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In This Paper
WHY WE LACK INFLUENCE
Influence vs. power The preconditions of influence Facts arent enough 3 4 5
A GEEK-FRIENDLY APPROACH
Reduce our resistance: Become willing Reduce their resistance: Foster openness 7 10
Both the explanation and the skills that we highlight are geared specifically toward people with technical backgrounds, because a lot of the generic approaches have not served us well.
Leading Geeks is an education and consulting firm dedicated to unlocking the value of technical people. By shining light on the different worldviews of technical and non-technical people, we help solve age-old problems in new ways and uncover untapped potential for productivity, creativity and innovation. To explore how we might help you, contact us at info@leadinggeeks.com.
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They make decisions without consulting us. They dont listen when they do consult us.
We end up feeling confused, frustrated and disrespected, and we wonder, whats wrong with them? Or worse, whats wrong with me? The pain of disrespect is bad enough, coupled with the confusion of why its happening and what to do about it is almost debilitating. You are not alone in this experience. Every few years, theres a new study accompanied by a flurry of headlines reminding us about IT leaders persistent lack of influence. Here are a few samples generated by a recent Gartner study:
The confusion of why its happening and what to do about it is almost debilitating.
CIOs dismissed as techies without business savvy by CEOs Computerworld UK April 12, 2012 Why CIOs Are Last Among Equals Sloan Management Review May 20, 2012 Most CIOs on the board but have little business influence Computerworld UK July 20, 2012
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We dont know the difference between influence and power. We fail to cultivate the preconditions for being influential. We try to use techniques that are more suited to sales people than geeks.
Influence is the ability to affect another persons inner state what they think, feel and believe. If Im exerting influence, Im trying to change your inner experience, how you
think or feel about something. Perhaps you may do something differently because of your internal change, but its not because I made you do it.
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They must be open to being influenced by you. You must be willing to change their inner state. You must be able to move them to think, feel and/or believe differently.
The hard truth is that many of us technical leaders lack influence because we dont meet the preconditions of influence. We rarely consider whether or not people are open to us. And since we have an aversion meddling with peoples inner lives, we are neither willing nor particularly capable of doing it well. Why? Because we prefer to believe that facts should be influential, not people.
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In retrospect, I realized I hadnt prepared him emotionally to accept that what he thought were process problems were really people problems, in which he played an important role. I made the mistake of assuming that the indisputable facts would lead to the obvious conclusion and compel him to take action. But I failed to move him in the direction of making a personal change and nothing got better. This is not a unique experience. When we tell this story at workshops and presentations, heads nod in recognition, it is an almost universal experience among geek leaders although we may have masterful command over the facts, we often fail to influence the people, even when it is for their own good.
Hadnt he agreed with every premise and every fact? Yes, he had. So what went wrong?
Ill-fitting advice
Geeks tend to overemphasize the importance of facts, overlooking the importance of cultivating emotional openness. However, experts on influence tend to overemphasize the importance of persuasive techniques, overlooking the importance of overcoming resistance to even using these techniques. Many useful and widely read books have been written on influence and persuasion, and what they tend to have in common is that they focus on skills and techniques. Weve observed that blindly following this type of advice rarely leads to influence, at least for technical people. Those who try to use these formulaic approaches seem wooden and inauthentic, odd and off-putting. Many of the techniques are about overwhelming other peoples resistance to your will, or treating others like unwitting victims of your savvy manipulation. While this may be fine for a salesperson trying to close a single deal, its not the kind of approach most of us can adopt.
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Focused on building influence rather than power Consistent with our goals and personalities Suited for us and for those we would like to influence
What weve observed is that rather than following the conventional advice, a more effective approach is to think about influence as a two stage process for meeting the preconditions for influence:
First reduce resistance Then use techniques of influence to change others inner state
Now, lets look at the preconditions for influence and note that this approach addresses all three and raises the probability of success.
Leading Geeks
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Leading Geeks
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Emotions are hard to understand and deal with. They seem infinitely complex, unpredictable and inherently ambiguous. But there is one rule of thumb that we have found to be extremely useful for concrete thinkers who want to up their emotional game. Simply put: People choose things that make them feel good or not feel bad.
