Search Results for: trust

We talk a great deal about influencing stakeholders here on the influence blog, yet sometimes it is those closest to you that are a missed opportunity. If you can influence your colleagues, team members and closest co-workers, a great many others things become possible. So, without further ado, here are nine ways you can become a more influential team member:

1. Understand their goals. Key to being influential with people is having a deep insight into what they are striving for, or trying to avoid. If you can figure out their personal and professional agendas, you will develop a keener sense of how things that you do will affect them, and how they will react.
2. Be an enthusiast, of them. My oldest self-development book (Masters of the Situation by James Tilley, 1888) proposes enthusiasm as one of the secrets of power and influence. Still true, and here you can apply it to your colleagues and their goals.

Read More

The Interim: You’ve accepted a fantastic job. The problem is that you’ve been told -- and everyone knows -- that it’s a temporary position, and things quickly start to get awkward.

Interim appointments are becoming a more common feature of organisational life, especially at senior levels. The speed that ambitious and talented individuals move onwards and upwards results in key appointments forever needing to be filled – and if the organisation’s performance is not going to suffer unduly, then filling the vacancy quickly is important – but not as Read More

The Apprentice: The new guy has arrived and is strongly favoured by the CEO. He is creating lots of disruption for your team.

Anyone who has been working in an organisation -– particularly a large one -- will know that disruption is common, and often uncomfortable. While we may be able to manage our own work skilfully, the competitive environment places continuous pressure on us all to perform better and in different ways. Our ability to handle this relentless pressure to change -- and the ambiguity that Read More

Many years ago I did a silly thing. At the time, I was working in a large financial services firm, in their international division. It was a wild place to be honest, out of the mainstream. But, a place where we could innovate, move fast, open up new markets, and make lots of profit – often to the embarrassment of the larger UK based divisions. The politics were fast, at times a little brutal, but we always made up afterwards and celebrated our collective successes. The silly thing I did? Well, I thought Read More

Over the last month I’ve been talking to a lot of people about the political problems they face at work. This research was initiated to accompany a new online course I am developing, Mastering the Politics. What I wanted to do is to make sure it is relevant and solves as many of the current problems people are facing as possible. What the research threw up was as fascinating as it was depressing. So, without further ado, in reverse order, the most irritating political situations people are having to cope with at work are: Read More

“If you are asked a direct question a second time, give a direct answer no matter how much it may hurt.” This is a rule I'd like to encourage you to strive towards because it will, in the long run, help you to achieve greater success and fulfilment. Although this may appear naïve, especially if a frank and honest answer may work against you, the long term benefits can be great. Surprisingly, the short term outlook Read More

It is entirely natural to have opposition. In fact, I would encourage it. Unless you have opposition the game is too easy ― isn't it? Well I hope you think that because otherwise you might be wasting your talent, ambition and energy. Opponents stretch thinking, pressure test proposals and balance the corporate agenda. Without opposition you may end up with an organisation being dominated by a powerful few; and this can wreak havoc on the strategy, results and morale ― at least in the medium term. Yet, desirable though it is, the fact remains that the opposition will still want to win. They may be mature and tell you that it is all about making the right decision for the business, but don’t be fooled. Underneath the rhetoric is a real person. They, like you, much prefer Read More

Nine out of ten leaders are not respected by nine out of ten of their followers. Well, that’s the way it often appears when you get a group of people together in a room talking about leadership. This also came across loud and clear earlier this year when I was researching line management relationships. Part of the problem is that respect is a concept that varies wildly in interpretation, especially in diverse populations. But, does respect even matter these days? Read More