99 Ways to Influence Change, #79: Flatter
September 2, 2010
The saying goes, “Flattery will get you nowhere,” but anyone who has been given a well-placed compliment knows it can go a long way. Make someone feel good about themselves, and they are likely to reciprocate by helping you, doing what you ask, or otherwise opening themselves up to influence.
Of course, someone will see through an over-the-top compliment given just before a request is made. They will know you are buttering them up. One of my coaching clients was so effusive with flattery that people stopped believing everything he said, and it became an integrity issue. Avoid saying things that aren’t true or that are exaggerated.
If you can brighten someone’s day with a genuine acknowledgment, they are bound to repay it. Watch for opportunities to give someone a compliment, and increase your ability to influence change.
Who might you compliment today?
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99 Ways to Influence Change, #78: Eliminate noise
September 1, 2010
We live in a noisy world. Distractions abound. In the workplace, your initiative can be easily drowned out amongst everything else going on that keeps the place running. Not to mention the non-work-related stuff that people fill their attention with the rest of the time.
Give people the opportunity to hear what they actually need to hear, so they can do what needs to be done. To influence change, eliminate noise.
First, eliminate noise in the environment where the change occurs. During meetings or training when you want to keep the focus on the task at hand, close the door. Put up a “Do not disturb” sign. Turn off the office phone ringer. Put the mobile on vibrate. Turn off e-mail notifications. Put away any other workplace distractions that add to the noise.
Then, look at the noise produced by the initiative itself. There is so much information whizzing by, and everything that people don’t need to read, watch or hear is noise. Target your message so the people who need it to hear do, and those who don’t need to hear it aren’t bothered by it. Monitor the other competing messages that are produced by the organization. Can some be put on hold so there is more focus on the initiative? Eliminate all the extra stuff that, bit by bit, hogs the attention span of your audience.
How might you eliminate noise?
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99 Ways to Influence Change, #77: Generate short-term wins
August 31, 2010
Straight out of John Kotter’s playbook (Leading Change), it is important for the success of a long-term initiative to generate short-term wins. These are milestones that are set in the near future, which are deliberately chosen to demonstrate early success.
Short-term wins help build momentum by proving that the initiative will actually work. Demonstrating early success can help get the nay-sayers and hold-outs on board.
When selecting the short-term milestone or project, choose wisely. If possible, you want to pick a project that has all three of the following qualities:
- It is important.
- It has a high likelihood of success.
- It can achieve success within the attention span of those who want an excuse to write the initiative off (usually a few months).
A project that has all three qualities may be elusive. Usually, if something is too easy or short-term, it’s probably not that important (or else it would have been done already). If you come up with a milestone that is sufficiently important and short-term, then increase the likelihood of success due to your personal intervention. Make sure it happens!
Once you complete the first wins, you will want to continually produce short-term wins to keep the momentum going, and keep the attention of those who need proof that the initiative is making progress.
What might be your short-term wins?
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99 Ways to Influence Change, #76: Recognize success
August 30, 2010
When you are busy fighting fires, or shoring up dams, or generally focused on what’s next, it is easy to forget to stop and see what has already gone right. However, by continually looking at what is not working yet, you can make it seem like you are spinning your wheels. To keep up your own energy and to keep from demoralizing the rest of the organization, it is important to stop and acknowledge how far you have come. To influence change, recognize success.
Recognizing success requires first that you know what success looks like. Success means achieving goals, performing desired behaviors, and reaching milestones. Sometimes, it can be more subtle, like movement in the right direction, or changing minds one at a time. Look ahead and decide what success means at each step.
Next, you must be able to see that you and others have attained some success. On a regular basis, step back from the constant push forward to take stock of the distance covered. Search for and acknowledge the positive effects that have occurred as a result of the change initiative.
Then, let people know about it. Remind people what they have accomplished so far. Thank them for their efforts. Reinforce the progress to date by recognizing and communicating success when it happens.
How might you recognize success?
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99 Ways to Influence Change, #75: Get leadership support
August 27, 2010
As a change agent, you know what it is like to try to be responsible for implementing an initiative without really having the authority to get it done. Since you are trying to influence change without authority, you need to partner with others who have authority to help move things along. To influence change, get leadership support.
Beyond buy-in, leadership support for change means they are committed to the implementation. Their actions match their words. They hold people accountable. They make decisions that are consistent with the change. They communicate frequently. They back you up as change agent. In a nutshell, it means they are doing what needs to be done to implement change – and not doing things that contradict or obstruct it.
