Power, for All
How It Really Works and Why It's Everyone's Business
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3.0 • 1 Rating
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- $1.99
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- $1.99
Publisher Description
Discover how to gain (and keep) power in any situation with this “remarkably insightful read on what power is, how it’s gained, and how it can be used for good” (Adam Grant, bestselling author of Think Again).
Power is one of the most misunderstood—and therefore vilified—concepts in our society. Many assume power is predetermined by personality or wealth, or that it’s gained by strong-arming others. You might even write it off as “dirty” and want nothing to do with it. But by staying away from power, you give it up to someone else who may not have your best interest in mind. We must understand and use our power to have impact, and pioneering researchers Julie Battilana and Tiziana Casciaro provide the playbook for doing so in Power, for All.
Battilana and Casciaro offer a “necessary” (Tarana Burke, creator of the #MeToo movement and bestselling author of Unbound) and “invaluable” (David Gergen, CNN political analyst) vision of power: the ability to influence someone else’s behavior. This influence is derived from having access to valued resources, and once you understand what those are, you can take action to improve life for yourself and others.
With proven strategies of agitating, innovating, and orchestrating change, Power, for All shows how those with less power can challenge established structures to make them more balanced. The authors teach you how to power-map your workplace to find who can create real change at work, plan for and cause sustaining shifts, and understand the two basic needs all human beings share—safety and self-esteem—and the resources people seek to satisfy those needs: money and status, but also autonomy, achievement, affiliation, and mortality. They explore how these dynamics play out through vivid storytelling: as Donatella Versace successfully leads her brother’s company after his death—despite having a title, but little influence; what social movements can learn from youth climate activists and how they can go farther; and how a manager can gain the trust of skeptical employees and improve the workplace.
Power, for All demystifies the essential mechanisms for acquiring and using power for all people.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Power isn't just the purview of the wealthy and influential—anyone can learn to own and wield it, argue Harvard Business School professor Battilana and University of Toronto professor Casciaro in their impassioned if vague debut. They present three myths that prevent people from obtaining power (here defined as "the ability to influence others' behavior"): that it can only be achieved through innate traits, that it's reserved for the prominent, and that it's morally questionable. Through 100 interviews with people who had "intriguing and diverse paths to and through power," the authors explore how people can grasp power both individual and systemic. They speak with Lia Grimanis, who runs a nonprofit that helps homeless women, Polish Holocaust survivor Miriam Rykles, and activists in the Occupy and Black Lives matter movements to describe a new kind of power that's "networked, informal, collaborative, transparent, and participatory." Readers are encouraged to make their own "power map" of networks and develop a mindset that includes empathy and humility. But while the authors ask worthy questions, their concept of "power" winds up being so nebulous that it's hard to find an entry point into their argument. While the "power is for all of us" angle has potential, this one doesn't quite satisfy.
