Earning the ability to influence people in your organization requires that you maintain your integrity.  One simple way to demonstrate your trustworthiness and credibility is to keep your promises.

Keeping promises goes beyond the literal promise.  According to Barbara Pagano and Elizabeth Pagano, authors of The Transparency Edge:  How Credibility Can Make or Break You in Business, the following are also examples of keeping promises:

• Uphold commitments
• Live proclaimed values
• Guard confidentiality
• Honor deadlines
• Keep appointments
• Do what you say you will do

When you keep your promises, you show that you are indeed someone who can be counted on to do what you say you will do.  In times of uncertainty, people will value your reliability.

How might you ensure that you keep your promises?

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Want people in your organization to get on board with your change initiative?  Show them how the change will fix an existing problem!  Give them a solution (or better yet work with them to develop a solution) to a nagging issue and they will thank you for your help.

In my experience, people will gladly put in the effort to make their jobs easier, more effective or more meaningful.  Help them fix something they’ve been complaining about and you will get raving fans.

As the project progresses, scope creep will naturally happen as related problems can also be solved within the context of the project.  As long as the budget and time line can support it, go ahead and include it!  Fixing problems will go a long way toward gaining the support of people whose jobs will be better for it.

What problem might you fix?

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In Influence:  The Psychology of Persuasion, author Robert Cialdini talks about the principle of reciprocity:  people tend to return a favor.  Do something nice for someone, and they are likely to do something nice for you in return.  As a change agent, your personal influence with individuals can be enhanced by this principle.  To influence change, do favors for people.

Saying that you should do lots of favors so people will owe you favors in the future sounds manipulative, I realize.  No one with integrity wants to think of purposely doing good deeds with the intent to rack up points that you can cash in later.  But it’s a simple psychological principle.  We have more influence with people who like us, and one way to get people to like you is to do favors for them.

I don’t recommend only doing favors for people whom you would like to gain influence; generally we call people who do that brown-nosers!  Instead, do favors for everyone.  Be generous with your time, knowledge, expertise and power, because as a change agent you never know who you will need to influence.  Do favors because it’s the right thing to do, and trust that your personal influence will grow.

How might you invoke the principle of reciprocity?

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In order to change, people need both the desire and the ability.  Change often requires people to learn how to perform new tasks and behaviors so they have the ability to participate effectively in the change.  To influence change, build new skills.

New skills vary by change initiative, but they might include:

• Time management
• Creativity
• Team facilitation
• Leadership
• Measurement and analysis

Prepare people for the change by providing the skills they need to perform well in the new organization.  Identify the new behaviors, tasks and activities that are required to implement change, and ensure that the people you expect to do them have the skills to participate successfully.

What new skills does your change require?

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For two years in a row, my fellow Organization Change Alliance colleague Jeff Lebow has provided feedback as I designed exercises for the presentations I gave to the group.  Both times, he asked a remarkable question:  “How can you help people succeed?”

Whenever it is possible for someone to make an error, someone will.  Wherever there is an opportunity for confusion, someone will be confused.  Wherever someone can get stuck, someone will get stuck.  Anyone who is confused or makes an error or gets stuck will naturally become frustrated and disillusioned with the task at hand.

As you design the change initiative, consider that no one else in the organization is as familiar with it as you are.  It is easy to make assumptions that people will know what to do without detailed instructions or examples.  Take a step back and determine where people might need a little extra help to succeed.

How might you help people succeed?

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When change is happening to people without sufficient explanation, they will instinctively resist it.  To help people understand what is going on, it is important to let them know what the change is and why it is happening.  To influence change, educate people about the change itself.

Answer the natural questions people will want to know to help them decide to get on board:

• What is the change?
• Why are we doing it?
• What are the goals?
• What’s in it for me?
• How will I be affected?
• What is required for this to be successful?
• When will it start and end?
• Who is supporting this?

Use multiple communication vehicles to inform people about the change.  Typical top-down vehicles include newsletters, town hall meetings and e-mail blasts.  Also, make sure education about the change also occurs in one-on-one conversations and team meetings between managers and employees to make it personal.

How might you educate people about the change?

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My dog Sadie is now 9 years old, but I remember when we brought her home as a puppy.  The first thing on the list?  House-training.  I had heard that the best book on dog training is How to Be Your Dog’s Best Friend by the Monks of New Skete.  Their advice is simple.  Take the dog out in regular intervals.  When they go in the right spot, you praise them:  hoot, holler, cheer, smile, clap!  Good girl!  If they have an accident, you admonish the dog with a growl, take them outside and show them where to go.  When they go there, praise them again!

Lo and behold, years later when we potty-trained our son (and are now going through it with our daughter), the book Toilet Training in Less Than a Day recommends the same course of action!  And it worked just as effectively.

Am I comparing working adults to puppies and toddlers?  Yes!  Because we all enjoy receiving praise, no matter what age and maturity.  We want reassurance and recognition that we are doing a good job.  And the good news for change agents is that giving people praise for doing something correctly reinforces the behavior and improves the likelihood that they will do it again!

For what might you give people praise?

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In most cases the day-to-day activities, meetings and tasks continue at the same time as change is taking place.  It is easy for change to be a peripheral activity, something to fit between everything else, or something to complete when everything else is done.  To influence change, help people prioritize.

Prioritizing is not just about helping people understand the urgency and importance of change.  How does its importance stack up against everything else?  It doesn’t work for the change initiative to be relegated to people’s free time, nor does it work for everyone to stop running the company so they can focus only on the change.  What can slide, and what is more important than the change?

Unless people already had excess capacity, either the capacity needs to increase to absorb the work of change (either by adding people or adding hours), or the amount of work needs to be adjusted to fit the capacity.  As a change agent, work with employees and managers to prioritize activities so the change can be done effectively and also given its due importance.

Who and what might you help prioritize?

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Change can be intimidating for those going through it.  Taking on new behaviors, especially those that conflict with the existing culture of the organization, require people to do things that are uncomfortable.  As a change agent, you can help by encouraging.

Literally, “to impart courage,” there are many ways you can encourage people:  Reassuring them that it will be ok.  Reminding them that they are qualified and capable.  Telling them they will be better for it.  Walking them through a tough scenario.  Or letting them know you support them and will help them deal with what comes next.

Sometimes people going through change need a little nudge forward.  Instill confidence and encourage to help people take that step.

Who might you encourage?

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While it sounds illicit, bribery is simply offering something in exchange for what you would like another person to do.  Mutual back-scratching or trading favors are common ways to influence someone who doesn’t believe the value of performing an activity is worth the effort to do it.  A little extra incentive might push some people over the hill of resistance.

Note:  I am not suggesting that you offer or request anything illegal or unethical!  Perhaps you might offer to take someone out to lunch if they will do something to help move change forward.  Or you might put in a good word with management.  Or trade vacation weeks.  Or use your influence on their behalf.

The trouble with bribery (besides riding the margin of ethics) is that it can become an expectation.  Like offering candy to a child to be quiet, you might find that the person will want future favors in exchange for continuing their “proper” behavior.  Use with extreme caution!

Who might you bribe?

(Originally listed in Everyday Influence Tactics Not Found in Leadership Books.)

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