Managing
Influence without authority is getting people who don't report to you, such as peers, other functions or senior stakeholders, to commit to something you need. You cannot instruct them, so it works by exchange: you find what they care about, show how your request serves it, and make it easy to say yes. It is storytelling aimed at someone else's priorities.
Most of the work that matters in an organisation crosses a line on the org chart. You need finance to approve a tool, another team to change a handover, a senior leader to back a pilot. None of them report to you, and a well-reasoned email is rarely enough. The usual fallback is escalation: ask your own boss to lean on theirs. It sometimes wins the approval and almost always costs the relationship you will need next time.
The alternative is older and more reliable. Allan Cohen and David Bradford, whose book gave the idea its name, described influence as exchange: people cooperate when they get something they value in return. That something is rarely money. It is usually progress on their own goals, less risk, credit, or simply being asked.
People who don't report to you say yes to their own goals, not yours. So the first move is not a business case; it is a conversation that is only questions. What does a good result look like for your team this quarter? What is getting in the way? What would make this easy to support?
Ten minutes of this changes the request completely. A tool pitched to finance as it will make my team faster becomes it removes the manual reconciliation your team does at every month-end. Same tool, told from their side of the table.
When a senior colleague says we tried this in 2022 and it did not work, the instinct is to argue: things have changed, this version is different. That turns it into your story against theirs, and theirs has a head start. An objection is a story the other person already believes. Ask for it: what went wrong last time? Their answer tells you exactly what your proposal has to address, and showing that you listened is itself persuasive.
An objection is a story the other person already believes. Ask for it before you argue with it.
Requests that cross teams fail most often because they are vague or plural. Can we improve how we work together? asks for nothing. Can your team send us the final data by Wednesday noon instead of Friday? is a request someone can say yes to. If you need five changes, ask for the one that unlocks the rest.
When a change affects several teams, a process document tells everyone what to do and persuades no one. A short account of one real failure, showing what it cost each team, does more. People change for their own reasons. Your job is to make those reasons visible, using a business story with each team's stake in it.
Interesting, let's discuss later is usually a polite no or a not yet. Waiting for the other person to raise it again rarely works, and sending a longer document answers questions they have not asked. Follow up within a day with one question: what would you need to see to back this? Their answer is the real brief for your next attempt, and you have turned a soft no into a condition you can meet.
| Habit | Why it backfires | Instead |
|---|---|---|
| Escalating early | Wins the approval, loses the relationship | Exhaust the direct conversation first |
| Sending the full business case to everyone | Nobody owns the reply | Talk to the decision-maker first, then write |
| Arguing with objections point by point | Your story against theirs | Ask what went wrong last time |
| Waiting after a polite maybe | Silence becomes a no | Ask what they would need to see |
Influence is learned in conversations, not by reading about them. The most useful practice is rehearsing the hard moment, the dismissive objection or the senior no, with someone who can push back realistically. That is how our storytelling programme works: real stakeholder scenarios from your business, played out loud and debriefed.
For a quick read on where you stand, the free business storytelling check includes four influence situations, each with the reasoning behind the strongest response.
Tour De Force runs this as live, experiential training for teams worldwide — online and in person. Talk to us, or play The Weekly Challenge from our gamified learning apps to see the method in ten minutes.
Questions
Getting commitment from people you cannot instruct, such as peers, other departments or senior stakeholders. It works through exchange and persuasion rather than hierarchy: showing people how your request serves their own goals.
Asking good questions before you pitch, framing requests in the other person's terms, treating objections as information, making one specific ask, and following up with a question rather than more documents.
Learn what they are measured on, lead with the decision you need and the outcome it delivers for them, and keep the story short. Senior people respond to specific asks with a clear payoff, and to evidence that you have understood their objections.
Sometimes, when a decision is genuinely blocked and the cost of delay is high. But escalate after a direct conversation, not instead of one, and tell the other person before you do. Escalating first wins a single decision and damages the relationship.
Influence is transparent: you are open about what you want and why, and the other person is better off saying yes. Manipulation hides the goal or the cost. If you would be uncomfortable explaining your approach to the person you are influencing, change the approach.
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