Episode 22: Influencing Without Authority

Every organisation has them. The people you go to when you need advice.

The people whose opinion carries weight, who others listen to, who seem to know what’s really going on.

And very often, they are not the people with the senior titles.

Our guest this week, global transformation expert, keynote speaker and author Margit Takacs, believes that if you want to understand whether change will succeed, you need to look beyond the org chart and understand where influence really sits.

This conversation centres on a simple but often overlooked idea: influence and authority are not the same thing.

Margit suggests we look beyond the formal structure of an organisation. Because the org chart just tells us who has authority. It doesn’t tell us who has influence.

The success of a transformation may depend less on the person presenting the slide deck and more on the person everyone talks to afterwards.

When a major change is announced, people rarely make up their minds immediately. They gather around the coffee machine, compare notes, swap views and ask each other “What do you think?”

Some people’s answers carry far more weight than others.

Those are the individuals Margit encourages us to pay attention to. Not because they have authority, but because they have influence. They can quietly accelerate adoption, build momentum and shape opinion. Equally, they can slow things down if they are unconvinced.

Drawing on experience from transformations across cultures, countries and industries – the same stories that form the backbone of her book Change Matters – Margit explores why some people become trusted voices inside organisations, how informal influence spreads, and why the people shaping change are often invisible on the project plan. Change, she argues, is rarely just a process challenge. It is also a human one.

If you’ve ever launched a transformation, introduced a new way of working, or wondered why some initiatives gain traction while others stall, this conversation offers a different lens.

Look less at the hierarchy.

Look more closely at who people are actually listening to.

Website: www.margittakacs.com