Influence The Influencing programme is written by Professor Gavin Kennedy BA MSc PhD, Managing Director of Negotiate Ltd and a Professor at Edinburgh Business School. Professor Kennedy taught at the University of Strathclyde Business School for 11 years and was a Professor in the Department of Accountancy and Finance, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, from 1984 to 1988. He has written extensively in negotiation and is the author of Negotiation, an Elective course in the Heriot-Watt MBA series. Other books include: Everything is Negotiable! (1983; 3rd edition, 1997) The Economist Pocket Negotiator (1988; 3rd edition, 1997) Kennedy on Negotiation (1997) The New Negotiating Edge: the behavioural approach for results and relationships (1998) Profitable Negotiation (1999) The following are some of the companies with which he has consulted: Scottish Enterprise (since 1984) Co-operative Wholesale Society (since 1985) Royal Bank of Scotland (since 1986) National Health Service (since 1992)
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HERIOT-WATT UNIVERSITY
Influence Gavin Kennedy BA, MSc, PhD, FCInstM
Edinburgh Gate, Harlow, Essex CM20 2JE, United Kingdom Tel: +44 (0) 1279 623 623 Fax: +44 (0) 1279 431 059 Pearson Education website:
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First published in Great Britain in 2000 c Gavin Kennedy 2000, 2002, 2004
The right of Gavin Kennedy to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. ISBN 0 273 64562 5 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A CIP catalogue record for this book can be obtained from the British Library. Release IL-A1.2 All rights reserved; no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior written permission of the Publishers. This book may not be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise disposed of by way of trade in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published, without the prior consent of the Publishers. Typesetting and SGML/XML source management by CAPDM Ltd. Printed and bound in Great Britain.
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Contents 7 9
Acknowledgements Preface
Module 1
Introduction 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6
Module 2
The Need for Influence 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4
Module 3
Introduction First Rule of Influence The Reciprocation Principle Non-reciprocation Bad Turns The Currencies of Influence
GAME 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4
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Introduction Two Behaviour Styles Pull Behaviours Behaviours for a Push Strategy
The Currencies of Influence 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6
Module 6
Introduction What is Influencing? Benefits of Influence Influence and the Modern Manager Relationships and Results Stakeholders
Building Relationships 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4
Module 5
Introduction Type I and Type II Models Politics of Decision Making The Scope for Politics
What is Influencing? 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6
Module 4
Introduction Prisoner’s Dilemma Red–Blue Games Some Common Plays of Red–Blue Tit-for-Tat Co-operation and Defection in the Game of Life
Introduction: New Harbour Co (I) Preparation Tools GAME 1 – Generate Objectives GAME 2 – Arrange Access
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1/1 1/1 1/4 1/5 1/6 1/7 1/9 2/1 2/1 2/2 2/4 2/6 3/1 3/1 3/3 3/4 3/5 3/7 3/9 4/1 4/1 4/2 4/3 4/12 5/1 5/1 5/3 5/4 5/5 5/7 5/8 6/1 6/1 6/3 6/4 6/5
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6.5 6.6 6.7
Module 7
6/10 6/13 6/15
Influencing for Results 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 7.6 7.7 7.8 7.9
Module 8
GAME 3 – Mobilise Allies GAME 4 – Execute Strategy Sequences of a Game
7/1 7/1 7/3 7/4 7/7 7/11 7/12 7/15 7/18 7/26
Introduction Inter and Intra Games Will it Play? Who to Access? Winning Allies Influencing for Results Imperatives The Grid Content of the Influence Messages
Power and Influence 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 8.5
8/1 8/1 8/2 8/7 8/9 8/12
Introduction Power Politics Political Activity Managing with Power
Module 9
Retrospection
Appendix 1
Answers to Exercises and Case Studies
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Appendix 2
Practice Final Examinations
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Acknowledgements All academic texts covering established subjects are seldom the work of their authors alone. We draw on a body of knowledge and practice from many predecessors and contemporaries, most of whom it is impossible to acknowledge, let alone identify by name, except when their published work is cited. Among those I can identify who have influenced my authorship, I am happy to name Bob Lee, formerly of Loughborough University, who is now a business consultant specialising in the politics of work. Others include Charles Jack, Tina Jones and Lesley Wilson. The material alluded to in the text, particularly in some of the Case Studies and examples, came from my consultancy work and also from live cases brought to my notice at influencing workshops by participants. Necessarily, many people who have helped me cannot be named for various reasons because they include men and women whose careers I have followed over the years from the world of politics, the Civil Service, the Ministry of Defence, the European Union, NATO, the Food and Agriculture Organisation, UNESCO and the United Nations. These people have been willing to discuss anonymously their many influencing triumphs (and a few of their ‘disasters’), either on their own account or as professional lobbyists. All manuscripts are improved by editing and this book is no exception. What merits it has have been enhanced through the inspired (and patient!) editorial work of Charles Ritchie, colleague and friend, at Edinburgh Business School. Editors spare the blushes of authors with their deft excisions of an author’s split infinitives, wrong cases, misplaced gerunds and hopeless clausal (mis)constructions. If there is a special place in heaven reserved for the selfeffacing and saintly, it is surely heavily populated by retired editors. Those authors who fail to acknowledge their debt to their editors may plead ignorance (unconvincingly) but not for sure their integrity. Lastly, a word of thanks to my family who have endured for many years my work schedules while I have been writing various books and facilitating workshops. Writing is hard work, highly focused and time-intensive. Without the stoic support of one’s family, writing would indeed be an onerous burden. Happily, I have not had to test that proposition in practice.
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Preface Education and training in the subject of influencing emerged as a regular inclusion in management development programmes in the UK at the end of 1980s and quickly accelerated in take-up throughout the 1990s into a popular topic for study. In this trend the UK, as ever, followed developments in the United States, which remains the major source of research and publication on influencing and also in the legitimising of influencing as a field worthy of research and of teaching in the Executive and MBA level curricula of the world’s top Business Schools. These developments were reflected to some extent when I was commissioned in 1990 to design and deliver a negotiating programme to project managers at Lothian and Edinburgh Enterprise Limited (LEEL), an economic development agency. After interviews of the personnel who were scheduled to be on the programme and of the LEEL directors, it became clear that pure negotiation skills were not really sufficient to address what LEEL required of its project managers in order for them to complete their work assignments. For a start, although negotiation is ubiquitous in management behaviour, it is not general enough to cover managing in circumstances where the manager has clear aims but little authority or power to achieve them, particularly when dependent on the behaviours, motivations and aims of managers in other functions and, sometimes, in other organisations. Further discussion and reassessment of the needs of the project managers, led to a decision to shift the emphasis from negotiation to what was loosely described as ‘influencing’. While aspects of what was meant by influencing were familiar to myself, a requirement to move, from en passant references to influencing during a four-module negotiating programme to making influencing the main focus of three of the four modules, posed preparation and design problems. Thus, during the December 1990 break, all but two days were taken up with intense design activity. The influencing programme that I produced was eventually undertaken by most of LEEL’s project and administrative staff and, later in 1991, the programme, Influencing for Results, was rolled out by LEEL’s parent agency, Scottish Enterprise, to its national network of local enterprise companies. Since 1991, versions of the LEEL programme have been presented to numerous public and private corporations in the UK and it soon developed from linked concepts into a structured management development programme. One feature of the influencing programme has been its bias to what is relevant for managers in their work, and this is evidenced by the extent to which ‘live data’ formed the core of the application of the influencing concepts. This is reflected in this Elective in the use of activities, examples, cases and exercises, which give meaning and substance to the array of concepts typical in an organisational behaviour programme.
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Influencing, as taught in several Business Schools and Executive programmes, has two quite distinct approaches to the subject. The first approach is the study of how people in powerful positions in organisations – corporations, political parties, government offices, intergovernmental agencies and such like – use their power to influence those with whom they interact, both formally and informally. One of the best exponents of this approach is Professor Jeffrey Pfeffer of Stanford University, US, in his Managing with Power: politics and influence in organizations (Harvard Business School Press, 1992). In fact, his use of the title ‘Managing with Power’ highlights the basic difference between the approaches. Pfeffer, and others in this genre, write as observers of how powerful men and women behave, how they acquire power, what they do with it, and how they lose it. Those researchers are backed by a formidable and growing body of scientific evidence, plus a rich field of commentary, biography and autobiography, about their subjects. The second approach to the study of influence, and the one I have chosen in the bulk of this text, can be summed up perhaps by reversing Pfeffer’s title into ‘managing without power’, or into ‘how to influence with neither power nor authority’. This text is not the study of how already powerful men and women in the prime of their careers exercise influence over others. It is about that often long period before such people achieve the powerful positions from which they will exercise influence. In my view, as an MBA student you are normally at the beginning, or at the very early stages, of your managerial career; for that reason you are more likely to benefit (apart from completing an Elective) in a practical sense from my following the second approach than from following the first (though it is inevitable that we trespass occasionally into the first approach at certain points for illustrative purposes). In addition, by my presenting the concepts, examples, applications, cases, and tools in the context of the world of the relatively new manager, you will reach a higher level of understanding than if you were to remain in vicarious awe of the behaviours of people in worlds you have not yet experienced. These influencing tools are for you to use in the acquisition of the power you seek rather than for you to exercise influence through power you have already acquired. They are applicable to your present world rather than being insights into the worlds to which, hopefully, you are heading. Hence, Modules 1–7 are about influencing without power and Module 8 is about influencing with power. The ideas about influencing contained in Module 8 are for academic completion. They are less comprehensive or detailed than those in the earlier Modules, but they help put these ideas in context for when you complete your MBA and have opportunities to commence acquiring more power in your organisation. Module 9 is what nowadays is called ‘closure’ – a signing off before you embark on preparations for your examination and, hopefully, a period in which you apply and practice the techniques you have studied.
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In preparing this contribution to the Heriot-Watt University MBA programme, I have followed the well tried (and well received) approach of my companion MBA text, Negotiation (1992, 1998), in which I see you, ‘the reader’, as someone who has achieved competence in a functional specialism and who, with ambitions to increase your managerial responsibilities, now want to acquire education in general management. In order to do so, you seek assistance in selecting from the numerous concepts and techniques of managerial analysis. To these sentiments, I would add that you probably require more structure in this approach to influencing than was normally found in the early days of influencing studies, which can be characterised as ‘informed gossip’. To assist in these aims, the text is written in the style of a conversation between me as the author and you as the reader. I prefer a discursive to an overly formal style of communication in a learning situation. To assist me in this style, I use a structure familiar to students of classical Greek rhetoric and drama, namely the division of each module into three parts: Prologos, to set the scene for the theme; Dialogos, to present the argument and the imagined discourse between us; and Epilogos, to draw together the threads of the argument and to summarise the whole. These divisions are more familiar in their English form of Prologue, Dialogue and Epilogue. Exercises are included to test your understanding through application of the concepts. My suggested answers to the Exercises (in Appendix 1) permit you to review your own answers, and where necessary to look over the material from which they are derived. There is also a numbered series of Activities running throughout the text, in which you are invited to reflect upon your experiences of the topic under discussion by relating it to situations with which you are familiar or to the behaviour of people with whom you interact in your work roles. These are reflective of your personal experience and they do not have common answers applicable to other readers; hence they are different from the Exercises. Take a few moments to pause and think about the problem posed by each Activity and try to see and feel yourself in the past situations to which they refer. You have a rich core of experience upon which you can draw for enlightenment, though you may not see it that way when you first read the task set for an Activity. Each module has a Case Study relating to its main theme, plus some short question-essays for you to practise analysis of the influencing issues, either as a ‘consultant’ or the relevant ‘player’. As you will see in the Practice Final Examinations (Appendix 2), Case Study questions account for 40% of the final marks in this course of study and the cases in the text are therefore an important part of the learning process and of your preparation for your Final Examination. All Exercises, Case Studies and Final Practice Examinations have fully worked model answers for you to study (after you have attempted your own answers!). From my experience of grading MBA examinations since 1992, the most common cause of a poor mark is when candidates do not answer the question in front of them and try to get away with answering a question they have come prepared to answer (which, unfortunately for them does not appear on that Diet’s question paper). This avoidable error stems from a lack of practice in answering questions placed into the text, similar in scope and content to those Influence
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you will experience in the Final Examination. The remedy is in your own hands. For those who are unsure (even muddled!), and provided that you have read the relevant parts of the text (it is always evident when this is not the case), I am prepared to respond to questions of clarification about the concepts and their application if you e-mail your query to me at:
[email protected] Gavin Kennedy Edinburgh Business School.
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Module 1
Introduction Contents PROLOGUE 1.1 Introduction
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DIALOGUE 1.2 Prisoner’s Dilemma
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1.3
Red–Blue Games
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1.4
Some Common Plays of Red–Blue
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1.5
Tit-for-Tat
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1.6
Co-operation and Defection in the Game of Life
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Case Study 1
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EPILOGUE
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PROLOGUE 1.1
Introduction George and Rodney, of Phoenix Enterprises, were on a visit to Ogoland on business. One evening, looking for some excitement in what had been a boring week spent tramping round various ministries in search of elusive contacts for what appear to be even more elusive contracts, their taxi took them to the ExPat’s Club, supposedly a place guaranteed to excite the most jaded of visitors to Ogoland. It was run by Effusi, an MBA graduate who, despite his academic success, failed to get the job he believed his uncle was keeping for him. Denied his corporate destiny, he had put his MBA to good use and was now running the Ex-Pat’s Club, a house that specialised in games of chance and skill that are known in his alma mater as decision theory. Throughout the evening, George and Rodney played the tables and sampled the local beverage, Kwagasani beer. They enjoyed themselves for a few hours and prepared to return to their hotel. Effusi approached and offered them one more game, the house speciality. ‘Only played by special guests,’ he told them. ‘It will give you an opportunity to get back your evening’s investments,’ he said, using the Club’s euphemism for gambling losses. Ignoring their feeble protests (their decisions had truly been sub-optimal and they were much poorer than when they had arrived), he ushered them into a side room where a single table was lit by a small bulb suspended 10 centimetres above it. This cast the rest of the room into total darkness.