What makes you feel good does not necessarily make someone else feel good.
With this rule of thumb, you can adjust your approach to influencing someone based on what makes them feel good. And the first step toward doing so is to recognize this important truth: What makes you feel good does not necessarily make someone else feel good.
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While it is not in our scope to describe the entirety of possible human motivations, we are highlighting some that you will likely see at work. And as commonplace as these social and subjective motivations are, we find that many geeks refuse to accept their validity as motives. To geeks, the desire for selfexpression seems indulgent. Statusseeking seems craven, belonging seems trivial, harmony seems pathetically Pollyanna-ish, and winning seems evil.
Since these alternative motivations seem so wrong, appealing to them feels even worse. Many geek leaders are unwilling to do so, and this is at the heart of why we lack influence. Because we arent willing to extend ourselves, stretch our worldviews and meet people where they are at. One could look at this tendency negatively, and label it stubbornness and inflexibility, but we prefer to recognize that this tendency is rooted in strong principled behavior and a special geek brand of empathy. Geeks are simply following the golden rule here. Treating others as they would like to be treated. But the golden rule is fundamentally flawed, because it doesnt account for real, deep, divisive differences in what people find rewarding.
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You are competent enough to help me in this domain. You are on my side.
Overemphasizing competence
Just as we overemphasize facts, we geeks also tend to overemphasize competence. We believe that if we are knowledgeable in this area and smart, than they should be open to our influence. In other words, If I know what Im talking about, you should heed my advice. Thats why we spend so much time and effort demonstrating, validating and expanding our competence. We love advanced degrees, learning new skills, getting certified in new languages or project management approaches. Not only are these fun and satisfying for us, we believe that these are the things that should matter most when others consider whether to be open to our influence. If an objective third party deems me competent, than so should you. But this single-minded focus on competence has disastrous results. Because, in truth, if someone doesnt think that youre on their side, it doesnt matter what they think of your competence. In fact, if they think that your allegiance lies elsewhere and they think you are competent, they become even less open. Competent enemies are much more threatening than incompetent ones. So were not going to focus on competence here, since thats not our challenge. Lets focus on the second criteria because in general, we are terrible at creating the feeling in others that we are on their side. Thats absurd, you say. How could they doubt my commitment? Dont they know how many hours I put in? While theyre home watching a football game, my team and I are here launching services for them. Well, actually, they dont know the number of hours that you put in, and even if they did, thats not how people evaluate whether or not you are on their side.
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Who will help us survive and deserves to be helped by us Who will harm us and deserves to be killed, enslaved or avoided
Its an instinctive feeling, not a rational calculation. And its a feeling thats primarily triggered by empathy.
But it became clear that there was more. It now seems that another major function of the brain is the ability to put yourself in someone elses shoes. When we see other people do things like reach for a peanut or get poked with a stick, the corresponding neurons in our own brains become activated, as if we ourselves were experiencing those sensations, or executing that action.
Same-sidedness is sensed by people based on a number of cues that we geeks rarely attend to.
Any time you watch someone doing something, the neurons that your brain would use to do the same thing become active as if you yourself were doing it, explains neuroscientist V.S.. Ramachandran. This capacity benefits us in many ways, allowing us to: Imitate others seamlessly, enabling easy transmission of knowledge and culture. If he hits a rock like that against another rock, and a spark jumps out, then I can do that very same thing. In fact, Im already doing it in my mind, so I think Ill make myself some fire.
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Cues of empathetic feelings are a sign that it is safe to be open to someones influence.
Same-sidedness is something that we constantly monitor and reassess. They may feel that Im on your side today and feel completely differently tomorrow based on your subconscious assessment of my empathy. This collides with another of our geek cultural biases. We tend to see the world through the lens of problems and solutions. And once a problem is solved, it stays solved. The idea that the right answer to a question can change from day to day is profoundly disturbing. We would assume that once someone believes that we are on their side, the question is settled and we can move on to other things. But if we want to be influential, we need to recognize that this is not a problem that can be solved but a situation to be managed. The question of whether they trust that we are on their side is always open.
