Power, for All

by Julie Battilana

  Acknowledgments

  The seeds for this book were first planted by our students at Harvard University and the University of Toronto, and all those we have had the privilege to meet in conducting our research across the world. It is their curiosity about power, their search for answers, and their desire to have an impact at home, at work, and in society, that set us on the journey to writing this book. We are grateful to each and every one of them for their engagement, their support, and for everything they have taught us. We hope that this book will help answer their questions and enable them to further harness their power to make a positive difference in their lives and in the world.

  Although only our two names appear on the cover of the book, it took a village to write it.

  Elyse Cheney, our literary agent, has guided us since the beginning of our book writing journey with a gentle but steady hand. Her trust in us and belief in the book, as well as her vision for it, gave us the impetus we needed to get started in earnest. Since the day we first met and walked her through the fundamentals of power on the whiteboard of her New York office, Elyse has been by our side with invaluable feedback and advice, helping us shape the book to make it accessible and helpful to our readers. We are also grateful to everyone at Elyse Cheney Literary Associates who has supported our book, especially Allison Devereux, Claire Gillespie, and Isabel Mendía.

  The other visionary force behind this book is our editor at Simon & Schuster, Stephanie Frerich. Her enthusiasm for this project has been a constant source of inspiration and encouragement. Stephanie spent countless hours patiently reviewing and editing several versions of our manuscript. Her acumen, wisdom, and wide-ranging perspective have helped us define the architecture of the book, refine its content, and strengthen our writing. We could not have wished for a better partner. At Simon & Schuster, we are also fortunate to have benefitted from the expert work of Stephen Bedford, Kirsten Berndt, Alicia Brancato, Dana Canedy, Alison Forner, Morgan Hart, Elizabeth Herman, Jon Karp, Jillian Levick, Math Monahan, Lewelin Polanco, Richard Rhorer, and Emily Simonson.

  We are eternally grateful to the people who shared their experiences, knowledge, and wisdom with us in interviews. Many of their stories are profiled in this book, many more are not, but every one of them has had a lasting impact on us and has informed our understanding of power. We thank Karen Adams, Mohamad Al Jounde, Gabriela Ayala, Xiye Bastida, Mary Beard, David Beatty, Betsy Beamon, Karol Beffa, Essma Ben Hamida, Paola Bergna, Vikas Birhma, LaTosha Brown, Carol Browner, Tarana Burke, Carol Caruso, Lucia Casadei, Srilekha Chakraborty, Sasha Chanoff, Vera Cordeiro, Pendo Daubi, Cheryl Dorsey, Elina Dumont, Omar Encarnación, Cécile Falcon, Meagan Fallone, Jim Fruchterman, David Gergen, Dorothy Greenaway, Lia Grimanis, Claude Grunitzky, François Hollande, Mashroof Hossain, Tatiana Jama, Tawakkol Karman, Christine Lagarde, Sandra Lopez, Françoise Nyssen, Anand Mahindra, Oriana Mambie, Vanessa Matos, Antoine Mindjimba, Sylvia Morse, Nezuma Mjumbe, Tanya Nesterenko, Ellen Ochoa, Tope Ogundipe, Ai-jen Poo, María Rachid, Emily Rafferty, Andrea Reimer, Jean Rogers, Guillaume Roussel, Miriam Rykes, Urvashi Sahni, Palak Shah, Wendy Sherman, Bright Simons, Maria Speck, Dan Taber, Justus Uwayesu, Donatella Versace, Florence Verzelen, Alexandria Villaseñor, Glen Weyl, Micah White, Meredith Whittaker, Claudine Wolfe, and Vanessa Wyche, as well as “Ning” and “Aakash,” whose identities we had to disguise, and an executive whose identity we cannot disclose. We also thank the clinicians and managers at the National Health Service in the United Kingdom whom we interviewed as part of the research project that marked the beginning of our joint work fifteen years ago. We cannot name them for confidentiality reasons, but what we learned from them has enriched our understanding of power.

  Because we have built on, and interwoven, the insights of many disciplines in this book, we are indebted to all the researchers whose work has given us a better understanding of power across contexts, countries, and academic perspectives. They are too many to list here, but we hope we have done justice to their ideas and insights.

