The Influence Leader blog will be on hiatus for the forseeable future as I work on other, all-consuming projects. I hope you’ve enjoyed the postings; I have enjoyed contributing them. –Eric
Which role are you taking?
1 July 2009
The influence leader faces a dilemma: When you are trying to advance a project, do you take the role of a convener/facilitator or that of an advocate?
These are distinct roles that are both important to getting things done. But the influence leader that carelessly mixes the two will quickly find themselves in trouble and the larger conversation in tatters.
For example, suppose you are trying to set direction for your project or organization. Two things need to happen at the same time. First, you and the people you are working with (and working for) need to have a complete discussion. That takes planning and conscious effort. Second, you need to step up and let people know what you’re thinking.
If you push a position when you should be shepherding the process, people will distrust your motives and resent your heavy-handedness. If you fail to take a position when people want to know what you think, you’ll look wishy-washy and uncommitted.
What are these roles?
As convener/facilitator, your task is to help everyone involved to have the fullest, most productive conversation needed to achieve results. You help frame the questions, you make space for everyone to participate, you make sure people are heard, and you ensure that decisions are made in a way that everyone can support.Your primary focus is the process of coming to a decision.
As an advocate, you’ve got your own ideas and opinions about what should be done and what should be decided. In fact, folks may be looking to you to weigh in with your perspective. You have an investment in the outcome of the process, so your primary focus is there.
You aren’t doing your job if you pick one of the roles to the exclusion of the other. Since you cannot just pick one, you need to pick both.
Both? Yes, you need to shift between roles, making sure the discussion is on track and also weighing in with your opinion.
The trick is to state clearly about which role you’re taking at a given time. Let people know that you are balancing two distinct roles.
If you are clear with yourself and others about which role you’re in, you’ll be able to manage the dilemma and keep yourself from getting stuck.
The definition of insanity
19 June 2009
Disciplining middle schoolers. Can you imagine a more thankless task? I had a recent experience of watching teachers trying to keep 6th graders in line, trying it discipline them, impose sanctions, etc. The teachers didn’t get very satisfactory results—to say the least.
I have a 6th grader myself, so I struggle with this challenge. What I noticed about other people (the teachers and students) is that they were locked in at least one recurring pattern. Each person was repeating the same behavior and getting the same reaction from the other. Here’s how the patterns might look:
In the first pattern, the teacher would ask the student to do something or for an explanation of their behavior, and the student would ignore or dismiss the request, even become intransigent. In the second pattern, the teacher would tell the student what to do, and the student would rebel, refuse to do the task or do something the teacher didn’t want them to do.
As the saying goes, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again—and expecting a different result. When two or more people are stuck in a pattern they are both acting “insane” because they keep doing the same thing but hope for a different result.
When you’re stuck in a pattern, not getting the results you want, there’s only one thing to do: change your own behavior. You can’t control the other person’s behavior (especially a teenager’s), but you can control yours.
In other words, try something different and see what result it has. What if you “offered,” “explained,” or “thanked” them? Chances are they’d respond differently.
It’s hard to tell when we ourselves are stuck in a pattern. It’s easier for an outsider to see it, so ask for help. Try using the diagram above to reveal the pattern.
The more you can detect you’re stuck in a pattern, identify it, and act to break the pattern, you’ll be far more effective as a influencer—whether you are trying to sway the CEO, your siginificant other, or a teenager.
Do you truly care what others think?
12 June 2009
Last week, I taught mid-career professionals in using dialogue (as opposed to discussion) to explore issues and understand different points of view.
A brief primer on dialogue: While discussion focuses on seeing differences, justifying positions, persuading and selling (among other things), dialogue seeks to increase understanding among people, seeing connections, exploring assumptions and creating shared meaning.
Dialogue balances advocacy (advancing your point of view) with inquiry (exploring what’s underneath others’ and your own perspectives). Discussion favors advocacy over inquiry.
Back to my story: Here were a motivated group of people, who had spent a week together working on learning about themselves and about communicating effectively, and yet it was really hard for them to keep from slipping out of dialogue into discussion.
They had prepared themselves for the dialogue and identified dialogic behaviors they wanted to develop, but in practice sessions they did much more advocacy than inquiry, including interrupting each other.
Clearly, people needed more time and practice to learn how to dialogue. They were smart, motivated folks, yet the old habits still took hold.
I wonder how true that is for influence leaders in general. I know I sometimes surrender to my desire to drive home a point.
