HBR Guide to Managing Up and Across (HBR Guide Series)

Section 2

Managing Across

Do you depend on lots of people over whom you have no authority? Do you struggle to navigate your company’s political landscape? To get your cross-functional team functioning? To collaborate across time zones? To motivate colleagues to meet your deadlines when they’re juggling countless other projects?

Managing across—with peers, vendors, or consul-tants—is complex. You don’t have a say in their reviews or decide if they get promoted. So you need to use other tactics, such as setting mutually beneficial goals, establishing your credibility, polishing your powers of persuasion, and tapping into your network. The articles in this section will give you these tools.