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George and Rodney were guided to a table and were gently sat down either side of it. They had a clear view of the tabletop but could not see each other or anything or anybody else. They were told that speaking was not allowed, nor were questions, and that they must not utter a word nor make a gesture of any kind. They must also play strictly by the rules of the game, which they would play only once. These rules, Effusi’s voice assured them, were simple. They were told to pick up the two cards placed before them. On one side the cards had a common nondescript pattern. On the other side, one card was marked ‘C’ with a picture of a coconut and the other was marked ‘D’ with a picture of a doughnut, two local delicacies. Next, on the table was placed a large sheet of paper on which a rectangle was printed that was divided into four compartments, each containing pairs of numbers (see Exhibit 1.1). Exhibit 1.1
Effusi’s game
George D
C
$200 each
0, $400
D
$400, 0
$10 each
Rodney
C
They were told to study the box. Effusi said, ‘You will each choose independently which card to play, either “coconut” or “doughnut”. Having made your selection, and on the count of 3, you will toss your selected card onto the table. The numbers in the box are your winnings, which you will be paid before you are escorted back to your hotel by Henri and Claude.’ Effusi continued: ‘Now listen carefully, while I explain what you get for what you play. You each choose separately but your winnings are determined by the combination of the choices you both make. If you both play coconuts, then you each get $200. If one of you plays a coconut and the other plays a doughnut, the person who plays the coconut gets nothing and the person who plays the doughnut gets $400. Lastly, if you both play doughnuts you each get $10. And remember, gentlemen, in this game, the Ex-Pat’s Club is not even asking you to make an investment. You can’t lose but you can win.’ Effusi told them they had two minutes to make their choices and reminded 1/2
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them of the rule that they were not to speak until after they had played their cards simultaneously. What should George and Rodney have played? That is not as easy to answer as it appears. They not only had to think about what they would do themselves but also what the other would do too. For it mattered what they played in combination and not just what they played themselves. But under the rules they could not tell the other what to play or ask them what they intended to play. They could only decide what to play in anticipation of what the other will play. Anticipating the other’s play – perhaps because they believed they ‘knew’ the other’s personality and likely behaviour – did not remove the problem. Suppose George was sure of Rodney’s outlook on the moral problems of life. How did this give an unambiguous clue as to what to play himself? If he was sure that Rodney would play a coconut, should George – would he – play a coconut too? If he did, they would both win $200 for certain (Effusi runs an ‘honest’ house). But if George knew that Rodney was certain to play a coconut, and played the doughnut instead, he would double his winnings to $400, which was no mean amount in view of their evening’s ‘investments’. In similar vein, if George was sure that Rodney would play the doughnut, would this help him choose what to play? Perhaps. He could have decided to cut his losses and play a doughnut himself to get $10, which is better than the nothing he would get by playing a coconut. However, George, by playing a doughnut in anticipation of Rodney doing the same, would deprive Rodney of $400, which would no doubt be a subject of conversation in the taxi back to their hotel (Claude might have found it necessary to sit between them to protect them from each other, rather than protect them and their winnings from the crime-ridden streets of downtown Ogoland at 2 o’clock in the morning). What was true for George was also true for Rodney. He knew what George knew and had the same degree of ignorance about what he might have done as George had about him. In the two minutes they had to decide which card to choose, ignorance was not bliss. George and Rodney were in a dilemma for which there was no clear optimal solution, excepting that in choosing a card they provided their own (possibly sub-optimal) solution. Their best joint decision was to play ‘C’ ($200 each). ‘C’ is the co-operative play. Their best individual decision was to play ‘D’ when the other player plays ‘C’ ($400 for ‘D’ and nothing for ‘C’). ‘D’ was the defection play for one individual to gain at another’s expense. Their worst joint decision was to play ‘D’; (then they only got $10 – hardly enough for Claude’s taxi). When both of them defected, they did much worse than they could have done by both of them co-operating. And this is the source of the tension when one is confronted by this dilemma: the individual’s benefits from one-sided defection versus joint benefits from two-sided co-operation. In business you face similar dilemmas though you may not recognise them as such. How should you behave when you are unsure of the intentions of other people – either colleagues, suppliers or customers? Are you going to co-operate or defect? In the dilemma game, each player’s co-operation or defection is simultaneous, just as it is, more or less, in a negotiation. But in influencing, the players’ coInfluence
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operation or defection is separated in time. To what extent will they co-operate and then reciprocate, perhaps long after your act of co-operation with them? Will they reciprocate in kind when it is their turn, or will they be devious and untrustworthy? Should you protect yourself from their future defections by refraining from co-operating with them now? If you received some benefit from their past co-operation, should you hold back from reciprocating when they expect you to do so, or should you slink behind excuses and tell them ‘that was then and this is now’?
DIALOGUE 1.2
Prisoner’s Dilemma ‘Prisoner’s dilemma’ was invented in 1950 and its applications have spread from politics to economics, biochemistry, microbiology, genetics, evolution, law and moral philosophy. It was originated at the RAND Corporation, a ‘think tank’ in Santa Monica, California. RAND, known affectionately as ‘Research And No Development’, attracted brilliant scholars and some of their best work began in modest speculation about how they might buy second-hand goods from each other (cars, typewriters, cabinets, etc.). You will recognise the structure of a generic Prisoner’s Dilemma from Effusi’s game. My version reports that two prisoners, Slug and Gripper, are suspected of a major crime. They are held in separate cells and cannot communicate with each other. The police do not have enough evidence to convict them. Instead, the prosecutor offers them separately the same deal: ‘If you confess to the crime and give evidence, you will go free and your erstwhile associate will do 12 years; if you do not confess but your associate does, then he will go free and you will receive 12 years; if you both confess, you will receive 5 years each and if neither of you confesses, you will each do 1 year for a minor misdemeanour.’
Activity 1.1 How would you respond to the prosecutor’s offer of a deal?
Both prisoners must contemplate what the other prisoner will choose. Their fate is contaminated by the choice of the other prisoner; neither of them can unilaterally choose the final outcome because their choices are inextricably bound together. Clearly, compared with their other choices it would be best if they both chose ‘not to confess’ because they would receive a one-year sentence instead of five years or twelve. But will Slug and Gripper choose not to confess? Or will they choose what is best for themselves alone, i.e. confess in the hope that the other doesn’t – and thereby gain their freedom? If Slug chooses not to confess, he risks Gripper confessing, which gives Slug 12 years and Gripper his freedom. But why would Gripper not see that the optimum choice for both of them is ‘not to confess’? 1/4
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Exercise 1.1 Why would Gripper choose not to confess?
Gripper, of course, is vulnerable to Slug’s reasoning in the same way and instead of Slug na¨ıvely not confessing (which gets Slug 12 years if Gripper defects and confesses) Slug too might decide to ‘confess’, giving them both 5 years. They are now both worse off than if they had both ‘not confessed’. This is the dilemma of choice for Slug and Gripper and for everybody else who faces similar dilemmas in the game of life.
1.3
Red–Blue Games There is an extension of the prisoner’s dilemma game known as the Red–Blue game, which is played in pairs over several rounds rather than just one. We can examine its lessons without playing it, however, from introspection. In Prisoner’s Dilemma the choices are to ‘confess’ or ‘not to confess’. In this game the choices are to play a red or a blue card. In red–blue there are three possible outcomes, each with a different pay-off. Two players (as in Effusi’s game) each independently choose and then simultaneously reveal their choice. Unlike Effusi’s game with its single round, in red–blue there are ten rounds. The combinations of their independent choices and their pay-offs are shown in Exhibit 1.2. Exhibit 1.2
Red–blue pay-offs
Player’s choices
Pay-offs
Both play blue
+ 4 points each
Both play red
− 4 points each
One plays blue
Blue player loses 8 points
Other plays red
Red player gains 8 points
Source: The Negotiate Trainer’s Manual, Negotiate Ltd, 1996, p. 11.6
As positive points are preferred to negative points, gaining as many positive points as you can, what would be your choice of play for the first round of the game?
Activity 1.2 Which card would you play in the first round? (Tick one) Red
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You might ask whether the players are to choose according to ‘what is best for me alone’ or ‘what is best for both of us together’. Suppose I reply that you are to choose what is best for both players because if you play blue in the expectation that you both play blue, and both of you do so, then you get 4 points.
Activity 1.3 Can you spot the possible flaw in my advice?
The problem, however, is that in choosing ‘what is best for both of you’, you have no way of knowing what choice the other player will make. If she chooses what is ‘best for both of you’, she too will play blue. But how do you know she will co-operate with such a helpful choice? Remember, you reveal your choices simultaneously and neither of you may change your choice once the cards are played. What would your choice have been if I had said that you should choose what is ‘best for you alone’? Your best personal choice is to play red to her blue, but only if she plays blue to your red! You do not know what she will play and you cannot be sure that choosing what is ‘best for you’ will give you more points than choosing what is ‘best for both of you’. And, worse, if she too plays red, what is best for you gives you both −4 points. Why should she play red? Because she expects you too will play red. You are back at a prisoner’s dilemma! When you behave how you behave is your choice! Once you do something it is for ever done. Time does not flow backwards – ‘the moving finger writes, and having writ moves on’.
Exercise 1.2 If you play red at any time, do you think your partner will notice what you have done?
1.4
Some Common Plays of Red–Blue What is the most common play in the first round in the red–blue game? Are people rational (and moral) enough to choose what is best for everybody? Or do they seldom do other than seek what is best for themselves? The experimental evidence of red–blue games is overwhelming. In thousands of plays of the red–blue game that I have observed, only 8 per cent of players have chosen behaviour that produces maximum points from a blue–blue outcome. Just over half of the players have played red in round 1, leaving just under half to play blue, which has meant that blue players have had a marginally higher chance that their partner would play red rather than blue. Yet for a blue–blue (or win–win) outcome, both players must play blue in round 1 and must sustain blue play throughout all ten rounds.
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However, if your partner plays red in round 1 to your blue play, what should you do in round 2? Play red, of course! Some blue players who are hit with a red, play blue again in round 2 (and some even play blue again in rounds 3 and 4!). They report, in a triumph of na¨ıvety over experience, that they hoped to shame the red player into blue play. The majority of round-1 blue players reacted to red play by switching to red themselves in round 2. If this red–red exchange happened to continue, both of them ended up with low or negative scores over the ten rounds. If, however, round-1 blue players continued to play blue against red, they ended up with high negative scores and the red players ended up with high positive scores.
Exercise 1.3 Why will the red player ‘win’ in these circumstances?
Players who eventually agree to play blue–blue sometimes are ambushed by red play in the final round. Why? Because players carry their grievances from round 1 and retaliate in the last round to punish their partner’s original round1 red defection. This behaviour provokes heated arguments about ‘trust’ and ‘betrayal’. You must not assume that people will choose joint maximising behaviours solely because they ‘ought’. If you play with people who are among the minority who try to co-operate, all well and good; but as it is much more likely that they won’t co-operate, it is risky to behave as if they will.
Exercise 1.4 Why is it risky to assume co-operative behaviour?
1.5
Tit-for-Tat Is it all bad news? Not at all. But blue play is only viable if the other party reciprocates. In short, a blue–blue outcome has to be worked for before it is a safe choice. Why, then, should you open with a blue in the red–blue game or make a blue move in an influencing exchange? While you may be disappointed if your partner plays red, you are compensated by useful information about the intentions of your partners because their behaviour is the safest indicator of their intentions. Red players in post-game debriefs claim they played red to protect themselves from the other player’s red play. Some candidly admit that they played red intending to exploit any chance of their partner playing blue. Although people predominantly play red in the belief that this will enhance their own interests, in doing so they usually frustrate their intentions. Two players attempting to
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exploit each other by playing red undermine their own interests with their negative scores. Nobody can be sure why people do what they do but, as their behaviour is more reliable than their explanations, it is safest to assume that they intended exploitation. Accordingly, you must protect yourself by playing red in the next round.
Exercise 1.5 Why is people’s behaviour more reliable than their explanations?
