What is The Without Authority Gap?

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Hi, my name is Adam Verity, and I'm the creator of

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the Without Authority system.

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And this podcast is for B2B software and SaaS leaders.

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If you are a software leader, then you know that there is a gap between

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the results that you're accountable for, and the amount of authority you

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are given to accomplish these results.

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Let me explain.

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So you already have authority over people who report to you, but no matter what's

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your title, VP, director, manager, and no matter which function you work in,

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engineering, product, customer success, sales, pre-sales, what have you There

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are people who you need and require their assistance and help and collaboration

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for you to accomplish what's assigned to you, the results you're accountable for.

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This is the without authority gap.

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It's the gap between the mandate and the amount of authority over other

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departments you are given that you need their help for you to accomplish

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the results you are tasked with.

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Because you don't have authority over other departments, other peers, leaders,

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managers, directors then there should be a way for you to close this gap if you want

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to succeed tremendously in your career.

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This is what we call the without authority gap.

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And I noticed this gap way back in nineteen ninety-nine when I was a junior

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software engineer, fresh grad out to the world, and I was doing my thing,

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and I noticed that the bigger work that happens in a company is the work that

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happens between teams and departments.

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And those who accomplish bigger and move up faster are those people who

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can create agreement with others and can get others, other departments,

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other leaders to help them with their mission, that leader's mission.

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And I was watching that closely as a software engineer way back then, and

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I observed three types of leaders.

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The first group are what I call the logical leaders.

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Those people in any meeting, in most conversations, they tended

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to use logic to argue their case.

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So they would present their case.

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They will argue using logic and data and quote, unquote, "facts."

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And when they get some objections thrown towards them, they argue some more.

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They use more logic, more slides, maybe facts.

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And once they are not able to resolve a situation, what they do is they escalate

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to the higher levels, or they wait until one day they get the authority they need

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to accomplish what they have in mind.

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The second group is a group of leaders who use charm and charisma to also

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argue their case, to present and argue that they are right and what

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they're saying is valuable to their team and other teams in the company.

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And also, when they get some heat back, some objections, some

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pushbacks, they argue some more, but this time they resolve to facts and

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data with the charm, the charisma.

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And of course, when they can't get what they want, they escalate

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just like logical leaders.

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Both these two groups I noticed treated other people and treated conversations

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as fights that they need to win.

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They operated from this belief that people in other teams, in other groups, they are

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someone to overcome their objections, to quote-unquote handle their objections.

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And of course, they did that with negotiating their position and

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negotiating concessions and pushing back, and it was always a friction.

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But I then noticed a third group of leaders , and those are the minority,

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even till this very day this group of people, they do not argue.

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They do not push back.

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They do not escalate.

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But they also do not wait for things to happen.

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They get things done by building agreement and bridges with

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other groups and teams easily.

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Whether they are working one-on-one with someone or one-on-many or

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groups, they know how to design and architect agreements with

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others so they can get a yes from everyone, a yes that serves everyone.

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Now, I'm not talking about a win-win negotiation.

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I do not believe in win-win negotiation.

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This is a myth, but this is an episode for some other day.

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When you can design agreements like these leaders do with everyone, you

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get to a position where everyone is happy to work together towards one

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shared goal that serves everyone.

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And there's always a time and a place to build shared definition of success between

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teams and shared destination as well.

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So I wanted so badly to be like this third group of leaders, be it managers,

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directors, or VPs, or even chief officers.

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And I did go and I talked to a lot of them, and I asked them what to do to

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become like them, because I was not the type of person who was just n- naturally

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born as a persuasive or influential person, or even I knew how to negotiate.

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I actually was a software engineer, the geek type who loved to talk to

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computers more than people back then.

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So I asked and I interviewed many of these leaders, who I

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call the agreement designers.

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And they gave me a generic advice as "Go and read about communication and influence

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and persuasion and negotiations."

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And, I did.

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I actually read hundreds of books, and I attended so many virtual as well as

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in-person trainings, seminars and courses.

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And I did that for a good five years, but I got nowhere.

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I found myself, I'm arguing using logic more and more, or charisma and

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charm, just like the first two groups.

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And I'm arguing and I'm defending my position and negotiating my position

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and concessions, just like the first two groups I did not want to be like.

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Now, the reason I'm saying that not because I want to throw stones at

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training programs in negotiation, persuasion, influence, et cetera.

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No.

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But they did not work for me because I, and so many other people, we do

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not deal well with preset templates.

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When someone says, " in a given situation, say A first, B second, C third, and so

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forth," our brain is not wired this way because once we go through the steps

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and we find that the other person is not responding, we don't know what to do.

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So the whole thing is a hit and miss.

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Sometimes the techniques and strategies and skill that we learn

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from the traditional influence training programs and books, sometimes

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they work, sometimes they don't.

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Depends on the context of the conversation, depends on your

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personality, whether whatever you've been taught work for you, and depends

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on the other people in the room.

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Plus, most of negotiation and training and influence and persuasion, so on,

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till this very day, they take into consideration one-on-one conversations

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mostly, but not one-on-many or many-on-many in big boardrooms.