How well do you practice true inquiry and dialogue with the people you want to influence? Do you succumb to desire to advocate too readily?
There’s no substitute for talking
4 June 2009
In a meeting this morning, a client described a protracted conflict with some of his board members and how they would communicate with him in multiple-page e-mails (at least one was sent at 2 am on a Sunday morning!). These e-mails included attacks and criticisms that crossed the line, at least from my client’s (and my own) perspective.
In this age of electronic communication—e-mail, text messaging, Twitter, etc.—I think that people are trying to do too much electronically—and too little face-to-face.
When it comes to clearing the air with someone, e-mail and memos simply don’t cut it. You’ve got to talk face-to-face.
It’s pretty common, though, that when the conversation gets tough, when there is conflict, people want to protect themselves. And, an easy way to do that is to send one-way messages rather than risk a two-way conversation.
Unfortunately, doing that only makes things worse, because those one-way communication tools have very limited bandwidth. You can’t see their gestures, you can hear their tone of voice or even tell if they care. You can’t show you understand, and neither can they.
To have a productive conversation and actually resolve a problem, you need a lot of bandwidth—and that only comes in a face-to-face meeting.
You’d need to do what one of my coaching clients did a few weeks back. He had a very unpleasant exchange with a colleague in the hallway. Talking with me, he took a step back, looked at the situation from a different angle, and made a plan to approach his colleague for a one-on-one chat. It went very well—even better than expected.
If you want to perpetuate a conflict, retreating to one-way communication works well. If you want to resolve the problem, there’s no getting around talking face-to-face.
Go straight to the source
20 May 2009
A colleague relates a recent story where her agency used someone’s creative work in a video and fully credited the artist. The video was posted on YouTube and instantly the artist learned of the video and started a campaign to get friends to post comments deriding the agency for using the lyrics without permission.
This could have gotten very ugly, very quickly. You can imagine a viral smear campaign, the good name of non-profit organization maligned, everyone calling in their lawyers, the media reports. All of that could have happened in the course of an afternoon.
My colleague’s solution was not to delete the comments from YouTube or remove the video or call their lawyer. She and her coworkers tracked down the artist and spoke with her directly. And made a deal. Over the phone, in a matter of minutes. The proverbial win-win.
All of this because she decided not to go through channels or take a defensive stance. Her agency acted quickly to open a line of communication, apologized and forthrightly solved the problem.
Something for the influence leader to remember: When there’s a misunderstanding, go to the source, the person who can clear it up. Sincerely apologize if you screwed up, and work together to fix the situation. And, skip the intermediaries, the consiglieri, all the folks that can make the situation more complicated—and possibly worse (even though they intend well).
It’s gutsy to be sure, but it often pays off.
An obligation to influence
15 May 2009
On 28 January 1986, the space shuttle Challenger exploded upon take-off because an O-ring seal on the right booster rocket leaked fuel, which was ignited by the rockets. Seven astronauts died and a $1.7 billion orbiter was lost.
The shuttle was launched in the coldest weather since the program began, and NASA and Morton Thiokol engineers had already noticed that O-rings tended to leak at sub-freezing temperatures. The temperature at launch was forecasted to be between 26-29 degrees Fahrenheit. In the days leading up to the launch, some of the engineers tried to convince NASA management to delay the launch.
On 1 February 2003, the shuttle Columbia burned up on re-entry because the heat shield had been severely damaged when fuel tank insulation foam struck the orbiter during launch. After the launch, several engineers suspected damage but could not bring themselves to request expensive satellite photos of the shuttle to examine the damage and see if emergency repairs were needed. Once again, seven astronauts and an expensive orbiter were lost.
In both cases, engineers inside NASA knew in advance there was a problem. The very peril they imagined came true and people died.
One way to look at these disasters: The engineers were not influential enough.
Many folks think of influence as something they want in their work life, community activities, and personal lives. They have a legitimate, inherent need to help improve the world and to do that through affecting others’ behavior.
That’s all well and good. But what about the times when the stakes are high—lives are on the line? In these situations, you must be effective. You must influence.
You have an obligation to be influential. Influence is no longer a wish or a choice, it is an obligation.
This obligation extends not only to when lives on are on the line, but also when people will be hurt, laws will be broken, massive resources will be lost, or mission or values will be violated.
All the more reason to work on improving your influence skills so that you are able to influence when it really counts — when the stakes are the highest.
Mind the gap!
12 May 2009
Mind the gap! That’s the warning on the London Underground to be careful of the gap between the subway car and the platform.
