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How you show up matters. Having a powerful presence can make or break your transactions, your relationships,

and your career. Hello, I'm Matt Abrahams, and I teach strategic communication at Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Welcome to Think Fast, Talk Smart, the podcast. Today I'm really excited to be joined by Jeff Pfeffer, who is a professor

of organizational behavior at Stanford's GSB. Jeff's research focuses on the effects of work

environments on health and well-being, as well as power and leadership in organizations.

He teaches the super popular course, The Paths to Power. And he is the author of many

books, including Dying for a Paycheck and Power, Why Some People Have It and Others Don't. Welcome, Jeff.

Thanks for being here. Well, Matt, thank you for having me on your show. Great. I was super excited to get started.

So my first question is, how do you define power and status?

And why do you think your class that covers these topics is so popular?

I define power is the ability to get things done against opposition.

...