CHAPTER 8
Influencing Up: Bring Your Bosses Around to Your Way of Thinking

One of the first things we discover on departure from school—business or other—where we thought we’d heard and learned it all, is that life isn’t always fair. Not even close. In the real world, those coveted “attaboys” or “attagirls,” promotions, and good press don’t always go to the hardest worker or even to the overachiever with the best idea or the consistently superior numbers (though that latter tangible always seems to help). Nor do they manifest according to any timetable or tenure; just as often, it’s the pure blind luck of being in the right place at the right time.

And how fair is this? Every organization on the planet has someone who can outthink the major players in the C-Suite on a regular basis but who nonetheless never gets a seat on the upper deck. It’s easy to let this state of affairs get you down, but there’s a better way to get what you deserve. First, though, you have to give any residual cynicism the boot before that path becomes clear.