An Engineer's Guide to Influence (Part One)

How to turn your ideas into reality – even without authority

Coming up with ideas and writing them down won’t turn them into life.

You need to refine the idea, discuss it, share it widely, gather stakeholders, and then finally implement it. And wait, you have to share it again. Did I already mention that?

This process is messy, especially when you need others to buy in. In other words, this is also known as influence.

Influence is required as you level up and work with more teams and cross-functional partners. Getting one person on board is simple. Getting everyone to stay consistent and aligned? That’s the real challenge.

There isn’t a perfect playbook for influence, but I’ve spent over a decade refining a method that’s helped me influence top decisions at Meta and Lyft.

Over the next two weeks, I’ll share my six core tips to influence:

1. Understand your stakeholders' goals.

2. Build consensus privately.

3. Make your case using the SCQA framework.

4. Coming next week

5. Coming next week

6. Coming next week

Today's article will cover the first three: understanding stakehol…