What if they did play red to protect themselves from you? Surely, by attributing to them the malign motive of exploitation, we deny to them the benign motive of protecting themselves? Well, their behaviour harms you whatever their explanation, and you must protect yourself by putting your interests at least risk. When harmed by somebody’s red behaviour, it is less risky to assume that they have exploitative rather than protective motives. Fortunately, your assumption is not an irreversible final judgement. So, if you play blue and your partner plays red, it is safest to play red in the next round but everything now turns on what your partner plays. Should she play blue, you may conclude that the risk diminishes of her intending to exploit you. Should she play red, that risk increases. Her behaviour is your safest guide to her intentions and you should adjust your behaviour accordingly. When she switches from red to blue play, you may safely revert to blue play and continue so to do for as long as she reciprocates. If she plays red again in the next round you must resort to red play (should you continue playing) until she reverts to blue. These simple guidelines (known generically as Tit-for-Tat) also apply in negotiation and influencing exchanges where your interests are affected by the behaviours of others. If they play red, you play red; if they play blue, you play blue. Your opening with blue play is a small investment to identify their intentions from their behaviour. The power of the Tit-for-Tat strategy was discovered from two tournaments, in which computer programs for a red–blue game were played against each other. (Full details can be found in Robert Axelrod, The Evolution of Cooperation, Basic Books. New York, 1984.) The winner, Anatol Rapoport, wrote the shortest program – which said: ‘Play blue in round 1 and then play whatever the other player played in the previous round’. Always playing blue whatever your partner plays is suicidal – you will last only so long as you have resources. Always playing red whatever your partner plays is self-defeating because you will last only so long as you can find affluent blue players who will always play blue and who are willing to lose their assets. Most will revert to red after one round and Tit-for-Tat strategies will block the gains from red play. Tit-for-tat behaviour therefore has three main elements, as follows. 1/8
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It is ‘nice’ but ‘ruthless’. It is nice because it signals blue co-operation to the other player and it is ruthless because it switches immediately to red when the other player defects. A Tit-for-Tat player never initiates red play. It is instantly ‘forgiving’ of past red behaviour whenever a player switches to blue and it also ruthlessly ‘forgets’ past blue behaviour if she switches to red. It does not persist in punishing a red player once she has switched to blue, but responds with an instant blue instead. It also instantly punishes her with a red response if she switches to red, no matter how long she has played blue. You know for certain where you are with a Tit-for-Tat player. It is an easy to read strategy and it is so simple that anybody can identify a Tit-for-Tat strategy after only a few exchanges. Thus, experienced influencers who spot Tit-for-Tat quickly adjust their behaviour: if they play red, they know they will be punished; if they play blue they know they will be rewarded. There is no room for ambiguity with Tit-for-Tat players.
Exercise 1.6 What is a possible weakness of a Tit-for-Tat sequence?
1.6
Co-operation and Defection in the Game of Life Co-operation has a long and venerable history in human behaviour. Defection, also, has been practised for as long as co-operation. Humans defect when it suits them and this prospect poses a problem for every co-operator. People punish delinquent defectors if they can, both formally and informally in all known societies – sometimes by mild chastisements and sometimes (in some cultures) by violent revenge. That the choice of co-operation is understood widely suggests that its roots lie deep in the human psyche. It is a universal behaviour practised by humans. Because something is a universal, however, it does not follow that it always applies; and although a universal such as co-operation may be approved, it does not follow that its methods are always benign – people can co-operate for evil ends or can use dubious methods to ensure co-operation. The principle of co-operative reciprocity is central to the practice of influencing and it is worth contemplating its historical context. For this we shall consider some concepts from Darwinian natural selection. Modern Homo sapiens, the species to which you and I belong, evolved over a very long time (how long is controversial; some say six million years). The distinguishing characteristics of humans include relatively rich brain power, the ability to communicate in language forms beyond that prevalent in even closely related species, and the phenomenon of culture – socially transmitted knowledge from generation to generation. Natural selection states that a minute biological characteristic that enables a life-form to replicate itself in its environment more successfully than those of the same species that are deficient (for whatever reason) in that characteristic will
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spread throughout the species until it becomes a distinguishing characteristic of its descendants. That is the motive power behind biological evolution. The same principle of natural selection operates in social evolution (a wholly faster replication process than found in biology). Humans share many characteristics with the animal life forms from which they have evolved. Some of these can be summed up, briefly, as the proclivity of animals to behave ‘red in tooth and claw’, a vivid allusion to the capacity of animals for violence. Animals distribute the bounties of nature by behavioural substitutes for overt violence, such as dominance and display, but may resort to actual violence on occasion. Some animals also demonstrate capacities for cooperative behaviours, the incidence, details and depth of which are beginning to be understood by zoologists. Humans also show forms of these behaviours in their capacity for violence (and its near substitutes), as well as for co-operation. For the moment, our interest is in the replication advantages of co-operation, not merely in cooperation as a moral choice. We are also interested in the obstacles to cooperation and the consequences of succeeding in overcoming them. As a thought experiment, consider the replication results of two small isolated bands of early humans, way back in the Pleistocene era somewhere in Africa. One band is heavily biased towards ‘red in tooth and claw’ behaviour – they fight each other and nature for everything – and the other is similarly biased but occasionally individuals in the band moderate their behaviour with co-operative gestures. Both bands have similar lifestyles. Some of the time they forage for roots, berries, fruit, insects and birds’ eggs, etc., and some of the time they feast on a recently dead animal, which they happen to find before their rivals (other human bands, animals, or its poisonous bacteria) pillage the carcass. Spread out across the savannah, individuals forage as best they can. What they find they eat themselves, which might include sharing some meat with their children. If they find nothing, they go hungry; if they find a feast, they eat their fill (providing a more violent member of the group does not take it from them first). If they are more often hungry than satiated, they waste away from disease and become vulnerable to minor accidents that fitter humans would survive. Because their survival is at stake, individuals have an incentive to eat their fill and to keep quiet about what they forage or find. A hungry and violent individual has an incentive to punish anybody he (it is almost certainly a he) suspects of good fortune in foraging and keeping it from him (which is not the same as sharing it within the band). The band as a whole succeeds as replicators only if they and their children live long enough to breed, and this imperative is passed on to every generation that follows them. All else is transient, short-term and of no consequence. Clearly, many bands – perhaps the majority – did not succeed as replicators. Their reproduction ratio fell below the minimum level and they became extinct. That enough bands did fulfil this role we know for certain because we are all the product of the successful breeding groups. Throughout the many millennia since Homo sapiens appeared, there is an unbroken chain to each and every one 1/10
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of us from a band that lived long enough to breed through all of the successive generations right down to ours. Now consider the other band in this thought experiment. We know from the study of primate behaviour (our nearest biological ‘relatives’) that mother primates take care of their young, even if somewhat roughly by our standards. They feed their children, sometimes letting them take food from their very mouths (tolerated theft rather than deliberate sharing). Humans also inherited this parental instinct from our common ancestor and it is an advantage to the obvious extent that nurturing assists in the survival of their young into the next breeding generation. Those primate individuals, and humans too, who are less careful with their children, lose them to hunger, disease or predators. If minute biological characteristics that promote carelessness appear by accident in any individual, it is a characteristic that is likely to be eliminated within a generation or two by the brutal course of events. Inherited characteristics need somebody to inherit them! Similarly, anybody experimenting with carelessness as a behavioural option is at risk too. Suppose, for whatever reason or accident of circumstance, an individual on the savannah comes across a recently dead large antelope, in prime eating condition. His choice is instinctive – eat what he can and, when satiated, return quietly to camp and his less successful companions of the day and leave what is left – probably most of it – to the hyenas, jackals, vultures and its parasitic bacteria. In short, his find is mainly wasted. ‘Eat it or lose it’ is the rule. Suppose, again by the accident of his relatively marginal superior cognition – including, perhaps, some dimly remembered past incident – he overrides his instinct, and as a deliberate act he calls out to members of the group to reveal his lucky find to them. They too can eat their fill of the high-protein meat; little is left to rival predators. The group returns to camp satiated and becomes stronger for it. If the members of the band can learn from this co-operative incident then, potentially, the situation changes completely. If they don’t learn anything, they revert to random scavenging and secretive consumption and waste potential food resources. They could learn, however, to store in their bodies surplus food from the finds of individuals. Sharing in this way serves the same purpose as that of modern refrigerators – instead of storing today’s surplus in a cold box, it is stored in the muscles and energy of the other members of your band. And if they reciprocate in the future, the energy from the surplus food they shared helps finds meals for those who shared their finds with them, providing only that they co-operate. If – and, agreed, it is a big if – any one or more of our forager’s companions followed his co-operative example and revealed what they found in future to him, their changed behaviour would benefit his and their descendants. If the minute changes in his own powers of cognition that led him to an act of cooperation were successfully passed on to his descendants and were reinforced by social evolution – co-operation was successfully ‘taught’ to others, including the necessary social measures to enforce it on defectors – their band would Influence
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slowly diverge behaviourally from the unreconstructed bands that continued in the old wasteful ways. If acts of co-operation gave individuals an advantage in replication, they would increase the numbers of their surviving descendants over the descendants of those who remain inescapably driven by their animal instincts to distribute the random bounties of the savannah through ‘red in tooth and claw’ means. A single act of co-operation, of course, could not and did not change the course of human history (for it is only a thought experiment). This is true of the individual too – one act of co-operation does not ensure a meal-ticket for life, any more than a single act of defection would necessarily deprive that individual of one. Relationships consist of a sequence of actions and reactions that reinforce or undermine their defining qualities. Positive actions between individuals reinforce the strength of the relationship; negative actions do the opposite. A sudden isolated change in behaviour is unlikely to do too much one way or the other for or against the relationship; however, several instances of co-operation, or the lack of it, might shape the pattern.
Activity 1.4 Think of a relationship with someone and how it was changed, positively or negatively, by an action or actions of theirs (or yours). Was it a single action? How serious was it? Were there several incidents that changed the relationship? Were they cumulatively serious?
Of course, do not for one moment think that slight shifts in behaviour towards acts of co-operation led to a tribe of humans harmoniously at peace with themselves and their nearest neighbours that eventually out-bred ‘sinners’ and replaced them with ‘saints’. ‘New Age’ man was a fantasy then as it is now. ‘Noble Savages’ were mental constructs of 18th-century speculation. The only assertion I make is that human bands with co-operators in them have had a reproductive advantage over bands without co-operators in them. Bands that socially enforced co-operation through sanctions, such as the exclusion from the band of defectors (those who persistently took their fill of the co-operators’ finds but who were caught hiding their own finds from others), would also gain a reproductive advantage over bands that had subdued their proclivities for co-operation, or who were unable to deal with too many defectors. A capacity for independent acts of co-operation is not a unilateral disavowal of violence in all circumstances. If the two groups met, they were as likely to engage in violent acts against each other as any other two groups, and woe betide any unfortunate (male) individual from the other group who strayed into captivity. There was (and still is) a long struggle to expand the areas for beneficial human co-operation. Modern humans with highly developed co-operative social mechanisms remain every bit as capable of defection and of committing the most appalling atrocities on each other (as Bosnia, Rwanda, Northern Ireland and Kosovo have shown recently), and even in the most routine of conflicts 1/12
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people are capable of degrees of regrettable behaviour that reflect as badly on their perpetrators individually as they do on our species generally.
Case Study 1 [Please note that the names of the companies and their personnel have either been changed or withheld to protect confidentiality.] Portcullis BioChem (PB) concluded that its current contracts with OrganTran plc, a biotechnology company, should be renegotiated. PB supported its detailed case with a statement of some new collaborative principles that it thought would be in the interests of both companies, and it was therefore disappointed to receive a lukewarm response from OrganTran. ‘It was like a kick in the teeth,’ said Jose Fraquelli, Managing Director of Portcullis BioChem. ‘They seemed deeply suspicious of our motives and appeared not to have read our detailed case with much care.’ The gist of what PB proposed to OrganTran was that, in view of the two companies’ close relationship, they should agree to share information on costs, profit, R&D, and future marketing intentions of Z28, a patented bioculture that PB sold to OrganTran, which then used it for one of its major product lines to the livestock industry. ‘Clearly, the substantial amount of Z28 sold by PB to OrganTran has shown it to be a significant source of revenue for both companies,’ said Fraquelli. ‘Getting closer together seemed to make sense.’ ‘We know that we could invest more in R&D to improve Z28, but we don’t know whether future sales to OrganTran would justify the investment. If it did, we would be glad to do so. But if they won’t tell us their intentions, we can’t invest in the dark when we have other products looking for funds.’ Industry observers commented that OrganTran believes that having several suppliers of Z28 and its substitutes suits its interests in keeping prices down. ‘It keeps them on their toes,’ said one unnamed source. Fraquelli dismissed the notion that having several competing suppliers was in OrganTran’s interests or in PB’s. He denied that PB wanted to monopolise its supply to increase prices. ‘As it is, Z28 is highly profitable for us at current prices, but that is not the issue. We are prepared to cut the price of Z28 if that is what OrganTran needs, but they must talk to us about it. For us to cut our price we need to see the profit OrganTran makes in selling Z28 in its products. But if they won’t show us that, how can we cut our price?’ One insider reported that while OrganTran agreed in principle that some sort of benefits from a partnership were possible in theory, it was unlikely to be agreed in practice because the management team at OrganTran were deeply divided on where such a partnership would lead. ‘OrganTran’s profits are excellent this year from keeping suppliers at arm’s length,’ she said, ‘and such a deal may have clear benefits long term. But for the moment nobody in the company wants to jeopardise next quarter’s figures.’ Fraquelli summed up the problem as being one about ‘short-termism’. ‘Can they not see that the benefits outweigh the risks?’, he asked. ‘PB is prepared to invest in a major ingredient into one of OrganTran’s product lines. We would Influence
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even share the patents if they put in some cash into the R&D. With a secure future market we could reduce the unit price of the Z28 derivative, supply them with a better product that none of their rivals would have for years, and both of us would make profits.’ ‘I just don’t understand why otherwise sensible people prefer to shoot themselves in the foot when, with a modicum of co-operation, they would be better off,’ concluded Jose Fraquelli. Question 1 Would a knowledge of Prisoner’s Dilemma help Jose Fraquelli understand the actions of OrganTran?
