How to Influence Without Authority (or Titles)
I have happily spent my career in a service-oriented role. My journey has taken me from advising tenured business operators as a management consultant fresh out of college, to persuading sales execs twenty years my senior to adopt my recommendations to fuel revenue growth. Most recently it has brought me to Gusto, a titleless company, where I now help my peers tackle business insights and operations challenges.
Succeeding in these roles has required me to develop a particular skill: to influence without authority. In my opinion, this is one of the most important skills anyone can have to grow a career in strategy, operations, consulting, or any other business discipline.
Every day we need to make requests of one another — in the workplace as well as with friends, family and even strangers. Getting the other person to say yes comes down to Cialdini’s 6 Principles of Persuasion. These are based on the notion that human beings do things for each other because of the following reasons:
- Reciprocity: you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours
- Scarcity: this opportunity is not usually available to me, so I should seize it
- Authority: because you outrank me, I should obey
- Consistency: we should do this because it matches my beliefs
- Liking: because I like you, I will do this
- Consensus: accomplishing this goal will help me feel validated due to the behaviors of others around me
Throughout my career I have found myself in the position of needing to influence those around me without principle #3, Authority. As part of a service-based organization, such as contract-based consulting or a business operations and support team, you sometimes are not explicitly granted any “hard power” to make a request of someone embedded in the business. Tack on being new to the company, or having come from a different industry or role, and you also lose the social proof that comes from having a bench of war stories and experience.
On the Insights & Operations team here at Gusto, we face this issue occasionally. While our value at the company is generally understood, we are often thrown into projects without necessarily having had the opportunity to brief those involved. Our roles don’t carry an obvious functional title, like “sales rep” or “product marketing manager.” They can even be as vague as “business partner” or “analyst.” Often, this can result in a lack of understanding about why we are there, how we can help, or how to use us to get things done.
With this in mind, I wanted to share a few tactics I’ve learned to sharpen my ability to influence without authority.
1. Maintain a growth mindset
On our team, our starting mentality is to adopt and maintain a growth mindset about each project placed in front of us. We try to learn everything we can about the priorities, motivations, methods and desired outcomes of those we are looking to influence and work with closely. The more knowledge we have, the better we can help them achieve their goals.
This includes taking the time to understand our colleagues’ biases and experience. We inquire and absorb the culture of their tribe — how people communicate with one another, make decisions, and document learnings. Equipped with these nuggets, we learn to speak a new language and meld our partners’ practices with our own. We become deeply attuned to what they need and how things get done.
2. Learn, then showcase expertise
We ask early and often about how we can help. No task is beneath us. Finding joy in humble, simple tasks builds credibility. In the long run, it allows us to find the things we have in common with our new partners.
As we learn about gaps, we also find ways to fill them in, whether it is with information or data, access to individuals, time, or being a sounding board. We are then able to showcase, over time, our expertise and how we can make their lives easier or more efficient. Eventually, as a byproduct, we activate the principles of reciprocity and liking. After all, it’s hard not to like those who seek to understand you.
3. Build a strong foundation of relationships
Underlying all of these concepts is the idea that we are taking the time and care to build a strong foundation of relationships at work. We aim to get to know stakeholders by having live conversations. We ask lots of questions and come from a place of learning and understanding. We start with mutual respect, build on this foundation with hard work and mutual support, and eventually deepen working relationships with trust and performance. Soon, influence becomes a natural outcome.
The next time you’re placed in a situation where you need things to make progress without an obvious playbook, or if there’s no one in charge to direct a team to move quickly, keep these tactics in mind. They take time and care to finesse, but ultimately, they are completely worth mastering as you become a more well-rounded professional. Try it, and eventually, you won’t worry so much about authority.
