Make it clear how what you do adds value for others — Have a compelling one-sentence explanation at the ready.
Make it hard to be forgotten once you've been introduced at any event, such as a networking event. — Share interesting information about yourself without going into a hard sell.
Practice what you preach. E.g., "If you're in finance make sure your own accounts are in order."
Be ready to share success stories.
Be proud of what you do — When talking about your job, whatever it is, sound a positive note.
Even when you are facing someone who doubts your ability, stay positive. You can be confident that they will be proved wrong.
People buy because you are offering something that will benefit them. This is fundamental to actually adding value, which is always assessed from the customer's point of view.
People make buying decisions emotionally, so tell your success stories in a way that brings out the challenges you faced, the intensity with which you attacked them, and the satisfaction your successful results produced.
Don't stint in explaining what you have to offer. There's a tendency to take one's own expertise for granted because what you do has come to feel very natural. This can lead you to understate what you bring to the table. Be sure you explain fully how necessary your expertise is for creating value in the situations you're discussing with a customer.
Keep building your brand — "Broadcast your personal brand in every possible way. Make it clear and consistent."
I've paraphrased Hood's tips above. They don't take long to read, so I encourage you to have a look at the original list as she wrote it.
Not everything Stanley Bing writes is satirical (though everything he writes for Fortune's back page is). For instance, he regularly offers practical advice at BNET.com that is down-to-earth and unhoneyed, while also being amusingly expressed.
On January 12 the issue was how to get one's good work noticed by the boss. After encouraging the correspondent who wrote in with this question to familiarize himself with his boss's likes, dislikes, and habits, he goes on to list ten tips (abbreviated here):
1. Talk to the boss every day you can. ... Don’t wear him or her out. Just begin to establish the idea that you are a human being, not just a function ...
2. Notice when he or she comes in to the office, and then make sure you're there too.
3. Wander by his or her office now and then, and stop in for a chat if he or she doesn’t seem to mind.
4. Look for opportunities to make your boss’s life easier.
5. Never present a problem without also bringing along a couple of solutions.
6. Tell the boss the whole truth.
7. Don’t whine. If he or she treats you mean now and then, just accept it.
8. If there’s anything going on that requires a volunteer, let it be you.
9. Show your appreciation. Anybody that tells you that sucking up — done properly and with restraint — is wrong ... is simply advising you to disarm one of the most powerful weapons in your arsenal.
10. Share glory, but not blame. When there is praise due for something well done, let your boss have the credit, even if you deserve it. If there is blame, accept it, even if the boss deserves it.
The above gives you a taste of Bing's style. If you want a further dose, you can visit his website at stanleybing.com.
Earlier this year John Baldoni, a leadership consultant, published Lead Your Boss: The Subtle Art of Managing Up. If you were to read the book, you wouldn't find anything astonishing or entirely novel. Baldoni's strength is in making the case for this key point: middle managers need to be willing and able to take initiative.
For instance, in the prologue (pdf) to his book, Baldoni argues:
Leading up is a form of managing up, but with a difference. Managing up denotes administrative work; leading up implies initiative. Both are essential to leading your boss effectively. Both practices are focused on helping the leader do his job better. But in leading up, the person leading up demonstrates a degree of selflessness so that the organization can benefit.
Baldoni addresses himself to senior leaders, too. He tells them:
You should encourage leadership from the middle ranks. Skeptics may think that leadership from below will undermine a CEO’s authority. Reality dictates the opposite. When managers in the middle are taking ownership of issues, making decisions, and becoming accountable for results, then senior managers have the freedom to think and act strategically without getting bogged down in tactical matters. Organizations must be filled with people who can think for themselves as well as act with initiative and make good things happen. Such behaviors allow each level of management to engage strategically as well as execute tactically. Developing leaders who can lead from the middle is sound management practice. Not only does it create a stronger organization in the short run, it prepares emerging leaders to be more equipped for senior leadership positions. This practice time and again gives people more room to employ their talents as well as to hone their skills.
In addition to reading the prologue to Lead Your Boss, you can familiarize yourself with the themes of the book by watching the 2:32 video below, in which Baldoni outlines his main points.
A couple of days ago, Joe Hodas, senior VP – Brand Communications at a Colorado marketing agency, published a column in Advertising Age that offers a checklist of ten do's and one don't that will help you "advance your career witout selling your soul."
In edited form, Hodas's ten principles are:
Nothing replaces hard work.Effective hard work, that is. You do need to produce valuable results.
We all have a personal toolkit — know yours and how to use it. Identify and apply your strengths. Keep strengthening your strengths.
