This is episode 7 and we’ve already started to address mistake number 3 - failing to build influence. In the last episode I talked about the need to get really clear on your personal brand - what people say about you when you’re not in the room. In this episode (and the next one too) I dive into the detail of 'influence'. I explain what I think Influence is (and what it isn’t) and also why it’s so important.

Here’s what’s waiting for you inside this episode

If you didn’t already listen to episode 6 on personal branding I’d really encourage you to go back and do this work on thinking about what you want to be known for before you continue with this work on influence. When you’re clear on your personal brand and you’re ready to build a strong and valuable sphere of influence you’re in the right place.

In this episode I dive into the detail of influence, and I'll show you how influence starts by building trust and giving value, ahead of receiving anything.

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Transcript

Her Career, Her Life podcast.
Season 1 Episode 7
The importance of building influence in your new job

Hello I’m Elise Finn and welcome to Her Career, Her Life - the podcast that helps professional women create a career and life they love.

In this first season of Her Career, Her Life we’ve been digging into the challenges and opportunities of starting a new corporate job. 

Throughout this season I’ve been sharing some of the advice I have for spotting when you might be in danger of committing 3 of the common mistakes that we are all in danger of making when we start a new job and helping you see some alternative ways of making a best first impression.

This is episode 7 and we’re already started on addressing mistake number 3 - Failing to build influence. 

I started this topic off in the last episode where I talked about the need to get really clear on your personal brand - I describe your personal brand as what people say about you when you’re not in the room - and whilst we all already have a personal brand we can actively work on defining it and helping people to see our skills, capabilities and potential.

The most important question you need to answer in building your personal brand is ‘what do you want to me known for?’

And it’s really important to do this work before you embark on a program of building influence - as you want to build influence with intention.  Yo want to make it easy for people who don’t already know you to grasp who you are and where you fit in - and critically, how you can help them.

This will make you much more memorable to them because we all care more about solving our own challenges than other people’s!

If you didn’t already listen to episode 6 on personal branding I’d really encourage you to go back and do this work on thinking about what you want to be known for before you continue with this work on influence.

So, if you’re clear on your personal brand and you’re ready to build a strong and valuable sphere of influence you’re in the right place.

Over this episode and the next I dive into the detail of influence - in this episode I cover what I think Influence is (and what it isn’t) and also why it’s important and in episode 8 I offer you a really practical exercise you start using immediately to map out the sphere of influence you will want to build.

So let’s get started ….   

