Developing Influence

WJM Associates has coached over a thousand corporate leaders over the past 16 years. People often ask us, “What is the most common developmental challenge faced by your coaching clients?”

While each coaching engagement is unique, the most common requests involve something like:

• “Mary is very strategic and has great technical skills, but needs to become better at leading and inspiring others.”
• “Joe needs to transition from an individual contributor to a leader of a large team.”
• “Mark needs to further develop his executive presence.”

In 2009, WJM surveyed 200 seasoned Executive Coaches asking them: “As you reflect upon the executives you've coached over the past 2 or so years, what were the most common primary developmental objectives?” The top four responses were:

1. Build/Align/Motivate Team
2. Executive Presence
3. Effective Communications
4. Interpersonal Savvy

It seems that at the core of all of these developmental goals is the idea of Influence.  

What is Influence?

WJM's new Senior Director, Leadership Services Dale Caldwell (see next article), a thought leader on the subject of Influence, provides the following definition:

Influence - a learned competency that, without exertion or force or direct exercise of command, produces an effect that leads to exceptional results driven by outstanding human interaction.

Organizations everywhere have access to the information and brain power to identify great strategies for growth and success. The remaining challenge is, of course, the execution of these strategies. When an organization’s leaders exercise Influence, trust is built, barriers are broken down and creative energy is released. This catalyzes the leaders’ teams into the high impact performance mode needed to execute the strategies.

A Model for Developing Influence

Dale Caldwell’s approach, Intelligent Influence®, provides insight into ways to help leaders maximize their success through influence-driven attainment of specific goals. As part of his approach, Dale differentiates between Internal and External Influence. Internal Influence refers to an individual becoming aware of and managing how they themselves are influenced by others. External Influence refers to how they in turn influence others.

The model is comprehensive in that it not only focuses on the individual’s influences and ability to influence others, but it also builds his or her awareness and sensitivity to how other people have been influenced in their lives. This increased understanding or empathy goes a long way towards breaking down barriers between individuals and leveraging differences, rather than discouraging them.

Types of Influence

Dale has identified six very different types of Influence:

Behavioral:
      1. Authority Influence – based on position, authority or ability to command.
      2. Resource Influence – based on the ability to share valuable personal assets.

Rational:
      3. Reputation Influence – derived from the respect of others.
      4. Thought Influence – derived from innovative ideas or skills.

Emotional:
      5. Belief Influence – derived by appealing to the common beliefs or faith of others.
      6. Inspiration Influence – derived from the ability to motivate others to act.

Strategies for Developing Each Type of Influence

To maximize individual influence, it is essential that a leader have significant competence in at least one of each of the three ‘spheres’ of Influence (Behavioral, Rational and Emotional). Some examples of ways in which to improve each of the types of Influence are provided below:

⇒ Authority Influence™: Set clear vision, mission and goals for your organization or the people that you have authority over.

⇒ Resource Influence™: Share the resources (personal or corporate) that you have control over with your employees, customers or other individuals you are attempting to influence.

⇒ Reputation Influence™: Take the time to understand how you are viewed by your employees, customers or other individuals you are attempting to influence.

⇒ Thought Influence™: Demonstrate to your employees, customers or other individuals you are attempting to influence that your thoughts and ideas are original.

⇒ Belief Influence™: Learn how to eloquently connect your personal or corporate mission with the strongly held beliefs of your employees, customers or other individuals you are attempting to influence.

⇒ Inspiration Influence™: Seamlessly integrate what you are requesting with the desires, hopes, values and dreams of your employees, customers or other individuals you are attempting to influence.

This focus on Influence provides a new paradigm for strategic planning, leadership development, talent assessment, employee engagement and diversity and inclusion efforts. For a white paper on Dale Caldwell’s Intelligent Influence® Framework or for more information on WJM’s executive coaching and leadership development workshops utilizing the Intelligent Influence® model, please contact your WJM Account Director or Tim Morin at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
 

Dale Caldwell, one of the world’s leading experts on the relationship between professional success and influence has been named Senior Director, Leadership Services for WJM Associates. Dale will serve as a member of WJM’s leadership, sales and consulting teams, as well as an Account Director to select clients. He has over 15 years experience as an executive coach and organizational consultant. Dale graduated from Princeton University and received an MBA from the Wharton School and has served as Senior Manager at Deloitte Consulting, Vice President at Right Management, and Deputy Commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs (DCA). Dale is the author of four books, including The Intelligent Influence® Workbook, and a member of the United States Tennis Association (USTA) Board of Directors. He has also been president of two school boards.

