Influence Without Authority, 3rd Edition

Chapter 7Strategies for Making Mutually Profitable Trades

When people feel appreciated, they will help you. You can storm things through once but never get help again. You definitely catch more flies with honey. Being collaborative takes more time sometimes, but if I'm living here in the company, there's a good chance I will encounter them again, have to live with them sometime in the future.

—Mary Garrett, Vice President, Marketing, IBM Global Services

We have examined the steps that lead up to the trading process, which include knowing your ally's world, clarifying your own objectives and resources, building trusting relationships, and matching your resources with your ally's desired currencies. In preceding chapters, we included some examples of the process of exchange. In this chapter, we address in detail the actual strategies to follow for a win-win outcome. Remember that many exchanges, especially among good colleagues, just take place naturally without forethought or planning; here we are looking closely at situations that need careful attention.

Exchanges can take many forms and become complicated because there are many ways to “pay back.” The payment can be a simple agreement to accept a request that is not burdensome and is within job expectations, or it can involve considerable costs in time and resources. Many, if not most, transactions occur in a series over ...