It's about teamwork, but know who is and isn't on your team. Be an upstanding, savvy participant in the office politics you will inevitably be dealing with.
Don't throw any fits. Outbursts are unprofessional.
Decide how much you can take before you bail. "A career is like a relationship, so make sure you're putting as much effort into trying to fix the problems as you put into feeling bad about them."
Earn your raises and promotions. Hodas is "a firm believer that raises are for the work you've done, and promotions are for the work you can do."
Individuality is to be respected — as long as you're still part of the team. "Don't be afraid to stand out, but do make sure you don't alienate your teammates in the process."
Always try to add something smart to the discussion. And be ready with a rationale for what you are saying. I would argue that "because" (or its equivalent in your own language) is one of the most beautiful words you can use.
Sometimes you have to raise the volume in order to be heard. If you feel strongly about something — and are all set with your "because" statement — speak right up.
Have a perspective on the past, present and future. This is the most agency-oriented of Hodas's points, but it still can readily be applied in other industries: "It's not enough to do well today. Your boss wants and needs to see that you have a broader outlook on where you / the client / the work / etc. has been, is now and will be going."
Always be that ray of light in your boss's/ co-worker's day. This is among my favorite precepts. Remember: What you say and do in a particular situation is a statement of what sort of person you are. So be sure what you say and do reflects the you you want to be.
If Hodas's advice seems commonsensical, there's a reason for that. Principles for handling oneself well generally are a matter of common sense. The challenges are to know what to focus on, and to recruit the strength to be consistent in actually following the principles you swear by.
Schurenberg asks Shell to talk about several central points made in the book, which "is directed specifically at how to be effective at persuading people within a complex organization."
First and foremost is the importance of discerning the other person's point of view and then using that knowledge to shape your approach to persuading the individual that something you're proposing is a good idea. (This principle applies to groups of people as well. You need to be able to determine the general perspective of your audience so that you can design what you say in a way that maximizes the audience's receptiveness.)
A related proposition is that you can't force the other person to change his/her mind. What you can do is remove barriers to the other person's actually hearing what you are trying to get across.
Schurenberg proceeds to step into the other person's shoes and asks about how to resist persuasion. Shell argues,
The best antidote to persuasion is a skeptical attitude. People who get persuaded [to do things they regret] tend to get caught up in ideas that appeal to their self-interest or hold out the promise of a simple solution to a big problem. The best antidote to that is critical thinking.
For a more detailed summary of the The Art of Woo, you can read the article Knowledge@Wharton published at the time the book came out. Key points include the four-step process Shell and Moussa recommend for selling an idea internally:
Polish your idea, and survey the social networks that will get you to decision makers.
Address the barriers to having what you say actually heard. Shell and Moussa call out five barriers as the most common:
Contrary beliefs
Conflicting interests
Negative relationships
Lack of credibility
Use of a persuasion channel that is a poor fit to the audience and situation (see below)
"Pitch the idea in a compelling way." I.e., the person doing the persuading needs "to figure out exactly what problem their idea addresses, how their idea will solve it and why their idea is better than both the status quo and available alternatives."
Secure both individual and organizational commitments — a largely political process.
Shell and Moussa provde a pair of tools in appendices to The Art of Woo that can help you with self-assessment of your persuasion style and of the channels you tend to use in your efforts to persuade — either because the channels are organizationally expected or because of personal inclination.
The five persuasion styles Shell and Moussa measure in the Persuasion Styles Assessment are laid out in the graphic below.
Shell emphasizes, "Whatever your style is, it can be effective. It all depends on the fit with the person across the table and the circumstances."
The Six Channels Survey is intended to help Woo readers "understand both how these six channels work and when they should adjust their pitch ... to appeal to different kinds of audiences."2 The six channels are:
Authority — emphasis on using formal position or rules.
Rationality — emphasis on using reasons.
Vision — emphasis on organizational goals, purposes, and aspirations.
Relationship — emphasis on liking, similarity, and reciprocity.
Interests/Incentives — emphasis on using trades and compromises.
Politics — emphasis on managing perceptions and building consensus.
If you have an hour to spare, you can get the basic Shell presentation on influence, persuasion (influence with a goal or point of view), and negotiation (a special case of persuasion in which at least one party believes there is a conflict of interest) by watching a video of the talk Shell gave to Google employees in February of last year. (The talk begins at 3:09.)
__________ 1 Shell published an earlier book on negotiation— Bargaining for Advantage : Negotiation Strategies for Reasonable People (Penguin, 2006) — that has been quite well-received. The book has gone into a second edition; the first edition, published in 1999, has been translated into 14+ languages.
