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Change As Influence: Get the Attention of Deniers, Followers, Dreamers, and Leaders

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10-Point Plan: Influential Leadership to Grow Business

Change Is Influence

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Every now and then, something happens that pulls the rug out from under us …
The printing press is invented.

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Printing press from 1811. Photographed in Deutsches Museum Munich, Germany

A golden spike in a railroad track connects what had never been connected.

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A second “golden spike”, identical to the original used in the celebration of the transcontinental railroad in Promontory, Utah, is on display at the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento, California.

A stock market crash blows entire economies to smithereens!

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(The Depression) The Single Men’s Unemployed Association parading to Bathurst Street United Church. Toronto, Canada

Those same sorts of changes didn’t just happen then, they’re happening now.
Change is constant. If anything, the state of change is accelerating with our ability to connect and communicate with increasing reach and speed.

Change is the ultimate influence. When change happens, people respond.

Hiders, Followers, Dreamers, and Leaders

The quickest way to change someone’s is to behavior is to change their environment. Change the lighting, change seating, change the way you interact with them. Change causes us to reconsider what we took for granted. It can cause us to stop and evaluate the new circumstances. Our behavior is influence simply by encountering something unexpected.

How we’re influenced depends on our maturity, our world view, our expertise, our experience, and our belief in what we’re building. Our response to change reveals the traits of a hider, follower, dreamer, or leader. Here’s who we are and how to get our attention.

  • Deniers, Hiders and Whiners. When change interrupts and disrupts some folks try to pretend that nothing’s different. Some deny it. Some hide from it. Some whine but don’t do anything about it. They hunker down and do more of what they always did. They run their wagon trains across the country while their customers move to the safer, more comfortable rail cars that get to their destination much faster. They keep making huge books and printed inventory, while ignoring the faster, easier information available on the internet. While they’re hiding their profits drain out while their furniture and assets move to museums. It’s hard to find new ideas or growth inside a closed system that won’t pay attention.

    To get the attention of a denier, whiner, or hider, the first challenge is to show him or her the safe and predictable benefits of moving into a new world view.

  • Followers. Followers sometimes think they’re leaders, but their leadership is stuck on a set path. When they’re hit by an influential change — even a positive change — they choose to do more of what they’ve already been successful doing. Give the best person a promotion. Does she keep doing the job she left instead of the new one? Move a music teacher to a farm. Does he try to teach the pigs to sing?

    To get the attention of a follower, the first challenge is to show him or her the advantage of looking for new paths and partnering with people who’ve got more experience at testing and trying new things.

  • Dreamers. Dreamers often have ideas about change. Dreamers love ideas and no lack of imagination. They see opportunity in every occasion. Change inspires them. Some dreamers are lost in their dreams. Some fall in love with an idea just because they had it. Others are moved to action with out considering whether their idea has any traction. What they have in common is that they mistake the idea for a plan. As the Little Prince said, “A goal without a plan is just a wish.”

    To get the attention of a dreamer, the first challenge is to show him or her the way the dream will benefit by learning from, planning with and including people who have built similar things. .

  • Leaders. Leaders carve their own path, but a true leader isn’t a loner. Leaders are learners. They reach out and reach up to build something they can’t build alone. Change is information and opportunity. Leaders understand deniers, hiders, whiners, fighters, followers, and dreamers because they recognize when they have had similar thoughts and feelings. They respect and honor the people who feel differently and choose words and actions that make change easier for them.

    To get the attention of a leader, the first challenge is him or her see the benefits of participating in what you’re building. Share your values and your vision. Then invite the leader to join in.

Change is influence. It’s our response that makes it an obstacle or an opportunity.

Change has always been a constant. If we make it part of our toolkit we can manage change to create influence in the positive direction. All it takes is valuing the values of the people we want to influence.

How do you get the attention of people who might not want to do what you need them to do?

Be Irresistible.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

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The Single Biggest Secret to Getting People to Invest and Participate

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Every Great Offer Has a Part of You Inside It

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Last week in Arizona, I had the pleasure of a “long-thoght” conversation with that great mind that is @MikeCassidyAZ on Twitter. We discussed how we both got where we are – the ups, the downs, the people we work with and the people who buy what we offer.

I had the joy and pleasure of being able to share with him the project that @starbucker and I are launching in the first quarter of 2011. The endeavor is what we’re calling the “New Leadership and Loyalty Business,” and one part in particularly reflects and expands all that we’ve learned in the five years we’ve been working with the leaders who share their time with us at SOBCon.

