Stretching Your Influence
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Political Dilemmas at Work
A practical, comprehensive guide to dealing with the complexities of politics in the workplace. Political Dilemmas at Work gives managers and leaders a comprehensive playbook for dealing with politics in the workplace. Ideal for anyone who works in a modern organisation, particularly managers and leaders, the book shows individuals how to deal with political situations in constructive, healthy and assertive ways. The situations in this book will be instantly recognisable to most experienced managers, but the solutions that readers will find here are fresh, powerful and effective. Based on the authors’ experiences as coaching managers, they offer practical tools and real-world tips for turning dilemmas into opportunities. Required reading for ambitious professionals in any industry, this is a practical and effective guide to surviving Read MoreWomen, Influence and Minority Groups
Pay attention — this is not just for women. At the Massachusetts Conference for Women in December, Marian Ruderman (a Director at the Center for Creative Leadership) told delegates that "The ability to influence remains a core leadership competency, and leaders at the executive level must understand that there is a major paradigm shift under way. Moreover, regardless of the organizational setting, society still sends conflicting messages about how women should wield power and influence, making the topic an important one to pay attention to."
Marian is absolutely right. However, her comments apply equally to all organisational levels and all groups. Her words reminded me of some research I did a few years back that noticed the different level of interest in the topic of influence between men and women. The data suggested that women are far more interested in the topic than men. Yet, looking deeper, I found that this was not because of the gender difference, but instead because women were frequently working in minority situations. This means that anyone working from a minority position is going to have to work harder to influence.
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Developing Tact and Diplomacy
At its heart, tact and diplomacy is the skill of being sensitive to the feelings and opinions of other people. Those who possess it in great quantity are naturally able to sense what is really going on in the minds of others, and then respond with a certain delicacy of feeling that influences many people extremely well. The downside is that too much tact and diplomacy can irritate rather than influence other people.
Two of my most popular articles on tact and diplomacy illustrate the problem well. Decoding and Resolving Personality Conflicts explains how personality clashes occur and what to do about them.This can go much further, and in Are You a Bully? Are You Sure You Aren't? I cite 21 common behaviours that may land you in trouble, deep trouble.
Putting all of this into context, tact and diplomacy is one of four dimensions of influence we identified when creating the Gautrey Influence Profile back in 2005. Each of these is important to overall influencing capability. When we are using the profile to coach individuals to become more effective, we aim to help them to be able to balance the dimensions and to flex their style according to the situation. The decision you make about the level of tact and diplomacy to use should be based on the person you are seeking to influence. Your capability to respond accordingly requires not only awareness, but also the skill to be able to adapt your behaviour.
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Shrewd Investments in Networking
Everyone is told they need to network. We all know the benefits; or at least we know them intellectually. Yet it still takes time and effort to get out there and do what you need to do. And, of course, we do not have very much time to spare. Getting a little more focus helps to make it easier to do.
Instead of thinking of networking as a cost (time, energy and cash),think about it in terms of an investment. Convert the time and energy into a monetary equivalent. Now...
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Occupied Territory in the Meeting Room
We all know about power positions in meetings, head of the table, back to the window, etc., but you can also consider how much space people try to occupy. Next time you are waiting for a busy meeting to commence, look around the room to see how the other people attending have marked out their territory. Those who are feeling powerful, or wish to appear that way, will take up as much room at the table as they can. Papers will be arranged, folders spread, and mobiles, tablets, etc., arranged to consume as much of the available space as they think they can get away with.
People who are feeling out of their depth, lacking in confidence or, frankly, in awe of the assembled powers, will tend to Read More
Challenging Formidable Characters
Some senior people have a reputation for demolishing people in big meetings. Not only do they have strong opinions about the task in hand, they also exercise considerable skill in destroying any challenges to their opinions. Or so it seems.
This approach is often accompanied by a brusque style, blunt to the point of rudeness, and they have very high levels of determination. If you operate at middle to senior levels in any large organisation, you know who I’m talking about!
Challenging these people can be Read More
Diagnosing Your Opposition
One of my favourite phrases relating to Stakeholder Management is, “if you don’t have any opposition, you aren't trying hard enough” (refer to Chapter 7 of Influential Leadership). While I am not suggesting that you should go looking for opposition, if you are ambitious, it is important that your plans and ideas are strong enough to provoke disagreement, or at least vigorous debate.
When disagreement arrives, it is often veiled in a cloak of assumptions and faulty communications. So, it is important when deciding how to respond to pause for a moment to check out what could be going on. Even if you cannot figure out the root cause, going through the process will highlight the gaps in your information.
If someone is opposing you, it could be due to one or more of the following Read More
Hate Networking? You Are Not Alone!
Since launching the original research and questionnaire on influencing skills, we have had thousands of people self-assess or rate others on their influencing skills. 74% say they could improve on their networking and an incredible 34% cited it as their weakest influencing skill area. So, if you don’t like going to those ‘events’ or fabricating an excuse to go talk to someone while you have more important tasks to focus on, you are by no means alone!
In my experience, I believe that most people have the capability to network, but lack the motivation to do it. They either see it as a pointless activity or a contrived engagement which lacks authenticity (or legitimacy, or both). Despite the pressure from above to network Read More
Engaging Your Critics
In the lexicon of my book, Advocates & Enemies, a Critic is an individual who you have a great relationship with (trust, openness and frequency), but they disagree with what you are seeking to achieve. Because of the strength of your relationship with them, these are special friends who can provide immense benefit to help you stretch your performance and pressure test your proposals. If the relationship is poor, they will more likely be an Enemy (okay, a strong word to use, but provocative by intent). So engage positively with Critics because they can help you so much.
The best approach to engage with them depends on the type of Critic they happen to be. If you pause a few moments to reflect on this, you are likely to be able to engage with them far more effectively. In the book, I highlighted a number of different Critics… Read More
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