EPILOGUE Essentially, influencing is about creating opportunities for co-operation and limiting temptations for defection. Formal procedures may exist to ensure cooperation among individuals in organisations – even supported by legal statutes – but to make formal procedures work it is necessary to mobilise informal relationships between those charged with working the procedures. Influencers seek to enhance co-operation and prevent or circumvent defection. People do not have to co-operate with alacrity, and they have many opportunities to be less than enthusiastic about their commitment to and beyond the boundaries between co-operation and defection. Nor need they make conscious decisions to co-operate or defect. They may not recognise they are in a game with you as a player. They may act – and often do – in this or that manner by default. If you do not deploy influencing skills in relationships with other players, you leave them to act in ignorance or disregard of your interests. Their defection need not be born of their antagonism towards your preferences. It could be a result of their being influenced that way by somebody else. Deigning to influence them is not protection against their ‘defection’ in respect of your preferences. Influence or be influenced by others – not all of these others being sympathetic to or aware of your interests – is an iron rule of the games played in and between organisations. You are much better placed than the nascent co-operators in our mind game. Influencing for co-operation is not something stumbled on in the minds of modern mankind. It is already widely understood by people in modern organisations through our culturally derived universals of co-operative choices to achieve an organisation’s goals. The very existence of organisations presumes the co-operative imperative, for what else is an organisation but the realisation of co-operation? Moreover, relationships are barriers to defection, which is why influencing strategies aim to develop strong relationships with the implicit goal of preventing defections. It is easier to defect when the ‘victim’ is a stranger; it is much more difficult to defect when the ‘victim’ is a close ally. True, as Slug and Gripper demonstrate, relationships do not preclude defection and personal interest can prove overwhelming for the defector, but influencing 1/14
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through relationship-building strategies, particularly those that serve individual interests by building strong coalitions of interests, is a powerful barrier to defection for trivial ends. By raising the ‘price’ of defection, the influencer goes a long way to ensuring the best chances for co-operative outcomes.
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Module 2
The Need for Influence Contents PROLOGUE 2.1 Introduction
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DIALOGUE 2.2 Type I and Type II Models
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Politics of Decision Making
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The Scope for Politics
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Case Study 2: Personnel Problems at Opel EPILOGUE
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PROLOGUE 2.1
Introduction Henri Le Beouf, Vice-President (Marketing) at Phoenix Enterprises, arrived at his office at 7 a.m., an hour earlier than usual. He logged on and inserted the diskette he had worked on at home, copied a file it contained and set to work to put it into the Phoenix house style. When he was satisfied with his final check-over of the text, he printed ten copies. He used the office document binder to bind each copy, and walked round the fifth and sixth floors of the building to five of the offices and placed one copy prominently on each desk where the addressees could not fail to see it. To each copy he had attached a memo, reminding the recipients of the private meeting at 9.30 a.m. that he had arranged with them by phone the previous evening. By the time he returned to his own office at 8.45 a.m., other Phoenix staff had began to arrive, including Kim, his own PA. He explained to her what he had done and also gave her a list of tasks he wanted her to do before she did anything else. Among her tasks, she was to place the five remaining copies of Henri’s report in addressed envelopes and stack them for collection by the company’s internal mail messengers. If the messengers worked at their usual rate, the addressees should get their copies around 10.30 a.m., a short time before the 11 a.m. meeting of vice-presidents which had been called at short notice by Dan O’Reilly, President of Phoenix Enterprises. What have you gleaned from Henri’s actions at Phoenix Enterprises that morning? Are they the entirely innocent actions of a devoted employee whose
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intentions are being unnecessarily traduced by a suspicious mind? Or is there more to them than that? Examine the evidence. Why was he selectively and personally distributing his report to five out of the ten intended recipients and not to all of them at the same time? Perhaps he ran out of time for making personal deliveries and he asked Kim to post the remainder through the internal mail, knowing they would be delivered before the 11 a.m. meeting. What might be the significance of his arranging a meeting at 9.30 a.m. for the five people to whom he had delivered his report? While the assumption is that this was a private meeting to discuss the agenda and Henri’s report to the 11 a.m. meeting of vice-presidents, it may have been a private meeting about an entirely different matter. To speculate to the contrary is to make an innuendo out of a coincidence. What effect might it have that the other five did not get their copies through the internal mail service until around 10.30 a.m.? Who can say? If the intention was to limit their time for preparation for the meeting or to restrict their ability to put together a counter-strategy, then it might be a ploy to curb resistance to some plan of Henri’s. But that is also speculative and is reading the worst into what might be wholly innocent actions. How might reading the report from 9 a.m. and meeting together at 9.30 a.m. affect the preparedness of the five recipients of Henri’s report? We do not know for sure that they are meeting for that purpose, but if they were, clearly there might be some advantage. They could just as easily fall out over Henri’s report and fail to support it. So what is Henri up to? This module is about how the behaviour of people in an organisation can be explained by what is loosely described as ‘playing politics’. These games might be prevalent in your own organisation, and in so far as they affect the progress or otherwise of your ideas, plans and programmes, you need to be aware of what might be happening.
DIALOGUE 2.2
Type I and Type II Models There are two types of models of how decisions are made in an organisation. Type I models emphasise the rationality of decision making. Organisations are supposed to arrive at decisions by a rational process, usually incorporating three main steps (adapted from the model of individual rational decision-making theory of Nobel Laureate Herbert Simon): Step One: The organisation, through key people within it, becomes aware of a need to alter current arrangements in order to deal with threatened or actual changes to the status quo, either from external changes in the environment (market, technological or political ‘shocks’) or internal changes of people in the organisation. Step Two: Key people search for all available options to deal with the external or internal changes from their experiences, or from active interrogation of data, or from experts in the field. These options are sifted exhaustively and listed.
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Step Three: A preferred option is chosen from the available options according to a set of criteria that conforms to selected ‘rules’ (e.g., net present value, legal constraints, or policy) that are broadly objective, open and devoid of ‘fear or favour’. In short, Type I decisions eschew subjectivism, favouritism and personal prejudices. They are defensible on rational grounds and constitute a robust solution to the new or pending situation.
Activity 2.1 To what extent does your organisation use Type I decision models? List the most common ones in your line of work.
Formal decision-making techniques, taught as an Elective in the MBA programme, are typical of Type I models: they include net present value, investment appraisal, risk analysis, discounted cash flow, internal rate of return, the key accounting ratios and such like. That these techniques, where appropriate, must be applied is in no way challenged here. But they are not the whole story, and they cannot be relied upon to produce the decisions that you prefer or even those arrived at by rational processes. No manager relying solely on the rational merits of her case can be sure that the decisions that others make on her proposal are not contaminated in some way with less-than-rational influences. This is not to assert that a less-thanrational decision is a ‘wrong’ decision – it is only to suggest that it might be a different decision from the one prescribed by the rational model and, indeed, different from the one the manager prefers.
Activity 2.2 Can you recall instances of your organisation overturning any decisions that are derived by Type I methods?
Type II decision processes are neither rational nor objective (in the sense usually meant by these terms). Type II decisions are unashamedly prejudiced and are susceptible to varying degrees of manipulation by people who succumb (consciously or otherwise) to influences outside a rational calculus, though they might sometimes be given a ‘rational gloss’ for purposes of presentation. The more complex the decision, the more likely it is that upper management will exercise its discretion in this way. In a Type II process, particularly at a routine and lower level, the people making the decision are not prisoners of a data-driven calculation (for if they were they could in principle be replaced by computer software). Type II decision makers use their subjective judgement. They massage the data, or its implications, and they widen their discretion if it helps to secure the decision they prefer. This is probably the neatest way of thinking of Type II decisions: people act to select the decision they prefer, which may be – and by implication they may intend it to be – different from the decision that would otherwise be taken on Type I grounds. Influence
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You can also think of people in some circumstances resorting to Type II methods to ensure the acceptability of the Type I decision they have made, which they happen to prefer but which they also believe is unlikely to be accepted solely on its merits. They use, therefore, Type II means to defeat efforts by rivals who oppose the Type I decision!
Activity 2.3 Considering your own organisation, which would you say dominates its decisionmaking processes: the Type I or Type II model? Or is it a mixture of both?
Confused? Probably, but influencing is about the complex processes that managers sometimes use to get their way.
Exercise 2.1 Identify the essential differences between Type I and Type II models of decision making.
2.3
Politics of Decision Making While, formally, managerial decisions can be assumed to be made on purely rational grounds (and hence the science of decision-making techniques), in practice observation of managerial behaviour suggests that there is much more than rational objectivity to the making and implementing of managerial decisions. There is a sub-culture of managerial decision making that does not appear in the rational calculus models but that definitely influences how real-world decisions are made and implemented. Crudely, this is the study of the ‘politics’ of decision making. Normally, the study of organisational politics takes one of two forms: that of ‘leadership’ (reckoned to be the most researched of managerial behaviours) or that of ‘influencing’. Leadership can be thought of as a ‘top down’ or ‘sideways’ directed set of behaviours in which the Leader leads followers in the traditional manner. Influencing, in contrast, can be thought of as an ‘upwards’ or ‘sideways’ directed set of behaviours in which those who are conceived of as traditional ‘followers’ influence those above them (vertically and diagonally) and also those of equivalent ranking alongside them in the management hierarchy. Leadership and influencing behaviours operate in a common domain when they are directed ‘sideways’ and they share some common behavioural characteristics. They meet head-on in the ‘downwards’ and ‘upwards’ roles, where their behavioural characteristics are quite different in the purposes they serve, though for certain purposes it is sometimes useful to think of managers engaging in ‘downwards influencing’ and in ‘upwards leadership’. Type I and II models can be used to comment on the debate about Henri’s behaviour at Phoenix Enterprises.
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If decisions at Phoenix Enterprises conformed to Type I models – that is, they were always based on a rational calculus – there would be a greater mystery about Henri’s behaviour (though nothing necessarily sinister in it). Why he arrived early, prepared some papers and distributed them selectively would make no difference to the decisions to be made at the meeting of vice-presidents. These decisions would be made on purely rational grounds, whatever Henri’s early-morning behaviour, and from the rational calculus the most meritorious decision would prevail. If on the contrary, the Type II model was prevalent at Phoenix Enterprises, then Henri’s behaviour, should it be known by those negatively affected by it, might justify the sinister undertones of the possible explanations given for it. Let us suppose that Henri was playing politics and that his behaviour is explainable by his intention to secure a preferred outcome in the decision made at the meeting of the vice-presidents. How might you interpret what he was up to? Making a decision on its merits alone could be regarded by Henri as too dangerous if he strongly prefers one decision over the others. (For the moment set aside how decisions ‘ought’ to be made and concentrate on how they are made in Henri’s – and perhaps your – world.) If Henri feels very strongly about a decision, he might believe he can affect it by tipping the balance in favour of the one he prefers or, at least, tipping it against those he opposes most strongly. But once Henri chooses to act to secure the decision he prefers (or scupper the decision he opposes), he is no longer a passive and disinterested observer but an active participant in a Type II process. What might Henri do? Here are five actions he might consider. 1
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Lobby potential supporters who will be attending the 11 a.m. meeting or, if they are unable to attend, lobby them to pass their views somehow to President Dan O’Reilly. Seek a meeting with Dan O’Reilly to explain the case for the decision Henri prefers. Call a caucus of like-minded vice-presidents to discuss the case for the decision he prefers and to plan tactics for the 11 a.m. meeting. Set out the case for his decision in convincing detail (and, perhaps, against the decisions he opposes) and ensure that his supporters have their copies in time to meet privately before 11 a.m. to discuss refinements, amendments and any politically sensitive editing of injudicious comments included in his paper. Make sure that copies of his paper are served to all vice-presidents to avoid charges of discrimination, but ensure that the ‘non-supporters’ do not have much time to read it properly or compose a response.
This is not an exhaustive list of everything that Henri could do to rally support for the decision he prefers. For a comprehensive list you would need to know as much as Henri about the political culture of Phoenix Enterprises, about the competing decisions to be discussed at the meeting, how they fit into the future of Phoenix Enterprises and what the impact of any of them might have on whatever goals are considered to be important by Henri and his colleagues. Influence
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Exercise 2.2 Identify possible weaknesses in Henri’s preparations.
If you attended Henri’s private meeting you may not be impressed with its purpose. Maybe he has overreacted. In that case, Henri’s meeting might serve a useful purpose in changing Henri’s mind when he sees how unimpressed his colleagues are to what he is proposing. Henri could pay a political (perhaps, career) price for committing to his preferred policy. It could result in his isolation or in the collective disapproval by the vice-presidents, not to mention a negative assessment of him by Dan O’Reilly. On the other hand, it could be his big breakthrough and his emergence as a major player in the future fortunes of Phoenix Enterprises. Sometimes the stakes are that high. Henri and his colleagues above, below and around him will endure many trials of their relative fitness for higher responsibilities in the organisation. Partly, they prove their fitness by exercising their judgement, partly by the judgement of colleagues (including rivals) and always by how they are perceived to respond to the brute course of events, such as how they guide Phoenix Enterprises while it rides the waves of opportunity or the ‘unfair’ outrages of (bad) fortune. Managing through influence, therefore, is not without its risks. But nor is it bereft of opportunities worthy of your time, energy and resources that you devote to gain personal advantages commensurate with those risks.
2.4
The Scope for Politics Interactive politics, or influencing, is one of the main means by which organisations actually work in the real world. There is no other way that business organisations can work, whatever a company’s mission statement asserts and whatever is asserted by managers or academic observers about the behaviour or prevalence of Type I rational managers. Organisations are staffed by people and not by mission statements. Individuals interpret their role and the roles of others from different viewpoints. At its simplest, a consideration of the conflicting imperatives inherent in some major job functions highlights the job-related tensions between the people who staff them, not because of their malevolence (though this cannot be discounted in all cases) but from their interpretations of what is important to the organisation. Production people in large manufacturing processes favour long runs of standard products with little or no variation in their specifications. These are the easiest product types to manage. They maximise production output for given resources. Short runs of varying specifications reduce output efficiency and increase downtime while machines are retooled and restocked and employees shuffle between operations.
