The culmination of the Power in Business mini series. What it’s like doing business without the Rule of Law.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://commoncog.com/power-and-asian-business
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://commoncog.com/power-and-asian-business
Your point that the ruthless use of power is sometimes rewarded, not punished, as exemplified by the Stanley Ho case, reminds me of Jeffrey Pfeffer’s last rule from his book 7 Rules of Power:
- Understand that once you have acquired power, what you did to get it will be forgiven, forgotten, or both.
Once you have the power, you can launder it with generosity, rewarding your allies, and putting a kind face on your work. But that’s not typically how people get power, unless they are excellent talent scouts who have good protective instincts - I’m thinking of Adam Grant’s first book, Give and Take, where he observed that successful generous leaders were fiercely protective of their people and cut off anybody who sought to exploit them (another form of power - developing an amazing talent network and protecting access to it).
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