Acknowledgments

I wrote this book mostly because of Gene Webb and Hal Leavitt, colleagues at Stanford. Leavitt had urged me for many years to write a book that would be more accessible to students and managers than much of my other writing. I ignored his advice for a long time. When Webb left the associate dean’s office at Stanford, he began teaching sections of the course, Power and Politics in Organizations, which I had originally developed and taught. He brought new literature and new ideas to the course, but one year he stopped using the text, Power in Organizations, which I had written some years ago and which I use regularly in the course. Gene Webb had served on my thesis committee in the early 1970s when I had been a doctoral student at Stanford. I considered him a friend. When a friend stops using your book, it is clearly time to do something.

For some years, I had been developing new ideas and insights about power in organizations. I was teaching in corporate executive programs, and saw what issues were important and how executives reacted to various ideas and material. I continued to teach the elective course at Stanford, and over the years I had obtained numerous anecdotes and a great deal of feedback from students. For several years, Mike Tushman of Columbia, Charles O’Reilly from UC Berkeley, and I had taught a one-week program entitled, Managing Strategic Innovation and Change, for various companies both in the United States and overseas. From Mike and Charles I had learned a lot about the political dynamics of innovation and change, and the role of power and politics in that process. They, and my students, were also urging me to write a new book.

All of these groups paid a price for their nagging. My students in the course, Power and Politics in Organizations, had to use an earlier draft of the manuscript. Former students, in particular Fran Conley, read a copy. My colleagues who had so vigorously urged on the writing now had the task of providing me with comments, and the help I received from Chip Heath, Dan Julius, Roderick Kramer, Kotaro Kuwada, Charles O’Reilly, Donald Palmer, Michael Tushman, and particularly Gene Webb was extraordinary. Even doctoral students who were working with me at the time were drafted into providing feedback and assistance. Beth Benjamin provided examples and comments, even when she should have probably been working on her thesis. I owe much to these students and colleagues. I have benefited enormously from their feedback and their insights.

I also owe a great deal to the secretaries who have helped so much on this project, particularly Nancy Banks and Katrina Jaggears. One has to work at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford to appreciate the enormous support faculty are provided, in so many ways. I really do thank the school for the many forms of support and for having me on the faculty.

In January 1985, I met Kathleen Fowler. Kathleen had never dated a faculty member before, and wanted to know what I did. I told her I wrote. She said, “Show me something you have written.” I gave her an autographed copy of Power in Organizations. She read it and stayed awake doing so, mostly. But she, too, said, “Can’t you write something people can read?” We were married in July 1986. She gave me a watch as a wedding present. This book is her present—a little late, but then, life has been more interesting recently.