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This is the greatest temptation of principled people, judging and rejecting people who violate our principles. But if we want to influence and contribute to people who are different than us, we must accept that they see the world differently and behave differently in it. Grandma had a useful saying, It takes all kinds.
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Asked clarifying questions Commented on their emotions, that mustve been really frustrating.
In this case, a little bit of empathy went a long way to foster their openness to influence.
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1. Listen for what is important to people 2. Describe a rosy future 3. Expose your desire 4. Express commitment 5. Translate facts into stories
Will explore each one in more detail and explain both why it is important and what you need to do to enhance your abilities.
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Now consider which of these people you would rather be influenced by, the one who understands whats important to you or the one who is either unable or unwilling? Your job is to detect what problems they care most about solving. Doing so moves them both rationally and emotionally. Heres what its like for them.
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If I know that you know what is important to me Reason Emotion I can more confidently predict that Ill get what I want, even if I have difficulty articulating it. Ill trust that you are supporting me personally, that you are on my side, not just buying into my objectives.
In short, people trust you if they feel that you understand what is important to them, even if you dont entirely agree with them. They dont trust you if they feel that you dont understand. And they feel contempt for you if they think you dont care enough to try to understand.
What they say What they dont say What they dont know how to say
People dont often come right out and declare what they care about. It is your responsibility to tease it out and reflect back to them what you understood to be important to them. Once you understand, you can validate its importance to you.
Why we resist
We geeks often deliberately reject this type of listening, especially when it comes to getting requirements from non-technical stakeholders. Its because we hold certain beliefs, derived from the development and support processes that weve been taught. We believe:
They should know what they want. They should articulate whats important to them. They should translate whats important to them into technology requests. What they tell us should be precisely and literally true.
Notice all the shoulds in these beliefs. We serve the needs of our stakeholders and they should be the source of requirements and requests. Unfortunately, real people dont always work that way. To master the skill of listening for what is important, you must allow that people frequently fall short of these ideals. They often:
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Observe
Signs of emotion are easy to spot if you remind yourself that you should be looking for them. The basic expressions of human emotion are instinctive and common, so its just a matter of paying attention to something we typically consider unimportant or even inappropriate at work. So when you are listening, look for signs of: Positive affect Excitement and Enthusiasm - High energy, Big smile, Emphatic gestures Interest - Sly grin, Questions, Returning to same point Negative affect Anger - Pursed lips, Furrowed brow Frustration Sigh, Clenched teeth Stubbornness -- Not listening Irrationality -- (your confusion) Copyright 2013, Leading Geeks Company. | www.leadinggeeks.com | 310-694-0450
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Ask
There is absolutely no harm in asking someone what they care about. These types of questions are usually welcomed. People are often glad to be asked to talk about what is important to them.
What is most important to you about this project? What will make you feel like this has really worked? What worries you about the plans?
Notice that this is very different than asking about goals or objective project success criteria. We geeks often ask them to rank their priorities (features, budget, schedule, quality). But the brain circuits that give you access to what you care about are not the same brain circuits that allow you to rank things in relative order. Its like the difference between Hows your sons robot project coming along? And How many hours have you spent on your sons robot project? One is open ended and invites excitement and pride. Open-ended questions make room for people to talk about their subjective experience. The other taps into the calculating parts of the brain, and is not likely to engender an emotional response. Both types of questions have their place, but when asking about importance, you want to stay in the realm of emotions.
Postpone objections
While you are listening to someone talk about what they want or what they are interested in, you might be tempted to voice your concerns about the plausibility and risks. You might even be tempted to test the validity of the request by exploring exceptions and edge cases, right then and there. As problem
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They hear our problem-solving as resistance and negativity. Rather than experiencing our questions and analysis as a form of support they hear it as judgment of their competence. It interrupts their flow of thought, which feels bad and disrespectful. When they are struggling to articulate whats important to them, interruptions can be disruptive and even painful. Its a similar experience to the one we have when we get interrupted in the middle of writing code. How long does it take you to get back to where you were and become productive again? Thats what its like for someone who is trying to explain their vision for a product, or imagine the features they need, and you interrupt them.
