A few years ago I sat in a weekly review with a team I had no authority over. We'd agreed the actions the week before. Almost nothing had moved, and it had been like that for weeks.
I'm an external advisor there. The CEO handed me a few projects, each with a different team. On paper my job stops at giving advice. So this is the question I had to answer for myself: how to get things done without authority, when the people you need don't report to you and never will.
Key takeaways
- Authority is assumed. It's rarely given, and nobody hands it to you just because you asked.
- When it fails, the first signal is silence, not an argument. Someone going quiet on your mails may be a no you haven't been told yet.
- When you're told to stop, change the door, not the urgency.
Where capable people actually get stuck
I've watched a lot of senior people stall, and almost never because they weren't good enough. They stalled because they couldn't get things done.
Look closely and the same things are holding them back every time. They won't push someone from another vertical. They avoid questioning a delivery that's already late. They feel it isn't their place to step into another department's work.
Here's the uncomfortable bit. Growth on the corporate ladder is tied almost entirely to execution, and execution just means getting things done. If your work sits in somebody else's queue for six weeks, none of it shows up in your career.
So have you ever held yourself back because you assumed you didn't have the authority?
How to get things done without authority: you assume it
Authority should be assumed. It's rarely given, and it's never handed over because you asked nicely. You assume the right to question anyone whose work your delivery depends on, and you keep assuming it unless somebody clearly and explicitly tells you otherwise.
At IndiaMART, one of the many products and processes I owned was lead enrichment and approval. My KPI was quality approvals, but the inputs that decided that quality came from different product verticals of indiamart.com, and none of them reported to me. Each had its own KPIs and its own priorities, and my requirement sat somewhere down that list.
I could have informed them and waited. Instead I took a simple position: this is my KPI, I have to achieve it, so everybody is automatically aligned to it. That sounds too bold, I know. But a product manager isn't only responsible for their vertical's numbers, they're responsible for the organisation's too. Once you accept that, questioning them isn't crossing a line.
The advisory work goes further, because there I have no position at all. Not a manager, not an employee, not even on the org chart. Letting it be was an option and I tried it. The projects crawled. So I assumed the authority anyway.
Except with senior people you can't simply push. They won't take it, and honestly they shouldn't have to. So it ran on four things at once. Empathy, because they carry their own load. Politeness, every single time. Actually helping them where I could. And regular follow-ups, without ever getting tired of it.
That pulled up a lot of projects. Months later the CEO said something in one of his meetings, not to me directly: even though these people didn't report to Vivek, he could get things done from them.
What a strong email actually looks like
"Can I write such a strong email?" is one of the questions that stops people cold. So here's roughly what mine looks like.
Dear XYZ, I hope you are doing good. I'm writing to share my observation about this project, which I'm driving for this particular KPI as a part of my KRA, and an organisation KRA.
As you already understand, I can't achieve my KPI without active involvement of your team. I fully acknowledge that you have many other KPIs and limited resources. But I'm sure we can find ways to prioritise these items as well.
Can I please request you to look into your team's current priority list and see if a couple of items of my list can be pushed to top and delivered ASAP. I'm here for any support your team requires.
There's no aggression anywhere in it. What's doing the work is four small things. It names the KPI and makes it bigger than me: my KRA, and an organisation KRA. That turns a personal request into something we both owe the company. It says plainly that I can't deliver without their team. It accepts how stretched they are before it asks anything, so nobody has to write back explaining they're busy. And it asks small: not "prioritise my project" but move a couple of items up.
Two other things I do without thinking. I never set the date myself, so the date stays theirs. And I keep both the product manager and their vertical head on the mail. That's visibility, not escalation.
The day it didn't work
So does this always work? No.
Same setup at IndiaMART. One of the verticals feeding my process was led by an HOD who didn't like me stepping into his priorities, and particularly didn't like me going straight to his product managers.
What I got first was silence. I wrote the mails and nothing came back, and I read it as a busy inbox. Then one day he came over and said it plainly. This won't work, we have our own priorities, I'm not comfortable with you pushing my team member to reprioritise, and whenever you have something, come to me directly.
I took the feedback and it was completely okay. Everybody has their own way of working. It could have been more polite from his side, but then that's okay too. And notice this doesn't break the rule, it proves it. You assume authority unless somebody clearly and explicitly tells you otherwise, and he told me otherwise. What I didn't do was stop. I changed the door, not the urgency. Did the work move after that? Somewhat, not fully.
The part worth keeping is the silence. When assumed authority fails, it rarely fails with an argument. It fails quietly, while you carry on believing your mail is in a queue somewhere. If somebody has gone quiet for three weeks, that might be a no you haven't been told yet.
One more thing, and it may look like a contradiction. All of that is me pushing. In my coaching work I'd never tell a client to assume authority. I'd start with what they're trying to achieve, ask what actually stops them, and let them weigh what they'd gain and lose either way. The decision stays theirs.
What to do on Monday
- Pick the one item in your delivery that's been sitting longest in another team's queue. Just one.
- Write the mail. Name your KPI, say it's an organisation KPI too, acknowledge their load, and ask for two items to move up. Keep their vertical head on it.
- Don't set the date. Ask them to reply soon and let the date be theirs.
- If there's no reply in a week, treat the silence as information rather than progress. Walk over and ask whether this is a no.
- If somebody tells you to stop going around them, take it well and change the door. Don't take it as the end of the push.
And there's a second half to this, because authority isn't the only thing that moves work. Relationships are the other pillar, and truthfully they're faster. That's the next post in this series.
Frequently asked questions
Isn't assumed authority just a polite word for being pushy?
It would be, if pushing were all there was to it. With senior people push on its own gets you nowhere, and it costs you the relationship you'll need next quarter. It works because all four run together: pushing, staying respectful, helping where you can, and following up without ever getting annoyed.
What if I'm told to stay in my lane?
Accept it, if the reason convinces you. That's the condition this whole idea depends on. If it doesn't, take it to the people who own the outcome and make the case again. What you shouldn't do is take one person's discomfort as an instruction to stop caring about your delivery.