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Sales personnel selling against (always ‘tough’) competition prefer to sell from ready-made stock. They don’t want to keep customers waiting in case they buy from rivals who claim they can supply immediately. Their ideal stock includes unlimited quantities of every possible combination of the varying features of their products just in case a customer is ready to place a large order for a particular specification. Restricting specifications to limited variations and declining delivery dates outside the time frame considered to be acceptable to a customer, is a seller’s worst nightmare. Sales staff make delivery promises to customers even when they know full well that they are impossible to meet. The short-sightedness of such behaviour is no barrier to its repetition. That a customer wants something is sufficient for sellers to promise it, leaving production with the problem of meeting their reckless promises. Purchasing perceives their role as being to reduce the cost of inputs, whatever the unit price at which sellers attempt to supply them. Their performance as buyers is regarded as being ‘excellent’ to the degree that they reduce actual spending on inputs below the budgets allocated to acquire them. They are measured by the variance they achieve below their budgets. In consequence, they become overaggressive in driving down the unit costs of acquisition at the expense of adding unwanted costs to production from the need to rework inferior supplies (or from the waiting costs caused by supplier ‘stock outs’). This results in production coping with shoddy inputs, sales losing repeat orders from disappointed customers, and accounts counting the reworking on-costs of purchasing philosophies of ‘buying the cheapest’. Accounts do not care whether the output is from long runs to a homogeneous specification or from short runs of batch ‘specials’, just as long as the company’s stock of output is sold with the minimum of delay. Large volumes of slowly moving stock in a company warehouse is expensive to finance. It is less profitable to hold large stocks of anything than to have fewer stocks that earn a profitable return more quickly. This picture of the inherent conflicts in a production organisation is fairly common and it might be thought that, if it is known to be a problem, then a solution could be found by administrative means. That ‘solutions’ are found is not contested; that they reappear in regular cycles testifies to the robustness of functional conflict. Similar conflicts can be discerned in service organisations, public institutions and in supposedly rational academic communities (equating ‘rational’ with presumed intelligence is an unfortunate prejudice).
Activity 2.4 Taking your own organisation, identify its functional parts and its potential for functional conflicts.
First, look for the functional roles in your organisation. List them. Then draw a circle, placing the different functional roles around it, and look for possible conflicts that each role might have with the others. Obvious ones can be identified from those in the text. Influence
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Activity 2.5 Ask yourself: ‘What behaviour by one functional role in your organisation would make it easier or more difficult for another role to do its job efficiently? What kinds of things go wrong for one role in its interactions with another, particularly where there is some dependency on that role?’
Management faces other policy conflicts beyond the functional conflicts inherent in any organisation. It is a myth to believe that organisations consist of monolithic policy processes in which everybody is in agreement about what is ‘good for the company’, or that interpretations of the appropriate policies for the organisation are unanimous. Serious differences over the appropriate policy for an organisation can be present without anybody intending to be disruptive or disloyal. Indeed, a negative reaction to a genuinely held viewpoint can surprise the holder, who may well consider that his viewpoint is the only ‘rational’ choice in the circumstances. Consider the well known tendencies for arguments between committed persons in a management structure for and against central control versus the limitation or extension of devolved decision making. People moving between organisations can testify to the experience of leaving one organisation, which is decentralising its decision making and seeking to unleash local initiatives, and joining another, which is travelling in the opposite direction of extinguishing local initiative and resorting to centralised diktats. Each trend to decentralisation or centralisation has its proponents, some losing and others winning the arguments and then suffering or enjoying the career opportunities associated with being on the ‘right’ side of the competing coalitions when the organisation ‘decides’ between them. Similarly, there are policy contests between running an organisation through relatively rigid managerial procedures and running it by allowing ad hoc responses by local managers according to their interpretations of local conditions; or between unified marketing strategies and separate brand strategies; and classically, between conglomerate strategies across many business sectors and shrinking in-house activities to the ‘core’ competencies with outsourcing of everything considered to be peripheral.
Activity 2.6 In your experience so far, what ‘cycles’ of change to the structures of your organisation have you observed?
One clue is to list the changes that have taken place since you joined the organisation. If you have not yet been there long enough, ask some longerserving colleagues. Include in your summary those changes in departmental responsibilities, especially those where additional roles have been taken over by a department and then later relinquished, sometimes back to the previous department. Organisations are seldom, if ever, governed by a collegiate core of like-minded sages, each committed to the disinterested, objective and rational scrutiny of all 2/8
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possible options. People who take issue over the options take sides and deploy a range of behavioural skills to ensure that their preferred options prevail. When they seek to motivate downwards through the organisation, they deploy leadership skills; when they seek to motivate upwards or sideways, they deploy influencing skills. Competence in management demands competence in ‘office politics’.
Case Study 2: Personnel Problems at Opel [Read the Case and then attempt the questions with short bullet point notes.] Opel is a subsidiary of the world’s biggest (1999) car maker, General Motors (GM). Managers close to the top play a high-stakes game. The people who run the separate parts of GM, which are spread across all continents, do not behave as if they meekly do whatever is in the best interests of the company as interpreted by whoever is currently the corporate boss. Though it is a global company, GM tends to operate as if it is meant to serve the needs of its North American roots. If it is true that GM used to believe that ‘what is good for America is good for General Motors’, today’s GM top brass appear to apply the prescription that ‘what is good for GM in America is good enough for GM everywhere else’. Thus, when labour relations at GM’s North American plants went through some turbulent times in 1998 as local management attempted to tackle inefficient labour practices, the response of GM’s boss, Jack Smith, was to recall Gary Cowger from Germany, even though Cowger had only been in charge of Opel for four months, and put him back in charge at Detroit. Nothing out of the ordinary, an observer might surmise, in senior managers being recalled and set to new tasks in a global company, no matter how long or short their tenure in their current post. Entirely rational, some might argue, for senior managers and their scarce talents to be constantly shuffled around the board to match square pegs with square holes. It would be assumed that people who were peripheral to the decision would accept the boss’s actions as being in the best interests of the corporation. But events on this occasion did not confirm these expectations. For a start, removing Gary Cowger to deal with the pressing problems then afflicting North America was not well received in Germany. The Supervisory Board (a uniquely German institution in corporate law that represents the employees’, i.e. mainly the union’s, interests in the governance of the corporation) reacted negatively to having their new boss recalled so soon after he had arrived from Detroit and, in their view, foisted on them by Detroit over their doubts that he was the man for the job. Not wanting to have him in the first place, the Supervisory Board now didn’t want to lose him. Wilhem Gab, the head of the Opel Supervisory Board, promptly resigned in protest (some say in a huff) at Jack Smith’s decision. One of Gab’s complaints was that GM executives from Detroit had canvassed Opel’s Board members about the succession before they had discussed it with him as head of the Supervisory Board. Influence
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The bad situation got worse when the local unions loudly protested as Smith tried to replace Cowger at Opel with Peter Hanenberger, head of Opel product development. They expressed doubts as to his ‘suitability’. To pacify the revolt, Smith dropped Hanenberger, turned to the boss of GM’s Saab operations in Sweden, Robert Hendry, and put him in charge of Opel. These events followed an earlier outbreak of people-shuffling at Opel, when Detroit international operations executive, Lou Hughes, had disagreements with David Herman, Cowger’s predecessor at Opel. Hughes won those battles (creating the vacancy for Cowger) and Herman was sent into organisational ‘exile’ in Moscow. Hughes paid a price for his victory, however, because he in turn was moved from GM Europe headquarters to Detroit and charged with ‘overmeddling’ in Opel affairs from his office in Zurich. Not long after his return to Detroit, his post was abolished. These moves of personnel were set against a background of a downturn in Opel’s fortunes: from being highly profitable in the 1990s, its market share of new car sales in Europe slid from 11.6% in 1997 to 10.7% in 1998. Its management was accused of diluting their design and engineering efforts into too many models for too many environments outside of Europe. Opel is not free of problems by any means, and personnel turmoil among top management, plus industrial relations strife at plant level, are not the best assets upon which GM can build a recovery. Adapted from ‘Opel’s People’, The Economist, 31 October 1998, p. 94.
Questions 1 On the information available, would you describe GM’s decision making as evidence of a Type I or a Type II model? 2 To what extent would you say that the interests of the North America operations of GM should override those of Opel, a sub-unit of GM Europe? 3 Were Jack Smith’s actions with regard to the infighting between Lou Hughes and David Herman (sending one to Moscow and recalling the other to Detroit) evidence of firm leadership? 4 How might the replacement for Gary Cowger have been better handled by Smith when a decision had to be reached?
EPILOGUE Managers who see the need to improve their influence within their organisations have a full agenda and, typically, think that they already have too much to do to perform their normal duties. But influencing is about exploring ways in which people might be able to affect the actions of others in ways that will help these people achieve their goals within the organisation. Not paying attention to the influencing components of your management functions leaves you open to being influenced by the actions of others, perhaps to the detriment of your hard work in pursuit of your purely managerial goals. 2/10
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Influencing is a legitimate managerial activity and, because of its prevalence in all manner of organisations across the world, it is also a legitimate subject for research and teaching in business schools. Organisations are seldom, if ever, ruled entirely by Type I decision-making processes. These rational models, in which decisions are decided disinterestedly by sage-like individuals entirely on objective merits, are theoretical constructs about rationality rather than real world practice. Whether decisions would be in some sense ‘better’ if Type I models predominated is less important than whether managers can improve their interventions in the Type II processes that prevail across most organisations. People do not manage theoretical constructs; they manage organisations. Where people are active, observation suggests, they interact in ways that cannot be contained within a Type I model. It follows that to have influence in the way that an organisation actually works, managers must use influencing strategies that enable them to obtain what they want through the thoughts, feelings and behaviours of the people they encounter in their organisations and not through the people they ‘ought’ to encounter but don’t.
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Module 3
What is Influencing? Contents PROLOGUE 3.1 Introduction
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DIALOGUE 3.2 What is Influencing?
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3.3
Benefits of Influence
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3.4
Influence and the Modern Manager
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3.5
Relationships and Results
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3.6 3.6.1 3.6.2 3.6.3 3.6.4 3.6.5
Stakeholders Shareholders Employees and trades unions Suppliers Final Customers Governments
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Case Study 3: Backwater at a Bank
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PROLOGUE 3.1
Introduction Mary wants to be promoted from Assistant Keeper to Deputy Keeper in the museum where she works, but she does not want to apply for the post if she has no chance of succeeding in her quest. If she applied and failed, she would feel forced to resign. Mary was disappointed to overhear the museum’s Keeper, John, express the firm view that they should recruit from another museum (and, from his tone, she gathered he had somebody in mind already).
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Exercise 3.1 From this limited information, would you advise Mary to: (a) have a private meeting with John to ‘clear the air’ and clarify whether she has any chance of being seriously considered for the post of Deputy Keeper? (b) consult those of the Museum’s governors, whom she knows well from her work as Assistant Keeper, on the advisability of recruiting an ‘outsider’ when there are several good candidates, including herself, who are well qualified to be promoted?
Mary needs to avoid running round like a headless chicken in such a manner that she either puts John on the spot with an emotional challenge to his plans or subjects the Governors to emotional tirades against John’s intentions. Going ‘over the top’ in her actions would disqualify her as a serious contender for promotion. Which line to follow out of only the two presented (there are others available) would depend a great deal on how much preparatory work she does to develop her influence with the decisive players in the promotion decision. If Mary had only a passing acquaintance with the key players, including John (and in the context of any tensions between her and John over her performance as Assistant Keeper – as defined by John, not her), she would be in difficulty whichever line she followed. If Mary overplays her hand while conducting either strategy the same result will ensue. It is almost certainly too late to do anything if she is a relative stranger to the governors (and, ironically, if they know her ‘too well’). The governors, naturally, would be suspicious of an anxious semi-stranger importuning them for help with an issue that manifestly benefited her more that it did themselves. (Hint: Mary would do well to frame her concerns about the recruitment of an outsider in terms that benefited the museum more than it transparently benefited only her.) It is not unusual to find that there is a ‘preferred candidate’ out of those applying for promotion and that the formal process is a bit of a sham – necessary, nevertheless, to conform with the regulations. More than one seasoned assessor on a promotion panel has (quietly) asked the chairperson: ‘Which one is the preferred candidate?’, half-listened during the interviews, voted for the preferred candidate, and left the meeting smartly. Another problem that promotion candidates have is the tendency of some of them to personalise the process. Mostly, this is harmless when they keep their bitter sense of rivalry towards another candidate to themselves but it is lethal to their chances when it spills over into their conduct of their interviews. Instead of concentrating on the benefits they will bring to the job, they slip into snide remarks about the damage their rivals would do and how different they are in experience, commitment and behaviour. It is amazing to observe these semi-paranoid performances, which would be laughable if they were not so prevalent. In promotion interviews, forget the other applicants and concentrate on presenting the strengths you would bring to the post. Having researched the criteria 3/2
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by which the interview panel is likely to measure all candidates, assess yourself frankly against each criterion. If you find a mismatch between yourself and what the particulars list as important, think how you can raise the importance of the criteria you do match over the unimportance of the criteria you do not match. For example, if the criteria include a requirement that you have managed a major project in an underdeveloped country and you have managed similar projects only in your home territory, but the workforce was multicultural (as is true for most large-scale projects in most countries), concentrate on the significance of your experience on managing a multicultural workforce and not on where the project was sited. If they want a generalist and you are a specialist, focus on the general attributes of your specialism; if they want a specialist and you are a generalist, focus on the specialist attributes of your generalism. Remember, it is the competencies you have demonstrated in your experience as a specialist or a generalist that are important and not the particular role that you have employed your competencies in to date. Personal promotion is close to the interests of all players, but it is by no means their only concern. They can be concerned about the resources allocated to a function, about the objectives of the organisation, including that part of the organisation in which particular players operate, about the processes used, about the relationships of one part of an organisation with another, and about the mundane details that are the daily fare of how people interact within and between their functions.