What is influence?
The dictionary tells us that Influence is ‘the capacity to have an effect on the character, development, or behavior of someone or something’
Is that a bad thing?  
You might have a slightly negative reaction associated with Influence - one that feels more like manipulation or some kind of sinister persuasion.  Sometimes people can use their influence in a negative way and that can really put us off the idea of being influential - and I think that’s not particularly helped by the advent of ‘Influencers’.  
A Google search of the term Influencer came back with this definition:
‘An influencer is an individual who has the power to affect purchase decisions of others because of his/her authority, knowledge, position or relationship with his/her audience.’
This makes influence all about a commercial transaction - that’s the goal - to sell me something.  I think it’s a shame that the word influence is now so closely aligned with this definition because I think influence - in the way I would use it in my career - is actually about building relationships with people so that it easier to get the right things done quickly and cut through the confusion and lag of the corporate machine.  That’s what I think influence is about - and at it’s core it’s about relationships.
I would say that the modern use of the term Influencer is actually closer to Manipulator.  They are using their power to drive a selfish outcome.
And that’s very different to genuine influence.  I see influence as having a much more meaningful and longer term goal - it’s about getting the right things done quickly and efficiently for the greater good of the organisation or team.  
This definition relies on building trust and giving value ahead of receiving anything. 
Let me say that again as it’s really important!
Influence starts with building trust and giving value, ahead of receiving anything.
Manipulation on the other hand is based on getting what you want in the shortest possible time and dam the long term consequences.
I find this long term vs short term point of view particularly helpful and it supports my favourite saying on influence which is that we need to dig the well before we get thirsty, otherwise we’ll come to the task too late.
I also think it helps us position the reason for building influence as being for the greater good, because we’re not looking for any immediate payback.  
We can all spot manipulation a mile away - it has a strong smell of selfish motivation and it makes us suspicious and cautious, it definitely doesn’t foster trust and without trust you will never have genuine influence.
If you ever feel uncomfortable about the idea of building influence and think it might be self serving ask yourself ‘Who am I doing this for?’ is this all about me?  Or is it about getting things done, to make things better, to help the business and the people in it to succeed?’  Check your motives, they’re a great barometer for understanding what’s driving you.
One thing influence is not is authority - and by authority I mean the hierarchical, organisational authority that comes from reporting lines and superior titles.
I’m not dismissing this hierarchy or positional authority as a powerful force - it definitely still holds sway in traditional business structure - although I think this kind of influence is waning because structures are getting flatter and we’re working in much more fluid ways - such as cross divisional projects .  
But in any case hierarchical authority is very different to genuine influence.  
Genuine influence is about someone actively choosing to listen to you, take your advice, spend time with you, follow your lead - it’s not because they feel they have to, or because you’ve told them to - it’s because they want to.  
Positional or hierarchical authority is, by its very nature, tenuous.  It depends wholly on  being more senior than you, or me continuing to hold a certain position so I can use the authority that comes with it to influence your behaviour.  If I no longer hold the position I lose the influence and the authority.
This reminds me of that famous saying:
‘Be nice to those you meet on the way up because you will meet them on the way down’ it’s not clear who said this originally, but I love the way it points to the dangers of abusing organisational superiority and potential consequences when things go wrong and you get pushed off your superior pedestal! 
The fact is that anyone can build influence and if you build influence you don’t need authority.  If you start with building influence when you don’t have authority, as you get more senior you will never feel the need to exercise your authority.
The best “networkers” or influence builders are good at what they do because they care. Making influential connections means building relationships that lead to real engagement, real relationships and friendships. It also means helping people connect with other people and extending your network through the recommendations of others. This makes it fun and lends more to the aspect of influence that I enjoy which is all about building a mutually supportive network.
When I think of the truly influential people I’ve met through my career they have a few things in common:
I felt as if I knew them and understood what they were about.  I could describe them, what they were good at, their values, how they showed up, what they cared about.  They were real and it came across.
I also knew that they cared.  They had their own particular pet topics and causes of course, but they also took the time to understand other people’s - it wasn’t all about their agenda. If you needed them, they were there to listen and advise.
They had some area of expertise.  They had developed a specialism that they were known for and they offered this skill set for the greater good of the business and team.
Influence can come in many shapes and guises but I do think that these 3 characteristics are consistent.
I’ve heard the point of view that to be influential you need to be centre stage, the main attraction, full of obvious charisma, the extravert that everyone knows.  And I’ve certainly known influential people who show up like this naturally, but I don’t think this is a requirement.  One of the most influential people I’ve known in my career was quietly influential.  
He was an introvert (sorry I’m speaking in the past tense, he is still very much alive and kicking!) but when I was working with him at Thomson Reuters he was a quiet, softly spoken leader, he didn’t have amazing presence, he was shy.  He didn’t like the limelight and he was most comfortable 121 rather than on stage in front of a crowd.  
Yet he was so influential, he was willingly followed by so many people.  At his retirement party a few years ago someone said ‘he was the person everyone wanted to work for, that he drew people to a cause, that people would do anything he asked, climb a mountain or swim an ocean, for no other reason than because if they knew, that if he was asking them to do it, it must be the right thing to do’
I don’t think this had nothing to do with his position, his stature, his presence or anything other than he had taken a lot of time to cultivate meaningful, genuine relationships.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure he was no saint and he could be passionate and energetic but that wasn’t his natural character.  
The fact is, he understood the value of genuine connection and he’d taken the time to build real relationships.  His focus had always been on how he could add value, how he could help, where he could make a difference by applying his expertise.  And it was through this approach that he built enduring trust, and with trust comes the right to influence.
A word of caution at this point - influence is no fast track to success.  It takes time to cultivate, but I do think it’s so critical to corporate career success and probably wider than that - to sucess in life more generally.
But because it takes time it’s important to start as early as you can - especially in a new role and new company - it’s never too soon to start intentionally building your sphere of influence - it’s like investing in your future success.
So that’s what I believe influence is but why does it matter?

