Colin Gautrey

Analysing Risks and Spotting Opportunities

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One of the dangers of focusing on people and relationships in the Stakeholder Influence Process is that it draws attention away from events which could happen. High impact events are fairly evident, but not always anticipated, or planned for. Quite often, events pass by without being noticed for their potential to help or hinder the project you are working on. For this reason, taking at least a quick glance at this potential could show ways to accelerate your project, or move out of the way of things which could damage your progress. To avoid over-complicating things, a risk is an event which could have a negative impact on your objective and an opportunity is an event which could have a positive impact. The greater the impact (positive or negative) and the higher the Read More

Leaders: Bullies by Nature or Nurture?

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Many of the behaviours exhibited by leaders can easily be classified as bullying behaviours, especially when many of them converge to form the essence of a leader’s style. In a recent article, I cited 31 behaviours which could be viewed as legitimate yet prone to being misconstrued. Of the more innocent you have…
  • Demanding things at short notice.
  • Telling people what to do and how to do it.
  • Cancelling meetings at short notice.
  • Closely monitoring work ― micromanaging.
  • Asking people to do things without giving them a reason why.
Do you know any leaders who do these things? Of course you do. Now, what if you add a few less innocent ones into the mix? Read More

Business Partners: How to Influence the Relationship

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NB: This is a large guide and will take you quite a while to work through all the elements over several weeks. When I say business partners, I am referring to many different types of relationship, including outsourcing providers, suppliers, and internal teams. In fact, any type of relationship which has many people on each side who have to work together. These types of relationship are often problematic for a number of reasons...
  1. There are so many different people involved.
  2. Lines of communication often get tangled, forgotten or frankly, abused.
  3. Each team will often have conflicting agendas (we'll talk about partnerships later).
  4. High levels of pressure are exerted on both sides to deliver results.
  5. One side is often in a subservient position (despite equal dependency).
A poor relationship is untenable, albeit highly likely. It is untenable because as supply chains become increasingly fragmented, disparate groups of people have to work Read More

How to Influence Senior People without Looking Stupid

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With so many people trying to influence the senior people in big organisations, it pays to look smart and highly competent. This can pay huge dividends, literally. The opposite is also true — looking stupid in front of an important audience is like making a gift to your opposition. Here is a short tour through some of the most cringe worthy mistakes made by the unwary. Make sure they don't let these slip into your next influence attempt, because they will quickly erode your credibility, influence and make your confidence fly out the window.

Speaking the wrong language

Using your own jargon, acronyms and inside jokes rather than tuning into their world. Although the primary language may be the same, you can easily appear worlds apart. You may think that Read More

How to Manage Your Stakeholders

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The Stakeholder Influence Process is central to becoming more influential. It is a simple process which will keep you thinking about the things  you need to think about in order that you can accelerate progress towards your goals. It will also help you to face up to the sometimes difficult meetings by providing you with an extra level of confidence - because you've thought it through. Often, just spending an hour on this can provide the insight necessary to achieve your goals. Here are the key steps in the overall process and the links you need to delve deeper while learning how to influence using this approach.

The Process

Below we have each step and the key links which will help you to learn how to use the process. Some of these links lead to other guides which go into more detail., others to further resources to stimulate your thinking. Read More

How to Engage with Your Stakeholders

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The thinking you have done so far in the process is likely to be useless unless you get active. Careful preparation before you engage your stakeholders will increase the probability that you’ll achieve your goal. And this stage is all about preparation. It explores a wide range of different topics related to engaging with stakeholders. Each of these topics could justify a book in its own right, so what I have tried to do is keep it simple and brief. Where I think it useful, I have also referenced other books which can be found in the library. One of the temptations with the Stakeholder Influence Process is to fly into action as soon as you get the first big flash of inspiration. That may well yield the result you want, but please consider pausing just a moment longer to make a clear decision about how you wish to tackle each Read More

Tailoring Your Stakeholder Pitch

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It is one of the most natural things in the world to be preoccupied with your own ideas and plans. If this spreads into the way you engage with stakeholders, it isn’t going to get you very far. It is essential to translate your own ideas and goals into words and phrases that your stakeholder might naturally use, or that will speak to their agenda. I’m a firm believer in the notion that you should have a consistent vision as the base for all communication with stakeholders. If you don’t have this, there is a very real danger that when your stakeholders get together they may start talking about your goal and realise Read More

Understanding Conflicting Agendas

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Unless you understand someone else’s position, ambitions and problems, your influence attempts could be much more difficult. When others don’t want to cooperate or are working against you, “conflicting agendas” are often cited as the cause. This seems to signal a barrier to success, an explanation of why you can’t get the things done – or is it just an excuse? A more helpful attitude is that it is simply a question of different priorities. This opens up the possibility that the difference could be negotiated to achieve a win-win situation, while also removing Read More

How to Develop Your Stakeholder Strategy

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This part of the Stakeholder Influence Process usually begins to happen quite naturally as you are analysing each individuals position. Yet what usually happen is that the initial ideas for action are unlikely to be the more appropriate or effective. Here you will find a collection of resources to really challenge your thinking, test thought devilish assumptions of yours and help you to turn a conversation into a coherent strategy and plan for action. Oh, and your strategy does not need to be Read More

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