2 Shell and Moussa have adapted their six persuasion channels from schemas defined by previous researchers, notably, David Kipnis and Stuart Schmidt (see, "Profile of Organizational Influence Strategies," University Associates, San Diego, 1985), and Gary Yukl and Cecilia Falbe (see "Influence Tactics and Objectives in Upward, Downward and Lateral Influence Attempts," Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 75, 1990, pp. 132-140).
The MIT OpenCourseWare site recently added materials for a Sloan School of Management course in Communication for Managers, taught by Neal Hartman during the Fall 2008 semester.
Though the materials are not complete — lecture notes for nine of the fourteen class meetings are missing — there are a number of items that anyone interested in this particular skill area will find helpful, even if only as a refresher.
I'd suggest starting with the notes for the course wrap-up (pdf), which provide an overview of the principles Hartman emphasizes in the course:
Four types of leadership:
Visioning.
Relating.
Inventing.
Sensemaking.
How to do a situation analysis as the basis for devising a communication strategy:
Define your purpose.
Analyze your audience.
Assess your credibility.
Analyze the cultural context.
Factors to consider in deciding on your communication strategy:
Managerial style — distinguished in terms of writer/speaker control and the degree of audience involvement.
Structure of the communication — direct statement of your main points or recommendation, followed by rationale vs. indirect approach that begins with subsidiary points or with arguments that set the stage for your recommendation.
Liking — People are inclined to say yes to requests of a person they know and like.
Reciprocity — People repay in kind.
Social proof — People follow the lead of others who are similar to them.
Consistency — In response to personal and interpersonal pressure, people tend to follow through on their clear commitments.
Authority — People defer to experts.
Scarcity — Opportunities seem more valuable when their availability is limited.
The Minto Pyramid (see graphic below, which you can click to enlarge) is a good device for organizing your ideas when you are recommending a change of some sort.
Principles of effective design of visual aids:
Consistency in formatting.
Appropriate titles.
Purposeful use of color and special effects.
Clear and uncluttered layout.
Principles of effective document design:
Use of subheads to show structure.
Use of lists to highlight important and conceptually parallel information.
Use of white space to highlight material and to create transitions through indenting, columns, and lines.
In-text highlighting of key words and phrases.
Use of tables and graphs to make evidence more legible.
Principles of effective cover letters for resumes.
Importance of awareness of values and perceptions that differentiate cultures around the world.
Early in 2007, Geoffrey James posted an article at bnet.com that offers good advice on how to win thoughtful consideration of an idea you believe will help your organization.
The article is short and easy to read, so I'll just outline what you'll find there:
Step 1 Confirm that you and your idea are a credible match. People you approach with the idea have to believe you know what you're talking about.
Step 2 Frame your idea with a strong narrative. Help people see intuitive sense in what you're suggesting, and help them feel good about endorsing it.
Step 3 Map the idea to the perspective of the decision-maker. For instance, if the decision-maker is the CFO, he/she is apt to be focused on return on investment. On the other hand, if you're dealing with the COO, a key issue is apt to be the likelihood of smooth implementation.
Step 4 Reduce or eliminate downside risk. The decision-maker will undoubtedly think about what could go wrong with your plan. Anticipate concerns, and prepare responses that show how risks can be substantially mitigated (e.g., through using a pilot to test and refine the idea).
Step 5 Close the deal. You need to "create momentum to keep your idea moving forward."
In a companion item, James offers contrasting "Wrong Way" and "Right Way" memos to illustrate what he believes is the best way to broach your idea in writing to a senior manager.
Earlier this month, James added a post to his "Sales Machine" blog at bnet.com that lets you test your grasp of the above process. It's a good refresher.
The wikiHow site is a trove of how-to articles on a wide range of subjects:
Arts & Entertainment
Cars & Other Vehicles
Computers & Electronics
Education & Communications
Family Life
Finance & Business
Food & Entertaining
Health
Hobbies & Crafts
Holidays & Traditions
Home & Garden
Personal Care & Style
Pets & Animals
Philosophy & Religion
Relationships
Sports & Fitness
Travel
Work World
wikiHow (e.g., how to contribute)
Youth
Other
I find wikiHow useful for browsing for ideas on how to handle various situations, such as preparing for a behavioral interview (one of the items cited below), and for advice that reflects "on the ground" experience.
The articles vary in quality, as you would expect, but they are also easy to scan, so you can quickly decide what you want to pay attention to, and what you want to ignore.
I've listed below some examples of articles I found useful, taken from the Education & Communication, Finance & Business, and Work World categories.
