Influence and Impact. George B. Bradt

II, you can then jump to Part III, if you know you want to make the changes you need to make. If you realize you do not want the job as it really is, or cannot operate the way the organization wants you to, some of Part III and Part IV will be the most helpful. For managers and executives, you may choose to jump all the way to Part V first, which is designed to help you guide your people toward what you and your organization need from them the most.

      All of the worksheets and additional materials can be downloaded from www.BermanLeadership.com/InfluenceAndImpact

Note

      1 * We will use the 3rd person plural throughout the book, they/their/theirs, to avoid suggesting any of this applies to any gender status. All of the cases in the book are real, or a synthesis of multiple cases, but have been modified so that we can maintain the confidentiality of our clients.

PART I The Disconnect: What Your Organization Wants You to Know (But Hasn't Told You!)

CHAPTER 1 Get What You Want by Doing What Your Organization Needs: The One Change You Need to Make

       “Sometimes doing your best is not good enough. Sometimes you must do what is required.”

      —Winston S. Churchill

      You know the feeling when you are on a roll at work. You get good reviews, and you are recognized and rewarded by your manager. You look forward to going to work, and feel challenged, stimulated, and “on your front foot.” You are doing things you like and doing them well. You are proud of your work.

What makes this so special? It's a great feeling when people at work are interested in you, and appreciate what you do. That is, in a nutshell, influence. Influence means that other people take the time to listen to you, consider what you have to say, and want to work with you. Having impact is all about having a substantive effect on the organization, by leading without formal authority. Your colleagues know you are adding value to the organization, and to them. Influence and impact are the keys to job engagement and job satisfaction. Whether you are a technician using specialized skills or a business leader driving strategy and inspiring and enabling the organization, having influence and impact turns an average job into a personal growth experience.

      Most of us have found ourselves in the converse situation at some point. Work is going “OK,” but you find yourself in your job for longer than you planned. You feel like others are not listening to your ideas or paying attention to your input. Maybe you worked your tail off to help your boss turn things around, only to get a mediocre review and bonus. Or, you finally got the promotion you were looking for, only to see yourself struggling to achieve expectations, and hearing feedback that, “Things are going a little slower than we expected.” You feel that you have lost your edge.

When it's missing, you know it. Human beings are fundamentally social beings. We love interpersonal feedback and connections that establish and reinforce who we are.ⁱ We spend as much time working as we do on anything else in our lives. Most of us want to find value and purpose in what we do. We need to feel we have agency, and we need to feel connected to others.ⁱⁱ

      Writers and theorists have different labels for these needs, but they always include notions about independence, connectedness, security, recognition, impact, and having a clear sense of self. When you aren't getting this from your manager or your organization, to the degree you want or need them, you feel the gap and it creates disappointment. And, to paraphrase Yoda from Star Wars, disappointment leads to frustration, frustration leads to anger, anger leads eventually to getting another job. Bill learned a lesson at an early age in how to find value and meaning in doing what your company needs.

      At age 15, I took a job as a sales associate in a camera store in downtown Washington, D.C. The store was right on Pennsylvania Avenue, between the White House and the Capital. My objective that summer was to earn enough money to use the discount the owner offered to buy a used Nikon F-1. My dream was to become a professional photographer, and the F-1 was the premier 35mm professional camera. What I did not realize was that very few people who came to the store wanted to talk about fancy cameras or lenses. Most of the people were tourists, walking from one monument to another, and came in either because they needed film, or they could not figure out how to work some basic part of their camera.

       After about the 125th person came in and asked me how to rewind the film, or which button to push for zoom, my frustration began to boil over: “If you bothered to read the manual, you would know that the zoom button is right here,” I said, clearly disgusted. The owner saw this and took me aside. “Bill, you came here to sell cameras, but that is not why you are here. You are here to sell film and film developing, because that is what keeps the store running. I need you to talk nice to the customers, answer their questions, no matter how simple, and provide good customer support. If you do that, more people will buy film or get their pictures developed here. That's how we make money. If you treat them poorly, they will go somewhere else. Your job is to get them to come back for those purchases. So, go, be nice, and solve their very simple problems for them.”

      At first, I was demoralized. I was going to spend the sweltering D.C. summer being bored. Ironically, I was already frustrated and disappointed because, at age 15, I was not aware of the underlying value of my job. My real job was to make customers feel taken care of. After this lecture from my boss, people's simplistic questions stopped being annoying, because I understood what my boss and the customers needed from me the most, and adapted to that.

What Gets in the Way?

      So, what is the disconnect between you and what your organization needs from you most? What causes you to feel stuck, or stalled, that you aren't having the impact you want? How can you bring more value to your company and meaning for yourself? In many situations, you are making one or two simple but consequential mistakes: You are not focused on the mission-critical parts of your responsibilities, or you are not doing them in the way that the organization can understand and embrace.

“Wait, what?” you think. “I have objectives. I review these with my manager. How could I be doing the wrong things?” You may be doing the right things at one level, but when you dig a little deeper, you may find you are off the mark—though your boss might also be unaware, because they are focused on doing what they have always done rather than adapting to the current reality of what the organization needs. Or, you may be communicating or interacting in the way that the organizational culture cannot understand or appreciate.ⁱⁱⁱ

      What we have found, again and again, is that people tend to underperform because they do what is comfortable, what is familiar, or what they desire, rather than what is most important to the organization. The majority of people we have coached believed they were doing the right things, but they did not understand the organization's top priorities. A smaller proportion knew that they weren't doing the right work but were unable to change their mindset so that they could do the work right.

      Regardless of whether their choices were conscious or unconscious, they all found themselves stalled, frustrated, and under-recognized and under-appreciated by their manager or their company. Is any of this true for you?

      Doing What Is Easier

      One