Leaders must understand the importance of their role in change and also agree to accept that role. Without leadership support, the scope of your change relies on your own personal span of influence. With disinterested leaders, it is only a matter of time before your initiative halts or fizzles away.
How might you get leadership support?*
Read more of the 99 Ways to Influence Change.
* I have an app for that! Or rather, a workbook. The Beyond Buy-in Workbook walks you through a 5-step process to figure out whose support you need and exactly what steps you can take to get it.
99 Ways to Influence Change, #74: Establish authority
August 26, 2010
If you don’t have direct authority as a manager or leader in your organization, you can gain authority in other ways. Your personal influence as a change agent relies on your ability to build up and utilize your expert power. To influence change, establish authority.
Having authority allows you to do many things to help implement change, such as:
- Take action without permission
- Make decisions that affect other people
- Model behavior
- Change minds
- Provide feedback
In the short term, you can establish authority by speaking up and demonstrating the skills and knowledge you already have. Share your observations, and be assertive when you see something that will throw the change off track. In the long run, support your role as change agent by continually increasing your knowledge – in your choice of professions as well as in organizational change.
How might you establish authority?
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99 Ways to Influence Change, #73: Shrink it
August 25, 2010
Large change initiatives can seem huge and daunting. A grand vision may be good for inspiration, but it can also freeze people with that deer-in-headlights feeling. It helps to narrow down a large change from something that seems impossible into practical steps. To influence change, shrink it.
Whether your organization is implementing a new strategy, installing a large-scale program, or completing a merger, individuals can feel disconnected from the change. Beyond asking, “What’s in it for me,” people will not know how to act until they know how they fit into the puzzle.
Break down the initiative into doable chunks. Set short-term targets. Identify the critical behaviors that people should perform. Show how each department or process has a unique part in the change. Link individual activities to the larger project. Split the initiative into smaller projects. Shrink the change into something people believe they can accomplish.
How might you shrink the change?
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99 Ways to Influence Change, #72: Be patient
August 24, 2010
Fact: we can’t change the attitudes and habits of others. We can only do our best to influence, and let them take care of changing themselves. And that happens in other people’s timing, not necessarily in yours. Sometimes, the best thing you can do is just stand back and wait. To influence change, be patient.
Introduce an idea, and give people time to warm up to it. Implement a new system or process, and let people figure out for themselves that it will work. Forge a new path, and allow people a chance to catch up.
Organizational change is not an immediate phenomenon. Thankfully so – if things changed as quickly as we wished they would, we would all have whiplash! So be patient, and know that you can use all the influence strategies you want, but you can’t bypass the change itself.
What areas just need a little more patience on your part?
Read more of the 99 Ways to Influence Change.
99 Ways to Influence Change, #71: Measure progress
August 23, 2010
If you got to the end of your change initiative and then looked to see if you made it to the intended destination, you would probably be disappointed. Although truthfully, you probably would never make it to the end because everyone would have given up on the project a long time ago without any evidence of improvement. To influence change, measure progress.
As a project manager, measure progress so you can see if what you are doing is working. That way, you can make adjustments as you go to help keep your initiative on track.
As a change agent, measure progress so you can help people see that their efforts are paying off. In the middle of a long change initiative, it might feel like nothing is happening despite a lot of work. It will help to have a way to say, “Look how far we’ve come!”
How often should you measure progress? Every year, quarter, month, week, day…? The answer depends on what you are measuring. You don’t want the time between measurements to be so short that you won’t see progress in-between because nothing moved. But, you also don’t want to wait so long that you’ll find out too late that you should have made an adjustment sooner. Find a frequency that will show concrete progress and also provide timely information for making decisions.
How might you measure progress?
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99 Ways to Influence Change, #70: Be flexible
August 13, 2010
The path of change is not linear. Nor is it predictable. Circumstances change. The urgent pops up and pushes attention aside. People react to change in ways you don’t expect. Others say one thing and do the opposite. The new system you designed doesn’t work the way it should. It costs more than you thought. All kinds of things occur that throw you off your original plan.
As a change agent, it can be tempting to stick to your plan about how change should happen. But when something new and unexpected happens, you suddenly have a new reality that was different from the one you started with. You will have to readjust your approach in order to continue forward.
Be flexible. Keep an open mind about alternate routes to the same end result. Don’t bang your head against the wall trying to stick to the way you thought it should work. If what you’re trying isn’t working, try something else. Dance with it.
Where do you need to be flexible?
Read more of the 99 Ways to Influence Change.
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