As I talked Mike through the genesis of the training program that we’ve developed. I explained the nuance and the thinking behind each question and each task set before the group in action. And as he walked with me through the vision, it was obvious he could see the impact and influence of what we’re offering. In fact, his reaction was similar to the one that keeps happening.

I’m starting to feel like Billy Mays saying “But wait! You haven’t hear the best part yet!”

What was so compelling about the offer that makes folks immediately want to bring it into their building? And I’m so aware of the risk of talking so much that I “buy back” the interest I’ve generated. Yet that never seems to happen.

So after our conversation. I spent some time thinking about what makes the new offer, the new idea that we’re bringing, so attractive and compelling that to a person folks are paying attention and asking to hear more and more about it.

And here’s the best of my thinking on what drives their attraction.

  • The concept has been years in the thinking, Thousands of hours have been spent doing it, writing about it, discovering the holes in the process and fixing them.
  • It’s based on the skills and successes that @starbucker and I have had with SOBCon and in our business careers.
  • We’ve been looking at the problems of the people we love serving and tweaking what we’re doing to suit their situations in ways that make it easier, faster, and more meaningful for them to be heroes at what they do.

In other words, it’s darn good and hard business thinking, but that’s not what makes it so compelling.

The critical part is that we’ve put ourselves into the risk not just the benefit.

We’ve built in accountability that holds us equally responsible with every member of the team for the success of what we bring. No skimping. We’re in — willing to lay our time, resources, and trust on the line to deliver a successful outcome.

Leaders want to build something they can’t build alone.

How do you get people to invest and participate in your business, your brand, or your projects by sharing the risk as well as the benefits?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

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Influence: How to Persuade Anyone In Business to Do What You Want

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10-Point Plan: Train Self-Managing Teams with an Outstanding Bias Toward Quality

Communication Through Persuasion

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The best executive team I was ever a part of was 8 people who knew their jobs — none of us were experts in the jobs of the others but the team worked highly efficiently with sincere commitment and we followed a principle we called the “Persuade Me” form of leadership. It looked something like this …

I may not know anything about the new phone system you want to introduce into the building, but I’m an intelligent, thinking person, who knows how to make a good decision. So, persuade me that this is the right one.

No matter the question, the problem, or the innovation that was put before us. We sat ready to listen to the reasoning that would move us to understand why we should champion its cause.

How to Get Anyone In Business to Do Whatever You Want

Whether we’re a consultant, a freelancers, an entry level employee a C-Suite executive, the work we do has to move something forward for us it to benefit us and our customers. Sometimes that means getting the people who work alongside us and the people who sign our paychecks to take our advice as to what needs to be done.

If you want to get people do what you want, it’s matter of persuasion. Whether you’re looking to move a huge organization or get someone to sponsor a small event or project you’re planning, persuasion is the key to positive action. Persuasion is a strategy that requires these steps.

  • Know your audience. It’s hard to persuade someone you’ve never met and know nothing about. Understand what moves them and what worries them. Get inside their needs, wants, and desires.
  • Ask about their short-term goals and restate what you’re hearing as you listen. As people tell you what they’re trying to accomplish, clarify your understanding by restating what they’re saying in your own words. So if I’m hearing you right that means you want to … Define scenarios that might achieve what they’re shooting to make happen.
  • Ask about possible obstacles to their goals. Let them keep talking until you fully understand what they’re facing and truly want to help them get where they want to go. Learn about their process and how decisions are made. Find out who needs to be “sold” for a new idea to be adopted.
  • Suggest that you might help them by aligning their goals with your own. Offer your idea, project, or plan in the context of how it will benefit them. Point to the goal and the possible obstacles they’ve mentioned, then show how your suggestion will remove the obstacles and move them toward their goal.
  • Explain how your plan, project, or idea works for them. Focus on the benefits not what you love, but what makes sense to their situation. Champion those benefits with all of the passion that drew you to idea or project from the start.
  • Ask how you might make the two work together even better. Suggest that they discuss how well the idea might work over time with their coworkers, how it might need to be changed, and whether it needs outside input. Allow them to add or remove content or pieces. Do we need to make it smaller or larger to get the right kind of attention? Do we need to bring anyone else to keep things going?
  • Build a strategy on how to introduce them to the larger group. Discuss how easily you and they might be able to persuade peers and paycheck signers to participate. Step back and let them own the process while you talk. Should we offer training? a meeting? Shall we propose a proof of concept to demonstrate and measure the validity and success?

Those who best navigate a business culture are those who know that persuasion works better than confrontation. It’s important to stand for your values and to champion your expertise, but the presentation can be softer than an all on debate.

