Influence Without Authority

This book is excellent in content. There are so many pressures that cause people to behave certain ways in organizations. Everyone has their expectations and currency (teeth in the game) that drives their working relationships with others.

After reading this book, I understood the behaviors of others I’ve worked with. Culture, expectations of the boss, possible promotions, etc. really do influence behaviors of others in organizations. If you really take time to prepare and look at the stakeholders in a particular situation, and try to figure out what currencies people expect, it is easier to come to a consensus.

So many organizations today are consensus driven, it is important to understand the drivers. Sometimes these drivers, like company culture and decisions based on consensus, can cause harmful situations like “Group think” – that happened during the Challenger diaster and the defective “o” rings. Perhaps that disaster could have been diverted if the stakeholders had prepared and understood the currencies involved.
Rating: 5 / 5

This excellent leadership guide by Allan R. Cohen and David L. Bradford offers a classic, necessary set of prescriptions for anyone working in a flat, team-based organization. That is to say, it is a guide that will prove useful to almost everybody employed at a contemporary organization. The waning of the old hierarchical organization, with its clear lines of authority and control-command management styles, puts a greater emphasis on your individual ability to achieve your goals by enlisting support from people who, often, have no obligation to provide it. We recommend this clear, jargon-free outline of the basic principles you need to know to influence others, even if you lack sufficient authority.
Rating: 5 / 5

First of all, shame on the women who gave this book glowing reviews on the first few pages! I was completely shocked (had to re-read the passages several times) by the authors suggestion that a woman who was sexually approached by a co-worker basicallly overreacted by becoming angry, and that she should have instead interpreted the pass as his awkward attempt to “find some way to connect with her. Might she have deflected the pass but turned the attempt into something more suitable to a collegial work relationship?”(page126) Give me a break! I can’t believe that this example of gaining influence over people ever made it past the editor. And if that wasn’t bad enough, they again insulted women on page 226, when they explain that a women ponders her failure in a management role by saying “I still haven’t figured out why they allowed a female – especially one without an engineering background – to manage the project”. What?!? I had to check the front of the book to see if it was published in the 60s! Besides these profoundly ignorant examples, I found the book to be less than marginal in developing my ability to influence those around me. I’ll look elsewhere.
Rating: 1 / 5