Strong interpersonal and influencing skills are essential to be impactful across different disciplines, stakeholders and customers.
In the past, knowing what to do technically and building the right networks did the magic. Today with technology becoming obsolete quickly and contacts vanishing with one restructuring, we need a more permanent resource: our own personal ability to influence.
When we set out to influence someone, there are two polarities at work:
- How far you try to meet your own needs
- How far you try to meet other people’s needs
In order to ensure that the pull and push strategies of influencing at work, try the following tips:
- Be a good listener
- Develop a more flexible behavioural repertoire
- Gain credibility through accountability
- Spend time in understanding people and their decision-making strategies
- Practice the skill of facilitation. This will help you to enhance your ability to facilitate other people’s decisions
- Remember the influencing happens when you remember that it’s not about only YOU but THEM also, so be sensitive to the other person and using NLP techniques, mirror your communication tofit specific situations and people
- Establish rapport using respectful verbal and non threatening non-verbal communication
A quick check on mapping your Influencing Quotient
Step 1: How do you think people describe you most often? Be fiercely honest with yourself. Choose any one option of the 5 listed below:
Option A: Confident, forceful, ruthless, determined, inflexible, articulate, impatient
Option B: Patient, long-winded, calm, impassive, steady, over-serious, willing to learn, afraid of failure
Option C: Co-operative, passive, flexible, unselfish, cautious, modest, fearful of authority, lacking authority
Option D: Pragmatic, cynical, charming, frivolous, focussed on the short term, tactical rather than strategic, optimistic, naïve
Option E: Sceptical, fearful, careful, procrastinating, discerning, suspicious, low-key, unconfident
Step 2: Interpreting the options
- If you have chosen A, than your influencing style is Dominance, which means that more often than not you put your own needs first and take less account of the needs of others. If overused this style can create fear and resistance in people. The result of this could be that you may be successful in influencing in the short run, with little or no long term impact
- If you have chosen B, then your influencing style is Partnership, which means that you are willing to spend time in exploring the views of the other person, even at the cost of discomfort to yourself. This style can be successful in situations where you have unlimited time for influencing and persuading, however will have limited impact when the reality is different
- If you have chosen C, then your influencing style is Others First, which means that you place others needs higher than your own. In real terms this would mean that you hold back your views and the whole interaction is about meeting other people’s needs. You will miss the opportunity to influence others and end up getting influenced
- If you have chosen D, then your influencing style is Bargaining, which means that you are willing to give away some of the things you want and expect the other person to do so too. While this may work at times, there is a possibility that you may look for compromise when it would be more appropriate to stick to your principles and devote more time to the process of influencing
- If you have chosen E, then your influencing style is Withdrawing, which means that you are a naturally cautious influencer. While this style works well in situations which could be overwhelming, the typical impact of this preference is that your low key style may mean that people simply forget to consult you on certain issues
While you may have a dominant style, for being a powerful influencer you need to have a range of ability to use all styles as fluently as possible.
Use dominating when there is no time for dithering, partnership when you want to create healthy win:win relationships, others first when you want to retain a relationship and the matter at hand does not involve non negotiable values, bargaining when goals are unclear, and withdrawing when you are faced with powerful opposition.
Finally leadership = influencing, so go ahead and play the game on the playing field called life!
