Influencing and Communicating With Leaders and Peers

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Influencing and Communicating With Leaders and
Peers
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Our Objectives

• Building Relationships
• Outlining the Levers of Influence
• Preparing Your Pitch

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Building Relationships
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Building Relationships

• Know Your Manager and Peers
• Spend time learning their interests and
  priorities
• Learn their pet peeves and avoid them
• Dont talk negatively about your colleagues
• Understand and support their
• Strengths
• Weaknesses
• Priorities and Goals
• Work style (e.g., Is your manager a reader or a
  listener?)
• Managing your Boss, by John J. Gabarro and John
  P. Kotter, Harvard Business Review
• The 360 Degree Leader Developing your Influence
  from Anywhere within the Organization, by John C.
  Maxwell

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Levers of Influence
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Influencer

• The true measure of leadership is influence
  nothing more, nothing less.
• - John Maxwell

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Levers of Influence

• People will attempt to change their behavior if
• They believe it will be worth it (motivation)
• They can do what is required (ability)
• You can influence motivation and ability through
  personal, social and structural sources

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Six Sources of Influence
Motivation Ability
Structural Social Personal
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Personal Motivation

• Help people find intrinsic satisfaction
• Immersing them in the activity

• Tapping into peoples sense of pride and
  competition
• Linking new behaviors to their values

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Personal Ability

• Ensure that people have the ability to change
• Breaking behaviors into clear, specific and
  repeatable actions
• Creating time and space to practice new skills

1. Providing immediate feedback against clear
   standards

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Social Motivation

• Use peer pressure
• Cultivating the support of opinion leaders
• Surfacing undiscussables through public discourse

1. Removing people from existing networks and
   placing them in a new, supportive network

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Social Ability

• When individuals need the support of those around
  them to change
• Getting entire groups to change behavior together
• Co-opting others by turning your problem into
  their own

1. Having participants teach one another new
   behaviors

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Structural Motivation

• Extrinsic rewards should compliment other
  strategies
• Linking rewards to specific actions (not
  outcomes)
• Using small, heartfelt tokens of appreciation
• Using punishment judiciously start with a
  warning but never bluff

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Structural Ability

• Shape the environment to make change easier
• Changing the physical environment
• Making a small amount of important data visible
  to reinforce behaviors
• Eliminating choice altogether

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Applying the Influencer

• In small groups, pick one of the challenges you
  shared at the beginning. Work together to
  determine how you might apply this model to that
  case.

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Preparing Your Pitch
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Communication Discussion

• How do communication skills affect your ability
  to have an impact?
• Why is it difficult to communicate effectively?
• Executive vs. peer audiences?

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Focus on the Audience

• Are you communicating up, down or across?
• Are they
• Experts?
• Educated decision-makers?
• Customers?
• Collaborators?
• Frame your case tell them why they should care

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Characteristics of Executive Audiences

• Busy
• Distracted
• Impatient
• Thinking about something else
• Prone to tangents
• Have multiple agendas (some open, some hidden)

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Conveying Your Message Make It Stick

• Keep it simple and brief
• Lead with results/impact
• Use stories to support findings and
  recommendations
• Make the ask clear
• Deliver the unexpected (w/o being gimmicky)
• Use alternative media as appropriate

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How Do You Fail?

• No explanation of significance
• No roadmap
• Not knowing your stuff
• Gaps in logic
• Excessive detail
• Gimmicky

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How Do You Succeed?

• Do not share everything you know but be ready
  to provide depth and complexity when asked
• Answer questions efficiently if you dont know
  the answer, do NOT make one up
• Be prepared NOT to get through everything
• You will be interrupted
• The audience may focus on one issue and never let
  go
• Make your most important points early

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Examples of Effective Communications

• Jared Fogle Subway Celebrity
• Derek Sivers Starting a Movement
• Alexis Ohanian How to Make a Splash in Social
  Media
• Others?

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Effective Communications Strategies

• For communications to be successful, you must
  move beyond one-time communications
• Repeat, repeat, repeat
• Explore different mediums of communication
• Meet people where they are
• Do not assume that hearing equates with
  understanding or action
• Communicate throughout any initiative, not just
  at the beginning

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Next Steps
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Action Planning

• What is one action you will take upon returning
  to work?
• What support will you need to accomplish this
  goal?

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Stay Engaged!

• Center for Government Leadership
• Annenberg Leadership Seminars
• Excellence in Government Fellows program
• Fed Coach
• Daily Pipeline
• Service to America Medals

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• ourpublicservice.org