Do Power: Closing the Knowing-Doing Gap
Turn power principles into skill through goal-setting, staged practice, and coaching
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 90%
Pfeffer's pedagogy for making power skills stick: knowledge alone decays like an unused language, so every principle must be paired with a concrete practice assignment. Learners set goals, run a real-world 'do power' project, and get feedback from a coach, moving through denial, anger, sadness, and acceptance by pushing just past their comfort zone.
Origin
Jeffrey Pfeffer's method from his Stanford 'Paths to Power' course, built on his earlier book 'The Knowing-Doing Gap' and the goal-setting research literature. The staged comfort-zone approach parallels Carol Robin's '15% rule' from Stanford's 'Touchy Feely' course.
Core principles
- 01If you don't use what you learn, the learning disappears — like forgetting French you never speak
- 02Goal-setting measurably increases achievement
- 03Change follows four stages: denial, anger, sadness, acceptance
- 04You get people to attempt hard things by pairing discomfort with social support
- 05Start where you can begin and push slightly past the comfort zone, never in one leap
How to run it
- 1
Set an explicit success goal
On day one, answer 'Why are you here? What would success look like at the end?' Written goals are more likely to be achieved.
Pro tip Make the goal concrete enough that you'd recognize whether you hit it.
- 2
Run a self-assessment and development plan
Rate yourself (and get others to rate you) on the attributes of power — energy, focus, willingness to tolerate conflict — then pick what to build and how.
Pro tip Identify both a strength to lean on and a weakness to develop.
- 3
Do a real 'power' project
Take one principle and put it into practice in the real world during the period — start a podcast, create an award, sign up partnerships, get an appointment. The doing, not the reading, produces the learning.
Pro tip It's easier to ask forgiveness than permission when creating a resource.
Watch out Reading and watching alone won't move you — 'You cannot learn tennis by reading about tennis.'
- 4
Practice each skill discretely
For every topic, run a matching exercise: write and rewrite a personal brand statement, record a 60–90 second 'acting with power' video, make and act on your list of 10 networking targets.
Pro tip Rewrite after feedback — first draft, get feedback, write it again.
- 5
Get coaching and a personal board of directors
Recruit coaches and advisors who give feedback, social support, and accountability. Discomfort is far easier to push through with help than alone.
Pro tip A personal 'board of directors' holds you accountable and de-risks the uncomfortable stretch.
Watch out Trying to do something uncomfortable entirely on your own dramatically lowers the odds you'll do it.
In the wild
A current student launched a podcast specifically as his 'do power' assignment to build a personal brand.
→ Turned a class principle into a live, brand-building asset.
Pfeffer explains you can't ask someone to lift 100 lbs or swim the English Channel on the final day — you build up progressively from pools and lighter weights.
→ Frames staged, incremental practice as the only reliable path to a big capability.
Common mistakes
Learning without doing
Absorbing the principles but never practicing them lets the learning evaporate, just like an unused foreign language.
Attempting the biggest leap first
Trying to network like Keith Ferrazzi or be as bold as Jason Calacanis on day one is off-the-wall enough that you freeze; push only slightly past your comfort zone.
Is it for you?
Best for
Anyone who intellectually accepts power tactics but feels too uncomfortable to enact them, and needs a structured, supported way to build the habit
Not ideal for
People seeking a quick one-off tactic rather than a weeks-long practice-and-feedback commitment
From the transcript
“if you don't use what you learn, the learning will disappear”
“We will go through the stage of denial... Then we'll go through anger... Then they go through sadness... And if we're successful, they will go…”
“We'd have practice and coaching. And that's what I do in the class. Practice and coaching.”
“get a personal board of directors like they talk about in the Wall Street Journal”
“You cannot learn tennis by reading about tennis or by watching a movie about Serena or Venus Williams. You have to actually get out on…”
From the episode
The paths to power: How to grow your influence and advance your career
Jeffrey Pfeffer (author of 7 Rules of Power, professor at St