Priyom's Informal Influence and Power Mapping (IIPM) Framework for change management

This case is based on an interview I conducted to explore the journey of a young manager (referred to as 'Pinkman' for anonymity) in becoming a Deputy General Manager, with the aim of comparing change management literature to a real-life scenario.

This case examines organizational change through the career of Pinkman (name made anonymous). He completed his Bachelor’s degree in Electronics Engineering before earning an MBA from the prestigious Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Bangalore, marking the beginning of his journey into strategic leadership roles. He began his post-MBA career as an Area Business Manager at Goodman and Associates, where he navigated the complexities of regional marketing in a highly competitive market. At present, he serves as Deputy General Manager at LOS POLLOS HERMANOS (company name kept anonymous), an engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) consultancy.

The report focuses on the theme of implementing change, analysing two change initiatives by Pinkman. First, his early experience at Goodman and Associates, where he designed and executed a digital marketing campaign that reversed regional underperformance, driven by informal influence and strategic coalition. Second, a large-scale organizational restructuring at LOS POLLOS HERMANOS, where he helped shift the company’s operating model from a hub-and-spoke system to vertical-based autonomy.

Change Process

Goodman and Associates India: Driving Change from the Bottom Up

At Goodman and Associates India, Pinkman began his post-MBA career as Area Business Manager (ABM) in Central Bengal, overseeing over 1,100 retail partners. He noticed a strategic blind spot - competitors were capturing the online space. He explained –

“Goodman and Associates was very strong in their offline presence… but the biggest problem they had was their online presence”.

As a new fresh MBA grad, Pinkman lacked positional authority to initiate the change. He understood that suggesting major change could be seen as overstepping. He remarked –

“Why would they listen to a young chap like me who is just out of college?”

Hence, to build credibility, he went out to the markets with Managers, he was inquisitive about their works, he treated his managers with respect, went out for drink or dinner with managers to bond, and the Business managers were also from similar background as him – from different IIMs (IIM Lucknow, IIM Calcutta).

“I went with them to their markets… I was very inquisitive… we socialised outside work — dinner, drinks — that helped build the bond.”

These factors helped Pinkman fit in the organization quickly and build trust. He then worked towards his personal vision of organizational change goal of improving Goodman and Associates’ online presence in Central Bengal, India. Rather than taking the idea straight to the management, Pinkman, in his words, “planted a seed” - subtly introducing the idea of integrating online marketing with traditional campaigns to different ABMs. He leaned on his peer network of ABMs.

As momentum grew among ABMs, they collectively presented the opportunity to the management. However, organizations are stable and resistant to change and hence, the vision received questions and the management were skeptical. Pinkman remarked –

“Definitely they had questions, the doubts. They had their biases in mind.”

To tackle these biases, his presentation of the change initiative to management relied on data-backed persuasion. This sharply contrasts with the Thomas Green case, where Green failed to build support for his argument before challenging performance goals set by Frank Davis in a meeting, asserting that the goals were impossible to meet. Furthermore, Pinkman emphasised –

“Any action must have a valid reason backed by data. To break those biases, the data helped.” 

The idea or “the seed”, initially informal, gained support and was eventually formalized by the management into a regional initiative. Pinkman along with his team devised the digital campaign for Durga Puja, one of the biggest festivals in India and within three months, Goodman and Associates re-gained 33% market share in Central Bengal. He added –

“It was a crazy campaign, went very successful and that's when I think Goodman and Associates took that curve ball and went ahead with strong online presence and now you see Goodman and Associates quite active online.”

Furthermore, the campaign’s success demonstrated that innovation does not always need to start from the top, it can emerge from trust-based peer action, packaged with credibility, and defended with data.

LOS POLLOS HERMANOS: Redesigning the System Without Redrawing the Lines of Power

At LOS POLLOS HERMANOS, Pinkman played a pivotal role in a major organizational restructuring initiative. When he joined the firm, LOS POLLOS HERMANOS operated on a hub-and-spoke model, where different centralized teams supported various technical verticals such as water, energy, renewables, and bridges. However, this model led to inefficiencies as complexity increased with expansion of LOS POLLOS HERMANOS to different parts of India. This aligns with the Greiner Growth Model, which suggests that each stage of organisational growth eventually triggers a crisis, necessitating organizational change. In this case, the crisis of inefficiencies reflected not failure but progress (or expansion).

In 2023, the executive leadership initiated a shift to a vertical-based autonomy model, aiming to decentralize control and make each vertical accountable for its own businesses. Pinkman was appointed as one of the members of the team to help plan and implement this change. His selection for the initiative was a result of gradual, trust-based progression. Initially, Pinkman began by consistently delivering his core responsibilities, without supervision. He emphasised –

“Only when you deliver on your core, they trust you with more.”