An earlier post discussed the "paradox of power." When you look at the research on how people use power, it shows that "empathy and social intelligence are vastly more important to acquiring and exercising power than are force, deception, or terror." On the other hand,
... studies also show that once people assume positions of power, they're likely to act more selfishly, impulsively, and aggressively, and they have a harder time seeing the world from other people's points of view. This presents us with the paradox of power: The skills most important to obtaining power and leading effectively are the very skills that deteriorate once we have power.
For more on the dynamics of power, you can look at the materials John Carroll and Li Tao pulled together for their 2006 course in managerial psychology at MIT's Sloan School of Management. Particularly helpful is Lecture 17 (pdf), delivered by guest lecturer Maria Quijada, now a professor at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.
At the beginning of her lecture, Quijada offers the definition of power that Jeffrey Pfeffer, one of my favorite thinkers on management issues, uses:
The potential ability to influence behavior, to change the course of events, to overcome resistance and to get people to do things that they would not otherwise do. Politics and influence are the processes, the actions, the behaviors through which this potential power is utilized and realized.
All of the lecture notes, which fit onto eleven PowerPoint slides, are worth thinking about. To give you an idea of where Quijada ends up, here is her summary of how someone, presumably wanting to avoid the unfortunate aspects of the paradox of power, can best manage his/her power:
Create resources, find new domains in which to operate
Build alliances by using reciprocity
Build your network — be a bridge, be central
Build your reputation, be careful of first impressions
Be in the right unit of the organization for exercising influence
On March 10, Advertising Age published a brief note (sub req) by John Quelch, a professor at Harvard Business School, that offers concrete advice concerning the issues on which a chief marketing officer (CMO) can most effectively contribute to his/her CEO's decision-making during the current recession.
Quelch identifies four key issues:
Adapting to shifting consumer behavior — "The CEO needs a CMO who understands the company's brands and consumers — and their comparative profitability — to recommend needed changes in customer targeting and brand messaging."
Optimizing pricing — "Marketers need to hit key retail price points [which are lower than in rosier economic times]; emphasize lower-cost, stripped-down or downsized versions of their products; and revamp their promotion calendars to maximize price competitiveness at the point of sale."
Stretching marketing dollars — "An experienced CMO will know how to take a scalpel rather than a sledgehammer to the marketing budget."
Embracing Internet-based media — It may be time "to experiment further and allocate more of [companies'] budgets to search advertising, banner advertising or motivating user-generated content through a branded website." The CMO has the expertise needed to make informed recommendations.
Quelch concludes by noting that CMOs need to be not only adept at brand differentiation, but also financially literate so that they can put together credible business cases for their marketing recommendations.
I'm not entirely comfortable with the way in which Jay Conger, now the Henry R. Kravis Research Chair in Leadership Studies at Claremont McKenna College, defines the concept of "persuasion" in a useful 1998 article in the Harvard Business Review. Still, I have no problem agreeing with the process he describes for winning the support of an internal audience for an initiative one is trying to move forward.
I generally use the term "persuasion" in the same way Robert Cialdini does in his book, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (included in the suggested readings listed at right). Cialdini conceives of persuasion as what a person does in order to induce someone else to comply with a request.
Conger conceives of "persuasion" in the specialized context of getting others in an organization to join in a collaborative effort to achieve a goal, such as proceeding with development of a new product. In Conger's view:
Effective persuasion becomes a negotiating and learning process through which a persuader leads colleagues to a problem's shared solution.... it involves careful preparation, the proper framing of arguments [to show those you are seeking to persuade how they will share in the benefits of what you are advocating], the presentation of vivid supporting evidence, and the effort to find the correct emotional match with your audience.
An important implication of Conger's concept of persuasion is that it involves considerable dialogue and eschewing of any sort of dogmatism:
Before the process begins, effective persuaders use dialogue to learn more about their audience's opinions, concerns, and perspectives. During the process, dialogue continues to be a form of learning, but it is also the beginning of the negotiation stage. You invite people to discuss, even debate, the merits of your position, and then to offer honest feedback and suggest alternative solutions. ... the best persuaders not only listen to others but also incorporate their perspectives into a shared solution.1
Conger wraps up by reiterating that "people must understand persuasion for what it is — not convincing and selling but learning and negotiation." Somehow, I believe Conger would be better off if he called this process "advocacy" or "gaining buy-in" rather than "persuasion," but I nonetheless admire the cogency of his explanation of the best way to mobilize support for a proposal or recommendation.
__________ 1 In retrospect, one of Conger's examples — the push two Microsoft employees made to persuade colleagues to support development of the ill-fated BOB interface — actually illustrates a situation Conger doesn't explicitly address, namely, cases in which dialogue with colleagues should lead persuaders to abandon the idea they're advocating.