People like to be in on the thinking and to know that what we’re proposing benefits everyone, not just the person proposing it. So whether it’s a ReTweet, a budget cut, a new product idea, or a complete renovation of the operation, it works best if we reach out knowing that the folks we’re speaking to are

“intelligent, thinking people, who may not know anything about the intricacies of what we’re proposing, but who knows how to make a good decision.” So the job is to persuade them with facts, logic, and humanity that what we’re doing is something they want to be doing too.

How do you persuade your clients, customers, bosses, employees, vendors, and volunteers that what you what is worth doing?

READ the Whole 10-Point Plan Series: On the Successful Series Page.

Be Irresistible.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

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What Is the Most Crucial Element of Influence?

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The Outcomes We Achieve

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Every person has influence. What what we say, and how we act has an effect on how others think, feel, and behave. As a writer, an observer, and manager, I’ve watched and studied how people respond to what we do, what we say, and what they see.

As every parent and pet owner knows, sometimes the outcome we’re going for — a change in belief or behavior — isn’t the outcome we achieve. Our intent, our feelings toward an audience are only one side of the equation. How that audience interprets our words and deeds determines the change in belief or behavior that might result.

Our influence is highly affected by context.

  • The world view of the people we might influence. An individual’s emotional associations and beliefs can filter how people interpret our intentions, our words, and actions. A person who believes all learning must be their own experience will ignore a warning to avoid a dangerous part of town. A person who has only had bad experiences with people from our “group” may fight against any message we offer.
  • The value those people put on their relationship with us. Filters such as the halo effect and other cognitive biases, such as wishful thinking, can change how our message is processes and received.

We don’t control how other people think, what they feel, or how they interpret what they hear and see.

Though we may carefully consider and choose the most generous way to communicate and interact within those those contexts, the audience will choose their interpretation of that interaction. The same authentic, highly influential, collaborative message to one audience will be a disingenuous, controversial, alienating rebuff to another audience. We see that all of the time in the world of politics.

The most crucial element of influence is understanding what the audience and what the already believes. If we want to influence people, to move them to an important action, to change their core beliefs, we need to know the audience, listen to their world view, champion their cause, and honor their reality. Lasting influence is a trust relationship built through time and shared experience.

How do you champion the audience you want to reach?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

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Tom Peters, the Chihuahua Story, and the Effect of Your Influence

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Tom Peters, Influence Quote and the Retweet

Recently on Twitter, author, speaker, professional agitator, and my personal hero, Tom Peters (@Tom_Peters) quoted John Knox with this tweet:

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I retweeted it.

Three Wise Men Respond

Three gentleman responded with interesting comments as you can see.

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That got me thinking about influence again and how the experts define it.

Wikipedia and What Is Influence?

I spent a few hours reviewing what I knew and researching more about influence, its definitions, and its synonyms to arrive at the most basic idea that connects them.

Influence is the power to change behavior or beliefs.

Wikipedia shares a wealth of information across domains on what influence is …

Sphere of influence (astrodynamics), the region around a celestial body in which it is the primary gravitational influence on orbiting objects
Sphere of influence (astronomy), a region around a black hole in which the gravity of the black hole dominates that of the host bulge
Social influence, in social psychology, influence in interpersonal relationships

In terms of social influence, they point to compliance, identification, and internalization. From what I see, the science of influence limits the change to be that which evokes a positive result.

Social influence occurs when an individual’s thoughts, feelings or actions are affected by other people. Social influence takes many forms and can be seen in conformity, socialization, peer pressure, obedience, leadership, persuasion, sales, and marketing.

Like the three who commented on my retweet, I agree, our words and acts have influence beyond what’s described here. Antagozing can influence beliefs or behaviors. Sometimes we influence without knowing it. Sometime our influence can bring about unexpected responses.

The Chihuahua and the Effect of Your Influence

We can set out to have influence or gain influence. We can see how our actions influence behaviors and belief systems. We can mislead ourselves into believing we have influenced in one direction, when in fact we have done no such thing. The intent of our influence does not guarantee the outcome.

Which leads me to the story of the chihuahua.

The Story of the Chihuahua

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A man renovated his house, tearing out the entire kitchen. Every fixture, appliance, and bit of the original room was removed. He started over with four walls, one window, and the door to the backyard. During the winter rebuilding the kitchen floor was down to the concrete foundation.

The man and his wife had a chihuahua and the one thing the man hated was taking the dog out to the backyard to pay its call to nature, especially in the winter. So the man covered a huge corner of the torn-up kitchen with a rubber mat and some newspaper; put a dog bowl there; and he allowed the nervous little pet to do his “duty” there.

