Influence Without Friction
Learn to map the stakeholders to help reach decisions faster and without friction. Learn the “Yes, and” trick to define scope and priorities.
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Influence isn’t about winning debates. It’s designing decisions so people can say yes.
Two quiet but powerful habits separate the engineers who get things shipped from the ones who just talk:
They map who matters: They know whose “yes” counts.
They use “Yes, and”: They keep forward motion even when they need to steer.
Together, these form your Staff+ influence loop: clarity → collaboration → alignment.
Map the stakeholders (D/A/I/N)
Staff+ engineers map stakeholders the way they’d map dependencies:
Decider (D): Says yes/no.
Approver (A): Can block/green‑light.
Influencer (I): Shapes the outcome (design, data, SRE, PM).
Notified (N): Needs context after the decision.
Example: Reports dashboard
D: VP Product
A: Eng Director
I: PM, Design lead, Data Eng., SRE
N: Support lead, Sales enablement
Pre‑wire the decision (asynchronously)
Share your 2-pager with D/A/I/N before the meeting. Ask for async comments and log objections in the document. Decisions are easier when the hard parts are handled earlier.
Pre-wire note for “Reports” dashboard example:
“Sharing a 2-pager to make the dashboard load ≤ 2.0s. I recommend:
Option A: Pre-render + edge cache—about two weeks, quick readout. Main risks are stale data and cross-tenant leaks; we have controls (SWR, strict cache key, flags).
Blockers to yes? “I’ll fold feedback by Thursday EOD and we’ll decide on Monday.”
“Yes, and”
When PMs or designers bring an idea, most engineers fall into the “No, but…” trap. It’s like shutting down an idea and substituting their own. It feels dismissive and stalls momentum.
Instead, you should practice “Yes, and.” This means you acknowledge the idea’s value and add a path to make it safer, faster, or measurable. This keeps collaboration alive while steering toward reality.
Some examples of this approach are as follows.
PM: “We should build real-time dashboards.”
“No, but that’s too expensive. We should just pre-render.”
“Yes, and if we pre-render the top 10 dashboards now, we’ll cut p95 in half and prove usage. That gives us data to justify real-time in H2.”
Designer: “Let’s add three more charts to make reports richer.”
“No, but that will bloat payloads. We should keep it simple.”
“Yes, and if we trim the dataset to a lean preset, we can add the charts and keep payloads under 1.5MB so UX stays fast.”
PM: “This should roll out globally next week.”
“No, but ops will hate it. We should go slower.”
“Yes, and if we start with 10% of admins behind a feature flag, we’ll get a signal in a week without risking on-call chaos.”
👉 The difference: “No, but...” blocks. “Yes, and” builds. The team feels momentum instead of stonewalls.
John Quest: D/A/I/N
Sketch your stakeholder map (D/A/I/N) for your real feature and send the five-sentence pre-wire to two influencers.
Draft a single “Meeting-That-Decides” agenda slide (titles, time boxes, roles).
Take one piece of feedback you’ve heard recently and rewrite it with “Yes, and.”