  Many of our friends, colleagues, and students generously took the time to discuss the ideas that we present in this book. For stimulating conversations, thanks to Elizabeth Anderson, Michel Anteby, Sophie Bacq, Lauren Bacon, Sivahn Barli, François Bonnici, Christin Brutsche, Suzanne Cooper, Tom D’Aunno, Jerry Davis, Alicia DeSantola, Sofia Gomez De Silva, Stefan Dimitriadis, Frank Dobbin, David Eaves, Alnoor Ebrahim, Doug Elmendorf, Isabelle Ferreras, Archon Fung, Hervé Gbego, Mattia Gilmartin, Mary Ann Glynn, Royston Greenwood, Monica Higgins, Rakesh Khurana, Clayton Kunz, Nicholas Krawies, Michael Lee, Dutch Leonard, Nick Levitt, Michael Lounsbury, Johanna Mair, Joshua Margolis, John Meyer, Victoria Nguyen, Tomasz Obloj, Timothy O’Brien, Anne-Claire Pache, Catherine Paradeise, Jeff Polzer, Woody Powell, Vincent Pons, Kash Rangan, Subi Rangan, Hannah Riley Bowles, Mathias Risse, Christian Seelos, George Serafeim, Jean-Claude Thoenig, Annie Trainque, Brian Trelstad, David Wood, and Evelyn Zhang.

  For sharing their advice on different phases of the book writing process, we thank Iris Bohnet, Diana Cafazzo, Mihir Desai, Jim Fisher, Adam Grant, Sarah Kaplan, Marissa King, Chris Marquis, Jerry Meland, Sheba Meland, Gautam Mukunda, Adeline Sire, Greg Stone, Michael Tushman, Marjorie Williams, Henry Timms, and András Tilcsik.

  For reading parts of the manuscript in detail and suggesting edits that have sharpened our content, we owe special thanks to Emelie Aguirre, Erica Chenoweth, Michael Fuerstein, Marshall Ganz, Michele Gelfand, Avi Goldfarb, Jon Jachimowicz, Michèle Lamont, Robert Livingston, Mordecai Lyon, Bill McEvily, Julie Mirocha, Swetha Raja, Satwik Sharma, and Tieying Yu.

  We are deeply indebted to Benjamin Abtan, Sigal Barsade, Carol Caruso, Cécile Falcon, Caroline Faure, Barbara Lawrence, Matthew Lee, Umaimah Mendhro, Ayesha Nayar, Deepa Purushothaman, Metin Sengul, Channing Spencer, Elliot Stoller, Aduke Thelwell, Julie Yen, and Marcela Zingerevitz who read the manuscript cover-to-cover and gave us tremendously helpful detailed feedback; to Lakshmi Ramarajan, who did so twice, brainstormed every aspect of the book with us countless times, and somehow never stopped picking up the phone when we called; and to Peter Scoblic, who helped us refine the architecture of the book and revise thorny sections.

  We are also grateful to the teams of the Social Innovation and Change Initiative and the Center for Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School and of the Social Enterprise Initiative at the Harvard Business School. We owe special thanks to Brittany Butler, Colleen Kelly, Ingo Michelfelder, Ally Phillips, Alondra Ramirez, and Mu-Chieh Yun, who have helped and championed us throughout the genesis of the book, from introducing us to people who contributed their stories, to reading and commenting on the manuscript, and brainstorming how to best disseminate our ideas. Many thanks also to the Rotman team, especially Karen Christensen, Daniel Ellul, Ken McGuffin, and Suzanne Tobin, for their determination to see this book have an impact.

  Several special partners have enabled us to produce this book with their engagement, hard work, support, and enthusiasm for the project. Jason Gerdom helped set up the right kind of IT infrastructure for us to write this book remotely together. Libby Quinn has been part of our team from the very start. From helping us organize interviews to commenting on multiple drafts of the manuscript and pushing us to think about how to disseminate the core ideas of the book, Libby’s contributions have been critical. Emily Grandjean, Matt Higgins, Marissa Kimsey, Leszek Krol, Mordy Sabeti, and Alex Ubalijoro worked with us as research associates at different stages in the development of the book. Their commitment was truly remarkable. We are privileged to have had the opportunity to work with such talented, rigorous, and dedicated research associates.

