The Power of Choice

How much control do you really have over the course of your career? Are your outcomes the result of deliberate design—or the default consequence of others’ expectations? In The Power of Choice: Embracing Efficacy to Drive Your Career, Michael C. Hyter offers a compelling blueprint for professionals who want to take charge of their development, particularly those who may feel marginalized or overlooked within their organizations.

Hyter’s central argument is that success does not depend on luck, privilege, or innate talent, but on the deliberate choices we make every day. He contends that “efficacy”—defined as the power or capacity to produce a desired result—is the foundation for shaping both our personal and professional destinies. Efficacy, Hyter explains, is not just a mindset but a set of behaviors and strategic decisions that yield the highest return on the investment of our time, energy, and effort.

The Core Argument: It’s Not the Stimulus, It’s the Response

Drawing from his own career and the teachings of his mentor Dr. Jeff Howard, Hyter insists that you have more control over your outcomes than you typically believe. Early in his career, he realized that blaming others—supervisors, systems, or biases—for slow progress only drained his energy. The breakthrough came when he internalized a key Efficacy principle: “It’s not the stimulus, it’s the response.” You cannot always change the circumstances or biases around you, but you can always decide how to respond to them. This idea—that your choices shape your reality—anchors the entire book.

From that premise flows Hyter’s argument: maintaining control begins with belief in one’s own capacity to grow, building the confidence to act on that belief, and developing a combination of technical, relational, and influential skills that make others take notice. When you stop waiting for other people to discover your potential and start investing in your own growth strategically, your professional trajectory changes.

The Book’s Architecture: Three Stages of Career Mastery

Hyter organizes The Power of Choice into three major parts, each corresponding to a different stage of career ownership:

• Part I: The Foundation explores the inner mindset required to take ownership of your development. It teaches you the three essential skill sets (technical, relational, and influence), the difference between a fixed and a growth—or capacity-building—mindset, and how to resist low expectations that might stunt your confidence.
• Part II: Choose Your Strategy transitions from internal mindset to deliberate practice. It offers actionable strategies for building confidence, making your effort more effective, cultivating relationships, and developing influence. These chapters focus on practical execution—the small, repeatable actions that yield exponential growth.
• Part III: The Power of Choice in Action brings the framework to life through real-world case studies, illustrating how professionals facing doubt, bias, or career misalignment can regain agency and drive positive outcomes through their choices.

Why These Ideas Matter

Hyter’s message is particularly urgent in today’s workplace—diverse, dynamic, but still often inequitable. As he notes from decades of talent development work at Korn Ferry, professionals—especially women and people of color—can encounter unwritten rules that block progression. Yet, accepting those constraints as immovable is the surest way to remain stuck. The Power of Choice argues that understanding these realities must lead not to resignation, but to strategic navigation.

The key, Hyter suggests, is to convert awareness into action: identify your desired outcomes, focus on what you can control, invest in relationships strategically, and use influence to shape your environment. Growth becomes possible not by escaping difficulty, but by mastering it as fuel for development. Echoing thinkers like Carol Dweck (Mindset) and Stephen Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People), Hyter reframes success as a deliberate design rather than a chance occurrence. Both mindset and skillset matter, but the differentiator is choice—the conscious decision to act as the architect of your future.

Core Principle

“We can choose to be mediocre and let our lives be limited by others, or we can choose to find out just how great we can be.”

A Framework for Personal Mastery

Ultimately, Hyter’s message fuses psychology, leadership development, and social awareness into an empowerment framework. By understanding the interplay between mindset and action, you can transform effort into impact. Keeping focus on three arenas—technical competence, relational connection, and influential leadership—you build credibility, resilience, and authority simultaneously. Each arena represents a lever of control; together, they form the blueprint for intentional growth.

By the closing chapters, Hyter moves beyond theory into application. His real-world stories—from overcoming bias to mastering influence—demonstrate that success is an internal commitment as much as an external achievement. The book’s promise is not instant transformation but sustainable empowerment: a method to make your career a reflection of who you choose to be.

At the heart of Hyter’s approach are three skill areas—technical competence, relational skills, and influence skills. Each represents a layer of professional maturity, and together they determine how effectively you can drive impact in any organization. Like a three‐legged stool, removing one weakens the entire foundation. Hyter’s major insight: while most professionals master technical expertise, few give equal attention to relationship‐building and influence—precisely the capacities that unlock advancement.

