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The Influence Blog from The Gautrey Group is here to share ideas, stimulate thinking and get people
talking more about influencing skills. It bridges the gap between a full article and a tweet, and enables us
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The Influence Blog
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 Influencing UpwardsOne of the major challenges many people I train face is how to become more effective at influencing more senior people in their organisation. The challenges arise because these people are busy, have many different things on their plate and simply don't have time for things that are not on their agenda. On our workshops we help people to find out how they can take practical action to influence them more effectively, but we'd love to hear your ideas too. Please take a moment to share your ideas on how to successfully influence your bosses so we can all learn together. Posted by Colin Gautrey on 13-Jun-2010 02:33:13 BST
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 I believe to be noticed you have to excel at relationship building with your line manager. Don't leave it to them to initiate! When you then want to influence you have a legitimate relationship underpinning you and you have established a sense of the "how" and "when" just by getting to know how they tick. If you only ever see your manager when you want to influence something, don't be surprised if you get a cold shoulder! Posted by Maureen Atkins on 17-Jun-2010 14:52:09 BST | Linking to their agenda. Let's face it, we all have an agenda, and if you want to become more influential with your boss, figure out what is top of their agenda and see if you can make links between what you want to influence with their priorities - how will it help them to achieve their objectives by agreeing to what you want? And if you can translate it into their language too, even better! Posted by Colin Gautrey on 17-Jun-2010 15:22:15 BST | What are people's thoughts on "aiming to influence your boss's boss". I have always found this a far more powerful means of organisational influence - and at the end of the day, getting ahead. Risky though it may be. Posted by kevin johnston on 22-Jun-2010 14:20:57 BST | Hi Kevin, very good point. Here are a few ideas - always have an elevator pitch ready - focus it on their challenges and how you can help - never criticise your boss - look like you're at your their level - think like you're at their level.- use the same language as people at that level do - have an opinion about how the business should react to market changes. Posted by Colin Gautrey on 26-Jun-2010 09:56:39 BST | I believe influencing up the organisation is powerful and great to be involved with - just a note of caution that your immediate boss can have a considerable impact on your ability to progress up the organisation so you need to ensure that he/she is still in your loop of activity, so that they don't feel you're isolating them. Posted by Maureen Atkins on 26-Jun-2010 15:51:19 BST | I have found that the key to being influential is directly linked to your authenticity. If you are genuinely in-tune with the organization and the leaders' needs and are acting in their best interest, then being influential is a very natural outcome. Stay balanced and fair and establish your reputation for being balanced and fair. Your opinion and perspective will go further when others can TRUST you and trust that your intentions are honest and above board. Posted by Kopitzee Parra-Thornton on 30-Jun-2010 22:43:42 BST | I think you have hit on a key issue here: Trust. So many organisations are lacking in organisational-trust. This obviously has a major negative impact on the culture and subsequent politicking. In the perfect world (i.e. in open, trusty organisations) the influencing issue is directly linked to authenticity and trust. However, in reality I believe you do need to have an eye for individual's personal agendas, which may (very likely) be at odds with what is presented as formal organisational goals and strategy. A somewhat cycnical view perhaps, but then organisations are essentially collections of power plays. Posted by kevin johnston on 01-Jul-2010 13:42:05 BST | I agree and I'd add that the trust-influence connection holds true even in (and particularly
in) low-trust environments. The question was how to influence. I've been quite successful
in establishing informal influence (vs. positional influence) in highly charged organizations.
Establishing trust IN ME is essential to MY ability to influence others. Of course, there
is limited influence if I'm "blind" to organizational realities. That is a conceptually
different question more directed at how to navigate difficult political waters. Posted by Anon on 01-Jul-2010 17:42:09 BST | Trust is one of the most important ingredients in influence, without it you have to resort to luck, force or manipulation which can have only short term effects. Think about it - are you easily inlfuenced by someone you do not trust? If you are unsure that someone is telling you the truth you are going to be very suspicious and cautious. So when influencing upwards, we need to keep the focus on building trust, and to Kevin's point, the danger of going around your boss to influence upwards is the erosion of trust with your immediate boss. So finding ways that he/she is comfortable with this activity (because it also helps them) is essential. Posted by Colin Gautrey on 18-Jul-2010 07:21:41 BST |
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