From the Inside Flap
No matter what you're trying to accomplish, influence matters. You need powerful people to cooperate in order to get information, approval, resources, introductions, and support just to get your job done. But how do you win cooperation from a boss who is uninterested in your concerns, resistant to change, or threatened by your potential? How do you secure buy-in from senior managers, inside or outside your organization, who are hard to reach, and hard to sell on your ideas, products, or services?
In their classic book, Influence Without Authority, Allan Cohen and David Bradford provided a universal model of how to influence someone you don't control. Influencing Up applies those ideas to problematic bosses and other powerful people, with sophisticated tactics for building partnerships with them. This book explains the dynamics of power and encourages you to engage in difficult conversations, overcome your fear of "no," let go of your understandable "problems with authority," and become willing to give something valuable in order to get cooperation from a powerful person.
If you're afraid of retaliation or just unclear as to how to change a powerful person's behavior, don't remain paralyzed. Influencing Up gives you the tools to bridge the power gap. You'll get critical advice that will help you achieve your goals and elevate your career, including:
- How to overcome the common difficulties that arise when building a partnership relationship with your boss
- How to help your boss succeed
- How to effectively deal with more distant senior executives--inside and outside of your organization--and understand the power discrepancies that come into play
- How to identify relevant stakeholders and assess their role in the change process
- Examples of determined, persistent, and effective influencers who have reached solutions through careful diagnosis or by intuitively sizing up the needs and concerns of others
You can't achieve your objectives without help. If you're trying to make significant contributions at work, you need to learn how to influence powerful people you don't control. Discover what a great partnership with your boss or senior executives can do for your career--and your mental health!
ALLAN R. COHEN is the Edward A. Madden
Distinguished Professor of Global Leadership at Babson College. He has consulted on organizational change and leadership at a wide variety of organizations, including GE, Polaroid, IBM, and Fidelity, and holds MBA and DBA degrees from Harvard Business School.
DAVID L. BRADFORD is the Eugene O'Kelly Senior Lecturer in Leadership, Emeritus and Director of the Executive Program in Leadership at Stanford Graduate School of Business. He has consulted for a wide array of companies, including Frito-Lay, Levi Strauss & Co., Raychem, Genentech, and AutoDesk, as well as the Whitney Museum of American Art.
