In this module10 lessons
Influence without authority
Show how you moved people you don't manage by working from their goals, bringing evidence they trust and making it cheap for them to say yes.
6 min readFull kit
Why this is the PM question
Most PMs don't manage the engineers, designers, analysts, sales teams or partner teams whose work decides whether their product succeeds. Almost everything a PM gets done, they get done by persuading someone. So "Tell me about a time you influenced someone without authority" is a direct test of the core of the job.
It also comes in many disguises: "Tell me about a time you got buy-in for an unpopular idea", "convinced your team to change direction", "persuaded an executive", "got another team to prioritize your work". The moves are the same.
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