Activity 3.1 Examining your own work situation, what would you say were the most pressing influencing problems for you at present?
DIALOGUE 3.2
What is Influencing? First, a definition of influencing: ‘Influencing’ is the process by which we obtain what we want by affecting the thoughts, feelings and behaviours of others who are able to make decisions that affect ourselves and over whom we may have limited or no formal authority.
Influencing is not a one-shot event. You are unlikely to prevail by attempting a single act of influence. Influencing is an interactive process spread across many events and interactions, possibly throughout your career or a large segment of it. The fantasy that you will make a breakthrough into some honeyed managerial bliss by bumping into someone who can make you President is for story books – ‘you show a kindness to the aged and infirm lady by taking her safely across a busy street and she turns out to own the company you work for’ is as realistic as waiting at tables in Hollywood until you are ‘discovered’ by a big-shot film producer. Influence
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Interactive processes take time. They usually require the intelligent application of energy and resources. You interact in behavioural processes at your work whether you are aware or ignorant of them, and if you choose to be careless in how you conduct yourself, you are unlikely to make the positional progress for which you believe you are destined. Influencing behaviour serves a purpose. It aims to secure for influencers – immediately or at some time in the future – something that they want, be it a policy preference, a promotion, access to resources, a decision they prefer, continuation of policies they adhere to, changes in policies to which they are opposed, or anything that motivates them in or around the organisation in which they operate. The merits of what influencers want is not germane to the definition. That they want something and attempt to obtain it by influencing behaviours is sufficient for inclusion within the definition. How far they will go to obtain what they want by the use of influence depends on the importance to them of obtaining whatever they want. How they behave while influencing may become an ethical question for them. Influencing behaviour is unlike negotiation, where we obtain what we want from somebody who wants something from us. In negotiation, there is an explicit exchange or trade: I get something explicit that I want from you and trade in return something explicit that you want from me. The transaction is immediate, simultaneous and bounded by contractual laws and obligations. Influence aims to affect ‘the thoughts, feelings and behaviours’ of the target of the influencer. In an influencing transaction there is only an implicit exchange, unbounded by laws of contract or even a recognition by the target players that they are being influenced. But by influencing your thoughts, feelings and behaviours, I am aiming to induce you to act in a manner conducive to my obtaining what I want. But I cannot enforce an implicit contract, nor need (nor in some cases dare) I make explicit or obvious to you what I am doing. I have to find ways to affect your thoughts, feelings and behaviours without necessarily antagonising you and provoking your resistance.
3.3
Benefits of Influence The biggest obstacle to influencing people is where there is indifference to an outcome that affects the influencer but does not affect them. People, mainly unconsciously, erect barriers to other people affecting their thoughts, feelings and behaviours. That is why influence cannot be a one-shot encounter – the barriers are too high to succumb to five-minute ploys. The decisions we want other people to make in any one influencing project are many and varied. Not all the people who are able to make a decision in our favour are key players. Many players are non-central in the process but nevertheless are important to varying degrees. They play their smaller parts and their contributions have to be considered. Criteria for determining appropriate targets for acts of influence are based solely on whether they are able to make decisions that affect the influencer’s
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interests. This is a tough test because it requires tight focus to influence successfully but, at the same time, successful influence also requires a net with a fine mesh to ensure that the thoughts, feeling and behaviours of all relevant decision makers, some of whom may appear to be peripheral, are affected appropriately. Influencing is usually an informal encounter. The targets for your influencing are not normally those over whom you have any significant authority. You can think of authority as a type of power through which somebody has a formal right to exercise managerial discretion. (Power, itself, is an ability to exercise discretion and get people to do what they otherwise would not.) Bereft of formal authority, or endowed with impotent authority (where nobody takes notice of your alleged authority), the influencer has to achieve the intended outcomes by informal influence.
Activity 3.2 Do you know of someone who seems always to exceed their formal authority in your organisation?
In flatter organisations, managers from different functions interact to achieve their organisational goals. Without informal influence on each other, completing their organisational tasks would be difficult, with the result that they would be inefficient. They could also spend time in mutual blaming sessions in the hunt for whomsoever was allegedly responsible for the supposed blunders. In conditions of tight budgets, resource shortages, downsized staffs and growing workloads, organisations can become dysfunctional through a culture of mutual recriminations and rounds of petty ‘revenge’ acts of non-co-operation. Influencing strategies may be the only way in which managers can make otherwise dysfunctional organisations (or their departmental functions within it) work effectively, but only if these strategies facilitate co-operative working by the people in them. Influencing is not just a game for Machiavellian managers who are driven by appetites for intrigue and deviousness or for ‘politicos’ pursuing their private agendas. If it was, influencing would be of passing interest for those who are serious about the success of the organisations they serve. To succeed in the long run, managers must above all ensure the survival of their organisations.
3.4
Influence and the Modern Manager In the traditional bureaucratic organisation, individual discretion is strictly limited, closely monitored and subject to formal audits of accountability – and not just when things go wrong. There is a formal hierarchy of authority through which individual units must communicate. Where it is not prohibited, lateral communication is restricted and individual initiative discouraged. People are accountable upwards and not downwards or sideways. Influence is associated with a person’s position in the formal hierarchy and is acquired solely by promotion. For modern managers in commercial organisations, the traditional bureaucratic structure is no longer the norm, though remnants survive; and while it is
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certain that influencing strategies were practised by managers and thrived in bureaucratic organisations, they do not have much operational value today except perhaps as an historical curiosity. Of course, there are examples of bureaucratic practices surviving, mainly in state-managed sectors, but these too are undergoing changes under the pressures of budgets, technological change and social demand. Commercial organisations are changing too, albeit at a faster rate and with uncertain consequences for social cohesion. Downsizing has had its most noticeable effect in the drastic flattening of hierarchies, which necessarily forces individual managerial discretion downwards. Hopefully – but not very probably – organisations will change their managerial philosophies to suit new organisational possibilities. Ironically, as structures become simplified, behavioural complexities increase. More is demanded of individual managers, both in the stress and intensity of their responsibilities and in the minimum levels of managerial skills that they require to operate successfully in the new structures. Ideally, a modern management structure would be one in which highly skilled and committed teams guide the process by which the organisation adds value to inputs, which it succeeds in supplying profitably to customers. Its working environment for all employees would be one that welcomed success. Its management style would be consultative and neither arbitrary nor tyrannical. It would be egalitarian in terms of rights. Its managers, by being highly visible, would facilitate rather than restrict access and would exhibit leadership, guidance, advice and support rather than direction and instruction to those they lead. They would exert discipline by example, not coercion. Communication would be upwards as well as downwards; it would also be lateral and diagonal across all functions, levels and teams. This would ensure that the organisation’s goals were clearly understood and the individual’s objectives and priorities were clear, so that everybody would know what was expected of them. Investment in training and development would be an integral part of the activities of the organisation and would be a permanent feature of the company’s financial plans and budgets. This would place the onus on individuals for their training and development within a supportive environment where personal growth is encouraged. In this context, employees would understand and subscribe to the links between individual effort, performance, levels and rewards in remuneration and why rewards differentiate between different levels of performance.
Activity 3.3 How closely does your organisation compare with the minimum benchmarks of an ideal organisation as portrayed above?
Of course, few if any organisations match these standards completely, though many aspire to them. Most organisations are somewhere between the bureaucratic and the futuristic ones outlined above. When they fall well short of the ideal, they create the need for substitute managerial processes that fill the gaps between the actual and the ideal. In these gaps, influencing finds its role. 3/6
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Consultative management styles allow opportunities for influencing to flourish; this means that challenges to particular policies are public and numerous, as well as of varying quality. Highly visible and easily accessible managers are susceptible to lobbying – and, therefore, are lobbied. In regular sessions of brainstorming – where every and any idea is received non-judgementally – participation is mandatory if lobbying is to be successful. Communications upwards, downwards, laterally and diagonally across functions increase the information flows in all directions and the need for the targeting of influencing strategies, either to limit the damage of ‘incorrect’ decisions or to increase the chances for the making of ‘correct’ decisions (defining ‘incorrect’ and ‘correct’ in terms of the influencer’s interests). Investment in training and development as a permanent feature of the company’s financial plans and budgets is an ideal and can be approached if managers champion its enactment (and are willing to sacrifice permanently part of their budgets). Placing the onus on individuals for their training and development certainly requires a supportive environment; otherwise it will not work – and organisations that try this without the correct environment find training becomes even less of a priority than in the traditional organisation. In theory, training and development could provide a platform for ambitious influencers but not if they have a low status in the organisation.
Activity 3.4 How does your organisation arrange for the training of employees?
3.5
Relationships and Results Business organisations can be analysed by ‘slicing’ them across different dimensions. They have cultural as well as structural differences. One such cultural difference is that of ‘relationships’ or ‘results’ as significant motivators. These dimensions have been closely researched over the years; perhaps the most prominent has been the work of Robert Blake and Jane Mouton and their idea of a ‘Managerial Grid’ (R. Blake and J. Mouton, ‘A comparative analysis of situationalism and 9,9 management by principle’ Organisational Dynamics, Spring 1982; and The Managerial Grid, Gulf Publishing, Houston, 1985, by the same authors). Blake and Mouton developed five combinations of results and relationships to produce their grid (Impoverished; Organisation Man; Authority–Obedience; Country Club; and Team Management). Blake and Mouton’s format has been adapted, changed and simplified over the years, primarily by educators and trainers, most commonly to reduce the combinations from five to four, and usually replacing Blake’s and Mouton’s labels with the original dimensions: ‘Low Results, Low Relationships’; ‘Low Results, High Relationships’; ‘Low Relationships, High Results’ and ‘High results, High Relationships’. Work by Gareth Jones (‘Cultural Evolution’, People Management, 29 October 1998) expressed these four combinations as ‘networked’, ‘mercenary’, ‘fragmented’ and ‘communal’. As an expository device and to aid recognition in courses for busy managers, I prefer to label them ‘co-operative’, ‘competitive’,
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‘compartmentalised’ and ‘collegiate’, and I use this approach here (see Exhibit 3.1). Relationships are about the degree to which managers have useful, usually informal, interactions with others: high relationships are associated with informal networks of friends that cut across the organisation’s functional boundaries in informal teams working for each other; low relationships are associated with low tolerance of poor performance and an avoidance of the comforting protection of friendly cliques. Results are about being task-centred: high-results managers ‘get the job done’ and they play down personal relationships or friendly obligations; low-results managers play down group results and eschew punishments for individual poor performance. Collegiate organisations (high relationships, low results) require people to work round the formal structures – they are large, successful and mature organisations (with the private-sector equivalent of a public-sector culture). Examples of collegiate organisations are found in some mature multinational conglomerates that are closely identified with popular consumer brands (also known as FMCGs or fast-moving consumer goods). Competitive organisations (low relationships, high results) are results-oriented. Their managers are paid in the top quartile and are required to perform way above the norm tolerated in collegiate businesses. The ‘big four’ accountancy firms are typical of competitive cultures (‘make partner or quit’) and so is the US multinationals such as Mars. They are characterised by high staff turnover (‘many are recruited but few are kept on’) from individual ‘burn out’ and forced ‘disengagement’. Exhibit 3.1
Organisational types
High
Co-operative
Results
Competitive
Compartmentalised
Low
Collegiate
High Relationships
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Compartmentalised organisations (low relationships, low results) consist of ‘high flyers’, who are ambitious for themselves and not the group, and who pursue individual tasks rather than those of help to their colleagues. The consultancy arms of accountancy and law firms and university academic departments, are typical of compartmentalised organisations. Finally, the co-operative organisation (high relationships, high results) combines relationships (through informal networks and teams) with a tight focus on achieving organisational results. Firms in the computer and software sector, and reputable Business Schools, are examples of co-operative cultures. The methods of the successful influencer in these differing organisational cultures vary. Clearly, influence in organisations with high relationships (collegiate, communal) will have a different slant to their influencing behaviours compared with organisations with high results (competitive and communal). For one thing, trust levels will be higher in the high-relationships organisation. And influencing behaviours in co-operative organisations (high results and high relationships) will be different from behaviours in those that are compartmentalised (low results and low relationships) – one might expect higher degrees of ingratiating and petty jealousies to characterise the behaviour of people in these latter organisations. The relationships dimension associates more easily with ‘softer’ methods (rapport, goodwill, favour exchanges, support and friendliness), while the results dimension associates more easily with ‘harder’ methods (assertive, competitive, analytical, and coercive). This becomes all the more complex when organisations are undergoing cultural changes, such as those driven by situational crises, or by take-overs and mergers. In summary, modern managers face changes within their organisations that place a premium on their influencing skills and these changes are likely to continue without being resolved for some time to come. The ideal organisation, far from making influencing skills redundant, intensifies their scope and makes their acquisition essential.
3.6
Stakeholders Recent interest has been expressed in concepts of ‘stakeholder management’ and the subject has drawn attention from various authors and management consultants. Basically, their group interests in respect of organisations in the private and public sector identify stakeholders. It has always been the case that the employers and employees have been recognised as having different interests; the employers being interested in profitability and the employees in their remuneration. In some cases these differences have been regarded as diametrically opposed.
