Finding the Evidence of Your Influence

[00:00:03] Welcome to the Quick Take Podcast, the show where you get targeted advice and coaching for executives by executives. I'm Susie Tomenchok. And I'm James Capps. Give us 15 minutes and we'll give you three secrets to address the complex topic of issues that are challenging executives like you today. Hey, welcome, James, to Quick Take. How are you? I'm good. This is going to be the funniest episode ever.

[00:00:31] We literally were talking for 20 minutes about something and we're like, well, geez, let's just hit record again. Yeah, we were like, what should we talk about today? And I was thinking, reminded me of a story of having influence within an organization. And then all of a sudden we're down a radical. And then we're like, stop. We need to talk. We need to just talk and chat about this as we are just normal people. People like we are, which marginally, there has been debate about that in certain circles, the normal people part.

[00:00:59] That's fair. That's fair. So the point here is influence goes beyond just your impact in the moments. And when you have to influence beyond your area of authority, it's really important to consider the relationship. And so the example that I was telling you that we both lived through, which was funny to reminisce around it, was that we sold B2B to the industry, but we also sold to headquarters. Right.

[00:01:29] And headquarters was like the hardest relationship. And we looked at it as family. And that's always the case. Isn't that always the case, right? Internal customers or family customers are always the hardest. The messaging is totally different. And you feel like you should have no, we pay ourselves. Why would we even have this conversation? It's obvious. Use us as a vendor. Totally. And it's never simple. It isn't simple because they looked at us as a vendor. Right, right. And they're like, prove it to us. Right.

[00:01:59] Prove it to us. You need to be the same. We're going to treat you exactly like a vendor because we need to be fair. Because that's a conflict of interest. It's like when your dad is also your coach. You're always going to get screwed. Good example. That's a good example. You'll always have to do more push-ups. You'll always get yelled at for goofing off soonest. So yes, it's exactly like that.

[00:02:20] So there was this annual meeting of 150 people that come together and look at all the vendors. And what I didn't realize is the ops team that owned a relationship had been like creamed every year because it was a hostile audience. They didn't like us. So you kept saying, use us. And they were treating you like their child and not being fair. Sure. So the ops team's like, we need to send somebody that's good at presenting. So they sent me. Right, right, right, right, right. I had no idea I was walking in too.

[00:02:49] We'll send a smart girl. Let's see if she does good job. Yeah, thank you for that. Thank you. Not just somebody that has good hair. See, I told you that'd come up. I read until you started drinking. Oh, if you're not watching on YouTube, you have to. Yeah, let's come back and watch me spit all over the computer. We will try to provide some value in this episode for you. We promise we'll get there. We promise. It's worth it.

[00:03:17] So I had to go present to this. They don't let us into the room until right, you get your 20 minutes and that's it. And so I walked in. I actually had technical difficulties that nobody helped me with. And I was getting set up. More than 150 people in the room, but I wouldn't have known it because there was no talking. It was quiet. Oh my gosh. It was just looking at me. How horrible.

[00:03:40] As I was working through the technical difficulties. And so I'm sweating. Like all of a sudden, I'm like, oh my gosh, I didn't realize like this whole reality of this is not going to be easy. Oh, this is going to go down. Right, right, right. So I start to present. I could hear my voice even being like nervous. So I'm like, oh my gosh. And I go from the title slide to the next slide. And there's like 50 special effects, the transitions that you're not supposed to use in PowerPoint.

[00:04:09] And I was like, where did these come from? And what made it worse was- The fireworks and the gino and whatever those stupid things are. Like everything. And everything was animated. So there was a three sentence disclaimer at the bottom and every letter came in separately. And so I was like, what is going on? And I didn't have time to change it. It's like- Right, you're mid-presentation. The clock is ticking. So I'm just like hoping that it wouldn't happen, slide two. So I go to the second slide, same thing, but different effects.

[00:04:39] And there are some of those effects are so bad. They're unusable. Exactly. I can imagine the PowerPoint developers, you know, dropping acid going, what if it looked like this? As if somebody's going to use all these. Yeah, exactly. So by the time I got to the third, it finally dawned on me that my elementary school children were learning PowerPoint and they had put all these transitions in because they'd learned that. I didn't realize and I hadn't practiced in presentation mode.

[00:05:07] Right. Oh, of course. Yeah. Nobody goes into presentation mode. No. So I stopped the presentation finally after like slide five and I go, listen, I know what's going on. I just figured it out. And I told the audience and it broke the ice. Oh man. It was that vulnerability. It was like being able to show myself. And what then started happening is they were like, they went from being mad at me for being like this five-year-old. Right. This child that brought in the transitions. That thought this was good to have these transitions. Right. Because they assumed that I thought this was good.

[00:05:37] Oh, it's going to wow them. Right. Right. Right. Right. To having sympathy for me. Oh, that's fantastic. So then every time they would wait until I stopped talking so that everybody could see what happened to the next slide. And then we'd all laugh hysterically because it was, they were effects none of us had ever seen before. That's fantastic. Fantastic. And it changed our whole relationship. Wow. Like we started shifting into treating them like a client.

[00:06:04] But I think the key story, the key takeaway there is, look, you can oftentimes get stuck in a rut related to influencing based on your role, based on your function, based on your company relationship. But there are so many other ways to influence beyond that that are so much more powerful. Yeah. And, you know, I think we saw a lot of that during COVID where people who had authority because of their corner office lost that authority. Yeah.

