When you are out there coaching people to influence, you will encounter many different attitudes which will stand in the way of your clients becoming more successful. Here are the most common attitudes which are often strongly held by those who are poor performers when it comes to influence, along with my reflections on each.
“I don’t do politics”
Sure you do. Politics is all about influence. Influence is all about politics. The difference comes in how they define what they do. Likely they have been outwitted by the office politician and suffered as a result. Alternatively, it may just be a cover — they have managed to convince themselves that what they do is different. No matter, what is more important is helping them notice how this is affecting their performance as an influencer.
“You’re trying to get me to manipulate others.”
They clearly don’t like the idea of manipulation. This is not what good influence is all about. What you need to help them with is understanding how they can influence without being manipulative (see the readings on ethics below).
“Doing a good job should be enough to get on.”
Define job. Many clients don’t include influencing as part of their role concept. Producing reports, managing people, and delivering results dominate their thinking. If you are working with them to become more influential, this needs to rise in their list of priorities. To my way of thinking, doing a good job includes making sure that key stakeholders are bought-in to your team’s role. It also means ensuring that you and your team receive fair recognition, and that is seldom gained by simply delivering results. Senior people need to be educated.
“I don’t have time for these games.”
Games? This is indicative of someone who has been frustrated by other people playing games. Influence, particular strategic influence is far from being a game. It is all about making sure that not only are results delivered — they stick. Again, many people need to move beyond this and adjust their notion of what their job is all about.
“I don’t believe in manipulating people.”
Good, nor do I. Manipulation is all about hiding things from people and trying to get them to do things that they should not be doing. A highly ethical approach to influence resolves this.
“I’m a straight dealing person and I like to speak my mind.”
Ah, good again. This builds trust and improves relationships if done with sensitivity. Yet, at times, it is expedient to hold back a little, wait for the right time, and then apply some measure of diplomacy. I’ll come back to this in another article when I share some thoughts on influencing styles.
“I don’t like blowing my own trumpet.”
No, many people being coached on influence hold on to this belief tightly. It keeps them where they are and stops them from risking embarrassment. It is very important to help people to find their own way of gaining fair recognition for what they are doing. I do not advocate people doing things that make them feel bad or like they have betrayed their inner self.
While sharing these thoughts, I don’t want you to mistake my intent. Do not use these as a recipe to engage in battle with the attitudes of your client. What they are intended to do is to stimulate your own exploration of the attitudes (and your own attitudes) in preparation for helping your clients to explore their attitudes.
For more information on this topic, take a look at Attitudes to Politics and Influence.
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