Affecting positive change at work is one of the most important things you do, regardless of your industry, role, or level. And yet, some of our most powerful levers for change aren’t the obvious ones. They aren’t about titles, levels, or formal authority. They are something quieter and, in many ways, more lasting: informal influence.
I was reminded of this recently while teaching a workshop at an Alphabet company that is literally designed around the audacious idea that the biggest problems deserve the boldest solutions. Even in a room full of brilliant innovators, the conversation kept coming back to the same truth: work is never just about the stuff you do. It’s always about relationships, too.
What Is Informal Influence — and What It Isn’t
Informal influence can be the key to shifting organizational culture, changing the direction of a project, executing your vision, or becoming a recognized leader in your industry. It works through relationships — specifically, through the trust and credibility you build over time.
I want to name something upfront, because I’ve heard it from clients and students over the years: informal influence is not manipulation. When someone uses influence to steer others purely toward what they think is best, without genuine openness to the other person, that’s ego-driven — and it tends to backfire.
At its best, informal influence does something far more interesting: it evokes creative collaboration. When you genuinely invest in understanding someone — their priorities, their perspective, their world — they often bring ideas to your initiatives that you never could have generated on your own. That’s where the real magic is. That’s where growth happens.
The #1 Key: Attunement
If there’s one concept I return to again and again in my work with leaders and teams, it’s attunement. Attunement means to hear, feel, see, and understand someone. It especially applies when building informal influence.
Attunement is a biological primal need. Think of a baby or toddler who doesn’t yet have language. If they are truly heard and seen, they get their needs met. That need for attunement doesn’t disappear as we grow up. Most adults carry wounds and sensitivities around feeling unseen or unheard. In fact, when I’m called into companies for conflict resolution, one of the most common culprits is a failure to attune.
Relationships and attunement are a two-way street: The better you hear and understand them, the better they will hear and understand you.
The good news? You can learn to practice attunement anytime, all the time. We can always learn new ways to attune to new individuals in new situations.
More Practical Tips for Building Informal Influence
In addition to attunement, here are some of the other practices I shared with the Alphabet team — simple in concept, but powerful when applied consistently:
1. Prioritize key relationships. Invest in the relationships that matter most — grab coffee, ask how someone is doing, find out what their priorities are right now. Connection has to come before persuasion.
2. Ask open-ended questions. Open-ended questions invite real dialogue and signal that you genuinely care about the other person’s perspective. Then actively listen to understand rather than to just respond.
3. Use “Yes, and…” rather than “Yes, but…” When you acknowledge what someone is saying and build on it — rather than pivot away from it — you attune better and come across as a collaborator, not an adversary.
4. Reflect back what you hear. Mirroring back someone’s words or ideas does two things: it corrects any misunderstandings, but it also confirms that you are listening, you care, and you understand.
5. Get alignment on shared goals and mission. One of the most common sources of organizational conflict I see is when two people or two teams have drifted away from a shared understanding of where they’re going. Returning to clarity on shared goals creates doorways for healthy collaboration and informal influence.
6. Follow through on your commitments. Trust and credibility are built in small moments, consistently. Set appropriate expectations and follow through. People will follow and support you far more readily when they believe you.
A Final Thought
Informal influence is not about being the loudest voice in the room or the one with the most impressive title. It’s about becoming someone people genuinely want to connect and collaborate with — someone they trust, someone who sees them, and someone who brings out the best in a room.
That’s the kind of influence that shifts cultures, moves projects forward, and creates the kind of work that affects change in the world.
I’d love to hear what’s resonating for you. How might you leverage informal influence and cultivate better relationships?
As always, if you know someone who could benefit, please forward this to them!
And finally, if you need more attuned 1:1 support, schedule a session. New clients can start with a 30-min free intro session. I look forward to connecting with you.