Influence Isn’t Given. It’s Earned.

We remember sitting in a meeting with a food safety leader we’ve worked with for years. She was frustrated—again.

She had just presented a new initiative around risk assessment, and it had been met with silence by the supply chain team. “We’ve been talking about this for weeks internally,” she said. “We thought everyone would be on board.”

That’s when it clicked for her—and honestly, it’s a moment we see all the time: just because you’ve done the work within your function doesn’t mean others are ready to come along.

If your message only resonates with your team, you're not building influence. You're just reinforcing what you already believe.

Staying in Your Lane Feels Safer. But It Doesn’t Build Influence.
It’s easy to think alignment equals momentum.

But alignment within a silo often leads to surprise—and resistance—outside it. You walk into a cross-functional meeting confident, only to get blindsided by a “no” or a “not now.” It’s not because your idea is bad. It’s because others don’t see what you see.

“70% of change efforts fail due to poor cross-functional alignment.” — McKinsey & Company

If you're only working with people who think like you, you're not building cultural traction—you’re building an echo chamber.

Getting in the Room (Even Without the Invite)
One of the best culture changers we know started showing up to supply chain planning meetings without being asked. She didn’t jump in with ideas. She listened. She learned. She started asking better questions.  Eventually, she wasn’t just welcome, she was expected.

Showing up in spaces where you’re not the authority takes guts. But it also takes prep:

• Learn the business goals of the team you want to partner with.
• Use language they understand—not just food safety jargon.
• Ask what success looks like for them—and how you can help them get there.

Harvard Business School research shows that curiosity, especially across functions, helps leaders learn what matters to others, build trust, and improve decision‑making and collaboration.

Curiosity is not weakness. It’s a leadership asset.

Allyship Is a Power Move, Not a Soft Skill
Here’s what most people miss: allyship isn’t about being nice. It’s about being smart. If your food safety message is only carried by you, it dies when you leave the room. But when you build real partnerships:

• Your priorities get voiced in rooms you’re not in.
• Your data gets context.
• Your ideas gain legs.

One of our clients in operations once said: “The food safety team is the only one who ever comes to our meetings ready to hear our pain points so they can support us—not just present their own.”

That’s what allyship looks like in action.

Do an Influence Audit
Not sure where to start? Try this:

Ask yourself:

• Who outside my function do I trust—and who trusts me?
• What meetings are happening that I’ve never attended?
• What decisions impact my work that I rarely see up close?

Then pick one.

• One meeting to attend.
• One goal to support.
• One team to ask better questions of.

Influence doesn’t start with a title. It starts with action.

If you want to lead culture change, stop waiting for permission to join the conversation.

Show up. Get curious. Build bridges. Influence doesn’t happen inside your comfort zone.  Hear more about this topic on our podcast episode Stop Preaching to the Choir: Build Allies Instead.  Listen HERE.

📣 Join us at the Catalyst Summit on April 8.
We’ll dig into how leaders across food organizations are building systems that scale influence—and shift culture → Summit link here

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