3.6.1
Shareholders With the appearance of the joint-stock company form of organisation, which grew up alongside the family owned or single owner firm when the need for wider sources of capital were required than savings out of profits, a new set
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of stakeholders were identified – the shareholders, who each provided some capital in exchange for shares in the business which earned them dividends out of profits. In time, the single owner or family owners gave way to professional managers acting on behalf of the shareholders, though family owned business (including some quite large ones) are still found in all countries, especially in Asia, and in parts of Europe (e.g., Italy and France). The advent of the modern major corporation, with its shareholders (the owners), professional corporate managers and employees, created new kinds of tensions between their various interests. All three constituent parts of the corporation were recognised as having distinct stakes in the business. Nominally, at least the shareholders were the owners of the business, but where shareholding was dispersed among many thousands of individuals they could not act as a cohesive force for their interests in any practical manner. Their attendance at the Annual General Meetings of shareholders tends to be irregular, if at all, and if they did attend, the Directors of the company, nominally elected by the shareholders and beholden to them, were able to dominate the proceedings and the agenda, and generally get their own way, except when their performance was so poor as to provoke disgruntled major shareholders to combine against them. Shareholders always have the right of last, or even first, resort to sell their ordinary shares (there may be additional complications with certain other classes of shares – pre-emption rights, for example) if they are disgruntled with the firm’s performance or do not like the policies of the Board – or even the personalities of its members. The dispersal of ownership in the form of quantities of shares also is a feature of a modern corporation. A few major shareholders, including remnants of the original founding family, pension fund managers, and venture capitalists, exerted far greater influence on the Directors (and on the Annual General Meeting) that the many thousands of individual shareholders with a few hundred or thousand shares each. This could lead to differences in their interests where, for example, the major shareholders might prefer the Directors to be frugal in their own rewards and go for steady growth in the value of the business and other smaller shareholders might prefer that the Directors were highly rewarded for high performance and go for a high dividend policy. General objectives can be a controversial policy for any shareholder – was the objective of the business the distribution of profits as dividends or the reinvestment of profits in long run growth? Some shareholders prefer income, some growth. Directors themselves may divide into those who favour ultrahigh remuneration with generous share options, luxury working environments, secured by binding 5 to 7 year service contracts, which guaranteed them the monetary value of the unexpired portion if they were terminated for any reason, and those who believed in frugality in their working conditions, modestly high remuneration and generous pension payments. 3.6.2
Employees and trades unions The employees form a large grouping in any major business. They are not a monolithic entity and are divided by strata and by function. The senior managers
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– the vice-presidents and divisional heads just below Board level – have separate interests to the unskilled, blue collar, employees. In between there are various strata depending on the nature and size of the business. Traditional organisations are hierarchical, with many levels; newer technologies tend to be ‘flatter’ with fewer levels of management between the Board and the blue-collar stratum (in fact there is more of a white than blue collar job function environment). Some workforces are unionised, mainly in the public sector, and this introduces a new stakeholder into the corporate structure. Unionised employees tend to follow, or at least be influenced by, the policies of their trades union, an external bargaining body claiming to represent all employees in certain grades, whether individual employees are members of the union or not. Unions attempt to secure (and, more importantly, write) ‘Recognition Agreements’ between them and the management. Many managers of corporations concede acceptance of Recognition Agreements drafted by the union without realising the implications of what they are curbing in the formerly unimpeded discretionary rights of management. As trades unions work constantly to extend their influence in corporations where they have members – the ‘Salami’ technique of growing a slice at a time – managers often require professional advice on how to manage their relations with unionised employees. Large corporations with dispersed plants and working sites and business units of varying profitability and loss making potential can experience widely differing conflicts of interests between the interests of the corporate body and the interests of local employees when decisions need to be made to expand operations at plant A and curtail them at plant B, or withdraw from a particular country altogether (and quickly). These conflicts are complicated in the legislative environments of Asia, North America and Britain, with their more ‘open’ economies, compared to continental European countries with their traditions of dirigisme, complex labour laws, Supervisory Boards, and habits of social ‘solidarity’. The association of high and costly job security with high unemployment (and its opposite, low job security with high employment) is one consequence of the influence of the State on corporations, making the State another stakeholder in business, at both the level of the treatment of employees and in a host of other areas, such as working practices, safety, hygiene, modes of working, product liability, customers’ rights, the environment and, of course, taxation. 3.6.3
Suppliers In our concern with the stakeholders in the corporate structure, we must consider two other major stakeholders that influence policy and performance, namely, the suppliers and the customers of the firm. One clear source of influence is quantitative – how many suppliers and how many customers does the firm have? A single supplier or a single customer has a different influence to one of many suppliers or one of many hundreds of thousands of customers. State owned and managed single utility suppliers (gas, water or electricity) exert monopoly influence, subject of course to regulations, but this influence wanes somewhat once competition is introduced. Privatising utilities by making them
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private monopolies may not change much, except that state regulatory bodies supervising private monopolies tend to be more assertive of their customers’ rights than when the same bodies regulate state owned monopolies, suggesting that government departments are not good watchdogs over each other but can have bite when one of them watches over a private monopoly, if only because any heavy fines it imposes comes from the firm and not the same government’s budget. Where oligopoly operates – a few large firms of suppliers – the bargaining power of any one of them is constrained (assuming no collusion, explicit or implicit). But the supplier’s influence is not restricted to price competition with rival oligopolies. A large part of a supplier’s influence on a corporation has to do with service levels, quality, reliability and responsiveness to a firm’s problems. Where the supplier’s outputs are major and or priority inputs into the firm’s business, there is a mutual dependence in their relationship. One way of looking at the influence (and the bargaining) relationship is to ask: what proportion of the supplier’s output do we buy and what proportion of our inputs does the supplier sell to us? Exhibit 3.2
Influence and dependency
Customer
Supplier
High dependency
Low dependency
High dependency
Low dependency
Mutual dependency and influencing leverage
Customer has influencing leverage
Supplier has influencing leverage
Both influence without leverage
The proportion of a supplier’s output represented by our purchases helps determine the influence the managers within each company can exert on the others. It is not a perfect direct determinant but it certainly influences the extent to which each takes note of the other’s views and requirements. Influence is related to the degree of dependency we have on another’s ‘goodwill.’ If you are the major customer of a supplier, taking most of their output, your views on policies and events are likely to be more influential on the supplier’s team of managers (top right box in Exhibit 3.2) than if you represent a miniscule proportion of their output. Their dependency on your firm’s purchasing decisions is bound to give you a high degree of influencing leverage in many areas beyond that of mere pricing – special specifications, delivery modes and 3/12
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timing, returns policy, rework re-charges, credit lines, design variations, compliance with your paperwork formats and accounting practices, special favours, response times and content, trouble-shooting, changes of mind, changes to operating procedures, quality issues, misunderstandings, and general compliance with requests. The reverse, broadly speaking, would be the case where the supplier’s inputs account for a large proportion of your output but a relatively small proportion of his output (bottom left box in Exhibit 3.2). Where both your supplier and you are highly dependent on each other for high proportions of their output and your inputs, you are in a mutual dependent relationship and will share a similar degree of influencing leverage over each other (top left box in Exhibit 3.2). Your mutual dependence suggests that you need to get on well with each other and that your managers appreciate this need, because neglect of a partner could threaten the relationship – you look elsewhere for a replacement supplier and the supplier looks elsewhere for customers. Always remember you are not in competition with your suppliers (or indeed, your customers); you are in competition with your suppliers’ other customers and in competition with your customers’ other suppliers. Where this mutual low dependency on each – each represents only a small fraction of the other’s business – then what influence you each exert on the other will be undertaken without the assistance of leverage, and you will find that the merits of your influencing views will play a larger part in the outcome than in the other cases (bottom right hand box in Exhibit 3.2). 3.6.4
Final Customers All production is ultimately aimed at final customers or consumers. In competitive markets customers have options. Firms invest in brands to create loyalty in their customers and respond to customers’ concerns as part of building brand loyalties and influencing their choices favourably. Customer loyalty acts like a barrier to competitive rivals, hence it is worthwhile for firms to invest in engendering such loyalties. In what way might final customers influence a supplier and become stakeholders in the business? That depends on the business sector. Popular actors and concert artistes traditionally spend time and some resources on cultivating their fan base; increasingly modern popular or cult authors are doing the same. So do sporting stars and ‘celebrities, famous for being famous’. Consumers of big brands, in motor vehicles for instance and in computers, form consumer groups and provide information and opinions to producers on product quality and lines of development of future versions of their products. In highly competitive sectors such consumer interests might have significant influence upon suppliers, but mainly where there are differences of view within the producer’s organisation that can engage the views of customers for or against proposals under discussion. It is less so in the normal course of business. Except of course where the customer is a monopsonist (single buyer), such as in a country’s defence sector. If there is only one buyer, the influence of that player on the supplier(s) is bound to be significant. Some defence products are ‘blue sky’ speculations by defence suppliers, not made to order but evolving
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from within the supplier’s R&D programme. Most defence products, however, are made to the buyer’s specifications. A single contractor may work closely with the defence department on a project, working up a prototype and an initial production series. There is no doubt which is the senior partner in such projects and this is made abundantly clear when the follow-on production series of the product are put out to open competitive tender to other defence suppliers. In these cases, the customer is very much a stakeholder in the corporation, privy under government tendering rules to every minute detail of costing, and the technological aspects, of the supplier’s product (often claiming the Intellectual Property Rights associated with the product as well). By the nature of defence products the single customer can limit sales of the product to other customers, and determine prices and the functionality of versions – it can also extract royalties for its licensing of sales to third parties, making it a direct stakeholder in the success of the firm. 3.6.5
Governments The role of governments in firms is a complex subject. With the retreat from directly managed government industries through privatisation in many countries direct intervention in daily management has diminished, though by no means can it be said to be absolutely a feature of the past and not of the future. For a start, large segments of many countries are still state managed (China, Vietnam, Cuba, North Korea) with gradual reductions in others (Russia, France, Italy, Germany), and there are still state managed operations, especially at local and state level, in many competitive economies (including the UK, Australia, USA, Canada, South Africa and India). Where direct management is of lesser significance than thirty years ago, the influence of government through legislation, regulation, statutory requirements, directives and local planning laws is extensive – and growing. To the extent that firms have to abide by these laws the state and its agencies and Quangos becomes a virtual stakeholder, backing up its interventions and requirements with intrusive inspectors and auditors. These people carry much influence backed by legal authority. On project teams in the construction industry, government agencies (in the UK one powerful stakeholder is the Health and Safety Executive) take their seats as of right and participate in the detailed decisions made by the private architects, the builders and their clients. Because of the influence of government in determining trade and currency policies, taxation, grants and penalties, strategic investment, purchasing levels, health, education, police and defence priorities, and myriad of other details, it cannot be ignored as an influential stakeholder on many levels. In response, private sector interest groups, single-issue campaigners and general lobbying agencies has increased significantly in and around modern government. All the above stakeholders, it must be remembered, are composed of individuals and they bring to their version of the expression of their interests a wide range of nuances and degrees of interpretation. Stakeholder management theories identify the groups but do not fully express the influencing tasks applicable in specific cases. This can only be done by personal contact with the individuals
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who comprise particular groups at specific times and places. Stakeholder groups are not monolithic. They are as varied as any groups of humans. Identifying the stakeholder groups is the first step – you still have to influence the people who constitute the group.
Case Study 3: Backwater at a Bank [Please note that the names of the companies and their personnel have either been changed or withheld to protect confidentiality.] William (‘Bill’) Coleman’s career at the bank had stalled. His disappointment was deepened by the progress of some newer recruits who overtook him in the promotion stakes. At bank functions he avoided conversation on matters of substance and was embarrassed when asked what he was doing. ‘I was thinking of quitting,’ Bill said. ‘This almost came to a head when I was transferred from Head Office to Didchester. Madge was pregnant again and we couldn’t afford to move house.’ Bill’s new job consisted of checking the paperwork for loan applications in a tiny back office. To career depression was added the boredom of doing work well below his abilities. He mused whether this was the bank’s way of subtly hinting he should seek another career elsewhere. A few days into his job, with several drafts of a resignation letter crumpled in the bin, the phone rang. ‘Have you anything left for Saturday?’, asked the caller. Bill didn’t know what she was talking about and he assumed she had the wrong extension. ‘Sorry?’, started Bill but she interrupted him. ‘Look, it’s my major customer, so you must do something. He’s a fanatical supporter and I need four tickets for the United match. Do what you can and call me back – I’ll be in the Rodford branch from eleven.’ Bill was puzzled and forgot about the call in minutes. But twenty minutes later, another call came through, this time from somebody he knew from his first month in the bank. She asked how he was doing and they exchanged pleasantries. Then she said: ‘Mark asked me to call when he read of your transfer in the Staff News – congratulations by the way – and told me to tell you that he would regard it as a great favour if you could get him two tickets for the United match.’ ‘Look, Moira,’ said the by now totally perplexed Bill, ‘how can I get tickets for United? I don’t even watch football. This is a bank, remember.’ ‘I know it is not easy this late to get tickets,’ she said, ignoring Bill’s question, ‘but surely you can do something for an old friend?’ ‘Well I’d love to but I can’t.’ ‘But Bill – your new responsibility includes the bank’s box at United. Have they not explained that to you yet?’ ‘Er, no, not quite’, said Bill. ‘Well Mark says it’s his lucky day with you now at Didchester. Call me back if you get anything.’ Influence
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He decided to give it a try so immediately he put the phone down Bill searched through his desk for United’s phone number. He found it in a file in the bottom drawer. It took him a while to read through all the documents and the correspondence in the file. They confirmed what Moira had said. He was in charge of the bank’s private box at United. It sat 12 people per match for lunch and the match, plus another 12, who joined the bank’s lunch table but sat in the open stand. There were details of every match for the season and some sheets showed some places were already booked. There were many blank spaces, including six for Saturday’s match. Bill sat back and thought about this turn in events. No wonder there was not enough bank business to keep him busy! The hospitality work, he realised, was a major task. As if on cue, the phone rang again, this time for tickets from another branch. Then the Area Manager for East Anglia rang, seeking tickets for later in the month. It didn’t take long for Bill to see that he was not in a clerical backwater. He had discretion over corporate hospitality for a major sporting event with potential demand across the bank’s entire network. Questions 1 How would you advise Bill to take advantage of his discovery about his duties to use it to enhance his profile in the bank? 2 How might Bill build his influencing base in his bank using the United connection? 3 How might Bill extend his base among the clients of rival banks, who also use their own access to United’s hospitality services?
