Latest / Executive Careers with Fexingo: VP, C-Suite, and Senior Leadership Career Strategy / How Executives Build Invisible Influence Networks
Transcript
- Lucas: There is a pervasive myth in the corporate world that influence is a function of title. You become the Vice President, suddenly everyone listens. You get the corner office, the agenda changes. But if you spend any time inside actual boardrooms or steering committees, you know that is rarely true. Real influence is structural, not hierarchical. It is about where you sit in the flow of information. Luna: Exactly. I see it all the time with new executives who climb the ladder thinking their badge does the talking, only to find out they have zero pull when a cross-departmental crisis hits. Lucas: Right. And this brings us to a concept from sociology called 'structural holes.' The idea is that power belongs to the person who bridges two otherwise disconnected groups. If Group A talks to Group B only through you, you control the narrative. You decide what gets translated, what gets emphasized, and what gets buried. That is invisible influence. Luna: So it is less about being the loudest voice in the room and more about being the bridge between rooms that never talk to each other. Lucas: Precisely. Let me give you a concrete example from a large financial services firm we tracked last year. They had a Chief Technology Officer who was technically brilliant but socially isolated. He reported directly to the CEO, yet he could not get marketing or sales to adopt his new platform. Why? Because he only spoke to finance and engineering. He had no weak ties elsewhere. Luna: Weak ties meaning the casual acquaintances outside your immediate team? Lucas: Yes. Strong ties are your close colleagues, your direct reports, your best friends at work. Weak ties are the people you grab coffee with occasionally, the counterpart in another division you met once at a conference, the junior analyst who knows everything happening in real-time. Granovetter’s research shows that weak ties provide novel information. Strong ties reinforce what you already know. Luna: So the CTO was stuck in an echo chamber of technical validation, missing the political reality of how products actually get sold. Lucas: Spot on. Now, contrast that with a Chief Operating Officer at a retail giant who did the opposite. She didn't try to be the smartest person in the tech debate. Instead, she spent her first six months building relationships with the supply chain leads, the store managers, and even the customer service directors. When the merger happened, she became the central node because everyone trusted her with their data. She didn't ask for authority; she accumulated trust. Luna: That sounds like a lot of emotional labor. Is there a risk that this kind of networking feels transactional or fake to people who value authenticity? Lucas: It can feel that way if you approach it as 'collecting contacts.' But if you approach it as 'understanding constraints,' it changes completely. You aren't trying to extract value; you are trying to understand why the marketing team is resistant to the tech team's timeline. Once you understand their constraints, you can propose solutions that solve both problems. That builds genuine goodwill. Luna: I love that distinction. Understanding constraints versus extracting value. That shifts the mindset from manipulation to collaboration. Lucas: It does. And here is the tricky part for senior leaders: you have to do this before you need it. Most executives wait until they are fighting for budget or facing a restructuring to start building these bridges. By then, it is too late. Trust takes time to accrue. You cannot build a bridge in a firestorm. Luna: So proactive relationship building is essentially career insurance. Lucas: Think of it as infrastructure. You don't build roads when traffic starts backing up. You build them while the land is clear. For senior leaders, this means intentionally scheduling 'listening tours' with peers in other functions, not to pitch your agenda, but to learn theirs. Luna: Do you think remote work has made this harder? It feels like digital communication strips away those organic weak tie moments. Lucas: It has absolutely made it harder. Zoom calls are scheduled, structured, and efficient. They are terrible for serendipity. When you are remote, you lose the hallway conversations, the pre-meeting small talk, the post-meeting debrief. Those are the spaces where weak ties are forged. So remote leaders have to be more deliberate. You have to manufacture the serendipity. Luna: Manufacturing serendipity sounds like an oxymoron, but I see what you mean. You have to create the conditions for it to happen. Lucas: Right. One tactic I recommend is the 'virtual coffee' with a purpose. Not just chatting, but asking a specific question like, 'What is the biggest bottleneck your team is facing right now?' Then listen. Take notes. Follow up with resources or introductions that help them. You become a connector, not just a participant. Luna: That turns networking into service. Which makes people want to stay connected. Lucas: Exactly. And over time, those small acts of service compound. You become known as the person who connects dots. When a new opportunity arises, people don't go to the most senior person; they go to the person who knows how things actually get done across silos. Luna: It reminds me of the old adage that your network is your net worth. Though I always hated how transactional that sounded. Lucas: It is better to say your network is your nervous system. It allows the organization to sense and respond to change faster. And you, as the executive, are a critical sensor node. Luna: Okay, I need to pause here for a second. We've been diving deep into how leaders build these invisible structures, and I realized something about how we make this show happen. Lucas: Go ahead. Luna: A handful of listeners chip in monthly through buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo, and that's literally what funds making this many of these episodes without ads cluttering up your commute. Lucas: Yeah, it keeps the lights on and lets us keep digging into these nuanced topics instead of chasing clicks. Luna: If you find value in the deep dives, consider joining that community. It helps us keep doing the work. Lucas: Appreciate it. Back to the nervous system analogy. Luna: Right. So if weak ties are crucial, how do you measure your own network health? How do you know if you're relying too heavily on strong ties? Lucas: There is a simple audit you can do. List the ten people you talk to most frequently at work. Are they mostly in your department? If yes, you have a high density network. It is comfortable, but it is fragile. If one person leaves, your whole support structure collapses. Luna: And if you diversify, you spread the risk. Lucas: Correct. Try to ensure at least three or four of those ten are from different functions or geographies. Ask yourself: who would call me if I needed urgent help from legal, or HR, or IT? If you have to go through formal channels, your network is too thin. Luna: That is a scary question. Who would I call right now if my server crashed at midnight? Lucas: If the answer is 'my boss,' you have a problem. Your boss might not have the bandwidth or the lateral authority to fix it quickly. You need the peer in IT security who owes you a favor from that project last quarter. Luna: It really highlights how much of our career success depends on these invisible, unmeasured assets. Lucas: It does. And the irony is, these assets are hardest to build when you are busy, which is exactly when you need them most. It requires discipline. Luna: Discipline to schedule the coffee, discipline to follow up, discipline to listen without pitching. Lucas: Yes. Think of it as investing in social capital. Just like you allocate budget to R&D or marketing, you must allocate time to relationship maintenance. It yields compounding returns. Luna: Compounding returns on trust. I like that framing. Lucas: One final thought. As you move higher up, your circle shrinks naturally. You have fewer peers. So the quality of those remaining weak ties becomes even more critical. You cannot afford to be surrounded only by sycophants or people who agree with you. Luna: You need dissenters. You need people who challenge your assumptions. Lucas: Absolutely. Seek out the people who are politely disagreeing with you. They are often the ones holding the truth you are missing. Build those bridges carefully. Luna: So the next time you walk into a meeting, don't just look at who is sitting at the head of the table. Look at who is standing between the tables. Lucas: Now you are thinking like a strategist. Influence is not given; it is built, brick by brick, conversation by conversation. Luna: And hopefully, we leave those bridges open for whoever comes next. Lucas: Always. Thanks for listening.