Later, he stood out in the organization as he proactively recognized the pressures his managers faced in juggling interviews, meetings, and external conferences. He proactively offered to assist his bosses, saying -

“Why don’t I take up that responsibility?”

Rather than waiting to be asked, he stepped in during scheduling conflicts, helping cover critical duties and building trust. As he put it -

“Trust doesn’t fall from a tree… it’s gained by the work you do on a day-to-day basis. you need to be your boss’s right hand”

Unlike Ralph, who during the shareholder meeting boldly asked to be appointed as co-CEO, despite having no formal authority, Pinkman took a more measured approach, being aware of his junior status. Over time, this initiative shifted the dynamic. His managers began to rely on him, asking him to represent them in meetings, attend conferences on their behalf, and even conduct interviews. He became his boss’s right hand. This transition, from doing his job well, to becoming the trusted right-hand person for leaders, made him a natural choice when the management sought dependable individuals to lead the restructuring.

As part of the core team, Pinkman worked on redesigning internal systems to align with new structure. Like every change initiative, this restructuring faced resistance as well. He explained –

“Some people didn’t like it… many people lost their powers because when it was centralized, the power was concentrated in a few hands,”

The move from centralized to decentralized control meant that individuals who had broad cross-functional authority suddenly found their influence restricted. Even Pinkman acknowledged that his own powers reduced –

“I was a Deputy General Manager from the centralized angle; now I only work in the energy sector.”

Still, he supported the shift, recognizing its broader strategic value –

“This doesn’t mean the change was bad.”

Furthermore, Pinkman clarified that his role was not to persuade the dissenters but to implement the system -

“My goal was not to hold someone’s hand and drag them through the change.”

However, his approach involved listening, acknowledging concerns, and allowing space for adaptation without enforcing conformity.

The restructuring, implemented in August 2024, is still in its early stages, and its long-term effectiveness remains to be fully assessed. However, Pinkman shared the mixed reactions within the organization.

“Some people embraced it… We have been winning projects… we have been delivering well… Some people find change difficult and they move out… I don't see any harm in that…”

This divergence underscores a deeper tension in organizational change, while structures can be redesigned, people respond based on how change repositions their identity and influence. Additionally, Pinkman acknowledged that success in this transition did not rely on persuasion, but on self-selection, those aligned with the model stayed and adapted, while others opted out.

This case highlights an important insight, successful transformation does not always require unanimous agreement, but rather a committed core willing to work within the new design. Whether the model will sustain improved performance across all verticals over time remains an open question, one that only future results can answer.

LESSONS

Lesson 1: Implementing Change — Beyond Kotter’s “Leading Change” Model

The change initiative led by Pinkman at Goodman and Associates to shift from a traditional marketing to digital marketing offers critical insights that both align with and challenge Kotter’s model. This lesson draws on the case to deepen the understanding of implementing change in a planned way, highlighting the critical role of informal authority and peer-led influence in modern organizations.

The Kotter’s model logic is linear and top-down, and outlines an eight-step top-down process for managing organizational change, including establishing urgency, forming a guiding coalition, and institutionalizing new approaches. However, the Digital Campaign at Goodman and Associates led by Pinkman challenges these assumptions and suggests that informal authority, peer credibility, and lateral influence can also drive meaningful change, extending the applicability of Kotter’s model.

According to the model, the process begins with establishing urgency. However, Pinkman did not have the authority to create top-down urgency. Instead, he planted the seed for change informally, leveraging discussions, social bonding, and persuasion. His strategy illustrates that urgency can also be cultivated gradually and horizontally through shared peer connections, not dramatic crisis narratives.

Additionally, Kotter’s second step, forming a guiding coalition, is reinterpreted in this case. While Kotter envisions a guiding coalition as a formal group of powerful allies across departments, Pinkman formed a coalition of peers with shared backgrounds and mutual trust through sharing the idea. This coalition emerged through shared fieldwork, informal bonding, and aligned goals. It demonstrates that effective guiding coalitions can also be horizontal rather than vertical. His approach was stealthy, what he called “planting a seed”, not urgent, contrasting with Kotter’s emphasis on a “burning platform.”

