25th anniversary as part of the Stanford Business Classics series, includes a new preface written by Jeffrey Pfeffer, which examines the legacy of this influential work in current research and its relationship to other theories.The External Control of Organizations explores how external constraints affect organizations and provides insights for designing and managing organizations to mitigate these constraints. All organizations are dependent on the environment for their survival. As the authors contend, "it is the fact of the organization's dependence on the environment that makes the external constraint and control of organizational behavior both possible and almost inevitable." Organizations can either try to change their environments through political means or form interorganizational relationships to control or absorb uncertainty. This seminal book established the resource dependence approach that has informed so many other important organization theories.

Although much as been written about how to make better decisions, a decision by itself changes nothing. The big problem facing managers and their organizations today is one of implementation--how to get things done in a timely and effective way. Problems of implementation are really issues of how to influence behavior, change the course of events, overcome resistance, and get people to do things they would not otherwise do. In a word, power. Managing With Power provides an in-depth look at the role of power and influence in organizations. Pfeffer shows convincingly that its effective use is an essential component of strong leadership. With vivid examples, he makes a compelling case for the necessity of power in mobilizing the political support and resources to get things done in any organization. He provides an intriguing look at the personal attributes--such as flexibility, stamina, and a high tolerance for conflict--and the structural factors--such as control of resources, access to information, and formal authority--that can help managers advance organizational goals and achieve individual success.

Discover how the best companies win not by acquiring the right people - but by building the right organization. The 'war for talent' is one battle every company believes it should be waging. But while competitors are busy chasing after the same 'hot' individuals, smart companies are doing something infinitely more useful and far more difficult to copy - they're building organizations that make it possible for ordinary people at every desk and cubicle in their companies to perform as if they were stars. Blowing up the prevailing wisdom that companies must chase and acquire top talent in order to remain successful, "Hidden Value" argues instead that the source of sustained competitive advantage already exists within every organization. O'Reilly and Pfeffer, leading experts on organizational behavior and human resources, argue that how a firm creates and uses talent is far more important than how the firm attracts talent.The authors provide vivid, detailed case studies of several organizations in widely disparate industries - including Southwest Airlines, Cisco Systems, The Men's Wearhouse, and NUMMI - to illustrate how long-term success comes from value-driven, interrelated systems that align good people management with corporate strategy. In a refreshing break from management tomes that force-feed superficial frameworks and trite 'rules', the authors instead allow the company stories to take center stage. They guide readers in discovering for themselves how seven different firms maximize talent, why one firm hasn't fully released the hidden value in its work force, and, most importantly, how the winning companies have made it tough for competitors to imitate them. Collectively, the stories reveal a common path to success that places values before strategy, emphasizes implementation over planning, and focuses on getting the best out of all employees, not just individual stars. The authors also explore concerns or questions managers might have about how each company's experience parallels or conflicts with their own.Providing a rare opportunity for managers to actively participate in an invaluable learning process, "Hidden Value" offers a customizable template for building high-performance, people-centered organizations.

Every day companies and their leaders fail to capitalize on opportunities because they misunderstand the real sources of business success. Based on his popular column in Business 2.0, Jeffrey Pfeffer delivers wise and timely business commentary that challenges conventional wisdom while providing data and insights to help companies make smarter decisions. The book contains a series of short chapters filled with examples, data, and insights that challenge questionable assumptions and much conventional management wisdom. Each chapter also provides guidelines about how to think more deeply and intelligently about critical management issues. Covering topics ranging from managing people to leadership to measurement and strategy, it's good organizational advice, delivered by Dr. Pfeffer himself.

Why are there so many gaps between what firms know they should do and what they actually do? Why do so many companies fail to implement the experience and insight they've worked so hard to acquire? The Knowing-Doing Gap is the first book to confront the challenge of turning knowledge about how to improve performance into actions that produce measurable results. Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton, well-known authors and teachers, identify the causes of the knowing-doing gap and explain how to close it. The message is clear--firms that turn knowledge into action avoid the "smart talk trap." Executives must use plans, analysis, meetings, and presentations to inspire deeds, not as substitutes for action. Companies that act on their knowledge also eliminate fear, abolish destructive internal competition, measure what matters, and promote leaders who understand the work people do in their firms. The authors use examples from dozens of firms that show how some overcome the knowing-doing gap, why others try but fail, and how still others avoid the gap in the first place.The Knowing-Doing Gap is sure to resonate with executives everywhere who struggle daily to make their firms both know and do what they know. It is a refreshingly candid, useful, and realistic guide for improving performance in today's business.

The best organizations have the best talent...Financial incentives drive company performance...Firms must change or die. Popular axioms like these drive business decisions every day. Yet too much common management "wisdom" isn't wise at all--but, instead, flawed knowledge based on "best practices" that are actually poor, incomplete, or outright obsolete. Worse, legions of managers use this dubious knowledge to make decisions that are hazardous to organizational health. Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert I. Sutton show how companies can bolster performance and trump the competition through evidence-based management, an approach to decision-making and action that is driven by hard facts rather than half-truths or hype. This book guides managers in using this approach to dismantle six widely held--but ultimately flawed--management beliefs in core areas including leadership, strategy, change, talent, financial incentives, and work-life balance. The authors show managers how to find and apply the best practices for their companies, rather than blindly copy what seems to have worked elsewhere.This practical and candid book challenges leaders to commit to evidence-based management as a way of organizational life--and shows how to finally turn this common sense into common practice.