When the spring came, the kitchen was finished complete with very expensive new hardwood flooring. It was no longer acceptable for the tiny dog to stay in the kitchen when nature was calling. The man made a plan to change the dog’s behavior.

Every time the dog messed the kitchen floor, the man would stick the chihuahua’s nose in the mess and then toss the dog out the back door or out the open kitchen window.

The chihuahua did change its behavior. After it “went” on the floor, it jumped out the window.

Sometimes we mistake, misinterpret, and totally miss on seeing our influence. The man changed the dog’s behavior, but it wasn’t the change the man had been going for. All of the predictable outcomes of our influence aren’t always obvious.

Silence doesn’t always mean agreement. Changed behavior doesn’t always mean a change in thinking. Sometimes we influence a change in behavior that goes in a direction other than we’re thinking.

No one is really without influence. we all have the power to move another person to change a belief or behavior. The most influential watch what how influence works in their own lives and learn from that. As my friend, Chris Brogan demonstrates exactly how he does that when he discusses ways we can improve our influence. It’s the quality of our thinking, the concern for the listener, and care in our delivery, that makes our influence move a thought or action in the direction we hope.

What examples of “chihuahua story influence” have you seen in business?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

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Dramatically increase your influence

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by Patty Azzarello

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Do you have a seat at the table?

I am often asked to speak about how to have more influence.

Managers often feel like they are getting blocked or ignored by the power structure in their company.

Influence

How can you make sure you are included when important strategies are being decided? How can you impact them?

There are many aspects to this including the need to increase the impact of your work, build your credibility, make the right connections with people, and create a network of support for your ideas, your work, and your career.

But today I want to talk about something very specific. A powerful, practical approach to dramatically increase your influence with your stakeholders.

Be a Translator

I can’t overstate the importance of translating what you talk about into the language of your stakeholders.

It starts here…

No one really cares what you do…

(At least not as much as you do.)

Don’t Educate.  Be more Relevant.

Don’t try to educate your stakeholders. I often talk to managers who say, I need to educate my boss about what my group does.

My advice. Don’t bother. It doesn’t work and it only annoys both of you!

But the important thing to realize is this:

If you have to educate people about what you do, you are not relevant.

Just think about that. If you have to educate, you are not relevant…

What IS relevant? What they already know and care about.

If you want to increase your influence, the way to be more relevant is to always start your conversation with something they already know and care about.

Use that as a hook, and then hang your information that hook.

They will think you are smart and be motivated to listen to you because you are starting the conversation by making them feel smart.

You are engaging them on terms they already know and on things they want to make progress on. Once they are thinking that, they will be ready to listen to you.

Translate your ideas, use their hook

To follow the marketing example, don’t talk about a multi-quarter integrated marketing campaign. While you are at it, don’t even use the word marketing. Talk about building pipeline, decreasing the time to close a sale, or opening new revenue streams.

If you are in IT don’t talk about data centers and virtualization. Translate to improving sales effectiveness, helping reach new markets, or reducing the cost of acquiring customers.

A magic translation tool

Here is a very specific bit of magic to make your work and your ideas much more relevant to the rest of the business.

1. Interview your business stakeholders about what they care about. What is driving their business? What are their pressures and opportunities? What are their key “can’t fail” initiatives right now?
2. Listen for two things:

  • What are the things on their list?
  • What are the exact words they use to describe them?

3. Go back and summarize their top initiatives in their words.

4. Prepare your next communication about what you are doing or trying to influence and ONLY USE THEIR WORDS.

Use your “outside voice”

Remember your plans and your budget are riddled with jargon from your own function. I call that your “inside voice”. You need those things to run your function but don’t – under any circumstances – use those those same artifacts to communicate outside your function.

You need to use your “outside voice”. You need to specifically create new communication tools that are versions of your plans, your proposals, and your budget, but using the language of your stakeholders.

The magic then happens when you are suddenly asking them to approve budget for things they want anyway!

When you translate and use their words, not yours, you are more relevant, you appear more credible and you dramatically increase your ability to influence.

Have you ever been blocked?

What things have you done to increase your influence? Please leave your ideas in the comment box below.

—–
Patty Azzarello works with executives where leadership and business challenges meet. She has held leadership roles in General Management, Marketing, Software Product Development and Sales, and has been successful in running large and small businesses. She writes at Patty Azzarello’s Business Leadership Blog. You’ll find her on Twitter as @PattyAzzarello

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