I think influence matters more now than it ever has.  Not to harp on about ‘the old days’ but when I started work 30+ years ago there was no internet, mobile phones, emails, slack, instant messaging ….. I could go on but you know where I’m going with this.  
In those days you mostly worked in a physical office with the people who were around you.  Your colleagues mostly looked and sounded like you, you shared common history and understanding and you all worked for a boss who held the power to most decisions and outcomes that directly impacted your world of work.  So you really only had to worry about influencing a small number of people, who were mostly available to you and that you probably knew and understood pretty well.
That is no longer the world of work we all know!
Today we’re mobile, we’re global, we’re diverse, we’re connected, we’re distracted, we’re overloaded with information and many of us work in complex, matrixed organisations with people that we might never meet in person and might be on the other side of the world.  
Organisational structures are getting flatter and cross company projects are commonplace.  As a result of all of this change we have a lot more people we want to build influential relationships with, but that doesn’t mean that it’s easier to do. Tools like slack and messaging might be efficient but don’t necessarily foster relationships.  Infact in some ways these digital interfaces make it harder to forge a real human connection with someone you might never meet in person.  
Building influence is critically important for 1 key reason:
Relationships are still what makes businesses work.  Many things have changed but that is still a fundamental truth.
I came across a piece of research that said 85% of new jobs are filled with people already known to someone within the hiring organisation.  That sounds like an extraordinary statistic and I don’t believe everything I read on-line, but it does point to the power of networking and ‘being visible’ in your own organisation.  If you’ve just started a new job, you’re probably not thinking at all about your next role - but building your network takes time and leaving it until you’re ready to move on will probably mean it’s too late.
It’s fun to collaborate and to build our network - that’s how we learn and grow and it’s also how we make friends at work.  It’s great to be well connected and to know lots of diverse individuals and it means we’re less likely to feel the pain of isolation and loneliness which is a reality for many people brought on by some of our new ways of working. 
‘It’s not what you know, it’s who you know’  My Dad always used to say this to me and I only really understood the reality of this when I started working in a big corporate business.  In the big companies I worked for like NCR, Lloyds TSB, Thomson Reuters - the way things get done is through influence and relationships.  Some people call this politics - who knows who, who believes who, who follows who.  But in reality, it’s how things get done.  
You need to know who to call when you need help - and it helps if they already know and like you, when you call!
I learnt this lesson the hard way 
I've led lots of change projects and sales and marketing initiatives in my career and what I’ve learnt is that its not been the quality of the idea that’s made a difference between success and failure - it’s the ability to influence the people who matter.
You might be thinking ‘ah yes the senior guys’ No, that’s not who I mean.  With any challenging project, having executive sponsorship is critical, but the person who is most important to the success of your project may not be so obvious.
About 10 years ago, I was leading a marketing program with a $6M budget that almost failed, not because we didn’t generate demand - we busted all our targets as far as creating leads - but there was a weakness in our process - there was an accounting process that needed to be changed to on board new clients.
We had done the customer journey mapping ahead of the launch of the campaign and we’d ensured that the process that had to be changed, was changed but it still failed on Day 1 of the campaign.  
Unbeknown to me - and the project team, someone in accounts had taken it upon themselves to change the process back again, because they didn’t understand the implications on the campaign - we’d failed to convince them that the change was necessary.
The whys didn’t matter on the day - we just needed to reach the right people and put it right.  But because we hadn’t built the right relationships with the Accounts people we didn’t know who to reach and we wasted hours tracking down what had happened and working out to to talk to to put it right.  It was messy and stressful and could have been a disaster.
It’s not always the ‘obvious’ people who matter and in big corporates you need a diverse and healthy network of influence to get s**t done.
So if I’ve convinced you that you need to start building influence as soon as possible  - what’s the best way to get started?
Three Things to Think about in Building Influence
Be clear on who you are and what you want to be known for (go back to the previous episode if you haven’t done this!).  This is not about self promotion it’s about helping people easily see how you can help them with their most pressing issues, rather than leaving it to others to work out who we are and what we’re good at - which they may well get wrong! Once you’re clear on how you want to be known and what for - be consistent, don’t be unpredictable as this will confuse at best and destroy trust at worst
Set Your intention on ‘Digging the Communal Well’ - think about the reasons you want to build influence so that it is about the ‘greater good’ rather than any selfish, short term motivation.  This way you will ensure you build genuine and lasting connections which will serve you very well when you do eventually have something to ask of your network. One way of making sure this intention comes to life is to shift your focus from yourself and what you need, to others and what they need.  We’ll cover this in more depth in the next episode but start this work now by listening intentionally to the challenges of others and proactively ask what help and support people need - I cover this topic in some depth in episode 2 so go back there for a refresher on this subject.
To illustrate this point further Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn, outlined four types of networking approaches often taken on LinkedIn — and I think these are really useful when we think about how to build lasting and meaningful influence:
1. “I’ll do something for you if you’ll do something for me.”
2. “I’ll do something for you, but I’m keeping track of what you owe me.”
3. “I’ll invest in this relationship, and I expect you to invest commensurately over time.”
4. “I’ll invest in this relationship because it is the right thing to do.”
As Hoffman explains, the first three are calculated and transactional, they put you at the centre of the calculation.  But No. 4 is clearly built around "giving without expecting." It is not a "what's in it for me" approach to building relationships. And this is what I believe really works in building influence.
Make it a decision to invest the time and to take consistent action to build influence - block out time in your diary to think and take action - every week allocate 2 hours to intentionally building influence.  This can be during lunchtimes - eating is such a sociable activity anyway, so it’s easy to incorporate meeting new people by inviting them to lunch. Or plan some regular time slots in your diary to plan your approach on how to build your support network - the next episode in this podcast is dedicated to this subject - so make sure you catch episode 8 for a framework for using these time slots to the best effect.
Let me leave you with a famous African proverb which I love: ‘If you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to go far, go together’.  Influence takes time to build but it will carry you far in your career and is a wise investment of your time.
For a recap on what you’ve heard me talk about here and for links to many more resources on building influence download my cheat sheet for this episode from my website 

www.elisefinn.com/podcast/episode7

I’d love to know how you get on and if you have any questions you can email me or message me on LinkedIn.  Swipe the artwork on your podcast player to find the notes

Finally, if you’re into this content, go and leave a review on itunes, subscribe to the podcast and share it with a friend.  This is a new podcast so the most important thing you can do is leave a review in itunes and as a thank you I’m going to be giving away a free 30 minute coaching session to someone who leaves a review every week for the first season.  I’ve already met 4 new listeners through these free coaching sessions and they’ve been vocal in the value they’ve got from these sessions.  You could be next - so go ahead and write your review in iTunes!  

In the next episode we continue to explore the area of building influence with a really practical approach that you can start using today, so I hope you’ll join me for that episode and in the meantime thank you for listening, I know your time is precious and I appreciate you spending the time with me.
Now get out there and create a career and life that you’re going to love.