As a follow-on to yesterday's post, I'd call attention to a comprehensive summary (pdf) of their Influence Model that Allan Cohen and David Bradford published in the Journal of Organizational Excellence in 2005.
(click to enlarge)
The whole article is twenty-four pages (including endnotes) and easy to read. Well-selected exhibits help you pick up quickly on the points Cohen and Bradford are making.
For example, Exhibit 2 lists the situations in which you are well-advised to make conscious use of the Influence Model:
The other person is known to be resistant.
You don't know the other person or group and are asking for something that might be costly to them.
You have a poor relationship (or are part of a group that has a poor relationship) with the group the other person belongs to.
You might not get another chance.
You have tried everything you can think of but the other person still refuses what you want.
Exhibit 6 is a helpful list of "Currencies Frequently Valued in Organizations":
Relationship-related currencies — acceptance/inclusion (feeling closeness and friendship), understanding (having concerns and issues listened to), personal support (receiving personal and emotional backing).
Personal-related currencies —gratitude, ownership/involvement (ownership of and influence over important tasks), self-concept (affirmation of values, self-esteem, and identity), comfort (avoidance of hassles).
Finally, Exhibit 8 is a brief checklist that helps keep in view all the main aspects of applying the model.
Application of Cohen and Bradford's model to a variety of work situations is spelled out in their book, Influence Without Authority, originally published in 1989 and updated in 2005.
You can get a taste of Influence Without Authority by reading a summary of the chapter on influencing your boss that is available here. The main theme of the chapter is that your best bet is to develop a relationship with your boss in which you act as a junior partner (i. e., you are not a mere underling).
The do's for a boss's junior partner:
Do stay loyal to the partnership's objectives.
Do place the good of your organization first, ahead of your own personal druthers.
Do value and take advantage of the differences in skills and perspectives between you and your boss.
Do tolerate each other's foibles.
Do give the boss the benefit of the doubt, i.e., assume that any bad behavior is due to misinformation or misguided views, rather than reflecting bad intentions.
The don'ts for a boss's junior partner:
Don't let your boss make big mistakes.
Don't let your boss inadvertently look bad.
Don't let your boss move along in ignorance of information he or she should know.
In sum: "The idea is to always be on the side of your boss, not an antagonist or critic. You are always seeking to help the boss meet his or her goals."
__________ 1 The graphic comes from influencewithoutauthority.com. The website also offers seven case studies illustrating application of the Influence Model.
Note that in the context of the Influence Model, "Currencies are anything that you and your potential ally value, and can exchange to get what you need to do your work."
Late last month Marshall Goldsmith, a recognized expert on coaching, wrote on his blog about how organizations can and should encourage employees to speak up when they believe an ethical lapse may be in the offing.
In his post, Goldsmith offers a helpful set of guidelines for "encouraging upward challenge and preserving corporate integrity." In brief:
Anyone asked to do something that he/she believes could be unethical has a responsibility to speak up.
If your manager does not respond satisfactoriy to your expression of concern, you should escalate to the next level of management.
A manager who discourages upward challenges should be fired.
Any employee guilty of an ethics violation should be fired — regardless of the value and quality of the employee's work.
"Employees who do not feel comfortable using the normal chain of command" — for example, because of fear of how their manager will react — "should be provided with an alternative mechanism for upward communication" and "be trained on how and when to use these alternate channels."
"Managers should proactively ask for suggestions on how to improve the organization, rather than passively waiting for employees to express concerns."
"Both managers and employees should be trained on how to encourage and provide upward challenge."
Marshall Goldsmith offers additional thoughts concerning upward influence in the video below. (The first half of the video deals with modern business leadership; Goldsmith's comments on influencing up begin at 5:44.)
Every week or so, the editorial crew at BNET.com post one or more overview articles on management topics that serve as basic and commonsensical summaries of best practice.
The October 2007 article on "Delegating Upward" is exemplary. In the introduction, the article notes typical circumstances under which delegating upward is advisable:
when there is a need for capital or human resources, when expert knowledge is required, or when there are political barriers to be overcome. As an employee, you may also find that on some occasions you need an extra boost of authority to resolve a situation that has run aground. Sometimes, you will simply have too much to do and need some assistance.
The article then offers capsule advice for handling a few typical scenarios, e.g., too much to do, or pushback from the boss.
The final two sections of the article explain do's and don'ts.
Do
Get to know what drives your boss.
Use friendly persuasion in a six-step process:
Consider your supervisor's motivation.
Create the right atmosphere.
Speak clearly and listen carefully.
Suggest what's in it for them.
Make an appointment to meet again.
Thank them for their efforts.
Remain clear and confident.
