One of the most common discussions we have in Reforge is around cross-functional influence. It is one of the core challenges to crossing the canyon from senior individual contributor to manager in product, marketing or any function.
Driving influence is a complicated topic. But there are two very common points of failure:
Not rooting the conversation in the mission/objectives of the company.
Lacking customer evidence for your initiative.
If you aren't able to connect the dots between your initiative and those two things, then you should look for a new initiative and not push your agenda. Even when you are able to connect the dots, you gain learnings about company context that you didn't have before as you pitch your initiative.
A common reaction to this is to dig your heels in and try to convince them harder. This erodes trust. The right approach is take the new information and either:
Come back with a refined story taking into account the new information.
Acknowledge that with the new information the initial plan did not make sense.
These things built trust and will make it easier to drive future cross functional influence.
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