INFLUENCING SENIOR MANAGEMENT WITH YOUR IDEAS

INFLUENCING SENIOR MANAGEMENT WITH YOUR IDEAS

(Published in Daily Independent Newspapers in 2007)

Many people view themselves as victims of heartless organizations, as pawns, hapless and helpless cubicle slaves with no option than to dance to the tune of “the powers that be”. They very often have little or no training on how to effectively influence their bosses and are unaware, though not clearly stated, managing an influencing  bosses are a continuous and functional part of any job description. Little wonder many feel frustrated with “senior management”.

The challenge therefore is to develop the ability to present and sell ideas to the next line of approval thereby influencing their bosses; and the earlier this is done, the less time would be spent trading blames for not achieving the desired results. Like Peter Drucker, America’s father of modern management described it, “majority of people tend to focus downward. They are occupied with efforts rather than results, and are conscious above all of the authority they should have. As a result they render themselves ineffectual “The truth of the matter is that we all have the ability to exert the power of influence, and you are either influencing or being influenced by decisions, therefore even as a subordinate (for everyone is a subordinate to someone else; the Managing Director is subordinate to his customer and his board of Directors).

Your power lies in learning how to effectively sell you ideas “up the chain of command”, for you are only as powerful or weak as you choose to be, like Tom Peters rightly said, “Powerlessness is a state of the mind, if you think you are powerless – You are!! So rather than becoming disempowered by blaming “those at the top” and focusing on what others have done to make things wrong, we can begin to ask what we can do to make things right, and how we can effectively pass the answers across. It must however start from within.

SELLING UP THE CHAIN OF COMMAND

Marshall Goldsmith said, “influencing up is similar to selling products or services to external customers. They don’t have to buy – You have to sell!”

It is your responsibility to sell your ideas up the chain of command – not their responsibility to buy! 

Any good sales person takes responsibility for achieving results, says Goldsmith. No one is impressed with sales people who blame their customers for not buying their products. A subordinate loaded with ideas is a salesman. And salesmen know that in order to close a sale, they must build a good solid case, communicate with conviction and enthusiasm (I read somewhere that the greatest principle of human persuasion that exists is that, “People are more persuaded by the depths of your conviction than by the height of your logic - persuasion is not converting people to our way of thinking, persuasion is converting people to our way of feeling and believing.”)

YOUR RESPONSIBILITY

A good sales person must also accept responsibility for making himself understood by his listener. Drucker said, “The person of knowledge has always been expected to take responsibility for being understood. It is barbarian arrogance to assume that the layman can or should make the effort to understand the specialist.” More time must be spent building your case (looking at all the angles of your idea); you can then follow through by arguing your case with conviction and enthusiasm – if your case is strong enough, if you present it with contagious excitement, you can often persuade senior management and obtain buy-in.

As a subordinate, your power is in your influence, the positional authority of your boss must not be allowed to become a limitation. It’s similar to relationships. Harriet Rubin said,” women can never be powerful as long as they try to be in charge the same way men take charge.”

On a closing note I’d like to share with you an interesting letter I came across in Bob nelson’s book, ,” Please don’t just Do What I Tell You! Do what needs to be done”, written by a Manager to his direct report, in which he clearly outlined what he called the, “Ultimate Expectation of Every Employer”:

“Dear Employee, you’ve been hired to handle some pressing needs we have. If we could have gotten by in not hiring you, we could have. But we’ve determined that we needed someone with your skills and experience and that you were the best person to help us with our needs. We have offered you the position and you’ve accepted. Thanks!

During the course of your employment, you will be asked to do many things: general responsibilities, specific assignments, group and individual projects. You will have many chances to excel and to confirm that we made a good choice in hiring you.

However, there is one foremost responsibility that may never be specifically requested of you but that you need to always keep in mind through the duration of your employment. This is the ultimate expectation, and it is as follows:

ALWAYS DO WHAT MOST NEEDS TO BE DONE WITHOUT WAITING TO BE ASKED.

We’ve hired you to do a job, yes, but more important, we’ve hired you to think, to use your judgment and to act in the best interest of the organization at all times.

If we never say this again, don’t take this as an indication that it is no longer important or that we’ve changed our priorities. We are likely to get caught up in the daily press of business, the never-ending changes of the operation, and the ongoing rush of activities. Our day-t0-day practices make it look like this principle no longer applies. Don’t be deceived by this.

Please don’t ever forget the ultimate expectation. Strive to have it always be a guiding principle in your employment with us, a philosophy that is always with you, one that is constantly driving your thoughts and actions.

As long as you are employed with us, you have our permission to act in our mutual best interests. If at any time you feel we are not doing the right thing- the thing you most believe would help us at all – please say so. You have our permission to speak up when necessary, to state what is unstated, to make a suggestion, or to question an action or decision.

This doesn’t mean we will always agree with you, nor that we will necessarily change what we are doing; but we always want to hear what you most believe would help us better achieve our goals and purpose and to create a mutually successful experience in the process. You will need to seek to understand how and why things are done the way they are done before you seek to change existing work processes. Try to work with the systems that are in place first, but tell us if you think those systems need to be changed. Discuss what is presented here with me and others in the organization so that we might all become better at applying the ultimate expectation.”

WHAT SENIOR MANAGEMENT SHOULD DO

Management should create a culture that encourages a high level of employee participation in their organizations, a place where senior management gives a free hand to their subordinates to confront the brutal facts of the company’s current reality. A place where management rewards employees for coming up with new ideas.

For more on this, please see my previous article, “Building ownership in the Workplace”.

I’d love to hear from you.