Influence without Authority, Second Edition

Chapter 12. Influencing Colleagues

With very few exceptions, everyone at work is dependent on colleagues to get his or her work done. That's the nature of organizations now, with complex, interdependent tasks, specialized roles, and increasing need for many people across departments working together to deliver complicated products and services. A great deal of the first part of this book, Chapters 1 through 7, addresses how to deal with colleagues who do not have to cooperate.

The core concepts, exchange and reciprocity, are still central to gaining cooperation. Colleagues respond when they see that they will get something they value in return for giving you what you need to complete your work. This payment can be currencies that benefit them personally, benefit their area, or assist in achieving organizational goals. Influence is the process of getting to know them well enough to understand what they care about, being clear about what you need, and making win-win exchanges. In this chapter, however, we add a way of thinking about influencing colleagues that can give you another useful perspective. It is the adaptation of insights from selling to customers and clients, which can help you develop better approaches to difficult-to-influence colleagues.

Colleagues can range from the person in the office next to yours, to the person in another area in the building next door, to the person you haven't met who is halfway across the world. Trying to gain cooperation from them can be maddening, ...