Technical Proficiency: Excellence Is Your Ticket of Entry

Technical skill—your ability to perform tasks, analyze data, and produce results—is non‑negotiable. Early in your career, it’s how you prove reliability and precision. Hyter shares the story of his first HR assignment: meticulously transferring employee data from paper to computer files in a dusty backroom. Though uninspiring work, his drive for accuracy and speed earned him recognition—and visibility. The lesson? Every task is an opportunity to become indispensable. The best careers are built not on glamorous assignments, but on consistent excellence at the fundamentals.

However, Hyter warns against the common trap he calls “the expertise illusion.” Many hardworking professionals—like Joy, the Ivy‑League tax consultant mentioned in the book—believe that diligence and skill alone guarantee advancement. Joy’s tendency to hoard work and mistrust colleagues stunted her growth; despite being brilliant, she wasn’t seen as a leader. Technical skills may build credibility, but relational and influence skills build opportunity.

Relational Skills: The Currency of Trust

Relational skills revolve around one simple truth: people promote, support, and collaborate with those they trust. Hyter emphasizes that relationships aren’t predicated on personal chemistry but on reliability, empathy, and shared purpose. His anecdote about courageously introducing himself to the company’s CFO—who later became a mentor—underscores that relationships are built through initiative. When others “know your work and know your worth,” doors open.

Relational mastery yields access to informal networks where decisions are made. Ongoing dialogue with peers and mentors helps you anticipate expectations and align your efforts with organizational goals. Without these connections, even high performers risk invisibility.

Influence: The Force Multiplier

Influence, the third pillar, means the capacity to shape perceptions and inspire action. Hyter redefines politics as “the art of getting things done through others.” Far from manipulation, healthy influence aligns mutual goals and mobilizes people. Examples abound—a young warehouse supervisor persuading a task force with empathy and preparation, or a consultant who wins allies through active listening. Influence elevates your contribution from individual to collective.

Hyter writes, “When your value equals not only your own work but also the effort you can inspire in others, your impact is exponential.”

By cultivating all three pillars deliberately, you multiply your leverage. Technical skill gets you in the room; relationships keep you in the conversation; influence moves your ideas into action. The interplay of these three proficiencies defines not just career success, but enduring leadership credibility.

One of Hyter’s most transformative lessons concerns mindset—the silent force shaping how you interpret challenge and growth. He differentiates between a fixed‑capacity mindset and a capacity‑building mindset, echoing research by psychologist Carol Dweck. The difference? The first limits, the second liberates.

The Fixed Mindset: The Ceiling in Your Head

A fixed mindset assumes intelligence and ability are innate and largely unchangeable—some people “have it,” others don’t. Hyter recounts working with scientists at a top research facility who, despite advanced degrees, felt demoralized when peers progressed faster. They attributed others’ success to superior genetics or IQ, not persistence. This belief breeds insecurity and avoidance: when you fail, you interpret it as evidence of inadequacy. Over time, you shy away from stretch tasks and growth halts.

The Capacity‑Building Mindset: The Growth Engine

In contrast, the capacity‑building mindset assumes talent is expandable through deliberate effort. Quoting Anders Ericsson’s research—also referenced by Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000‑hour rule—Hyter explains that mastery in any domain (from chess to surgery) stems from “effective effort”: committed practice, constant feedback, and a strategy for improvement. Even those seemingly born gifted honed their craft by learning from mistakes.

For Hyter, effective effort has three traits: unwavering commitment, obsession with feedback, and a structured plan for continuous refinement. He illustrates this with his own journey from mediocre to acclaimed speaker—transforming through rehearsal, coaching, and iteration. Each “failure” became data, not defeat.

Failure as Feedback

In a fixed mindset, mistakes threaten identity; in a capacity‑building mindset, they guide learning. Hyter warns against equating struggle with lack of ability: hard work signals growth, not deficiency. Viewing setbacks as information—about timing, methods, or communication—creates resilience. Over time, incremental improvement snowballs into expertise. The mindset shift from “Can I?” to “How can I?” is the pivot point of long‑term development.

When you truly believe you can learn whatever a goal requires, you become unstoppable. You stop fearing challenge and start seeking opportunities to test your capacity. In that belief lies the genuine “power of choice.”