Don't:
Lose your cool.
Assume that you and your boss have the same agenda.
Expect to fail — all too likely to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
If you'd like to browse additional "BNET Basic" topics, you can find a list of the available articles here.
I'm always on the lookout for useful ideas on how to exercise upward influence. The most recent list of coherent suggestions I've come upon is at the Dumb Little Man website, a collection of contributed tips for handling all sorts of life challenges and conundrums.
The tips come from the proprietor of the Grad Money Matters site, who goes by the nom de net, ispf. In brief, ispf's tips (only the sixth of which I question) are:
Market yourself to your boss — "Make sure your manager knows at all times what you are working on" and that s/he is up-to-date on what you have accomplished.
Don't be overly sensitive — Instead of reeling from a sense of personal insult when your boss criticizes you, "find what it is that you need to do to rectify the situation."
Make your manager look good — This is an item that shows up on any list of managing-up tips. "Learn the difficult and dark art of making your accomplishments known to the upper brass without snatching away the glory from your boss."
Your manager is not your friend — Avoid embarrassment by staying aware of your manager's responsibility to put the organization's needs ahead of any individual employee's wants.
Don't be a pain in the butt — When you're facing a problem, try first to handle it yourself. If a variance from plan, such as a slipping deadline, is developing, give your boss a timely explanation, and lay out a proposed course of action that you believe will minimize the ramifications.
Actions speak louder than words — ispf is overly confident that "It does not matter if your actual job is significant or critical from the company's perspective — but if you do it well anyway, it will be noticed and will open doors for you." My version of this tip would be: Be sure to combine getting the job done with marketing yourself (Tip #1).
Don't hog your boss's time — When you have something to explain to your boss, make sure you are prepared to speak concisely and clearly. Do an advance mental rehearsal of what you have to say.
Identify your boss's weakness and take advantage of it — ispf offers the example of a boss with a big ego. Without become too slavish, stroke that ego.
Make sure your boss knows your personal career goals — If you believe you are ready for increased responsibility, or you want to move in a new direction, discuss possibilities with your boss.
ispf concludes with the timeless thought that bosses are human too. Treating your boss with respect, and adapting your behavioral style to the boss's preferences (conscious or otherwise), is your best bet for maintaining a productive working relationship — one that helps you achieve your own goals at the same time that you're furthering the boss's and the organization's goals.
In a paper (pdf) published in the Proceedings of the 2003 Association for Business Communication Annual Convention, Asha Kaul, a professor now at the Foundation for Liberal and Management Education in India, reported on interview-based research concerning tactics employees use to exert upward influence in a certain type of organizational setting, namely one characterized by:
Transparency of policies, roles, attitude to work, and relationships with superiors and subordinates.
Flexibility with respect to such matters as deadlines, goals, policies, and dealing with personal issues.
An open door policy, meaning, more specifically, receptivity to subordinates' ideas.
Free-flowing communication/informal talk, meaning greater use of informal chats in person and by phone than of formal meetings and email.
Kaul cites as the main finding of her study the conclusion that "there is more flexibility in terms of usage of tactics when the communication process is informal."
For me, what was most interesting was the set of upward influence tactics Kaul found people using at the global company where she conducted her 23 interviews:
Reason and logic
Upward appeal
Imitation of the superior's communication and behavioral patterns.
Aggression, i.e., the "need to take a stand, push [one's] way forward, and convince the other by forcing [one's] views and opinions."
"... an interviewee recounts that the appropriate person to take a decision in moments of crisis is the employee 'on the spot'. ... In this situation, unwillingness of the superior to listen or unfamiliarity with the situation, for instance, can result in time loss and cancellation of deals. Such instances necessitate that the subordinates merely 'tell' the superior of moves being taken for producing desired results 'because our presence is in a do or die situation'."
Reasoned aggression, defined as "forceful expressions or statements, pushing forward of ideas relentlessly, unmindful of the convictions of the other party."
"... this study revealed that there was a clubbing together of reason/logic and aggression. From the findings it emerges that usage of either reason or aggression is not enough. Conjoining the two tactics produces optimum results in persuasion."
Nonchalance, a "tactic in which the agent makes an attempt to sway the target by indicating lack of interest or involvement in the subject under discussion. ... This take it or leave it tactic was seen to follow the reasoned aggression tactic."
As described by one interviewee: "If the boss is not willing to listen or get convinced by reason, aggression or a combination of the two, I move on to a very effective way of convincing him ... Show total lack of interest in the issue ... show disinterest in the team proceedings ... the [superior] then asks me the reason for it and in an informal chat I tell him."
