Olivia: The biggest lie we're told at work is 'stay in your lane.' Your job description is a box, and the most successful people are the ones who learn how to lead from outside of it. In fact, your title might be the least important thing about your career. Jackson: I love that. It feels so true but also so risky. That's exactly what we're digging into today, right? The idea that you don't need to be the boss to be a leader. Olivia: Exactly. It's the central idea in Keith Ferrazzi's book, Leading Without Authority. And what's fascinating about Ferrazzi is that this isn't just theory for him. He became the youngest-ever CMO at a Fortune 500 company, Starwood Hotels, and then had his position gutted by corporate restructuring. He learned the hard way that formal authority is fragile, but influence is permanent. Jackson: Wow. So he lived the problem he's trying to solve. That gives it some serious weight. So where do you even start with that? If you can't rely on your title, what do you rely on? Olivia: You rely on a fundamental mindset shift. And that’s the first, and maybe most important, rule Ferrazzi lays out. It starts with completely redefining who is on your team.

Jackson: Redefining your team? I thought my team was just… the people on my team. The ones in the same box on the org chart. Olivia: That’s the old rule. The new rule is: your team is made up of everyone critical to achieving your mission. That includes people in other departments, your boss, your boss’s boss, and even people you might see as rivals. Jackson: Okay, that sounds nice in a motivational poster, but what does it actually look like in practice? It feels like a recipe for stepping on toes. Olivia: It can be, if you do it wrong. But let’s look at the story of Sandy, an HR director at a national bank. It’s the perfect illustration. Sandy was tasked with a huge project: centralizing the company's pay incentive program. But she hit a massive roadblock. Jackson: Let me guess, office politics? Olivia: Exactly. The head of sales operations, a woman named Jane, was planning to launch her own separate bonus program for the sales team, which would completely undermine Sandy's company-wide initiative. Sandy’s boss, who avoided confrontation, basically told her, "You go deal with Jane." Jackson: Oh, I know that feeling. Your boss just outsources the conflict to you. So Sandy felt completely stuck, right? A victim of the system. Olivia: Precisely. She was complaining, feeling victimized by her boss and by Jane. She saw Jane as a competitor who was sabotaging her. She came to Ferrazzi for coaching, expecting him to validate her feelings. But he hit her with a line that changed everything. He said, "The team you’re failing is the team you don’t even realize exists." Jackson: Whoa. What team was that? Olivia: The team of 'Sandy and Jane.' He challenged her to stop seeing Jane as an obstacle and start seeing her as a potential teammate. He asked her, "Have you ever considered that your company-wide bonus program might not actually be the best thing for the sales department right now?" Jackson: That’s a tough pill to swallow. She had to admit her 'perfect' plan might be flawed. Olivia: It was a total mindset flip. Sandy realized she was so focused on protecting HR's turf that she never once considered what the sales team actually needed. So, she did something incredibly brave. She went to Jane and apologized. She said she’d been single-minded and asked if they could work together to create something that would actually help the sales team win. Jackson: Okay, but that sounds like a movie scene. In the real world, wouldn't Jane just see that as a sign of weakness and take advantage? "Oh, you're admitting you were wrong? Great, now I'm going to roll right over you." Olivia: That’s the fear, isn't it? But Ferrazzi argues that this kind of vulnerability, when it's in service of a shared mission, isn't weakness—it's the ultimate strength. Jane was taken aback, but she was also intrigued. For the first time, someone from HR wasn't telling her what to do; they were asking how they could help her succeed. Jackson: So what happened? Olivia: They co-created a new bonus program. It was a hybrid model that complemented the centralized system but was tailored to the sales team's needs. It was so successful that other departments started copying it, and it transformed the bank’s entire incentive structure. Sandy got promoted, and her career took off. All because she stopped defining her team by the org chart and started defining it by the mission. Jackson: So, she basically stopped complaining about office politics and started treating her 'rival' like a teammate she needed to win with. Is that the gist? Olivia: That is the absolute core of it. And it connects so deeply to Ferrazzi's own origin story. He talks about his father, a steelworker in the 70s and 80s, who constantly saw waste and inefficiency on the factory floor. He’d make suggestions to his foreman, but he was always told, "That's not your job. Stay in your lane." Jackson: And we all know how that story ended for the American steel industry. Olivia: Exactly. His father had all the right ideas but no one would listen because he was 'just a steelworker.' He had no authority. Sandy’s story is the antidote to that. It’s about realizing you have the power to create change, but you have to own it. You have to accept that it's all on you. Jackson: That phrase, "it's all on you," is powerful but also a little daunting. In a truly toxic workplace, isn't that just a recipe for burnout? How is this not just a fancy way of saying 'do your boss's job for them without the pay'? Olivia: That's the critical distinction. It’s not about taking on everyone else's work. It’s about taking responsibility for the relationships needed to get your work done. It’s about leading the collaboration. And that brings us from the 'what'—the mindset—to the 'how.' Once you decide to lead, how do you actually get people on board, especially the difficult ones? Ferrazzi says you have to earn their permission.

