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Influencing Without Authority for Project Managers

March 29, 2011 | Author: PM Hut | Filed under: Project Management Best Practices

Influencing Without Authority for Project Managers
By Andrea Brockmeier

The ability to influence without authority is a skill coveted by any project manager. Even if a project manager has complete authority over project team members (which is seldom the case), there are still other stakeholders over whom they have no control and who need to make decisions, review or approve deliverables, or provide resources for the project.

It’s the crux of our job, really, to get people to do things for the benefit of the project.

What does it take to be influential? If you look around at people who are really good at it, what do they do or say that makes them so effective? As students in my training classes have asked, what’s the repertoire of one-liners we can use in meetings with high-level executives to get them to do what we need them to do?

If only it were that easy. Of course, it’s not. It’s a skill to be developed, one that takes patience, planning, and perspective.

  • Patience

    The ability to influence requires an investment of time. It isn’t necessarily a single moment in which your influencing efforts will bear fruit. It’s a process. It takes time to understand people’s preferred currencies or things of value that you can offer so they appreciate the “What’s in it for me” factor. It takes time to understand how people make decisions, interact with others, what makes them “tick.”

  • Planning

    Influencing also requires planning. This idea is sometimes troublesome to people. If I actually plan to influence someone, how is that different than manipulation? The difference is intent. A plan to influence others for the benefit of the project and the organization is entirely different than influencing others at someone’s expense or for personal gain.

  • Perspective
    Perspective and self-awareness are also essential. We have to know ourselves well enough to make sure we don’t bring our cultural, personal, and professional baggage to the task of influencing. We’ll never know influencing success if we can’t see things from perspectives other than our own. For example, I’m going to have a hard time getting what I need from you for my wonderful “business process improvement” project if you see it as the “cost-me-half-my-staff” project.

The influencing toolbox includes more than one-liners. Influencing, like any professional skill, has to be developed with patience, planning, and perspective.

Andrea Brockmeier is the Client Solutions Director of Project Management at at Watermark Learning, Inc. She began her project management career in the non-profit sector in Dallas where she developed and directed a community program for refugees. After returning to Minnesota, she spent over 10 years managing technical, operational, and financial projects. She also has many years of experience developing and leading technical project teams. Most recently, she has focused on curriculum development and training delivery of project management and influencing skills classes. Andrea holds a number of technical certifications and is certified as a Project Management Professional® by the Project Management Institute. You can read more from Andrea on her blog.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 29th, 2011 and is filed under Project Management Best Practices. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

1 person has left a comment

Andrea, Influencing without authority is one of the most challenging of the soft skills that the PM must practice. I completely agree with your comments and I’d like to add some of my own from experience.

To “influence” people to do what you want, they have to want to do what you want. In a different situation, you could appeal to authority. In this situation, to get them to want the same things as you, you have to appeal to a Higher authority — something like Trust, Loyalty, Pride, Honor. Navy Seals perform way beyond the expectations of other soldiers because of Esprit de Corps — if you fail your whole team fails. Charismatic religious leaders are able to guide their congregations by describing what it takes to be “good.”

These are broad examples and there are many others too numerous to list. We as PMs have to lead by example and set the expectations high for our teams.

So am I saying we should add “Preaching” to your list of Patience, Planning, and Perspective? Of course not; that would clearly be counter-productive. But you could add “Persuade.”

Chuck Morton, PMP wrote on April 11, 2011 - 8:15 pm | Visit Link

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