Influencing Up

CHAPTER 4

Overview of the Steps Required to Access and Influence Powerful People

The shortest summary of how influence works is that everyone expects to be paid back. People allow others to influence them because they believe they’ll get something valuable in return. Although it sounds a bit cold—as though the only reason people do anything is out of self-interest—the things that people care about vary greatly. Their desires range from the seemingly selfish—“becoming more able to give orders”—to the purely generous—“enjoying the feeling that comes from seeing others prosper.”

How does this play out in organizational terms? Influencing a powerful person can be crude (“Support me on this or I will reveal your manipulation of booked sales”) or subtle (“Wouldn’t it be useful to be known as an early supporter of innovation?”); noble (“This project will help save lives”) or raw (“Can you really afford to be seen as blocking our best talent?”). Whatever form it takes, influence always involves reciprocity and exchange in which the powerful person or group is willing to be influenced because they benefit in some way. Friends and close colleagues assume that sooner or later, one good turn deserves another. With those who we don’t know as well, we might have to make the exchange much more explicit and immediate. But some form of reciprocity and benefit in return for giving what is requested always undergirds influence.

Everyone acts upon this tendency; reciprocity is the social glue that ...