“We are thrilled to have a thought leader like Dale on the WJM team.” says WJM CEO Tim Morin, “His expertise strongly complements our existing leadership development services. We expect him to be a tremendous asset to WJM’s clients.”

Please join us in welcoming Dale to the WJM team!
 

Finally, you surrender to exhaustion, feeling yourself sink into the support of your bed, when thoughts of your upcoming performance review jolt you back to consciousness. You’ve lost the last three nights of sleep imagining the evaluation over and over. You’ve silently mouthed the words of your defense on the train. (This display has been met with strange stares by the other commuters.)

For many of us, the mere thought of certain types of communication—or communication with certain people—can ratchet up our stress levels to "11". Sometimes the stakes are high (income may be determined, an opportunity granted or denied, a proposal accepted); sometimes, on closer examination, they are not so significant. Regardless, we worry.

Do genetics determine our comfort in communicating? Parental modeling? A high gluten diet? I would be willing to accept that these factors and more may contribute to how we approach our interactions but, as a speech and communication coach, I’m most interested in what we can do about it.

For starters, here’s some good news:

1. People are inherently self-involved
2. You cannot trust your instincts

OK, sometimes you can and should trust your instincts. And people being self-involved may sometimes be bad news. But hear me out. What often dominates our thoughts as we anticipate challenging conversations, meetings, presentations or conflict situations, is ourselves. Our worst case scenarios generally involve how we will be perceived. When we see ourselves as the most important element, our fight or flight instincts prepare us to BOLT at the first sign of danger. What are your instincts telling you?

"They’ll discover I’m not good enough." "They’ll think I’m an idiot." "I’ll screw it up." "They’ll say ‘no.’" "They’ll regret giving me this job."

But what if your instincts are wrong? What if nobody really cares that much about you? Well, then the path is clear for you to have more confident communication! Let’s face it, to humiliate another requires energy, focus and time; three things most people have in short supply. Besides, these concerns are all about you, and they’re just not that into you.

What are they into? Their wants, their success, avoiding their own humiliation. How might things change simply by framing your message with that awareness in mind? What if you approached the conversation or meeting as an opportunity to provide assistance, devise a solution, or appeal to their knowledge and expertise? How does this change the dynamic? I’ll tell you how: it takes you off the hook and makes you more confident. When we are offering to attend to another’s need, we are at our best and are more likely to be heard. We aren’t groveling for approval, we are seeking to be of assistance—we are Solution Masters.

How might your experience change if you:

• Approach a job interview as someone trying to help an individual fill a spot with the best candidate?
• Lead a meeting as an ambassador of information offered in a way listeners will find useful?
• Prepare for conflict as someone committed to finding an amicable solution?
• Deliver a disappointing result as a chance to plumb the expertise of another or to offer your ideas to take another crack at it?
• —and, using the initial example,
• View a performance review as an opportunity to better understand what is working and what is not, from the reviewer’s point of view, and to offer suggestions for resolution of the issues? In this case, if solution ideas don’t come, ask the reviewer what, in his or her opinion, might help address the challenges. Together, you can create a plan of action.

This new approach takes creativity and planning, but it flips the interaction on its proverbial ear. It allows for your best, most confident self to shine through. You become the hero of the story. Crazy, you say? Preposterous? Try it—see what happens. (Side benefit: your thoughts will have better structure and shape because you’ve devised a strategy—not only for getting what you want from the situation, but also for bringing out your best by giving others what they need—a better use of your time than losing sleep from anxiety.)

Make notes—don’t leave it to chance—and test your thoughts against the question, “How can I frame this to be in my listener’s interest?” When possible, bring those notes with you, so you don’t have to rely on memory. Depending on the circumstances, you may acknowledge the notes upfront saying something like, “This is a very important topic. I want to be sure I don’t leave anything of value out, so I’ll be referring to some notes I’ve made. . .” Could any reasonable person knock you for that? (Do we care what an unreasonable person knocks us for?)

My message is simple: Don’t trust your instincts. Treat everyone like a supreme narcissist! Or, here's the less cynical version: A great first step to confident communication is to stare down your fear-based instincts and choose generosity in your approach instead, framing your message with the needs and interests of your listener front and center.
 

It is with mixed emotions that WJM is saying farewell to our dear friend and colleague Kip Trum. For the past 11 years, Kip has brought leadership, passion and tireless support to WJM’s clients, consultants and staff. We will all miss his energy, his experience and his companionship. Going forward, Kip will remain part of the WJM Faculty as a Coach and Consultant and will provide limited account management. However, he will now be re-directing more of his seemingly endless enthusiasm towards his long-term love of photography, a budding interest in real estate investment and many other pursuits.

WE THANK YOU AND WISH YOU ALL THE BEST PARTNER!