Furthermore, Pinkman’s initiative at Goodman and Associates challenges Kotter’s model in terms of its rigid sequencing of change. The model proposes that each of the eight steps must be followed in sequence for change to be successful. However, Pinkman’s case illustrates a more fluid, non-linear progression. He did not start with a dramatic sense of urgency or a formal guiding coalition as Kotter prescribes. Instead, he quietly embedded himself in the system, built credibility through market visits, delivering his core job objectives, informal bonding, and shadowing his seniors, and only then he began “planting the seed” of change. There was no official communication of a grand vision up front, rather small conversations and peer discussions gradually aligned others around the idea. Many of Kotter’s steps, like forming a coalition, creating a vision, and communicating it, occurred simultaneously and iteratively in the background, rather than in sequence. This shows that real change often happens through trust, influence, and persuasion,  and multiple steps can occur simultaneously, challenging the one-size-fits-all nature of Kotter’s linear roadmap.

Thus, while Kotter emphasizes top-down urgency and leadership, Pinkman’s case reveals a “bottom-up” pathway to change, suggesting we need to expand our models to account for informal influence, peer-based trust, and incremental seeding of ideas in resistant systems.

Overall, while Kotter’s model remains valuable for structuring change in formal settings, Pinkman’s initiative at Goodman and Associates reveals how change can also originate from informal influence, peer credibility, and iterative persuasion. His bottom-up approach challenges the top-down bias in Kotter’s model and extends its relevance to contexts where authority is limited, but initiative is strong. Additionally, it highlights the untapped power of informal leadership and the need for a model that reflect the complex, networked realities of modern organizations.

Lesson 2: Implementing Change the Political Way: A Critical Analysis Using Goodman and Associates India

The case of Pinkman’s initiative at Goodman and Associates India provides a compelling context to examine, challenge, and extend conventional decision-making theories such as payoff matrices, minimax and maximax strategies, and expected value (EV), highlighting how political skills and social capital can outperform strict rational-choice models.

Firstly, Payoff matrix assumes that actors make decisions based on clearly defined outcomes and probabilities. However, in real organizations like Goodman and Associates, payoffs are rarely objective or visible. Pinkman was operating in a highly ambiguous environment as management did not clearly state their risk tolerance or digital strategy, and Pinkman’s peers had no formal incentives to support his initiative. This challenges the premise that decision-makers can calculate objective payoffs or expected values. Instead, Pinkman had to construct perceived payoffs by socially framing online integration as a shared opportunity to his peers. Hence, this case reveals that in the early stages of change, actors must work to shape the payoff structure itself rather than respond to a known matrix.

Secondly, traditional decision models separate minimaxers and maximaxers into binary opposites. But the Goodman and Associates case demonstrates the utility of a hybrid lens. Initially, Pinkman avoided both extremes. He did not push his proposal to the top management too soon (which would be maximax) nor did he abandon it fearing backlash (minimax). Instead, he reduced the risk of the idea politically by planting it informally to his peer network, building peer support. Only when the idea was backed by data and supported by his peers, he approached management. This suggests that real-world change agents such as Pinkman, often act as bounded maximaxers, those who seek high upside but within a politically buffered structure -  that is they do so in a careful, strategic way, not recklessly. They do not chase the maximum gain at all costs.

Thirdly, EV theory implies a probabilistic, long-term view and value of outcomes. But in organizations, EV is not calculated in monetary terms alone, it is a mix of social capital, visibility, and strategic alignment. Pinkman invested heavily in relationship-building and trust not because it provided short-term payoffs but because it increased the expected political value of his idea. This redefines EV as a multi-dimensional construct that includes credibility, timing, and institutional fit, not just measurable outputs. It also shows that in political environments, EV is often built before outcomes are visible, through intangible work like informal bonding, local wins, and symbolic alignment.

Finally, while payoff matrices are often used to explain behavior, the Goodman and Associates case shows they can be reshaped through political behavior. Pinkman did not accept the initial matrix where innovation was risky and resistance likely. Instead, he shifted others’ perceived payoffs, peers saw online integration as a chance for visibility, and management saw data-backed arguments as lower risk. This implies that change agents must act not within payoff matrices, but upon them, redefining what constitutes risk, reward, or neutrality for each stakeholder.

Lesson 3: Discovering Better Goals — “Standing Out” Must Be Timed and Situated

According to McDonald’s PC:PE, successful professionals must balance fitting in and standing out. The implication is that too much eccentricity without enough competence risks marginalization, while too much conformity risks invisibility. Yet, the case of Pinkman’s role in the LOS POLLOS HERMANOS restructuring both reinforces and complicates this model.

When Pinkman joined LOS POLLOS HERMANOS, his early focus was on credibility-building. He excelled at his core responsibilities, delivered without supervision, and earned the confidence of his superiors over time. In PC:PE terms, this phase was a deliberate downplaying of eccentricity (PE) and maximization of perceived competence (PC), which aligns with McDonald’s theory. He conformed, performed, and embedded himself into the organization's trusted fabric.