It’s also a useful reminder of the sometimes wide gap between what we intend to tell people and how others receive our message or perceive us. We may think that our intentions are clear, but sometimes we find that they have been badly misinterpreted by others.
If we’re lucky, we figure out there’s a gap and can fix it. Unfortunately, sometimes we don’t learn about the gap in time.
Here is a cautionary tale that illustrates the gap between what we intend to do and how we are perceived by others. It was contributed by a reader named “Nanner.”
One of my earlier City jobs was in the Personnel Department and one year I was graced with coordinating the budget. This was back in the day of 80-80 printouts. The department head and his deputy would go out for drinks after work and talk about the budget. My role was to stay in the office (no OT) and wait for them to come back. I’d white out the old numbers and put in the new so the update could be run for the next day. You might imagine that I soon tired of this routine. I thought if I could be at the table when they were making their decisions, it would save time for me.
So how to get at the table? I knew the direct approach was unlikely to be effective. So one evening before five o’clock, I walked down the hall saying, “Anyone want to go out for a drink after work?” Needless to say, that did not have the desired result.
Fast forward to a promotional opportunity. I applied, was interviewed, and no decision was ever announced. I figured to heck with these folks and found a better job at another department. At my exit interview, I learned that I had given the impression that I was more interested in going out for a drink than I was in doing my work!
That’s when I learned about unsaid expectations - metrics that people are measured by without even knowing it. I decided that was terribly unfair. So I have been hyperconscious ever since about making my expectations for working with others very clear. That has become especially important as I moved into supervisory and managerial roles. It has worked well.
Nanner’s strategy of concealing her intentions backfired. She invited people for drinks rather than asking directly for what she needed. She now clearly negotiates expectations with others to reduce the chances that each other’s intentions will be misunderstood. This practice of hers dramatically reduces “the gap.”
Don’t get too far ahead
4 May 2009
If you’re stuck trying to influence someone or something, take a look at how your project is “structured.”
There are three basic parts to any situation or problem you are trying to change: (1) where things are now (current state), (2) where you want to go (desired state) and (3) how to get there (options).
In my experience, people move way too quickly to defining options without first clearly understanding the current and desired states—and making sure that other folks are on the same page. (This is critical!)
Defining options is the third step of the problem-solving process.
The first step is to take a sober look at the current situation. What are the facts? How are people interpreting them? Do they see the same problem you do? If not, that is your first challenge. Don’t bother talking about options with people until they see the need for change.
The second step is to define the future. Which of the facts about the current situation do you want to change? What do you want the future to look like? Again, are other people on the same page with you? You can’t assume—you’ve got to ask them. If there isn’t agreement on the desired, future state, you will have a very hard time agreeing on which option to pursue.
Now, you know the current state and the desired state. It’s time to talk options with folks. What do you see as the options? What do others see? What criteria will you/they use to pick the option to pursue? Who is the “decider”?
This is the conversation you’ve been waiting for, but you can only get to it if you lay the groundwork first by agreeing on the current situation and the desired state. Once you’ve done that, people will be ready to talk about options–and make a decision.
Take a walk in their shoes
30 April 2009
When someone does something you don’t understand, disagree with, or don’t like, you might jump to a conclusion about that person. You might label them as clueless, misguided, or antagonistic.
In doing so, you’ve boxed yourself into a narrow set of explanations of their behavior–and left yourself with very few options for changing the situation.
In reality, the majority of people’s behavior is due to their circumstances. The environment around a person exerts powerful pressure on people, and most of what we do is a response to those environmental pressures.
That behavior you don’t understand? Maybe the other person has information you don’t. Perhaps they are acting perfectly rationally based on what they know.
That misguided decision? Perhaps they are being pressured to make a decision when they don’t have enough time to weigh the options. Or, maybe their boss has told them what decision she expects, even though she’s “leaving the decision to them”?
That antagonism? Consider that you might not be the first, second or even third person who’s asked something of them this week. Perhaps all the priorities they care about are getting pushed aside to do other folks’ work.
You can’t know the real explanation of their behavior without exploring the circumstances each person is facing.
The task of the influence leader is to learn about the environments other players are living in. Understand the environment, and you’ll get much closer to understanding the behavior and successfully influencing it.
The tendency to attribute other people’s behavior to their personality or inherent traits is called the fundamental attribution error. It’s deadly for influence leaders, because it limits your options for action and building strong relationships.
You’ll get a lot farther looking at people’s circumstances and avoiding labelling.