Jackson: Earn permission. I like that. It implies that leadership is something that's granted to you by your peers, not by your title. So how do you do it? Olivia: Ferrazzi calls the process "co-elevation." It’s this idea that you go higher together. You commit to your teammate's success as much as your own. He says every great buddy movie is essentially a tale of co-elevation. Jackson: A buddy movie! I love that analogy. Two unlikely partners, thrown together, who have to learn to trust each other to succeed. Like Riggs and Murtaugh in Lethal Weapon. Olivia: Exactly! And the story of Zina, an ER doctor, is a perfect real-life buddy movie. Zina was a young, ambitious doctor who wanted to move into management. But she was told she had to wait five years. She was frustrated, but she saw a problem she thought she could fix. Jackson: What was the problem? Olivia: The ER was constantly running out of critical medical supplies. The person responsible was the head nurse, Devon, who was described as prickly, resistant, and just generally difficult. Everyone avoided him. Jackson: Ah, the office grump. Every workplace has one. So Zina’s first instinct was probably to go to her boss and complain about Devon, right? Olivia: That was her first instinct. She fell into one of Ferrazzi's "six deadly excuses": cowardice. She was afraid to confront Devon. She told herself, "It's not my job to manage inventory," and "He'll just bite my head off." Jackson: That sounds incredibly relatable. So how did she get past that? What did she actually do? Because walking up to a guy everyone avoids and saying 'let's co-elevate' sounds incredibly awkward. Olivia: She didn't do that. Her coach, Ferrazzi, gave her a different mission. He told her to forget about the supply problem for a while. Her only job was to build a relationship with Devon. And she started small. Incredibly small. She just started saying hello to him. Asking about his day. Not about work, just about him. Jackson: Seriously? That was the grand strategy? Small talk? Olivia: It was the start. She was serving him with attention and care. Over time, she learned he was overwhelmed. He was managing a chaotic ER supply chain all by himself. Once she understood his world, she didn't criticize him. She asked, "How can I help?" She started by helping him with simple inventory counts. She built a foundation of trust, one small act of service at a time. Jackson: So she filled his relationship 'gas tank' before she ever asked for anything. Olivia: A perfect way to put it. Once that trust was there, they could finally talk about the real problem. They started collaborating on solutions. They even teamed up to co-elevate with people in other departments, like procurement and accounting, to fix the systemic issues. They became this unlikely power duo in the hospital. Jackson: The ER's own Riggs and Murtaugh. So what was the outcome? Olivia: The supply shortages were resolved, and the ER ran more smoothly. But the bigger outcome was for Zina. She had demonstrated incredible leadership without any formal authority. She didn't wait five years for a promotion; she got a management role in just two. She proved that impact, not position, defines power. Jackson: That’s a fantastic story because it’s so practical. It wasn't one big heroic confrontation. It was a hundred small, consistent acts of caring and service. It was about giving up the need to be right in favor of making things right. Olivia: And that’s the essence of co-elevation. It’s not a transaction; it’s a partnership. You serve, you share your own vulnerabilities, and you genuinely care. Ferrazzi calls it applying the Platinum Rule. Jackson: I know the Golden Rule: treat others as you want to be treated. What’s the Platinum Rule? Olivia: Treat others the way they wish to be treated. It requires you to be curious, to listen, and to understand what actually motivates the other person, not just project your own ambitions onto them. It’s the engine that makes leading without authority possible.

Jackson: Okay, so if we boil this all down, it feels like a two-part formula. First, you have to fire the 'victim' in your head and hire an 'owner.' You have to accept that it's all on you to build the coalition for your mission. Olivia: Correct. That's the internal mindset shift. Jackson: And second, you have to stop pitching your ideas and start serving your teammates, even the ones you think are your rivals. You build the relationship before you need it, through these small, consistent acts of co-elevation. Olivia: Precisely. And Ferrazzi argues this isn't just a 'nice' thing to do; it's a survival strategy for the modern workplace. The data backs this up. A Deloitte survey showed that only 24 percent of large companies are still relying on old-school functional hierarchies. The world is moving to networks of cross-functional teams. Jackson: And that Gartner prediction is chilling—that by 2028, algorithms will eliminate so many middle-management jobs that work will depend almost entirely on these kinds of teams. Olivia: Exactly. Your ability to co-elevate, to lead without authority, is your future job security. The people who can connect, collaborate, and build trust across silos are the ones who will be indispensable. Jackson: So this is less of a self-help guide and more of a career-proofing manual. Olivia: I think that’s a brilliant way to look at it. It’s about developing the one skill that can't be automated: genuine human connection in service of a shared goal. Jackson: So the challenge for everyone listening is what, then? Olivia: I think it's a simple, concrete action. Identify one person this week—someone outside your direct team whose help you need, or maybe even someone you find difficult. And instead of thinking about what you need from them, find one small way to serve them. Ask about a project they're working on, offer a piece of information that might help, or make a useful introduction. Just one small deposit in the relationship bank. Jackson: I love that. A low-stakes experiment in co-elevation. And we'd love to hear how it goes. Drop us a line on our socials and tell us about your experience. Did it work? Was it awkward? We want to know. Olivia: This is Aibrary, signing off.