FIELD GUIDE NO. 2
Influence
Building the Ability to Move People Without Authority
You were right. You were prepared. The decision still went the other way. Influence is the ability to move people toward an outcome when you can't simply make it happen — the difference between doing excellent work and getting it where it needs to go. This guide breaks it into seven dimensions, names the shape your scores make, and points you at the one that's costing you the most.
Every dimension, taken apart.
Each of the seven dimensions follows the same anatomy: what it actually is, the pattern I see most in coaching, how it connects to the other six, the coaching questions that expose it, one experiment to run in 48 hours, and a 90-day build — plus the real rooms where it shows up or falls apart.
YOUR SHAPE, NOT A SCORE
THE 48-HOUR EXPERIMENT
THE SEAM IS THE WORK
The diagnostic doesn't just hand you seven numbers. Your highest dimension and your lowest, together, name your shape — the Invisible Achiever, the Smooth Operator, the Brilliant Loner — and the shape tells you more than any single score.
Every dimension closes with one experiment to run in a real situation within 48 hours. Not homework. Field work. You change one behavior and watch how it lands.
Leaders rarely fail at one dimension in isolation. They fail at the seam where two meet. Seven seams tear often enough to have names — find yours, close it, and both numbers move.
How to use it.
This is a map, not a curriculum. Don't work all seven at once — that's the Perfection Trap, and it ends in paralysis, not progress. Find the dimension that's costing you the most, read that one entry, run the experiment, use it somewhere real. One dimension. 48 hours. Come back. Then find the next one.
Part of The Right Altitude Field Guides — see the full series or start with the flagship The Right Altitude