Influence Without Authority: Leading When You're Not the Boss

0:00 We got any brave souls want to come up tell me give me a case study we'll kind of punch some holes in it all you got to do is re re max rich ready let's do it the thing is i work in kind of research organizations most of my life and here there is quite often the situations when i want to ask somebody to do something and it's considered by the organization on organizational structure that this person should help me and should make this task but you know he's not my direct

0:36 subordinate so it always feels like i'm asking this person for a favor and then he's a bit reluctant to give the deadline date and it feels like i'm pushing him to make what he should do and i'm pushing him to give me the answer where this should be done and this immediately puts a bit of pressure right from the beginning and then in half of the cases the person you know fails the deadline then it's even more tension and you know it doesn't

1:06 feel right so how to kind of convince people to give the answer like softly when they will do the the job basically i i you know i i i have some folks that i i have to do that with too you know i would love to say to karen say can you do that damn thing get that thing done by four o'clock today right like i i totally understand that so what i so so and what you're

1:34 saying is very common right i bet if you ask all these people that are here most of them work in matrix types organizations where they're relying on individuals that technically we don't have direct control over right where you can't just say hey get that done by today by you know by monday or whatever what i what i try to do is i this is how i approach it generally and then the kind of things that i would say i always approach anything like we're a team okay so one of the things that's

2:04 really important is while we talked about hey here's the purpose of why i want to speak to you but it's also i think important of you explaining the purpose of why this is important so like when people feel communicated to and have an understanding of the greater picture there's a greater likelihood that they will want to contribute so this is the first thing and by the way i don't know all the ins and outs of this individual and i don't know you know where here

2:32 they sit in in the organization or how closely aligned their their work is to what you're doing but regardless i always feel like hey i want to i want to share this effort with you and oftentimes if you are if you do not have an established relationship you need to work on establishing the relationship and the fastest way to do that is through communication and and getting their input to so okay here's you know hey i'm reaching out because here's what

3:04 i want to i i need your help okay i need your help a really powerful words believe it or not i need your help you know i was tasked with this we need to get this done because so the be using literally using the word because you've increased your likelihood of getting what you're asking for by more than 50 percent okay it's statistically proven through many surveys over and many studies over but explaining why it's so vital now if i don't have a working relationship

3:39 with somebody there's a couple of different approaches you can take to actually try to get them to meet a deadline you know we we're trying to get this done by tuesday you know knowing i just sprung this on you do you think we could connect tomorrow could you let me know if that's possible and what it would take in order to do that okay so so follow me here is it possible and what would it take to do that what that means

4:08 is there's no way you can come back to me with i can't do it i'm asking you for to come back to me to let me know what we would need to do in order for you to complete it by that date you follow me because if you say can you do it that's a yes or no question but you're a team in this so now what you asked him for was not only the yes or no answer but you really said okay i

4:31 just need to know how to make this happen by now what you did was you put it into his hands putting it into his hands gives him a choice okay people like choices they don't like to be dictated to okay but you really didn't give him a choice what you did was you gave him the illusion of a choice so we'd like it done by tuesday can you let me know if that'll happen or what we would need to

4:55 do in order for that to happen because because what i'd like to know is if there's something i or the team or anybody can do that what what are you saying that creates space in your schedule that expedites the delivery of something you need or whatever but what you want to know is can you and and and and what is it that it will take to do that so now what you've done is you haven't put him on the spot you've put everybody on the spot so

5:23 you haven't dictated something to him he says we're a team we got to get this done together we'll do whatever it takes to do that how do we how do we make this happen is very different when people have choices they feel much more in control when they don't have a choice and they're being told what to do especially by somebody who isn't their direct boss a lot of people don't react well adding in and what it would take in order to do that right when you say yes to something you say

5:50 no to something else okay let's get rid of a bunch of other stuff if we need to create space for you but i would do it quickly or can you come back to me later this afternoon or hit him in the morning and try to get him by lunchtime kind of thing that is that is one of the easiest ways to get somebody to to feel like a teammate with you and it gives you what if you are and for any of you that are

6:13 in the ma in a management role i would do that with people that you do have supervisory control with right so it's the same kind of thing hey i need this done by friday can you tell me what it'll take what goes away let's look maybe we'll push some stuff to next week or whatever does that help is that believe me that will totally change his interpretation of the request you thinking that'll work yeah i think it might work but then the question is when you ask this

6:46 like lots of questions doesn't it feel like you micromanaging the person no no i asked i asked you two questions and i'm gonna let you go hey i need your help can we get this done by tuesday or or i i've got a request to get it done by tuesday but i appreciate it i just strung it on you hey i'm sympathetic to that i just dumped this on you or i'm just asking you can you let me know that's it two questions and end of the conversation like you don't need to be going

7:12 back and forth say i'll let you go and figure out what you know you need to do that is not a lot i'm asking you to tell me what we need to do in order to get you to get this done by tuesday you follow me it's dude i would not be spending a lot of time so i totally appreciate i totally appreciate it just sprung this on you i imagine that you have some things you need to look

7:38 at i'm sure you're busy right all those other things that explain that you understand and are empathetic to this person that matters it is it is a completely different receipt of the request and then and then what if there are things that need to be removed that are not under your purview you you can recruit the reinforcements of whoever can help you or wait what every everything in

8:11 business is done either what here's the date something goes out on that date no matter what or we move the date or we move the scope or right like what is it that needs to be moved and mo 90 of the time you will not have to deal with that somebody else will be making a call wouldn't you say right my boss his boss other people most of the time i think you'll be surprised i would love to hear back from you on this you know what i mean like i

8:42 you know or you know try it is it working what would it you know what would you need from me from us to make that happen we appreciate that you're doing you know i'm telling you it works i know you're smiling go tell me how i want you to tell me how it goes this week i will try all right so let's have a tough conversation next week yeah sounds great anybody else