The art of influence

In many projects, there are too many stakeholders to understand who call the shots, who will make things happen. Managers are here to manage…and this takes clarity and constancy. But sometimes the ship needs to turn… rules of engagement and boundaries are unclear, and the world is more complex… so where do they get their new directions from? For those around them, influence is a great opportunity. It has become just as important as "authority". How to be a successful influencer? By exhibiting passion, empathy and patience.

Teaching "influencing" was ubiquitous in leadership training course in the late 90's. Organizational trend was to go lean, towards flatter organizations, while the world was becoming Global. The remedy to the dilution of competencies was functionalization. Organizations were once pretty much a sum of mini-enterprises of about hundred people. Each of them (a small business line, a site, a country) were encompassing finance, supply chain, sales, marketing, manufacturing. With a "managing director" at it top, accountable for P&L, with extended authority. Globalization, centralization, supported now by digitalization has caused the cake to be sliced in a different direction, by functions. Hence any project of a decent size would need support of a large part of the organization would deal with many functions. And resource that would have no hierarchical or functional reporting back to whoever was in charge. So the manager (ie giving orders) became a coordinator. The tie breaker for a conflict of priorities between the functions in the team would be in the C-Suite, 4 to 5 levels higher, in a different time zone - where business and P&L accountability now resides. As this was complex and time consuming, senior management tried to make sure that this recourse will hardly ever be used. "Managers" were trained to "management by projects", and "influencing without authority" has become a leadership skill.

This was however a narrow perspective on influence. Within a same company, when it comes down to projects or organization managements, rebellion is not existent. Conflict of priorities exist, but in the end, people will comply. No one will refuse to implement this new ERP (version 79b of SAP) or develop the market identified by the CEO as strategic for the next century. Members of the project team will eventually follow the leader, even if he's not their functional boss. It's not "influencing without authority", it's "managing across hierarchies". Interestingly, it takes the same leadership traits: assertiveness, planning, clarity of roles, responsibility and scope. That's why those "leaders" are typically "managers with a twist", as communication and coordination are more important. 

 In reality "Influencing" is a much bigger skill. It means to act beyond your reach. How to get people and organization to change course, when they can chose not to? How make senior managers, consumers, regulators change their mind? It's hard, as individually and collectively, it's not easy to embrace innovation or accept change. Influencers are the ones who make such changes happen. Whoever remembers the philosophers now that "competence" (ie intimate knowledge of a topic) does not establish per se authority. Being right is not being convincing. So what do influencers need? 

Passion is a fantastic catalyst of influence. It's a fantastic asset. It fuels courage, and determination. It gives legitimacy to the project, the concept, and his advocate. It's impossible to rally non-believers around an idea that you don’t believe in yourself. Influence and passion are quite different from the potential corporate duplicity: it's your conviction that you sell, not a second-hand drive. 

Empathy is the necessary "yang", if passion is the "ying". Passion can be polarizing , and empathy is the cure to the "Cassandra complex" (being able to predict the future, but without the ability to convince). There will be resistance to change, innovation that you want to bring, and understanding the audience point of view, and thought process, is critical to get leverage, and a successful influencer. To be listened and understood, you need to listen and understand first. Talk the language. See the world from your listener's perspective, understand his arguments and reluctance is the best chance to eventually winning him over.

Eventually, patience is key. Commanding is immediate, influencing takes time. Managing relationships, networks of influence I very well known by diplomats. Execution and implementation follow an aggressive military time scale, while influence follows the time scale of diplomacy. It will hence be critical to develop sensitivity to low-level signals of progress.

An influence project requires an impressionist style - and a lot of time. This time and energy is much better spent reaching out to the outside world to create value (with and for your customers) than consumed in internal politics. Go out, build relationships, understand coalitions, and win by influencing.

 Maxime Katgely, NYC - JFK Airport, October 9th, 2019. 

Passionate in making global teams thrive. Thrilled in building relationships, creating markets and developing global opportunities to share value for sustainable business. Strong professional with a Engineer's degree focused in Polymers and Operational Research. Loving husband, 11 times Ironman finisher, proud father of 2 Texans. Views here are mine.