Influencing tactic number 1.

Influencing tactic number 1.

Introduction

In a change process or just in your everyday work, managers often come across situations where they need support of people or groups around them.

 You need to influence people in order to get what you want, and in order to do this effectively you need to be organised in the way that you think about the situation and plan your actions.

 We use this technique all the time, both as managers and as part of our coaching programme - it's simple, easy to use and very powerful.
This technique works best with a small project, or a discrete part of a bigger project.

Influencing plan.

Think about what you want to achieve, and who is important in helping you achieve it.

Sketch out a matrix (see our downloadable word template) with each person who can help under the headings "supportive", "agnostic" and "currently against".

Then for each person, put in a few phrases that cover their position and why they hold this view. The second of these is crucial, it's why they think that's important to understand.

 

• Try to see it from their point of view
  
• Is your idea a threat to them?
  
• Are they too busy to deal with your idea
  
• Does it fit in with something they wish to achieve?
  
• What are the benefits to them?
  

Then, for each person think about concrete action that you can take to either encourage them to support you further, or to bring them closer to supporting you or not opposing what you want to do. Such actions might be:

• A quick chat about your idea to sound them out further
  
• Check if they're going to the meeting where this is to be discussed
  
• Express interest in one of their projects and try to tie it in with yours, it could be mutually beneficial.
  

Actions

Think about when you're going to do these things and make sure that you do it as soon as possible. Do not be shy, but generally its best to avoid asking people straight out, especially if that puts you in a position of owing them a favour.

After you've talked to people, go back to the why question and think again now that you've got a better idea of what's going on in their heads.