Even the strongest mindset can be undermined by negative social messages—those subtle cues suggesting who belongs and who doesn’t. In a poignant chapter, Hyter examines how low expectations, stereotypes, and biased feedback can sabotage confidence if internalized. His own experience being told by a superior that he was “intellectually weak” illustrates how destructive such comments can be when accepted as truth. But the antidote, he insists, is to reclaim the narrative.

The Downward Spiral of Doubt

When others project low confidence in your ability, their words can trigger self‑doubt, which weakens effort and reinforces negative perceptions—a vicious feedback loop. Like a baseball player trapped in a slump, the more you fear missing, the more likely you are to strike out. Professionals experience similar cycles when they interpret others’ doubts as proof of inadequacy.

Creating an Upward Spiral

Reversing this process requires conscious reframing. Hyter advises embracing the capacity‑building mindset as a shield: treat criticism and failure as information, not identity. His coaching of an Argentine manager named Alberto exemplifies this approach. After a presentation went poorly, Alberto labeled himself a poor leader due to his accent. Hyter guided him to reframe: the problem was pacing and breathing under pressure—skills he could practice. Once Alberto refocused on learning rather than labeling, his confidence returned, and his communication improved dramatically.

Recognizing Tell‑Tale Signs

Hyter offers seven signals that you may be internalizing low expectations: procrastination, hyper‑busyness on unimportant tasks, risk avoidance, denial of feedback, or self‑sabotaging rationalizations (“I’m too busy,” “now’s not the time”). He reminds readers that awareness is power—once you spot these patterns, you can interrupt them with deliberate action.

“You can’t always control the messages others send about you, but you can choose which ones you internalize.”

By refusing to live within others’ limited vision of your potential, you effectively reclaim authorship over your story. That—and not permission from others—is the foundation of empowerment.

Confidence, Hyter argues, is not the belief that you can do everything now—it’s the conviction that you can learn whatever is required to succeed. True confidence expands infinitely because it rests on self‑trust, not external validation. This chapter unpacks how confidence grows through self‑talk and support networks.

The Power of Self‑Talk

Self‑talk is the private dialogue that shapes how you interpret results. Confidence‑eroding self‑talk sounds like “I’m not good enough” or “It’s just bad luck.” It focuses on limits or external blame. Confidence‑building self‑talk, on the other hand, attributes success to skill and failure to strategy. It asks three questions after setbacks: What happened? Why did it happen? How can I improve? This cognitive discipline transforms every event into a learning cycle—a practice echoed in Stoic philosophy and modern cognitive behavioral therapy alike.

Hyter emphasizes celebrating your own successes—a challenge for many raised to be humble. Privately recognizing your achievements reinforces your belief that ability grows through effort. Without this internal acknowledgment, motivation withers.

Building a Support Network

Confidence flourishes in healthy environments. Hyter advocates surrounding yourself with “truth‑tellers and encouragers”—people who not only empathize but also challenge you to act. Early in his career, his Efficacy seminar peers became such a network: every time someone complained, a friend would ask, “So what are you going to do differently?” This culture of accountability turned frustration into fuel.

Equally crucial are mentors willing to give unfiltered feedback. Hyter shares how his manager Cathy risked honesty by revealing subtle communication habits that hindered executive perception. Because he listened openly and adjusted, she became one of his strongest advocates. By inviting—and acting on—feedback, you signal maturity and courage, making you “feedback‑worthy.”

Protecting Your Confidence

Confidence is fragile. Anticipate and plan for situations or people that undermine it. That might mean journaling before stressful meetings, seeking coaching, or scheduling recovery after demanding projects. What matters is intentionality—recognizing confidence as a resource to be managed strategically.

“Confidence isn't something you have once and forever. It’s something you build and rebuild every time you choose to learn instead of withdraw.”

When you combine affirming self‑talk with constructive allies and preparation, confidence becomes self‑reinforcing—a loop of growth, mastery, and resilience.

You can work yourself to exhaustion without advancing if your effort isn’t effective. Hyter defines effective effort as targeted, feedback‑driven action that creates measurable progress toward specific outcomes. Hard work alone—like Germaine the overworked claims processor—offers diminishing returns. What separates growth from grind is strategy.

