Gautrey Unleashed

Focus Influencing Goals on Influence

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It may seem a little odd as a title, but it is vital that you make sure the goal you are going to use as a focus for the Stakeholder Influence Process is about influence rather than things happening, or milestones. You are no doubt very accustomed to defining goals at work based on projects which have to be completed, agreements which need to be signed, etc. What I want you to do with influencing goals is to take one step back to consider what you have to influence in order to Read More

Exploring Influencing Goals

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Unless you know exactly what you are shooting for, you will lose ground, miss opportunities and struggle to get buy-in. If you are clear, you’ll move much faster, save time and get even better results. You need to get focused not only on your end goal, but also on what you need to influence to get there. The first step in the Stakeholder Influence Process is to clarify what you want to focus on. Pause to consider all of the important Read More

Exercise: Increasing Your Motivation to Influence

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The main principle here is that you need to find a way to keep going – or perhaps many ways to keep going. If you’ve got this far in the book, you’re already demonstrating motivation; but where will this energy and enthusiasm be in a couple of months’ time? When the going gets a little rough, you need to be ready – you need to be at your peak in motivation terms, so that you have the tenacity to stick with it. One way to do this is to keep the personal benefits that success will bring to you, and also the negative consequences or losses you will incur if you fail at the forefront of your mind. Some people tend Read More

How to Review Your Stakeholder Management Strategy

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The Stakeholder Influence Process is not a one-off event. It should be reviewed and refreshed regularly until you have achieved your goal, or the goal is no longer critical for your valuable time and attention. There are two main ways to do a review…
  • A Key Question Review where you review your progress, learning, and decide what to do next, or
  • A Process Step Review where you take a fresh look at one of the steps in the process to find creative new opportunities for advancing your goal.

Whichever review you do, make sure to have a copy of your Stakeholder Influence Map in front of you, or better still on the wall so the whole team can see it!

Each type of review Read More

Process Step Stakeholder Management Review

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For this type of review, remind yourself of the steps in the process of Stakeholder Influence Process and choose one step to focus your review on. It could be that you notice one step which is causing you problems in your progress, or could hold strong opportunities for rapid acceleration. If so, focus your review there by reminding yourself of the key points in the relevant chapter, but also considering the points made below specific to the step under review. Here are the other steps in the Stakeholder Influence Process with additional ideas pertinent Read More

How to Manage the Politics

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Politics is an inevitable feature of organisational life when you realise that the various definitions all lead to the behaviours people use when they seek to influence. These definitions are neutral when it comes to intent or agenda, so those with the best interests of the organisation at the core of their being will be political, as well as the more Machiavellian characters. The actual difference in the way it plays out is in the level of deceit and damage caused to those around. So, unless you work in an organisation where nobody is trying to influence people, you’ll need to come to terms with how politics works and how you can engage proactively (and hopefully authentically) so you can protect your Influencing Goal. Time does not permit us to do other than cover the basic principles, but the Resources section will point you to more specific coverage Read More

Choosing Your Stakeholder Engagement Tactics

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There has been a great deal of research done over the last few decades on influence, which has yielded some fascinating insights into how to engage with your stakeholders. Dr. Cecilia Falbe and her colleagues compiled and researched a range of distinct tactics which are commonly used in the workplace. They then set about considering the likelihood of the tactic being successful. The great thing about their work is that it provides a quick checklist of different approaches you could use, so that you can decide which one fits your purpose best. Provided you are aware of the likely consequences, you can Read More

How to Engage with Your Critics

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The great thing about Critics (as we are using the word here) is that you have a good relationship. The only problem is that you don’t agree with each other – but at least you can talk about it. And this lies at the heart of the optimum way of engaging with your Critics – leveraging the relationship to negotiate agreement. From this you can see that they are not against you, they just disagree with what you are trying to do. Part of your preparation to engage could involve thinking about what sort of Critic they are. To help you work out your best approach, here are the main ones I’ve come across over Read More

How to Engage with Your Enemies

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In an earlier chapter, I mentioned that it is often not a good use of your time and energy to engage with Enemies. It does not mean to do nothing, but you probably need to err on the side of indirect action rather than engagement. The reason for this is the combination of a poor relationship and open disagreement.  When you’ve put someone in this box, remember that it is usually a provisional assessment and that the title Enemies is there to provoke your thinking, not label them as horrible people! That said, with anyone here you clearly have some big concerns; and if they are Read More

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