[00:06:30] So it's this topic, which is how do you influence beyond your role is exactly that. You did it through vulnerability. And there's so many great ways to do that. Yeah. And it is so true that, yes, can you get what you want by going because I said so, because I'm the highest person in the room. I'm the decision maker. That doesn't mean you're going to get buy in. That doesn't mean people are going to be all in.

[00:06:56] And in fact, the research shows that people are five times more likely to be all in if they're a part of the process. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. So you don't go and say, here's the plan. You go and go, hey, this is what I've come up with so far. What do you think? And you're not going to adjust everything, but just getting people to put their fingerprint on it goes a long way. But we're like, so we're going so fast. We just want to present this. Let's make a decision. Let's go.

[00:07:25] And sometimes you really need to think about, how do I need to influence here? Yeah, I learned that early on in my career. I felt like oftentimes I knew what the answer was. We'd go in. It was pretty clear what the answer was. I had expertise or knowledge or experience. And I would just say, well, I could just save us all time. Here's the answer. And I felt like I was doing us a favor. And I undermined every single one of those situations. Every single outcome was not what the answer should have been. And we went a different direction simply because I said that.

[00:07:54] And that is really when I learned, you know, the journey is the destination. And, you know, I've built the skill of influence through getting people to come to the conclusion that I wanted and helping them think it was their idea. And so that is one really great way that you can do that. I have to like this is the podcast of true confessions, because I was trying to I was doing a blog on feedback.

[00:08:24] And I thought, I'm going to go look back on my 360 from 10 years ago. Oh, my God. When I had a team of people. What a treat. And that was like and what I expected. There was one person that worked for me that didn't like me. That was really hostile. And I'm like, I'm going to learn from that feedback. But what I didn't realize is all the positive feedback was wrapped around. There was a different message that I didn't see in the moment. And that was she takes our feedback, but she still does what she wants to.

[00:08:53] And I didn't see that in the moment. And I like to your point about be careful that you may think that you're being supportive, but it might feel like you're alienating. Even if you get the feedback, you're not influencing in a positive way because you're still defaulting to what you want to do. Right. Yeah, I think it's it's you know, it's about being able to both listen and be heard is about being sure about the engagement.

[00:09:22] You know, you do know even my example, which, you know, I felt like I was taking people along. We know we've been in rooms where the leader of the whether it's the executive or the person who's in charge of the situation. They already have the answer. Yeah. And they're not going to care what we do. And it's and so you're it's just going to happen the way it's going to happen. And you can realize early on that it's just going to this isn't going to work out. And I've been in meetings where we just can we just tell us what the answer is? Because everything we say you tell us we're wrong.

[00:09:52] So clearly you're you're trying to get us somewhere, but you're doing it poorly. I like to go in and say, I feel like I know the answer, but I want you to prove me wrong. Yeah. And I like that. And I like at the end going, yeah, I thought we'd go left. And I think now we should go right. But it is it's important. Another really important way of doing that. A corollary to that is you want to be somebody within the organization who can be who is a good sounding board.

[00:10:17] So often you are if you are somebody that everybody goes to for an answer, you will not get the authority or the influence if you were just a good listener. And when people start to come to you and just say, hey, I just want your two cents on this. Hey, what do you think about this? Because that's influence beyond your your role and your title.

[00:10:35] And I think realizing that that is a much a very powerful and position to put yourself in is, you know, people from all over the organization will find time to want to check in with you because of your perspective. And that's how you kind of have a situation where you can have more influence than just really your title. When I meet with teams, I talk about what is the evidence of your influence? So are people coming and they do they confide in you?

[00:11:03] What questions do they ask you? Are they asking you the right questions that's appropriate to your role? And pay attention to that. And I have to pull back. I remember one time what our leader found out that we weren't being fully transparent in a leadership meeting. And I'll never forget. He walked in so angry, yelling, like yelling at us, slammed his hands on the table and said, if you are these are this is a quote, direct quote.

[00:11:33] If you are not open and honest, you will be punished. And well, oh, OK. That's an extreme example. But there are times that we make people feel that way. You may not slap your hands on the table. Yes. But you do. You do have maybe more passive aggressive behaviors that create that situation. That's really interesting. To bring it back to the evidence.

[00:12:00] It's not just when we think about influence, we often think about who do I need to influence beyond? That's important. And what is the evidence of that? But what is the evidence as an executive leader? You have influence with your directs within your sphere of influence. Will they follow you because they respect you? Or are they doing it because of who you are, your title? That's some real honesty that you have to reflect on. I love that.

[00:12:28] I think that's my big takeaway from this conversation is, you know, have the tenacity to examine the evidence that exists to show that you are doing this correctly. That you do have influence over your people, positive influence. And so often, you know, I know we've talked about this before where people will say, well, they always do what I say. All right. That is a piece of evidence.

[00:12:54] And if you find that that's the only evidence you have, then maybe it's not as strong as you think it is. Yeah. And really looking at that and saying, look, I'm going to write down, I need to find five pieces of evidence to show that I'm doing a good job here. And if you can't, then you probably need to have a good look in the mirror and reconsider your approach. And how you're going to build it. Yeah. Yeah. It's a really important conversation and fun. This was fun for us. Was it fun for you? I hope so. Thanks, James.

[00:13:23] Thanks for listening to this week's episode of Quick Take, where we talk about the questions that are on the minds of executives everywhere. Connect with us and share what's on your mind. You can find us on LinkedIn, YouTube, or whatever nerdy place on the internet you find your podcasts. All the links you really need are in the show notes.