Before you start to question their request, make sure youve confirmed that you understand whats important about it. Once they know that youre looking to understand before evaluating, they can participate in the evaluation with you rather than feeling judged and belittled. A surefire approach to postponing objections is to always have paper and pen handy. You can jot your thought down and come back to it after you have made sure that they have been heard.
It sounds like what you want is It seems to be really important to you that If I understand correctly, what matters here is I get that you really care about
If you miss the mark, they will have the opportunity to correct you, and it will prompt them to be explicit about what is important to them. If you hit it on the nose, they will be pleased and reassured. You might notice a smile, a shift toward a more relaxed posture, or eager head nodding. If you havent already had this experience with coworkers, you will find it very rewarding. Copyright 2013, Leading Geeks Company. | www.leadinggeeks.com | 310-694-0450
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Why we resist
While shifting your approach to describe a positive experience in the future may seem like a fairly straight forward, easy thing to do, we have found that many of us geeks struggle with this skill. We have observed that we dont like to talk about the future because it feels like lying. No one really knows what the future will bring, so describing a future as if it were a certainty feels dishonest. And we loathe dishonesty. But as long as you realize youre describing a possible future and not promising a particular outcome, you can feel freer to describe a scenario without feeling disingenuous.
1. Describe a problem that youd like to fix at work. 2. Imagine a future where that problem is solved. 3. Imagine the experience of living in that future vividly. 4. Think of a colleague you would like to influence.
Write the rosy future for that problem in terms of what that colleague considers important. Once again, this may feel unnatural at first, but will become second nature in very short order. Youll be surprised at how much your business partners appreciate this. 5.
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Express commitment
Another phrase to add to your bag of tricks is, I am committed to This is especially important when talking about milestones and deadlines. It is beautiful because it expresses what you care about and are working toward without getting you into the morass of making a promise. A commitment is not the same as a promise. A promise is a guarantee of what will happen in the future and as we all know, no one really knows with complete certainty what will happen in the future. A commitment, on the other hand, is an expression of what you care about and what you feel determined to do. The beauty of a commitment is that, unlike a promise it does not guarantee an outcome. You dont risk having told a lie if that result isnt achieved. So many things happen outside of our control that it makes many of us uncomfortable to talk about the future with any degree of certainty. A commitment guarantees only one thing: that you will continue to work toward an outcome. You cant control what happens, but you can control what you are committed to. Notice the difference between these two statements: I we will finish the project by September 1. I am committed to finishing the project by September 1. The first statement might be hard for you to say, because you arent a fortune-teller. You dont really know that it will be done. The second statement is probably something you can say with confidence, especially if you have researched the issues and consider it to be a realistic goal. With a commitment, there is a lot more room for flexibility, while staying firmly rooted in achieving the outcome. Many times, non-technical people will be satisfied with the second statement. Not only will it be satisfying to them, they will also feel good about you.
Why it is important
There are two key reasons that this is so important. 1. Non-geeks are suspicious of people with no wants. Our business partners correctly assume that everyone has desires. And when you dont express yours, they assume that you made a conscious choice to conceal them. And then they become suspicious because people who conceal their desires often do so for devious reasons, as part of an attempt to gain advantage through concealment or deception. So when you hide your wants from them, they are less likely to trust you, and less open to your influence. They must consider that your advice is secretly self-serving rather than genuine and helpful. And when you do express your desires, they feel more confident in predicting your behavior because they understand your motivations.
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Emotion
Why we resist
Because we geeks are so devoted to rationality, logic and objective truth, we generally believe that subjective things like wants should have nothing to do with decisions at work. In fact, our analytical approach is designed specifically to remove emotional things like wanting from decision-making.
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I want this to be the smoothest launch youve ever experienced. I want this new software to make your life easier. I want to protect the students privacy. I want to give us a competitive advantage, not just keep up.
