In 360 Degrees of Influence, Monarth provides advice on how to gain the trust and respect of those around you—no matter where they’re positioned in the organizational hierarchy—and how to expand your influence well beyond your immediate environment.
We are born to influence
This first taste of the power of influence begins a process of developing and understanding our inherent powers in that regard. While social and domestic variables conspire to take this ability to different places and levels, the universal fact is that it is there within us, always available as a power to be reckoned with.
Setting the stage: strategically influencing people’s decisions
Reason and evidence do matter a great deal and having them on your side via diligent research and preparation can make influencing easier. But if you don’t consider all of the other variables at play in the decision-making process, you are likely to be pushed aside in favor of someone who has.
Influencing the opposite gender for mutual success
The first step to working together, then, is to recognize that we all have biases. We may each like to see ourselves as clear-thinking individuals guided only by evidence and reason, but alas, our biology and psychology conspire against such clarity. Clarity is possible, but you have to work for it.
Using your words to influence and change minds
Speaking to influence and change minds takes more than a routine approach. While useful for anyone, it’s most critical to those up-and-coming leaders and professionals who passionately care about making a difference, and who won’t stop before they’ve succeeded in stirring the emotions and engaging the minds of those who can help make it all happen.
Know what really motivates people and what people really care about
If you had to boil down the challenge of influence to one word, it would be empathy. Mastering the art of empathy depends on the successful interpretation of both verbal and nonverbal cues that link to the thoughts and feelings of others in a given moment or span of time.
Managing the influencing power of your personal brand
If you want to be perceived as a leader, you need to demonstrate a willingness to take charge, make difficult decisions and accept the additional obligations of leadership.
In order to influence others, you need to take advantage of leadership opportunities that are presented to you, asking to head a team or volunteering to take the lead on solving a long-standing or emergent problem.
How our decisions define our ability to influence
The benefits of smart decisions and the fallout from bad ones have a potentially wide-ranging impact on the lives of colleagues, peers, families, and communities — the net results from this often being a measure of our personal influence in the aftermath.
Making decisions involves taking responsibility, not just for the decision itself, but also for the consequences of that decision. This means you have to think beyond just the decision.
Mastering organizational politics
Organizational politics can be a constructive and positive aspect of a manager’s career, if it’s properly understood and practiced. Rather than engaging in behavior that undermines trust and seeks to gain personal advantage with oblique maneuvers, enlightened professionals influence organizational culture in a more principled way.
360-degree influence starts with you
If you want to advance toward a goal, you have to pay attention to the goal and to your progress toward it. If you set an unreasonable goal or don’t keep your behavior in line with that goal, nothing happens.
If you are motivated enough to learn the nuances for influencing others, you have to discipline yourself in terms of the goals you set and in monitoring your progress toward those goals.
Breaking through resistance
To get on your path toward greater influence, connect your change to the overall goals of the organization or project, pointing out how it fixes ongoing problems or will improve the current situation.
Ask them to explain the prior innovations and why they failed. Then walk them through your proposal and show them how the two differ. Respect their prior experience and invite questions about your proposal as a way to hook them into seeing the proposal through your eyes.
Influencing the public’s impressions of your organization
Two of the more important aspects of reputation management are strategy and tactics. Strategy is the overall plan, usually encompassing a goal or purpose; tactics are the specific actions you take or tools you use to implement that plan. The distinction is important, as the strategy must guide the tactics, not the other way around.
