Across reading, observation, and experience, one pattern becomes difficult to avoid: whenever people coordinate in groups, some form of power is present. Not as an exception, but as a structural necessity. Without it, coordination does not scale; decisions stall, and direction fragments. A state of nature, you might say.
This is most visible and naturally accepted at the extremes. Between two people working together, decisions are typically shared or informally delegated. At the level of states, authority is formalised—through elections, institutions, and legal structures that concentrate decision-making power.
The discomfort tends to emerge in the middle space: organisations. Here, there is often an implicit belief that engaging with power or politics (note: politics is the process of using power) is somehow separate from doing the job properly. Or that work should “speak for itself”, and that outcomes will naturally align with merit. Yet this assumption depends on a non-complex model of organisational life than reality supports.
As Jeffrey Pfeffer argues in his work on organisational behaviour, “Being right is not enough; you need power to translate ideas into action.” The point is structural, as I mentioned above. In environments where goals are contested, information is incomplete, and outcomes are ambiguous, ideas do not move on their own. They need help, oil, you might say, for them to move. The oil is influence, which is possible only through power.
This week, I want to walk through Pfeffer’s Power in Organizations to unpack how that influence actually operates inside firms—and why careers are shaped as much by position and perception as by performance.
Understanding Power in Organisations
A useful starting point is how performance is understood inside organisations. Most organisational narratives assume a fairly direct link between output and recognition. Work is produced, outcomes follow, and those outcomes are then evaluated on their own terms.
In practice, that link is rarely straightforward. Outputs are often delayed, distributed across teams, and shaped by constraints that are not fully visible to those assessing them. Even when metrics exist, they rarely settle interpretation. The same result can be read in different ways depending on which aspects are emphasised, what comparisons are made, and who is framing the discussion.
Pfeffer’s contribution begins here: performance requires interpretation before it becomes organisationally meaningful. And interpretation sits within a social and political context.
In his framework, organisational decisions are made under conditions of uncertainty and incomplete information. Different actors hold different priorities and perspectives, and there is rarely a single, agreed definition of success. In that environment, judgments about performance take shape through discussion, influence, and framing rather than through purely technical assessment.
This creates space for power to matter, not as an external force imposed on the system, but as something embedded within how meaning is assigned to outcomes.
The question then shifts towards where that influence originates.
It’s structural
Pfeffer’s answer is structural. Influence tends to accumulate around points in the organisation where others become dependent. That dependence might stem from control over resources, access to key information, technical expertise, or proximity to decisions that others cannot easily bypass.
Where such dependencies exist, certain roles acquire leverage beyond their formal position. Their input carries weight not simply because of hierarchy, but because other parts of the organisation cannot progress without engaging with them.
Visibility is at its core
Alongside structural position, visibility plays a parallel role. Most work is not directly observable to those responsible for evaluating performance. As a result, assessments are made through signals: involvement in high-profile work, association with successful outcomes, frequency of interaction with senior stakeholders, and informal endorsements.
These signals accumulate over time. Early exposure to visible work can lead to further opportunities. Those opportunities increase access to stronger outcomes. Stronger outcomes reinforce the original perception. Gradually, this creates divergence between underlying capability and perceived contribution.
— The More Successful you Are the more successful you become.
Taken together, these dynamics—ambiguity in performance, dependence on critical resources, and the role of visibility in shaping perception—form the core of Pfeffer’s argument. Organisational outcomes emerge through processes of influence operating within uncertainty, rather than through a clean translation of effort into reward.
Seen this way, coordination among people consistently requires some form of power. Organisations simply make that requirement more layered and less visible. Decisions still get made, performance still gets assessed, and careers still progress—but the mechanisms connecting these outcomes are shaped by structure, interpretation, and position as much as by individual output.
The difficulty is not that these dynamics exist, but that they are often ignored. When they are, outcomes can feel inconsistent or undeserved, even when they follow a clear internal logic. Pfeffer’s argument brings that logic into view. It suggests that understanding organisations requires paying attention not only to what work is done, but to how influence is built, where dependence sits, and how meaning is assigned to results. And in this task, which you might call working the work, you have more to do than just completing your job. That is, of course, if you are ambitious to progress your career.