The LOS POLLOS HERMANOS case suggests that the timing of eccentricity matters and early deviation before credibility might lead to alienation. Moreover, his “fitting in” phase was essential groundwork, enabling him to later “stand out” without being perceived as threatening. If he would have asked his bosses if they needed help without fitting in first, he would have been ignored or risk being marginalized.

Once trust was established, Pinkman transitioned to a more proactive, even unconventional role. He volunteered to cover for his bosses, attended high-level meetings, and helping his bosses without being asked. This shift represents the emergence of eccentricity in proactive behavior that defied hierarchical expectations. Additionally, this was a calculated deviation from Pinkman’s standard responsibilities, timed at a moment when his competence was no longer in question.

Furthermore, the PC:PE framework tends to treat eccentricity as a static feature but Pinkman’s LOS POLLOS HERMANOS case shows that eccentricity can be enacted strategically through unorthodox role expansion, timed precisely when it is least likely to be resisted. The model is extended to account for situated eccentricity, that is, deviations from norms that emerge only after one has secured the organizational license to lead differently.

Additionally, the most interesting observation with the PC:PE model appears during the LOS POLLOS HERMANOS’s restructuring itself. Pinkman, who was part of the change implementation team, supported the move from centralized to decentralized authority. This shift reduced the influence of certain previously powerful actors, including, as he admits, his own span of control:

“I was a Deputy General Manager from the centralized angle; now I only work in the energy sector.”

This is significant. Pinkman’s own power narrowed, yet he stood behind the system while others did not. His eccentricity here was not personal expression but a conscious choice to follow a system he believed in, aligning with an impersonal system rather than defending personal power or influence.

In this context, perceived eccentricity became not a trait but a positioning. Some colleagues resisted the change because it eroded their control. Pinkman, by contrast, stood out by accepting the loss of authority for the sake of structural coherence. Moreover, the most consequential “eccentric” behavior Pinkman displayed was not about appearance or expression, but about his stance during organizational change. While others clung to the old model and exited the new system entirely, he advocated for a vision that cut down even his own authority.

Thus, while McDonald suggests - you should be as eccentric as you are competent (or PC = PE), Pinkman’s case suggests a refinement, you can be as systemically deviant as your prior embeddedness allows. Trust, not just competence, is the currency that buys room for that deviance. That is, it is not enough to simply “be good at your job”, the organization must trust that your deviation serves its interest, not your ego. Without this perception, even competence may not shield you from backlash.

“Those who believed in the system stayed.”

This statement captures a final insight, leadership is not about dragging everyone along, but about building a coalition that voluntarily aligns. When the system itself is the eccentricity, as in restructuring, leaders must rely more on institutional clarity. Those who stay, stay because they want to. And those who lead, do so not because they are different, but because they know when and how to lead.

Informal Influence and Power Mapping (Framework for the First Years of a Career)

One concrete action one could take in their early professional career is to apply my self-developed strategic tool - Informal Influence and Power Mapping (IIPM) Framework. It treats relationships as dynamic assets and positions influence, as the engine of early-career impact. Rather than relying solely on job titles, this framework will enable one to engage with the true decision-makers and informal leaders within any organisation.

The IIPM Framework is rooted in four components - identifying key influence nodes, decoding their informal power, creating mutual value pathways, and continuously adapting the map as relationships evolve. The process begins by recognising that influence does not always sit with the most senior title and it often lies with those who are respected, emotionally invested, or connected to how decisions get made. Early-career professionals can examine what drives these individuals, how they communicate, and what value they seek, enabling you to build authentic engagement strategies, whether through quick wins, collaboration, or informal bonding. Additionally, as alliances form and relationships shift, they can revise their influence map to reflect these evolving dynamics, ensuring they remain politically aware and strategically agile.

This framework is drawn directly from Lessons 1, 2, and 3 from the case of Pinkman and his success at Goodman and Associates and LOS POLLOS HERMANOS. Pinkman demonstrated that formal authority is not a prerequisite for driving change. Despite having no senior title, he influenced outcomes by identifying lateral allies, framing compelling ideas, and building emotional commitment. His approach redefined power as something earned through value and relationship-building. This insight disrupted the default early-career assumption that change comes after seniority and authority. It made clear that understanding informal networks and working within them strategically is not political manipulation, but rather a form of conscious, values-aligned leadership, which can help drive change.

In practice, professionals can begin applying the IIPM framework to projects in their early career. They can build an initial influence map around the initiative, assess each stakeholder’s informal weight, and develop a tailored strategy for engagement. This approach not only increases the chances that they will drive meaningful change but also enables them to do so earlier in their career, without waiting for positional authority. Furthermore, it will enable them to be seen as a catalyst and stand out in a good way, someone who creates momentum by understanding the human architecture of organisations.