Experiment with this phrase in low-stakes situations, say at home with your spouse or kids. Our guess is that if you start to say I want with people who are not used to hearing you say it, you will notice slightly different, positive reactions from them.
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I was planning the feature set for a web product, and the tech lead kept saying that certain features I requested were expensive. I asked what he meant by that, and he explained without really changing his metaphor, When you submit that query it taxes the system. I listened carefully but never really understood that how important it was. And my choices for that product lead to our creating something that was, indeed, deathly slow. Later, the situation was explained to me differently by a tech lead who went on to become a Director. He said, When you submit the query, you are telling it to run through the whole database and look in every row and every column asking, are you there? Thats why, the more data in your data base, the more your query has to run around looking under every rock, and it slows the system down. Its very draining. As soon as I could picture the story of a query, I could appreciate the significance of the cost to the system, and I was able to much more easily let go of or modify problematic requirements. Without the story of how the query worked, I heard the information but not the meaning, and didnt change my thinking. With the story, I got the meaning and adjusted my approach. I was influenced by the able tech lead and glad of it. To become more influential at work, youll need to hone your ability to translate your native tongue of concept into story. If I hear your facts in the context of a story or metaphor I can actually understand what you are saying -- I can relate to the meaning of your facts, and be stirred to decisive action.
Reason Emotion
Why we resist
We resist telling stories because we mistrust anecdotes. Lets take a minute to look at why that is. Its pretty rare in a math class for a teacher to ask a student about their feelings related to the truth of a proposition. In math, proof is the only acceptable standard. How you feel is irrelevant. And this makes sense because math is about the manipulation of abstract symbols, which have no explicit connection to intuition, emotion, or other forms of human knowing. Intuition can be a great guide in math, but it has
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Leading Geeks
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A more valid conclusion would be to recognize the contextual uses of anecdotes. In many instances they are helpful vehicles for evidence. And in case you need evidence for the value of anecdotes and influence, neuroscience is beginning to offer exactly that. Scientists are now finding that our brains our designed to process information by observing a sequence of causal events. A good story activates mirror neurons in the brain as the listener imagines themselves in the story. It triggers cortisol, a hormone associated with focusing attention, and oxytocin, the empathy hormone which engenders warm caring feelings. So go ahead and give storytelling a try without feeling that youre compromising your commitment to logic and reason. You dont have to give them up to use stories for influence.
We have 12 help desks on campus. Each helpdesk has its own tracking software and procedures. Faculty, staff, and student satisfaction with tech support surveyed at its lowest point in 10 years.
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Think of an experience
Then think of an experience, real, hypothetical or even metaphorical that references these facts, as well as the emotions triggered by the situation. Tell what happened, and what resulted. The story emerges from causal events. Heres an example: Last month the Dean of the arts college called me to complain about how much trouble he had getting help with a hard drive problem on his laptop. He couldnt figure out which of our 12 help desks to call, so he just randomly picked one. He waited on the phone for 10 minutes and then was told that he had to call someone else. And as I listened to him, I felt worse knowing that we spent 25% more than our sister institutions, only to give him such poor service.
Formula
Here is a formula for a basic story structure that can contain any kind of fact: Someone [ did | experienced ] something that was [ surprising | intriguing | unexplained |embarrassing | exciting | difficult | etc.] which lead to an outcome
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Remember, just as empathy is essential in building trust, it is even more important when restoring it.
Conclusion
By now, hopefully you no longer feel that IT Leaders can never overcome the persistent influence deficit. We can get that seat at the table that weve been talking about for decades. But it will take consistent and persistent work on our part to lower the barriers (the resistance) to our influence and practice in the techniques to break through. Too much is at stake to give up. Technology has become too central to the success of our organizations to accept that we in technology will forever be relegated to second class status. We owe it to ourselves, to our staffs, and to our organizations to strive for influence commensurate with the technology we oversee.
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Maria McManus, Co-founder, Non-geek. Drawing on her experience as VP of Product at iVillage and Director of User Experience at Disney, Maria helps business people unlock creativity and productivity when working with technical teams. maria@leadinggeeks.com
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