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So I tried my best.

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I really did.

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I applied.

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I made mistakes.

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I'd correct it, but I got nowhere Until I got to the level I thought to myself,

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what if I had to be born this way?

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I know I'm not natural at it, but is it something I can learn?

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And at that time, I had this interest ignited inside me, about

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people's personalities and the psychology of people personalities.

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So I started learning about that from psychologists, social psychologists, and

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so many other disciplines that go deep in personality psychology, to be specific.

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And one discipline led to another, and I found myself studying a group

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of psychologists who focus on helping people change their perspective about

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something, about an event, about a belief, about a person, by managing people's

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resistance and using that resistance to help people change their lens on

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things, their perspective of things.

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And I was fascinated by their work, and I went really deep

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for a good three or four years.

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And the more I learned in that discipline, the more I realized that

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all they're doing are four main things.

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First, when they want to change someone's perspective to build agreement with

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them, they first have to read the room, as in read the person in front

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of you or the many people in a room.

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When I say read the room, I mean read what's important to them.

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What do they value in the conversation?

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What are their fears about the stuff that are mentioned in a conversation?

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What are their pet peeves?

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What are their aspirations?

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What they are looking for?

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What will make them look good?

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What are they avoiding that would hurt their reputation, and so on?

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Read the room.

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You've got to know the person in front of you before and while

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having the conversation, and this requires a lot of dynamic skills.

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The second thing they are doing is they are always handling conflict

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and tension with people brilliantly.

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At any moment, they can turn conflict and tension very rapidly to become

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cooperation and cooling down the entire temperature of the room or the

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conversation if you're having one-on-one.

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And the third skill is to change someone's perspective after

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they lower the temperature.

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To change their perspective, the lens the other person or the entire room is

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using to look at a problem, an issue, or even a goal And the fourth thing

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that they're doing, the fourth skill is once you get to an agreement, how

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to, can you get this agreement to hold?

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How to avoid reversals after one day, one week, one month, change of minds, how to

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minimize that so a commitment can hold.

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And it hits me.

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I was like, this was my aha moment when I realized that, first of all, I don't have

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to be a natural about this, a naturally born persuasive, influential person.

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I can learn this thing.

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And I also realized this is not manipulation.

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This is a group of scientists.

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They have dedicated their lives to this thing, to understand how to work

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with people to get into agreement.

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With manipulation, and that's another discipline of, and group of people

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who study, which I do not advocate.

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With manipulation, you are hiding facts from people to change their

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perspective, or you're flat out lying to them, changing the facts completely.

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And the third thing I realized also is that although I was an introverted

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person, I'm still an introverted person, but although I was an introverted,

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logical, analytical, shy person, I realized that I don't need the personality

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for it because there is apparently a system, and those people have been

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using the system in psychology, in therapy, albeit, but there is a way.

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So I got obsessed about this and fascinated, and I started translating

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that system from therapy settings, one-on-one therapy, to business settings,

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especially in boardrooms . And I started applying these things I'm learning, and

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gradually, I started having a framework of what are the things I need to do to

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move between those four major skills.

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Remember, reading the room or reading the person, handling the conflict, if

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you have any conflict with them or they have tension with you, changing their

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lens and perspective once they are ready for it, and making commitments hold.

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How can I create a system that tells me when to do what in a conversation?

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Because I personally hate scripts.

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So I wanted a way for me at the time, and now for you, to navigate a conversation

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freely, moving between reading people, knowing what matters to them, what's

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important to them about any conversation, handling any conflict and tension, if

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any, calming and cooling the temperature down of the room, and once that happens,

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changing people's lenses and perspectives to look at things like you do look at

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them, from your point of view, as well as understand their point of view and

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integrate it within the conversation.

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And once you get a commitment from them, a yes, an agreement, how to make it hold.

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I started working on this system, and it took me a long time because

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I applied it in sales, pre-sales, leadership, operations, and so on.

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I led teams as a director, as a manager, and finally as a chief operating officer

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in a startup that we prepared, and we sold for twenty-five million dollars.

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The pattern is that you always need other people who you do not have

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any authority over to work with you closely this quarter, next quarter,

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and next fiscal years to help you accomplish your OKRs, your goals,

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and whatever you are accountable for.

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This is the gap, the without authority gap.

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And I want for you to become the kind of leader that only knows how

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to build such agreements, bring people together to help you succeed,

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but also enable other leaders.

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Teach them how to do that because of this podcast.

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That's my mission, and that's my goal from recording these episodes moving forward.

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All right.

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If you want to understand where this gap is for you, what are the skills

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that you're great at, and what are the skills that you can improve right away,

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whether reading the room or handling conflict and tension or helping people

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change their perspective and lens or securing commitments and make them

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hold you can go to withoutauthority.com

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and complete the scorecard there.

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It takes about eight minutes to get the full report plus a detailed guide

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customized based on your results that will guide you through the action steps and

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the 90 days plan toward closing that gap.

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So if you haven't already, it's withoutauthority.com.

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All right.

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I am Adam Verity, and this is it for today's episode.

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Talk to you next time.