Four Principles of Effective Effort

• Choose what you want as an outcome. Clarity is power. Define end goals—daily, yearly, or strategic. Without direction, you drift.
• Focus on what you can control. Redirect energy from external chaos to internal mastery. You can’t change the economy or your boss’s personality, but you can refine your approach.
• Expand skills incrementally. Hyter encourages “manageable stretch”: setting goals just beyond comfort to spark learning without overwhelm. Small wins compound over time.
• Align your goals with the organization’s needs. Technical brilliance matters less if misaligned with company priorities. True influence comes from integrating personal ambition with collective mission.

From Hard Work to Strategic Work

Hyter’s own life mirrors this transition. Initially obsessed with speed and perfection, he eventually learned that visible impact—mentoring others, solving systemic problems—earned far more recognition. Likewise, the young diversity officer he coached discovered that scaling back unrealistic global plans and focusing on achievable changes built momentum and credibility. Incremental success, repeated methodically, is the hallmark of effective effort.

Effective workers see themselves as value investors: maximizing return on time and energy by focusing on the highest‑leverage tasks. This builds both results and reputation, the twin currencies of influence.

In today’s collaboration‑driven organizations, relationships are performance. Hyter devotes a full chapter to developing relational intelligence—the ability to connect authentically while advancing mutual goals. “Relational skills,” he explains, “are as essential to your success as the quality of your output.”

Connection Requires Initiative

Citing an example from a corporate networking event, Hyter observes how even seasoned employees avoid approaching executives for fear of awkwardness. Yet opportunity rarely comes to the passive. He advises preparing an authentic, memorable self‑introduction—perhaps a unique passion paired with professional value, like the motorcycle‑racing consultant whose adventurous hobby mirrored his analytical risk‑taking style. People remember confidence and originality.

Four Principles of Relationship Building

• Find shared objectives. Understanding what matters to others creates alignment and trust.
• Clarify mutual benefits. As seen in Hyter’s story about George, a prejudiced manager, helping his boss succeed strategically transformed hostility into respect.
• Take calculated risks. Especially when bridging cultural or positional divides, vulnerability initiates connection.
• Build trust gradually. Start small; let consistent reliability compound into influence.

An effective network, Hyter notes, blends breadth (diversity of contacts), quality (authenticity and mutual respect), reciprocity (two‑way value exchange), and dynamism (evolving connections over time). Managing these consciously yields social capital—the real currency of leadership.

For Hyter, relationship strategy extends to managers too. Whether or not you like your boss, learn their priorities and style. Friendship is optional; trust is essential. And while authenticity matters, so does presentation: being mindful of appearance, language, and composure ensures that others see your competence rather than your difference.

“Like any brand, your presence tells others whether to connect with you. Make sure they can see your strengths, not your distractions.”

Ultimately, relational mastery builds confidence in you—and confidence draws others to you. When your authenticity meets curiosity and discipline, relationships become not politics, but partnership.

Influence, Hyter’s ultimate focus, is where personal mastery meets leadership. The ability to persuade, unite, and inspire gives you the “power to shape reality.” It’s not positional authority but earned trust that defines real influence. Hyter encourages readers, especially those hesitant about visibility, to recognize that choosing influence means choosing impact.

Decide to Be Influential

Influence begins as a decision. Many professionals—particularly underrepresented ones—hesitate to assert opinions for fear of backlash or perception. But hiding reduces opportunity. Hyter recounts four Asian women at a leadership program who pledged to support one another in self‑advocacy. Together, they practiced promoting their results, speaking to managers about career goals, and the outcome was tangible: each was promoted within two years. The lesson is timeless—visibility is not boasting when paired with value.

Practical Influence Building

Influence requires consistent practice—trying approaches, gauging responses, adjusting strategies. Hyter advises starting small: lead a meeting, propose a process change, or mentor a colleague. The key is awareness: study how effective influencers operate, then experiment.

He outlines core tactics: be clear about desired outcomes; articulate benefits for others (the “what’s in it for them” principle); understand context and unwritten rules; and build alliances with existing influencers. Influence, he stresses, is never about asking permission—it’s about earning collaboration through credibility and clarity.

“Influence is not manipulation—it’s alignment. Those who master it shape both their destiny and their organization’s.”

Ultimately, influence amplifies all other competencies. When fused with technical excellence and relational trust, it turns contribution into leadership—a transformation that defines career success by design, not default.