Impact without Power — Tips and Tricks
“You can have impact without power” — August 17
As I have previously written about, everyone should travel. I just returned from 4 weeks abroad in India, Dubai, and Holland, 3 extremely unique places, each with a completely unique culture. One of the most interesting things I heard while abroad was “you can have impact without power”. While this is something I deeply believe, I had never heard it phrased so succinctly.
Those 6 words describe a lot of the things that I am proud of in life. At Microsoft, one of my favorite and most impactful projects started out as a side project in a space where I was not an expert, had no power, yet had a vision. After a few months, I was able to drive impact within the team and make a long-term impact on their work. Since this I have thought a lot about why this was possible and how others might be able to do the same.
There are a few sticking points as to why people struggle with creating impact before having power. First, newer, and less senior, employees often feel like they do not have the right knowledge or background to suggest something. This is often known as the imposter syndrome. You’ve probably experienced this at some point in your career. You’re sitting in a conference room and an idea pops into your head, but along with it come several questions — “Why hasn’t anyone suggested this before?”, “What if they have already tried this?” or maybe “I shouldn’t waste everyone’s time, i’ll ask someone after”.
This is one of the biggest misconceptions about new jobs. New employees do not have preconceived biases about a problem, allowing them to see things differently. This makes new employees often times the most insightful person in a room, yet few leaders take advantage of this insight.
The second reason is that often times new employees think too highly of their leadership. Your VP/CEO/whatever is a human too. They communicate in the same way you do. They stress, worry, and freak out occasionally too. Start by saying hello and introducing yourself, then be open and honest. Few other people will be truthful with a person that high, so it is unique for them to hear something so raw. They’ll love it.
For me, one of the main reasons I see people not having impact when they are absent of power is they believe the powerful people have it figured out. News flash, very few people actually have things figured out. That includes the CEO and investors, all the way down to new hires and new managers. Everyone is figuring it out as they go. Yes, some people have more experience and can leverage that in making decisions, but they truthfully are still making a guess.
As a new hire, you can leverage this. If no one knows what is going on, your suggestion can’t be that wrong. If it is wrong, you’ll learn something new (and probably learn it quicker than you would have otherwise).
With all of this, here are 5 concrete things you can do to drive impact without having power:
- Give feedback to your leadership (the people with power) early and often — this could be small things (Ex: I think this meeting could have been run more effectively) or big things (Ex: I think there is a new strategy we could take for our product launch). This feedback doesn’t have to be in any specific format or time, just be open and honest. Counterintuitively, honest feedback will make them trust you more because they are likely used to being fed what they want to hear.
- Don’t worry, take action — In a meeting, find something that you can offload from someone then do it really well. Even a small task shows someone that you are competent and after enough times, you’ll slowly start seeing yourself own next steps and then own the meeting itself.
- If you have to drive a decision from numerous leaders, get their approval in a 1:1 ahead of the big meeting — By driving consensus with the people who hold power ahead of time, you can ensure an positive impact during the big meeting. These pre-meetings allow you to go over the details individually with each one, soothing their concerns and avoiding groupthink. Yes, it may take more time for you, but it’s a key strategy to getting buy-off when you have no power.
- Be very thoughtful with your questions — Take time to write down several key questions before each meeting. Asking thoughtful questions is one of the easiest ways to cause an impact on a project. As an aside, whenever someone else asks a good question, write it down and try to understand why they asked it. This can help you understand other people’s motivations quickly.
- Synthesize and Repeat — This may feel too simple, just taking in information and repeating it back to leadership will increase their trust in you. Beyond this, it allows you to slowly inject your opinion into the conversation. The way you word insights can have a profound impact for other people and it does not take any skill or power.
This is certainly not a comprehensive list. I know there are many more ways to have an impact without having the power in an organization. These are simply a few of the ways I have done this in the past with at least some success.
About a year ago, a mentor of mine gave me an incredibly valuable piece of advice. She said “at the end of each day, write something down that you learned that day. It could be about you, the world, or something completely random”.
This is the first post in a series where I’ll be taking one of those learnings and expanding it by digging deeper into the background and how I think about it within my life. This series will be part diary, part sharing learnings, and part meditation after long days at work.
