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SIGNAL OF THE WEEK
In most complex organisations, consequential decisions are shaped through informal conversations, relationship-based influence, and pre-meeting coalition building long before a formal process begins. Leaders who wait for the meeting to do their influencing have already arrived too late.
THE LEADER’S MOMENT
Every organisation has two structures. The one on the slide. And the one that actually runs things.
The first tells you who reports to whom. The second tells you who shapes what, who gets called before decisions are made official, whose support is essential and whose objection will quietly kill an initiative before it reaches the room.
Senior leaders learn this early, usually through a painful miscalculation. You built the business case. You got the numbers right. You presented to the right people in the right order. And still the initiative stalled, got diluted, or died without explanation. What you missed was the conversation that happened three days before your presentation. The relationship you had not yet invested in. The informal coalition that had already decided.
The org chart did not tell you any of that. It never does.
This week, Leaders Shelf goes into the hidden architecture of organisations: the informal networks, the real decision flows, and the power of influence as a learnable science. Understanding this territory is not optional for leaders who want to execute at scale.
In this edition of Leaders Shelf we cover
SIGNAL OF THE WEEK
THE LEADER’S MOMENT
THE WORLD OF LEADERSHIP THIS WEEK
BOOKS FROM THE SHELF THAT CLARIFY THE ISSUE
WHAT THIS MEANS FOR LEADERS
INTELLIGENCE DATA
LEADERSHIP MICRO PRACTICES
FROM THE AUTHOR’S DESK
CLOSING REFLECTION
THE WORLD OF LEADERSHIP THIS WEEK
A brief scan of what shifted in the leadership landscape this week.
McKinsey network analysis of more than 1,000 professionals across a large global company found that nearly half of all interactions in key decision processes were not central to making those decisions. Leaders were spending significant time in the wrong conversations, with the wrong people, in the wrong sequence. The informal network was running the real process in parallel. (McKinsey, 2007)
Harvard Business Review research by Krackhardt and Hanson identified three distinct informal networks operating in every organisation simultaneously: the advice network (who people turn to for getting work done), the trust network (who shares sensitive information with whom), and the communication network (who talks to whom about work matters). Most leaders can accurately describe only one of the three. (HBR, 1993)
McKinsey research on social capital and performance found that only about half of employees feel they know how to build and maintain effective networks within their organisations. Among frontline workers and women the figure is significantly lower. The people who most need informal network access are the ones least equipped to build it. (McKinsey, 2022)
Cialdini's 35 years of research across thousands of compliance studies found that six psychological principles drive the majority of influence decisions: reciprocity, commitment and consistency, social proof, authority, liking, and scarcity. Organisations where leaders understand these principles make decisions faster, with less resistance, and with greater alignment. (Cialdini, 2001)
Research on organisational restructuring found that executives invest substantial resources redrawing formal org charts, then are consistently disappointed by the results. The reason: most of the real work of companies happens through informal organisation, not formal reporting lines. Restructuring the chart without mapping the informal network almost always underdelivers. (McKinsey Quarterly)
BOOKS FROM THE SHELF THAT CLARIFY THE ISSUE
This week's two books operate at different levels of the same problem. One is about competitive strategy and how power moves between organisations. The other is about the psychology of how people say yes. Together, they give leaders a complete picture of how influence works from the inside out.
Hardball: Are You Playing to Play or Playing to Win?
By George Stalk and Rob Lachenauer (BCG)
Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion
By Robert Cialdini (Arizona State University)
WHAT THIS MEANS FOR LEADERS
Leaders who operate only within formal structures are systematically excluded from the real decision environment. Their initiatives arrive at meetings that have already decided.
Informal networks cannot be restructured away. Every organisation has them. Leaders who do not map their own informal landscape are navigating blind.
The science of influence is not manipulation. It is the architecture of effective communication. Leaders who understand it execute faster, encounter less resistance, and build more durable coalitions.
Competitive advantage inside an organisation works on the same logic as competitive advantage between organisations: those who deploy it fully win more than those who deploy it partially. Most leaders leave influence on the table.
INTELLIGENCE DATA
~50%
of all interactions in key organisational decision processes were found to be non-central to the actual decisions being made
McKinsey network analysis, 2007. Half the energy spent on influence is spent in the wrong places.
~50%
of employees feel they know how to build and maintain effective networks inside their organisations
McKinsey social capital research, 2022. The majority are navigating informal influence without a map.
57%
of respondents share work-related information with contacts but only 29% engage in the social interactions that build real trust and informal access
McKinsey, 2022. Transactional networking is common. Relationship-based influence is rare.
Many
of executives invest in restructuring formal org charts and are then disappointed by the results, because the informal organisation was not addressed
McKinsey Quarterly. Formal restructuring without informal network mapping consistently underdelivers.
LEADERSHIP MICRO PRACTICES
Three actions. Executable this week. Designed for leaders who want to see the real map.
Map Your Three Informal Networks
For your most important current initiative, draw three quick maps. The advice network: who do people consult before moving on this topic? The trust network: who shares sensitive information with whom? The communication network: who is actually talking to whom about this? Identify where you sit in each map. Where you are absent is where you are vulnerable.
Identify Your Pre-Meeting Conversations
Before your next significant presentation or proposal, identify the three people whose informal support is most critical to a good outcome. Plan a conversation with each of them before the meeting, not to lobby, but to listen. Understanding their perspective in advance is both influence and intelligence.
Audit One Recent Influence Failure
Think of a recent initiative that stalled or was blocked. Do not revisit what was wrong with the idea or the data. Ask instead: which informal conversations did not happen? Which relationships were underdeveloped? Which psychological principle was working against you? Name the real reason, not the official one.
FROM THE AUTHOR’S DESK
Marut Bhardwaj - Founder & Curator, Leaders Shelf
CLOSING REFLECTION
The real org chart is drawn in relationships, not in boxes. It exists in every organisation you will ever work in. The only question is whether you have taken the time to see it.
Leaders who see it clearly do not become more political. They become more effective. They stop wasting energy on formal processes that were never going to deliver, and they start investing in the conversations that actually matter.
Influence is not a dark art. It is the infrastructure of getting things done.
If this edition made you think differently, forward it to a peer or team member who would benefit from reading it.
Leaders Shelf
Published weekly. Curated by Marut Bhardwaj.