Julie Battilana - Power, for All: How It Really Works and Why Its Everyones Business

Julie Battilana and Tiziana Casciaro

Power, for All

How It Really Works and Why Its Everyones Business

Simon & Schuster

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New York, NY 10020

www.SimonandSchuster.com

Copyright 2021 by Julie Battilana and Tiziana Casciaro

Charts on republished with permission of John Wiley & Sons, from Social Networks and the Liability of Newness for Managers in Trends in Organizational Behavior, David Krackhardt, 1996; permission conveyed through Copyright Clearance Center, Inc.

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First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition August 2021

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Jacket design by Math Monahan

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.

ISBN 978-1-9821-4163-9

ISBN 978-1-9821-4165-3 (ebook)

To Jean-Pierre, Marica, and Emilie for paving the way,

To Romain for charting it forward and always being by my side,

And to Lou and No, and the vibrant young people of their generation, for continuing our collective march toward social justice.

JB

To my mother, Maria Teresa Tarsitano, who has powered me with love, virtue and knowledge, and a sgridatina once in a while.

TC

Returning to his flock after a bone-rattling storm, a shepherd sees a startling sight. In what had been undisturbed pastureland the day before lies a crevasse revealing an underground cavern. Stepping through the opening, the curious shepherd finds himself in a crypt containing an imposing bronze sculpture of a horse. Inside the statue is a cadaver wearing nothing but a gold ring. The shepherd pockets the ring and leaves. Soon afterward, he discovers that this is no ordinary ring; its a magic ring that renders its wearer invisible. Realizing his newfound ability, the shepherd quickly plots his next moves: He makes his way to the palace, seduces the queen, murders the king, and takes control of the kingdom.

The shepherds tale, the Ring of Gyges, appears in Platos Republic, dating back to the fourth century BCE. The Greek philosophers story has captivated human imaginations across the ages. Another tale about a ring that grants invisibility, along with other more sinister powers, has managed no small feat: keeping readers engaged for more than 1,500 pages. This is none other than twentieth-century English writer J.R.R. Tolkiens The Hobbit and The Lord of theRings, in which the One Ring corrupts its bearer with the promise of absolute dominance.

For millennia, people have told stories like the Ring of Gyges and The Lord of the Rings. In a folk tale from the Middle East, Aladdin, sent by an evil sorcerer to retrieve an oil lamp from an enchanted cave, discovers a genie who can grant him wishes. A Vietnamese legend recounts how King L Li liberated his people from Ming occupation in the fifteenth century, after a decade-long war, with the aid of the mythical sword Thun Thin (Heavens Will). In Richard Wagners Der Ring des Nibelungen cycle, Alberich possesses a magic helmet that gives the wearer the ability to change form or become invisible. More recently, millions of readers have delighted in following Harry Potters saga, which culminates in his search for the Deathly Hallows, a trio of enchanted objects that, together, allow their bearer to become Master of Death.

Tales of a protagonist setting out on a quest to find a magic object that will give him (or lately her) the ability to control their own destiny and triumph over evildoers exist in every culture. What these timeless stories share is also what makes them so enthralling: They are all fundamentally stories about power. The heroes and villains fight and kill to gain possession of the magic artifacts that can enable them to control not only their own fortunes, but also the behavior of others. This, after all, is what power ultimately is: the ability to influence anothers behavior, be it through persuasion or coercion.

These epic stories endure because power fascinates us. It keeps us turning the pages of books, glued to the news, and binge-watching movies and TV series. Power is one of the worlds most talked about, and perhaps most written about subjects because it is an inherent part of our lives. From our personal relationships and disputes at work, to the highest levels of international diplomacy and big business, power is everywhere.

After studying and teaching this subject for two decades, we have come to realize that, despite its ubiquityor perhaps because of itpower is still vastly misunderstood. Every fall, as students file into our classrooms at Harvard University and the University of Toronto, they seek answers to the same set of questions: How can I gain power and keep it? Why dont I feel more powerful even though Ive been promoted? How can I convince people to change? Why is it so hard to stand up to abusive bosses? How can I ensure that I wont abuse power myself when I have it?

They are also concerned with what is happening around them in the world, and they wonder whether they have the potential to make a difference. In these past few years especially, we have been asked repeatedly, in various ways, why do I feel like the world is blowing up in our faces and I cant do anything to stop it?

Our classrooms arent the only places where people come to us with such pressing questions. Our research and advising have taken us around the world, where weve heard similar concerns from people of all ages and backgrounds: teenagers to nonagenarians, some highly educated and others who never had the opportunity to learn to read. All these encounters both inside and outside the classroom have given us a unique window into how people grapple with power in places as different as a public hospital in the inner city of Rio de Janeiro, the well-appointed office of a former French president in Paris, and a bustling open-space incubator for social enterprises in New York.

Despite their great diversity, the people weve met and worked with think about power in similar ways. For the most part, they care about improving their own lives and often those of others. They want to have more control over their environment and make a difference, whether in their immediate families, their jobs, their communities, or society. Yet they find the path a rocky one. For every success they experience, they have stories of struggle or downright defeat. Intuitively they know that power is the key to the impact they aspire to effect. But acknowledging that power is at play and understanding how it works are very different. And this brings us to the second thing people tend to have in common: Most of us have deep-seated misconceptions about power. Three fallacies, in particular, prevent many people from properly grasping it and, ultimately, being able to exercise it.