By Nat Ferguson and Kristen Lunman, Powrsuit
Ever attempted to persuade a colleague to support your initiative? Or tried to sway someone at the other end of the political spectrum? How about a dinner table debate about the benefits of eating celery?
Chances are, your influencing attempts got a lukewarm response – at best. And, if you’re anything like us, you spent the next few hours, days, or weeks wondering where you went wrong.
We’re bad at influencing others
If we asked you to influence your way to two backstage passes to Beyonce, how would you do it? Most of us would adopt one of two tactics:
Guilt: Delivering your best sob story – why you deserve/need/can’t live without the tickets.
Incentive: Offering a financial reward or reciprocal favour.
These techniques showcase our poor understanding of influence. While begging and bribing may be effective in a one-off transaction, it’s impossible to use them every day. Also, neither will build the social capital required to be an effective leader.
Our tactics are the only problem, it’s also the way we use them. We approach influencing like a golf pro with only one club – by defaulting to the same tactic in every scenario, we’re setting ourselves up to fail.
See the whole course, not just the first hole
Let’s take the golf analogy further. Looking forward to 18 holes, we use the first swing to convince everyone else how right we are. From a cold start, we (excuse the pun) drive home our case with data, presentations and storytelling.
Have you ever been convinced by that approach?
Convincing doesn’t work because it’s obvious you’re trying to change someone to suit your needs – otherwise, they wouldn’t need convincing, would they? It’s like getting a hard sell when you walk into a shop; a Pitch Slap puts everyone on the defensive.
You have 18 holes, and should be using all of them to set the groundwork for your final swing.
Play the player, not the game
Influencing isn’t about you. It’s about them. Your job is to connect the dots between what stakeholders want and your idea, strategy, tool, deadline or budget. And while we’d all love to get a hole-in-one, only 1-2% of golfers achieve that goal (Kristen is one of them #Pro).
So approach influencing as you’d approach each hole: a series of steps that take you closer to buy-in. Each golf club is a tactic – know the right one to apply at the right time. And when amateurs have 14 to choose from, you have a lot of options.
It’s really not about you
Let’s say you want to pitch a team day to your manager.
Use the driver to drive your thinking away from yourself by asking “What’s it like to be them?”. Get curious about your manager’s goals, motivations and blind spots. If they have an overflowing diary, big impending deadlines and slashed budgets, your ‘great idea’ will likely go down like a lead balloon. Had you teed off with an attempt at convincing, you’d have received a frustrated ‘no’.
Instead, you’re a swing up, and it’s time to bust out the iron: actively listening. Or maybe the wedge: building credibility around your expertise. How could a team day take some load off their plate? How could you build confidence in your ability to take on the organising? Is there any wiggle room in the budget?
It’ll take a few hits (and a few clubs) to make it to the green, and that’s ok – influence is a process. Use different tactics to guide your ball close to its destination before getting out your Putter and nudging it gently towards the hole your solution.
Because you’ve done the pre-work, you’re no longer pitching a team day. You’re offering a low-cost productivity boost, stepping up to take something off your manager’s plate, or planning an end-of-project celebration. All of those things are far more compelling than ‘I have a great idea’.
The work starts before you set foot on the course
We love instant gratification as much as the next Instagram addict, but true influence takes time. And, like most things, it starts well before there’s a concrete reason to do it.
Just like we need to get job-hunting fit before starting to look, we need to start influencing well before we need a result. Invest in internal networking to build strong relationships, make your value visible, hone your storytelling skills and share your opinions to build trust and credibility.
Then, when it’s time to step onto the golf course, the people you need to convince will be right there in the cart beside you.
