Colin Gautrey

Five Questions to Shape Your Influence

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At middle to senior positions in large organisations, a high proportion of the work is all about influence. With so much change around and some (apparently) competing agendas, changing hearts and minds is essential work. It is rare indeed that you can force people to comply, so you need to become a brilliant influencer. Below are five questions which, in my view, every effective and active influencer will be able to answer quite easily when asked. You can use them to challenge yourself, and also, to demonstrate your thinking to others.

1. What is your influencing goal?

Quite simply, what is it you are attempting to achieve? I've written many times on this subject, and some of the links are given below. Perhaps the easiest way to focus your goal is to consider Read More

Stakeholder Engagement: The Seven Guiding Principles

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Much has been said about how to do stakeholder management. But it is easy to miss opportunities to accelerate the level of engagement with your stakeholders and make sure they are the right ones too. To help keep you focused on deciding how to engage and whom to engage with, here are seven stakeholder management principles which, if followed, will move you faster towards your goal(s).
  1. A stakeholder is anyone who has an interest in what you are trying to achieve. This interest could be positive or negative. Anyone who is going to win when you win, or lose when you win, is a stakeholder. Even if their loss is simply having to do their job a different way, they could be a very important stakeholder. This makes for a very large group of people.
  2. Focus on the stakeholders who have the Read More

Expanding Social Capital and Creating Political Capital

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Having political capital allows you to get things done. Yet it is only possible to have political capital if you have first invested in building a solid foundation of social capital. Interestingly, although many people have this base of social capital, not many develop it into the sort of influence that only political capital can achieve. Given my recent dire Early Warning: A Political Storm is Brewing, it is critical that you take action on this as soon as possible. Below I will explore how these ideas work together and then move swiftly onto sharing some thoughts on how you can bolster your social capital and develop it into the much more valuable political capital.

Social Capital

At its simplest level, social capital is the quantity and quality of your relationships. The potential usefulness of your social capital depends very much on who these relationships are with. You will be right to think that Read More

Raising Your Game — Influencing Groups

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Most people we meet tend to be focusing on influencing individuals — the stakeholder matters most. That is great, however it’s only a start. Once you have begun to make good progress individually, you can start to turn more of your attention towards groups. There are a number of reasons why this presents a great opportunity to raise your game.
  • Efficiency. Every minute counts in a busy day. Why spend your time influencing one person when you could spend the same amount of time influencing 10 or 50 or more?
  • Complexity. The bewildering array of variables to consider. Yes, this is an opportunity to push back from your cosy life and enter a new, stimulating world.
  • Visibility. Scary but true, influencing groups means you have to get out there and perform on stage, or at least in front of a large group of people. Getting noticed is important to career prospects.
  • Difficulty. Be under no illusion, this is challenging work. This means that fewer people attempt to do it and even fewer succeed. Those who do quickly rise to the top.
  • Power. The more competent you become at influencing groups, the more powerful you will become. Power positively used can do a huge amount of good in the world and it can make your world pretty comfortable too!
So, assuming Read More

Would Your Team Choose You as Their Leader?

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While reviewing a book proposal a few weeks ago, it struck me that here was another great missive working on the assumption that people get to choose their leader. It was suggesting that what you need to do to be a great leader is figure out why your followers are following you. Nice idea, but, certainly in the world at work, most of those decisions are taken by a higher authority. Followers just have to put up with it, unless they are in the rare and cherished position of being able to simply walk. And, don’t delude yourself that because you recruited said followers, they chose you. Most often, new hires choose the job, not the person holding the leadership position. Of course, that you are a brilliant and inspiring individual must have counted somewhere in the decision, but was probably not the critical factor. As you develop your ability to lead, and help others learn how to lead, here is a great question to stimulate Read More

Do You Trust Me?

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Have you ever asked this question? It wouldn't surprise me if only 1% of people who ask this question actually ask it out loud. If you did ask someone this question, would you trust the answer? Hmm, probably about as useful as asking someone to trust you. If you have to ask someone to trust you, or if you have to ask if someone trusts you, you're already in trouble. Since trust is so central to influence, it is important to know the answer to this question even though it’s almost pointless asking. Many articles have been written on how to build trust, but rarely do they touch on how you can tell if your effort to build trust is working. Measuring results and monitoring performance indicators is normal activity in most organisations, so how about Read More

Dirty Tricks and Office Politics

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1841126578If you feel bad about office politics that go on around you, you are certainly not alone. In any group of more than one, people will be trying to influence each other and some people use less savoury tactics or dirty tricks, in order to get their way. Here are some of the more common dirty tricks which people use. Many of them were featured in our best-selling book, 21 Dirty Tricks at Work: How to Win the Game of Office Politics. These are shared here not as a game tip sheet, but rather a preparation for recognising them for what they are (office politics) and then learning how to overcome them with honesty, integrity and a fair degree of assertion.

c_handstiedMy Hands Are Tied

Pretending to be helpless due to the influence of a higher authority or process when, under the same circumstances but with a different person, there would be a different outcome. “Sorry, Ben, but the policy is…”

Email to the Gods

Using email to shame or coerce another. This is usually an email arriving from a colleague (which includes either true or false information), levelling accusations of blame, which are also copied on to bosses, directors, customers, suppliers, etc. 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

Introduction to Stakeholder Identification

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To achieve your goals and influence effectively, it is vital to focus your energy on those who can have the greatest ability to help or hinder. Without this focus, people tend to work on those who are nearest, best known or most convenient rather than those whom they should be influencing. The title “Stakeholder” has been gaining popularity over the last few years. Its traditional use refers to large groups of people, often with a somewhat nebulous, yet real existence – the media, the public and shareholders are often what’s being referred to. As such, stakeholders used to be the chief concern of high level boards and committees. However, the shift in popular usage is happening because of the realisation that the ideas used at a high level to manage these groups can apply just as well to more humble pursuits – the sort of projects that people throughout the organisation run. The definition I want to use here is only Read More

What Is Group Power? How to Influence Strategically

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This is another of those simple concepts often over-complicated by well-meaning consultants in the realms of organisational psychology. Avoiding the complexity gives you more time to act. Once you understand what group power is, it will become easier to spot opportunities to influence more effectively. It will help you to magnify your influence and put the group to work. So, keeping it simple, in organisational realms, group power is:

"the collective capacity of a group of people to create influence"

There are four elements you need to think about with this definition. Read More

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