Influencing Without Authority

In Free Agent Nation: How America’s New Independent Workers Are Transforming the Way We Live, Dan Pink describes a future where success is increasingly based upon “invisible lines of trust” leading to horizontal loyalty among peers.  This peer group includes present and past team members, colleagues, and clients. This course helps you assess how well you are creating these invisible lines of trust and gives advise on how to build and maintain the level of trust needed for influence without authority.

This workshop builds on research originating in the mid 1980’s where influence skills of engineers in a matrix environment were studied.  In this environment they had little formal authority and had to rely on other forms of influence to achieve results.  Two dynamic principles, each containing three interrelated steps, make up the action-oriented model.

The two dynamic principles are:

Aligning: the first principle to influence without authority is aligning through establishing your credibility, helping others, and building the relationship in a positive fashion

Acting: the second principle to influencing without authority is performing by taking specific actions that provide clear value in a way that earns trust