Grant encourages his students to be oriented towards helping others at work, without calculating the potential benefits, to be modest, and to ensure that others get credit for their own work. He argues that, provided they are careful not to be exploited, 'otherish' workers will not only help their organizations but they will be successful themselves. Virtue is usually rewarded.

Pfeffer, on the other hand, encourages his students to adopt political strategies to get ahead at work. These include ensuring that they get credit for successes, forming alliances for calculated, self interested reasons, attracting attention and gaining the support of powerful people, projecting the image of a confident, future leader and outmaneuvering internal competitors. He recognizes that this behaviour may not help the organization. But he argues that it works for the 'power-oriented' individual and is rarely punished. Apparently successful people attract more support. Whereas those who do not practice political strategies, he argues, often go unrewarded and unrecognized.

This is not primarily a difference of opinion about what is right and wrong. Both writers share similar views about the virtue of helping others. It is mainly a difference of opinion about the organizational environment and what leads to career advancement in modern, large organizations. What advice would you give to students who are aiming to eventually be promoted into senior positions within a large organization. Would you give Grant's advice, Pfeffer's advice or something else and why?