It is the last two tactics — reasoned aggression and nonchalance — that are relatively uncommon in discussions of upward influence, though certainly not unheard of among people with decent influence skills. Kaul's description of their use brings a welcome additional degree of realism to her report on how people at a dynamic organization get others to see things their way and to act accordingly.
One last piece of research on upward influence that caught my eye as I was surveying the work social psychologists have done in this area, is a 2000 paper by Carolyn Egri, David Ralston, Cheryl Murray, and Joel Nicholson.1
Using the Strategies of Upward Influence (SUI) instrument, these researchers found that U.S., Canadian-Anglophone, Canadian-Francophone, and Mexican managers generally
have similar perspectives in terms of the relative acceptability of various influence strategies. However, examination of absolute ratings of influence behaviors suggests that Canadian-Francophones could serve as a cultural "linking-pin" along a continuum anchored by Anglo cultures at one end and the Latin-American culture of Mexico at the other.
Based on their own and previous research, the Anglo end of the continuum is said to be characterized by "a self-oriented, high-trust culture with democratic ideals," while the Latin-American end is said to be characterized by "an autocratic, group-oriented and low-trust culture."
The researchers were surprised to find significant differences between the U.S. and Canadian-Anglophone managers. The latter had more extreme scores than the former on three of four influence style dimensions — organizationally sanctioned behavior, nondestructive/legal behavior, and destructive/legal behavior. It was only on the destructive/illegal behavior dimension that the U.S. managers were more extreme — in rating the behaviors negatively — than the Canadian-Anglophones.2 The researchers took this result as a challenge to the notion that there is a universal Anglo cultural attitude toward upward influence strategies.
In making suggestions for future studies, the researchers point to a need "to better understand the control mechanisms that best regulate ... cross-cultural influence relationships." Based on previous research, they argue that
concerted efforts to develop a mutual organizational culture based on common values, beliefs, behavioral norms and practices would be advisable. The first step in this process could be a culture audit to determine facets of cultural convergence and divergence with potential partner organizations. The next step would be making explicit mutually acceptable managerial practices and codes of conduct. The importance attributed to kinship and friendship ties in Mexican culture (Gabrielidis et al., 19973) suggests that developing personal and social relationships would be an essential aspect of cross-cultural organizational relationships. In effect, the impetus would be to widen the radius of trust to encompass an organizational culture ingroup to counterbalance societal familialism.
I would add that training in support of initiatives aimed at cultural change, coupled with effective communication and modeling by top management, would also be essential.
__________ 1 Carolyn P. Egri, David A. Ralston, Cheryl S. Murray, and Joel D. Nicholson, "Managers in the NAFTA Countries: A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Attitudes Toward Upward Influence Strategies," Journal of International Management, Vol. 6 (2000), pp. 149-171. Previous posts dealing with the research on upward influence done by social psychologists are here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
2 "Organizationally sanctioned behavior is viewed as the 'organizational man' approach to upward influence because it prescribes behaviors that tend to be directly beneficial to the organization. ... Non-destructive/legal behaviors epitomize the 'me first' approach, in that these behaviors show self-interest being above the interests for others or the organization, but are behaviors that tend not to be harmful to the organization and may actually turn out to be beneficial to the organization. ... Destructive/legal behaviors can be categorized as the 'get-out-of-my-way-or-get-trampled' approach because, while these behaviors are basically legal, they often tend to directly hurt others or the organization. ... [D]estructive/illegal behaviors identify a 'burn, pillage, and plunder' approach to gaining influence because these behaviors, which are harmful to others, also tend to be illegal."
3 Cristina Gabrielidis, Walter G. Stephan, Oscar Ybarra, Virginia M. Dos Santos Pearson, and Lucila Villareal, "Preferred Styles of Conflict Resoulution: Mexico and the United States," Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, Vol. 28 (1997), pp. 661-677.
Research published by David Ralston and colleagues in 2001 reinforces the idea mentioned in an earlier post that broadly defined cultural features of different countries cannot get us very far in understanding the reasons behind similarities and differences in strategies of upward influence employees choose to try in various situations.
Ralston et al. looked at Germany, the Netherlands, Hong Kong, India, Mexico, and the US. The primary goal of their study was to
identify culturally inherent differences in subordinates' choices of influence tactics, which in turn may contribute to our understanding of the relationships between superiors and subordinates from different cultures.
The tool used was the Strategies of Upward Influence (SUI) instrument. Their findings, in brief:
In almost all cases there is agreement across the cultures on whether an upward influence tactic is viewed as a positive or negative type of behavior. However, there is divergence in the degree to which the various tactics are preferred across the six countries.
