Recognising your sphere of influence and making it work for you today

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Influencing means many things to many people. From persuading nations to collaborate and developing policies within a business, to making your child hold your hand to cross the street! All forms of influencing can be draining, especially if we don’t have a clear strategy to get what we want.

In our latest webinar ‘The role of influencing at work’, leadership expert Sara Parsons held an in depth conversation about the subject, and our everywomanNetwork attendees were invited to talk about their own influencing skills.

The results of our webinar polls showed that you aren’t confident in your ability to influence the people around you. In one poll, almost all of our participants felt they had a lot of room for improvement, while in another, a large proportion admitted that your current influencing skills – or lack thereof – cause you to be uninformed at work, meaning you have to work harder and longer hours to fix your mistakes.

However, the story isn’t that simple, as many of you said that you felt much more confident in your abilities to influence your friends and family, which just goes to show that when it comes to influencing people, it’s a question of confidence rather than a lack of skills that holds us back. After all, if you have the power to impact the decisions your friends and family make, you certainly can do the same at work.

But what are the first steps? How do you go from being stuck in the background to getting out there and making your mark? Who do you need to influence? What do you want to be known for? Read through the following eight steps and the answer – not to mention killer influencing skills – could soon be within your grasp.

First, establish those people you need to influence on a daily basis. Your sphere of influence should look something like this: your boss, colleagues, junior team members, clients, team, direct reports and business partners.

Now think about the other people you can add to that circle, those who might not seem such an obvious choice at first. Here are Parsons’ suggestions: your boss’s boss (to sell your idea to a wider audience rather than to go over your boss’s head!); the finance team (the people who can help sign off your budget); your CEO (the person who can really take forward one of your ideas); your HR team; industry specialists; recruitment agents (the people who can make sure you get the best candidates for a role before the competition snaps them up) and investors in your business.

How, you might ask? By breaking it down into 3 key areas.

Consider the tasks that need doing

In order to influence with conviction, you need to have a clear goal or purpose in mind. Reflect on the following to figure out what they are and the tasks that will get you there. What needs doing in my team right now? What’s going to move the business forward? What’s happening this week that I need to be involved in? Who can I share my knowledge with? What effort do I need to put in to ensure this task makes a real difference?

Ask yourself which people you need to team up with

These people will be your key stakeholders. Are you already sharing your experience, opinions and knowledge with them? Or do you need to get them to tap into your potential? Ask yourself, what do people not know about me? Which personal skills have I not shouted about loudly enough? This is vital, because you need to be credible to wield influence, and gaining credibility is hard when people don’t know who you are or what you do. We never want to be referred to as ‘that person who sits in the corner’ after all.

Consider your own personal career development

This step is also crucial – we have a duty to ourselves to take our development into our own hands. So consider what skills you need now that will help you move forward and help you influence people. Perhaps it’s presentation skills; maybe you’re lacking in social media know-how – it’s time to step up, find someone to help you and build those skills as soon as you can.

Taken from Covey’s famous book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, this technique is useful for recognising your priorities, dropping dilemmas you can’t do anything about and taking responsibility for your actions. These are all key skills of the successful influencer.

Circle of Control
This is what we are personally responsible for and have the ability to control. This boils down to ourselves and our emotions because no matter how hard we try, attempting to control other people and external situations is as futile as trying to control the weather.

Circle of Influence
This is where we can do some work and the influencing can begin. Ask yourself, who and what can you influence? Our health, relationships, management projects, teams, promotions all come under this banner.

Circle of Concern
Do you spend too much time worrying? Do you find yourself saying, ‘If only I’d done this?’ Says Parsons, ‘It helps to think, do you know what? It’s done. You don’t need to worry about it anymore. Think about what is in that circle of concern of yours, and try and get rid of it – anything else and you’re wasting your time. What’s the point in moaning about the IT department being slow? There’s nothing you can do about it; either do something productive or drop it.’ Once you realise what is in your circle of concern, it’s very liberating to let go of the extra baggage that has been clouding your thoughts and focus on the things that you can change.

Consider your current working environment. Do you get invited to meetings? It’s hard to influence people if you don’t. Do you get asked for your opinion? If not, you can’t afford to wait to be asked; you have to find an effective way get your point across. Is communication transparent in your place? This has a huge knock-on effect on your ability to influence. Are you offered lots of opportunities to get involved? For example, are you often on the receiving end of people saying, ‘We’d love your opinion on this?’ Or is your working environment very closed? If you answered no to any of these, you’ll need to work on strategies that will help put yourself forward.  

Bear in mind 20th century author and self-improvement guru Dale Carnegie’s famous words. ‘You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you’. Go on, ask yourself, when did you last show interest in something purely because you were interested rather than because you had a hidden agenda?

Pinpoint someone in your business and learn from them. Don’t have a good role model in the work place? Don’t despair – learn from the bad role models instead. Parsons says, ‘I worked somewhere once, I won’t name names, but people were basically stomping all over each other, all of the time. There were no good role models in the place and guess what, the company doesn’t exist any more. So, think about what’s working and what’s not and take your cues from that. Also remember that socialising and getting to know people is a big part of influencing – as people get to know us, we build rapport and empathy with them. It’s one of the biggest learnings in business: people like doing things for people they like.’

It’s simple. Reflect on the questions posed in this article and work through the accompanying exercises. Then make the move into your exciting new role as an influential role model today!

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