There’s a moment most of us have experienced: You walk into a room thinking a decision is still on the table, and you quickly realize it was made before anyone sat down. The meeting was a formality. You just didn’t know it.

The women who shape decisions, the ones who actually move things forward, know something the rest of the room doesn’t always see. The real work happens before the calendar invite goes out.

At a recent Women in Technology (WIT) Technology Uncorked event, a panel of senior leaders in technology and strategy gathered to talk about navigating power, pushback, and decision- making. And across every story they shared, one strategy surfaced again and again: Do the meetings before the meetings.

What that actually means

It’s not about going around people or playing political games. It’s about doing the relationship work that makes the formal meeting matter.

One panelist described leading a new product initiative at The Coca-Cola Company. She walked in with a room full of longtime employees who immediately pushed back. “We tried it. It won’t work. There’s a white paper that says so.” Instead of defending the idea on the spot, she paused. She went back and had individual conversations. She found out who had reservations, and more important, she learned why. She identified her champions. She understood the history.

Then she came back with a real business case, answers to the objections, and with the people in the room already partially won over.

“I had the meetings before the meetings,” she said. “And I love hearing the pushback, because that way you can position it when you’re in the real meeting. You can say, I heard you. This is what we’re doing about it.“

Influence doesn’t live in your title

Another panelist made a point that reframes how most of us think about organizational power. She had grown up in her company, risen through the ranks, earned her C-level seat, and discovered that one director in a finance support function had more influence over hiring decisions than anyone with a formal title.

“It wasn’t me with my C title or the CEO who told me it was approved. Ultimately, she had the influence and helped drive that for the entire organization.”

The lesson: Influence is informal and distributed. It lives in relationships, in trust, in who people call when they need to think something through. And you don’t find that out from an org chart. You find it by paying attention, building relationships across levels, and as one panelist put it, going to the food court.

“You start to see who hangs out with each other, whose kids go to school together, who’s neighbors with who. And then you start to understand how influence actually moves.”

Resistance Is data

Every panelist had experienced pushback. The kind that’s obvious, and the kind that isn’t. Silence in a meeting. An idea attributed to someone else. A decision quietly reversed after you leave the room.

Their advice wasn’t to avoid conflict or push harder. It was to get curious.

“When I find resistance, I say: ‘I feel some tension here. Tell me what I’ve missed. Help me understand what you see as a blocker.” One panelist described this as turning resistance into information. “The resistors give you so much data. They show you the path. They tell you exactly what you need to address.”

That reframe matters. Pushback isn’t a wall. It’s a map.

Building alignment is the job

As careers advance, the work shifts. It’s less about executing tasks and more about building consensus, removing obstacles, and moving ideas through people.

“When we’re younger in our careers, it’s all about the task,” one panelist reflected. “The further we progress, all of my time is spent shaping, influencing, working with peers, and helping move ideas forward.”

That’s not a soft skill. That’s leadership. And it requires a different kind of preparation than most of us were taught.

The meeting before the meeting isn’t a trick. It’s the practice of showing up to formal moments with the relationships, information, and alignment already built. It’s how decisions get made, and how you get to be part of making them.

Try it this week

Before your next important meeting, ask yourself:

• Who in this room hasn’t been heard yet?
• Who are my potential champions, and have I talked to them?
• What’s the real resistance, and what does it tell me about what I still need to address?
• Is there a conversation I can have before that would make the formal meeting more productive?

The goal isn’t to predetermine the outcome. It’s to show up prepared, to bring people along, and to lead in a way that makes the work, and the people doing it, better.

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This insight was drawn from a WIT Technology Uncorked event on navigating power, pushback, and decision-making. Women in Technology (WIT) creates possibilities for more women to explore, pursue, persist, and lead in technology. Learn more at mywit.org.