  Most of all, we want to thank Kara Sheppard-Jones and Nan Stone for their immensely valuable help in conceptualizing and writing the book. Kara Sheppard-Jones’s ambition and passion for this project have been a constant source of motivation. She has been with us through thick and thin every step of the way. The book has benefitted tremendously from her many talents as a writer, researcher, and soci
al change maker. Last but not least, we could not have successfully completed this journey without the wisdom, skill, and unwavering support of Nan Stone. Her superb editorial advice, always dispensed with kindness and generosity, has immeasurably improved the book. What a beautiful writer, and what a friend.

  For their constant encouragement over the years, unshakable faith in us, and unconditional love, we thank our parents. For putting up with us and inspiring us to live life fully and celebrate beauty in the world, we thank our siblings: Emilie, and Raffaele. For letting us lean on them anytime we needed them to read yet another chapter, take the kids to yet another appointment, brainstorm yet another title (or subtitle!), and endure yet another evening or weekend with us absorbed in writing, we thank our spouses: Romain, and Ned. For their energy, humor, ideas, pep talks, hugs, kisses, wisdom that belies their age, patience, and the boundless joy they bring to our lives, we thank our children: Noé and Lou, and Sohier and Livia. Our families are our superpower. Without them, nothing would be possible.

  Finally, to all the extraordinary change makers who tirelessly use their power to participate in the building of more just, more democratic, and greener neighborhoods, organizations, and societies, you inspired us to write this book. We know how important and difficult your work is. Our gratitude and admiration are limitless. We hope that this book will help you in your endeavors and that it will inspire others to join you.

  About the Authors

  © EVGENIA ELISEEVA

  JULIE BATTILANA is a professor of organizational behavior and social innovation at the Harvard Business School and the Harvard Kennedy School, where she is also the founder and faculty chair of the Social Innovation and Change Initiative. Over the past fifteen years, Battilana has studied the politics of change in organizations and in society while teaching on power and leadership. She has advised change-makers around the world in the public, private, and social sectors. She is also the cofounder of the Democratizing Work initiative, a global alliance of researchers and practitioners collaborating toward a more just, green, and fair economic system. Originally from France, she received a joint PhD from INSEAD and from École Normale Supérieure de Paris-Saclay. She lives in Belmont, Massachusetts.

  © JOHN HRYNIUK

  TIZIANA CASCIARO is a professor of organizational behavior at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto. Her research on interpersonal and organizational networks and power dynamics has received distinguished scientific achievement awards from the Academy of Management and has been covered by The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, The Economist, Financial Times, MSNBC, ABC, CBC, Fortune, and TIME magazine. She advises organizations and professionals across industries and has been recognized by Thinkers50 as a management thinker most likely to shape the future of how organizations are managed and led. Originally from Italy, she received a Laurea from Bocconi University and a PhD from Carnegie Mellon University. She lives in Toronto.

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  Notes

  INTRODUCTION: POWER IS MISUNDERSTOOD

  1 Plato, Plato’s Republic, Book II (Agora Publications, 2001): 47–48.

  2 Niccolò Machiavelli, De Principatibus/Il Principe (Antonio Blado d’Asola, 1532).

  1. THE FUNDAMENTALS OF POWER

  1 Lia Grimanis, Keynote Talk at International Women’s Forum, World Leadership Conference, Toronto, November 15, 2017.

  2 Grimanis, Keynote Talk.

  3 Grimanis, Keynote Talk.

  4 The International Coaching Federation (ICF) certifies coaches according to different levels of professional development: associate certified coach (ACC), professional certified coach (PCC), and master certified coach (MCC). Many certified coaches work as executive coaches. All certified coaches follow a codified methodology, much like a certified public accountant (CPA) or a chartered financial analyst (CFA) does. Lia enlisted only ICF certified coaches for the charity.

  5 Lia Grimanis in discussion with the authors, June 2019, September 2019, and October 2020.

  6 Grimanis, discussion with authors.

  7 Certified coaches in discussion with the authors, August 2020.

  8 Mary Parker Follett, Dynamic Administration: The Collected Papers of Mary Parker Follett, eds. Henry C. Metcalf and L. Urwick (New York–London: Harper & Brothers, 1942), 101; see also Mary Parker Follett, Creative Experience (New York: Longmans, Green, & Co., 1924), xiii.

  9 Pam Houston, “The Truest Eye,” O, the Oprah Magazine, November 2003, accessed December 10, 2020, http://www.oprah.com/omagazine/toni-morrison-talks-love/4/.

