Integrators: Influence through Flexibility

The final installment of our series on "Integrators" focuses on the near super-human level of flexibility required.

As a reminder, here's what an Integrator is and what they face:

Definition:? A role where different parts of the organization ‘meet’

What you find yourself doing:

• Harmonizing, reconciling, upholding, pushing back on processes, policies and priorities
• Seeing gaps, issues, connections before anyone else does
• Translating strategy and decisions from across the organization to employees and customers

In the course I taught at Northwestern, I opened the influence module with a simple question, “Who influences you at work?” Each time I posed that question, I would get at least one student reply with, “No one.”

These replies exclusively came from students with a lot of letters after their names—well credentialed and not very open to others’ influence.

Fast forward to the influence course I now teach at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, I pose a different question: “When are you least flexible?” In these courses, the student base is very diverse, but I still see a trend: they consistently report that they are less flexible when they are the expert in the room. Yikes.

Integrators can't afford to be seen as in flexible (nor overly flexible)--balanced flexible as they tackle process reconciliation, sorting our priorities and implement decisions is critical. Stubborn Integrators don’t have sustainable influence; nor do milquetoast Integrators.

In order to be influential, Integrators have to be very cognizant of balancing their flexibility. Humans are reciprocal animals, and the give and take in organizations is strong. By the same token, seeing patterns and pushing back credibly is crucial in Integrator roles. Reciprocity sets Integrators up for pushing back on the patterns they want to change.

Integrators: Be absolutely expert at picking your battles.