In the US and the Netherlands, there was consistent support for soft strategies (Good Soldier and Image Management) and a consistent rejection of hard strategies (Information Control and Strong-arm Coercion).1
German and Indian managers were more balanced in their moderate use of all tactics than were managers in the other four countries.
Hong Kong and Mexican managers were more open to using the negatively perceived hard strategies and did not perceive the soft strategies to be as productive as did managers in the other four countries.
A more theoretically oriented study Ralston published with Jane Terpstra-Tong in 2002 offers further thoughts on the factors that determine preferences concerning upward influence tactics. After a review of the literature, Ralston and Terpstra-Tong put forward a "Cross-Cultural Model of Upward Influence Selection" adapted from pioneering work of Lyman Porter, Robert Allen, and Harold Angle.2 The model postulates that a subordinate (the "agent") who has decided to try to influence a superior (the "target") will select a strategy based on five factors:
the target's characteristics, which are influcenced by the environment in which the target is operating. These characteristics include the target's power, his/her leadership style, and the cost involved in approaching the target.
the agent's own characteristics, which are influenced by the environment in which the agent is operating. These characteristics include the agent's personal and organizational goals, age, gender, need for power, need for achievement, propensity to take risks, etc.
the relationship that exists between the agent and the target, i.e., how much the target likes the agent, how much the target perceives similarity with the agent, how much the target and the agent trust each other, etc.
situational characteristics, including the organization's structure, the ambiguity of the situation, resource scarcity, and how big a personal stake the agent has in affecting the target's decision.
the agent's belief system, i.e., the agent's expected cost and benefit of the attempt at influence, and the perceived societal and organizational norms endorsing or discouraging various influence behaviors.
After the agent has made the attempt at upward influence, there are two feedback mechanisms — adjustment in the agent's:
willingness to undertake subsequent efforts at upward influence.
beliefs concerning what strategy best fits a particular constellation of the five factors listed above.
As indicated in severalearlierposts, many businesspeople and trainers around the world have adopted practices and interventions that reflect an analysis implicitly, if not explicitly, akin to that embodied in the model outlined above. For example, trainers in multinational companies commonly teach employees to take their bosses' preferences into account in deciding how to present proposals, and teach managers to facilitate employee input in order to tap employees' knowledge and ideas.
In my view, the social psychologists whose research I've been reviewing would benefit by adding to their research agenda investigation of how subordinates and superiors respond to training directed at improving use of, and response to, upward influence strategies.
__________ 1 Good Soldier: Get ahead through hard work that benefits the organization. Image Management: Actively present oneself in a positive manner across the entire organization. Information Control: Control information that is restricted from others in order to benefit oneself. Strong-arm Coercion: Use illegal tactics, such as blackmail, to achieve personal goals.
2 Lyman W. Porter, Robert W. Allen, and Harold L. Angle, "The Politics of Upward Influence in Organizations," in L.L. Cummings and Barry M. Staw (eds.), Research in Organizational Behavior, Vol. 3 (Greenview CT: JAI Press, 1981), pp. 109-149.
Right on cue, the Wall Street Journal published an article this week describing how SK Telecom, South Korea's largest cellphone-service provider, has flattened its organization in an effort to stimulate the creativity and innovation the company needs for continued growth. This news fits well with the discussion in earlierposts of similarities and differences between Asian and non-Asian business practices — and of how the similarities seems to be increasing as globalization proceeds.
Reporter Evan Ramstad describes SK Telecom as a company where previously there were five staff ranks. It was
a rigid top-down structure where people with a lower title weren't allowed to question [a higher-ranked person's] decisions in meetings. In turn, if anyone above [a person in rank] asked him to do a job, or even just go out drinking after work, he couldn't say no.
As of this past October, the ranks are gone. Now everyone in those staff positions has a common title, the English "Manager" (see graphic below). Executive titles are unchanged, and managers in charge of projects or people are "Team Leaders" as well as Managers.
Source: Wall Street Journal 8/20/07
Kim Shin-bae, SK Telecom's CEO, explains that the company recognized a couple of years ago that they had to make changes:
To let new ideas bubble up, we needed a new business culture. It requires different incentive schemes, an organizational structure, a financial-resource-allocation process and a business-development process.
Ramstad makes clear that the change at SK Telecom is by no means a universal phenomenon in South Korea, though "Smaller companies, particularly in high tech, long ago embraced flat hierarchies and openness."
There have also been changes in compensation at SK Telecom. Base pay used to be based on rank, but now other performance measurements are taken into account. Bonuses for those working in new ventures are now calculated by looking at how the ventures fare over a three-year time frame, rather than a single year, which is generally too soon for a venture's potential to be realized.