  10 The figure depicts our adaptation of Emerson’s power-balancing strategies. See Richard M. Emerson, “Power-Dependence Relations,” American Sociological Review 27, no. 1 (1962): 31–41.

  11 Andrew Francis-Tan and Hugo M. Mialon, “ ‘A Diamond Is Forever’ and Other Fairy Tales: The Relationship Between Wedding Expenses and Marriage Duration.” Economic Inquiry 53, no. 4 (2015): 1919–30.

  12 Stefan Kanfer, The Last Empire: De Beers, Diamonds, and the World (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1995): 270–72.

  13 Edward J. Epstein, The Rise & Fall of Diamonds (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1982): 125–26.

  14 Francis-Tan and Mialon, “A Diamond Is Forever.”

  15 Social psychologist Robert Cialdini identified six tactics to influence the perceived value of a resource. These tactics range from making us feel that a resource is rare in order to persuade us that we need it (scarcity), to using figures of authority whom we respect and trust to recommend that resource (authority), to doing us a favor or giving us a gift so that we feel the social obligation to reciprocate when they ask us to do something in return (reciprocity), to pushing us to make a public statement that will bound us to do what they want us to do (consistency), to paying compliments to us to get closer to us and thereby more effectively influence our decisions (liking), and finally to using the behaviors of others around us to put pressure on us to do what these other people do and acquire the resources they have (social validation). See Robert B. Cialdini, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, vol. 55 (New York: Collins, 2007).

  16 Anne Bowers, “Category Expectations, Category Spanning, and Market Outcomes,” Advances in Strategic Management, 32 (2015): 241–276.

  17 Alexandra Wexler, “De Beers Diamonds Reflect a Changing Market,” The Wall Street Journal, November 30, 2019, https://www.wsj.com/articles/de-beers-diamonds-reflect-a-changing-market-11575109800.

  18 Robert H. Frank, Luxury Fever: Why Money Fails to Satisfy in an Era of Excess (Free Press, 2001); Thomas Biesheuvel, “The Elite Club That Rules the Diamond World Is Starting to Crack,” Bloomberg, July 29, 2019, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-29/the-elite-club-that-rules-the-diamond-world-is-starting-to-crack.

  19 Lara Ewen, “Rock Bottom: Tracing the Decline of Diamond Retail,” Retail Dive, June 18, 2019, https://www.retaildive.com/news/rock-bottom-tracing-the-decline-of-diamond-retail/555795/.

  20 Edahn Golan, “De Beers’s Market Share Falls in 2019, Hides a Surprise,” Rubel & Ménasché, October 8, 2020, https://www.rubel-menasche.com/en/de-beers-market-share-falls-in-2019-hides-a-surprise/.

  21 Emerson, “Power-Dependence Relations.”

  22 National Portrait Gallery, “Lyndon Johnson and the ‘Johnson Treatment,’ ” accessed November 18, 2020, https://npg.si.edu/blog/lyndon-johnson-and-
johnson-treatment.

  23 “Stay Tuned: Campaign ‘Spying’ & the Ways and Means of Power (with Bob Caro),” café, April 11, 2019, https://cafe.com/stay-tuned/stay-tuned-campaign-spying-the-ways-and-means-of-power-with-bob-caro/.

  24 Robert A. Caro, Master of the Senate (Westminster, MD: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2009), 153.

  25 In their 2008 article in the Journal of Applied Psychology, Anderson, Spataro, and Flynn find that, while extroverts attained more influence in organizations that were team-oriented, in organizations where individuals primarily worked alone on technical tasks, it was conscientious people, not extroverts, who attained the most influence. Cameron Anderson, Sandra Spataro, and Francis Flynn, “Personality and Organizational Culture as Determinants of Influence,” Journal of Applied Psychology 93, no. 3 (2008): 702–10.

  26 Raoul Girardet, Mythes et mythologies politiques (Seuil, 1986).

  27 Lee Ross, “The Intuitive Psychologist and His Shortcomings: Distortions in the Attribution Process,” in Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, ed. Leonard Berkowitz, vol. 10 (Academic Press, 1977), 173–220.

  28 “Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall,” King James Bible, Proverbs 16:18.

  2. POWER CAN BE DIRTY, BUT IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE

  1 Robert Greene, The 48 Laws of Power (New York: Penguin Books, 2000), 16, 56, 89, 101.

  2 Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince, trans. W. K. Marriott (London & Toronto: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1908), 134.