Influence Without Authority, 3rd Edition

Chapter 1Why Influence: What You Will Get from This Book

Influence is one of the hottest topics with all of my clients—how can I have more, how can I develop more in my team, how can I be more effective with influence efforts? So much work today is cross team, cross function, project oriented where the leader and the person accountable rarely has formal authority. If you do, and you use your formal authority, it doesn't tend to go well.

—Wanda Wallace, President and CEO, Leadership Forum; VoiceAmerica Talk Radio, Host of “Out of the Comfort Zone”

This book is about influence—the power to get your work done. You need to influence those in other departments and divisions: people you can't order and control. You need to influence your manager and others above you, and you certainly can't order and control them!

But you are not alone: nobody has the formal authority to achieve what is necessary, not even with those who report to them. It is an illusion that once upon a time managers could make their direct reports do whatever was needed. Nobody has ever had enough authority—they never have and never will. Organizational life is too complicated for that.

Yet, you can have enough influence to make things happen—and this book will tell you how.

You will learn how to move others to accomplish important objectives, in a way that benefits them as well as you and the organization. We ...