EPILOGUE Formal titles, job descriptions, organisational charts, detailed procedure manuals and legal statutes do not cover the extent to which people interact on a personto-person basis within an organisation. True, some behaviours are prohibited by law (racism, sexual harassment, bullying, bribery, coercion and such like) and others are restricted by procedures (against favouritism, requirements of advantageous disclosure, public notice of job vacancies and tenders, double signatures on cheques, annual audits and such like) but there would never be enough laws or means to enforce them to control the myriad interactions of people going about their business. Influencing flourishes in the gaps between laws and procedures. It is about ‘affecting the thoughts, feelings and behaviours of others who are able to make decisions that affect ourselves and over whom we may have limited or no formal authority’. Influencing is about managing without power. If you have power – the ability to compel people to do what they otherwise would not – you may not need influencing processes to get what you want, though you can use your power to extend your informal influence over the people that your power does not 3/16
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reach. If you do not have power or authority (the right to compel people to do what they otherwise would not) you can only get your way by grace of their benevolence or by the exercise of your influence.
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Module 4
Building Relationships Contents PROLOGUE 4.1 Introduction
4/1
DIALOGUE 4.2 Two Behaviour Styles
4/2
4.3 4.3.1 4.3.2 4.3.3 4.3.4
Pull Behaviours Fishing Enthusing Wallowing Revealing
4/3 4/5 4/7 4/8 4/11
4.4 4.4.1 4.4.2 4.4.3 4.4.4
Behaviours for a Push Strategy Reasoning Suggesting Asserting Coercing
4/12 4/13 4/14 4/15 4/16
Case study 4: Giacomo Casanova
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4/18
PROLOGUE 4.1
Introduction Every two years, several men and women go to Washington DC to serve their first terms as Members of Congress. They step onto the bottom rung of the national political ladder. Among one year’s first timers, a young man from Texas behaved strangely in a hostel not far from Capitol Hill. He got up at 5.30 a.m. and went straight to the communal showers, where he stripped to a towel round his waist and commenced to wash and shave, slowly. He also introduced himself to other new members of Congress as they came in for a shower, carefully rehearsing their names and their congressional districts. Next, he took his shower but instead of going back to his room to dress he returned to a sink to ‘wash and shave’ again, only slowly. He dawdled and met the next batch of risers – introducing himself as before. He took another shower – and another – and ‘washed and shaved’ again and again, slowly, greeting each late riser as he entered the bathroom.
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He quit his showering only after he had greeted every single new Congressman.
Exercise 4.1 What do you think the young Congressman was trying to achieve by his behaviour?
DIALOGUE 4.2
Two Behaviour Styles Interactions between people are seldom tidy. People do not speak as if from carefully crafted scripts. Human discourse is anarchistic in its untidiness – for a start, there is more than one script! Mostly, we do not know the end of a sentence before we commence speaking and we interrupt ourselves with verbal parentheses, diversions and complete subject changes. Mostly, we get away with grammatical anarchy in conversations because both we and the listener are fluent in the language, familiar with its idioms and totally relaxed in the presence of incomplete sentences that rely for their meaning on social context. If you doubt this, read a verbatim transcript of a conversation or a speech and you will admire the ability of humans to understand each other despite their ‘abuse’ of the rules of their common language. The speeches transcribed in Hansard, the UK’s parliamentary record, have to be purged of their solecisms before they go to press, both to make them understandable and to protect the reputations of the speakers for literacy. When conversing, you do not have time to parse sentence structures like a grammarian. One useful simplification for influencers is to identify many complex behaviours by whether they can be said to ‘pull’ a person to your point of view or whether they can be said to ‘push’ your point of view onto the other person. Other people give different names for the behaviour sets: ‘authoritarian’ – ‘democratic’; ‘push’ – ‘build’; ‘hard’ – ‘soft’). However, I prefer ‘pull’ and ‘push’ because their meanings are clear, memorable and instantly recognisable in the rapid exchanges common to influencing. It is easier to label in a flash a ‘push’ behaviour than it is to interpret something as ‘authoritarian’. The notions of ‘benign authoritarianism’ or ‘pseudodemocratic’ do not convey their meaning as easily as do ‘push’ and ‘pull’. We find it easier to recall from the short-term memory words with single rather than multiple syllables, especially under pressure. Pull behaviours are soft in tone and execution. They are usually prominent in the early stages of a relationship when the individuals hardly know each other, though they are by no means confined to near strangers. Harsh exchanges are not so easily tolerated between strangers, whereas long-time partners appear to tolerate fairly outrageous behaviours. Hence, pull behaviours are more about ‘pulling’ someone towards you and your preferences rather than ‘pushing’ your preferences on them. The courtship analogy is apt: ‘you let the boy chase you until you catch him’, as is the saying ‘softly, softly, catchee monkey’.
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Behaviours can be more ‘pushy’ in execution. You ‘push’ your preferences onto people, not intending to destroy your relationships and hoping that their robustness will absorb the relative harshness of your behaviour. In the extreme, in a fragile relationship pushing may be entirely inappropriate. Exhibit 4.1
The push–pull influencing continuum
Push
Pull
Authoritarian
Democratic
Lead
Follow
Hard
Soft
The best way to appreciate the significance of push and pull behaviours is to identify their differing features. What follows, however, is not a scientific taxonomy. It is a practical aid for influencing.
4.3
Pull Behaviours The capacity to listen is a behaviour common to all effective influencers. People can listen faster than they talk, which leaves large gaps in a conversation with nothing for the listener to do. Boredom is inevitable. You are waiting at the end of a sentence before the speaker completes it. You jump over complex word patterns and interpolate what you ‘know’ he is about to say. You ‘switch off’ listening in the gaps and let your mind wander all over the place, with occasional ‘sound tests’ for key words you expect your speaker to say. You are present but not listening. Mostly, you get away with it. Other times, you don’t and you are accused of ‘not paying attention’ and of ‘not listening to a word I say’. When you mishear something that’s said and act accordingly, you expose your lapse by failing to heed what has been told to you. Hence, listening is much more difficult than speaking, even though (or because) your listening instruments (ears, etc.) are much more efficient than your vocal apparatus.
Activity 4.1 When was the last time you were accused of not listening to someone? When did you last realise you were not listening closely to what was being said? Are these rare incidents in your conversations?
Influencers listen more than they talk. And they listen effectively and not just as an affectation. Influencers use the simple technique of ‘smart summaries’ Influence
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to clarify sympathetically what they are told and to signal to the speaker unambiguously that they are listening actively to what he or she says. Smart summaries are brief, timely and focused and they have a strong assurance effect on a speaker. They properly belong to the pull set of influencing behaviours – in fact it is difficult to conceive of listening being absent from any of the pull behaviours, or of any pull behaviours that could be improved without simultaneous improvement in your listening skills.
Examples: smart summaries for active listening ‘So what you are saying is that . . .’ ‘Let me get this right. He told you that the Pegasus contract was in trouble and that personnel changes were to be made this afternoon?’ ‘Your position, therefore, is that these procedures are unworkable, badly thought out and without merit?’
You can quote someone’s exact words or paraphrase them into smart summaries and from confirmations or clarifications you will more clearly understand what he said, why he holds his views and how strongly he feels about his concerns. Listening carefully takes effort, and there are distractions of all kinds. You may not be interested in what somebody says or you may disagree strongly with the content of the message. Disagreement induces the silent composition of a reply or a rehearsal of why you believe the person to be wrong and sometimes, though you are silent, you give your feelings away by your body language (head shaking, facial grimaces, narrowing of eyes). If it is boring, you glance around as if looking for something or someone else to relieve your misery, and you make token noises to hurry the speaker to a conclusion.
Activity 4.2 Can you recall conversations in which you believed people were not listening closely to you? Does someone you know regularly not listen to you? How does that make you feel?
Trying to influence others while failing to listen is an uphill struggle. The best way to react to views with which you disagree is to ask questions with the sole purpose of increasing your understanding of what other people are saying, what they believe and what they want. Disagreements are like obstacles on the terrain between you and the people you wish to influence. The disagreements may be profound or slight. Questioning reveals the depth of their convictions and how they feel on the subject of your apparent disagreement. Exhibit 4.2 identifies and describes four pull behaviours. All four behaviours would be expected to feature prominently in relationships and it would be difficult to conceive of a relationship that had not at some stage experienced at least these four behavioural exchanges. 4/4
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Exhibit 4.2
Pull relationship building behaviours
Behaviour
Description
Fishing
Fishing for ‘common ground’, such as in background, experiences, interests, and feelings and what can be agreed where there are disagreements.
Enthusing
Enthusing about personal predilections, goals, aspirations, hopes, concerns, beliefs and future prospects.
Wallowing
Engaging in empathetic probing of incidents, problems, moods and doubts.
Revealing
Discreetly revealing ‘intimate’ and confidential matters, and personal feelings.
For example, fishing for something in common with another person is usually associated with the commencement of a relationship (though it will continue thereafter throughout it) and engaging in mutual wallowing sessions strengthens any ongoing relationship. Their order in Exhibit 4.2 is a presentational convenience and in most relationships pull behaviours are sequenced and combined to suit the circumstances. At first glance, pull behaviours appear deceptively ‘soft’, and some ‘worldly’ managers look askance when introduced to Exhibit 4.2. Some (usually male) managers report they feel self-conscious when asked to practise pull behaviours.
Activity 4.3 Reflect privately for a few moments on your use in the recent past of the pull behaviours described in Exhibit 4.2.
4.3.1
Fishing Almost the first thing two people do when meeting for the first time is to establish who they are, what they do, where they come from and where they live. This is sometimes called ‘small talk’. Almost automatically each fishes for the other’s short ‘autobiography’. Mostly you use this rock bottom ‘c.v.’ to decide whether to get to know more about the person. If you decide that you want to know more, you fish for supplementary opportunities – if you can think of any. If you do not wish to know more, you change tack, make your excuses and break off the contact.
Example: fishing 1 ‘Where do you come from?’ ‘Toronto’ ‘I’ve never been to Canada.’ ‘Really?’ she says, shrugging her shoulders and seeking to escape.
If you stop fishing for common ground the relationship aborts. Discovering something ‘interesting’ in the other person – from the trivial to the profound – creates an opportunity for more fishing. Influence
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Example: fishing 2 ‘What does “M” in your name stand for?’ ‘My middle name is McManus.’ ‘Oh? My mother’s maiden name was McManus.’ ‘Interesting. I’m called after my aunt.’ ‘Where did she come from?’ ‘Austin, Texas, so I’m told.’ ‘Well that’s a coincidence because my granddad often spoke of an uncle who went to the US when he was twelve and was never heard of again.’
A coincidence (he is a long-lost second cousin) or not (your distant uncle drowned on the Titanic), the common name opens other opportunities for more fishing. Uncovering anything you have in common is an opportunity. Whether to pursue these opportunities at all is the first (and sometimes the last) decision in a relationship. From the influencing angle, it is more likely that you will have influence with someone with whom you have or can create something in common than if you have absolutely nothing in common at all. This can be seen poignantly in disputes – if there is no common ground or no shared interests, disputes can be intractable – and a large part of negotiation and mediation is dedicated to establishing whether anything can be identified that one party has in common with the other. Dispute resolution is about finding something, no matter how small, that can be built upon to bring the parties towards an agreement. Mediation might be described as sophisticated fishing. Because the potential for finding common ground is vast, it is remarkable when two people fish and find that they have none. Those who deny they have ‘anything in common’ mostly cannot be bothered to fish because they see no benefit in making the effort. For influencers it is difficult to make progress if the party has made up its mind and resolutely resists revising its stance. Even a fish cannot be caught by rod and line unless it opens its mouth. Influencers take an interest in the people they meet. They fish for opportunities to make supplementary connections, either at a first or later meeting. Fishing for common ground is the first step in a relationship which, once found, is explored. Beware, though, of the error of interrogating someone desperately and intensely from the moment of the first handshake or bow. People resent overfamiliarity on a first meeting and they are cautious about going into too much detail about their personal circumstances. It might also be an error to shout ‘Eureka’ on uncovering some trivial connection between you both, such that you are both of the same sex, you both breathe and you both bleed when cut.
Activity 4.4 Select some people whom you know very little about and engage them in conversation. Your task is to fish and follow up with supplementary questions (though do not fish for ‘full life stories’ in one go!). Strangers would be ideal subjects but take care to ensure that it is safe to talk with them (you might send the wrong signals).
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People you only casually know, or distant colleagues at work, are also excellent subjects for a fishing exercise. Practise your listening skills (which means listen more than you talk). Review your results. Then try fishing with others until you are comfortable doing it.
Exercise 4.2 How would you interpret the behaviour of the young Congressman in our Prologue as a fishing technique?
Activity 4.5 Practise fishing for areas of agreement between two parties who are in dispute. Either take a case in which you are involved or take one on which there is much public comment. List the parties’ commonality of interests – resolving the dispute without bloodshed or the destruction of infrastructure might be two obvious ones. Look for others. In their apparent differences, is there anything that they could have in common?
4.3.2
Enthusing The next step in a developing relationship is to encourage them to enthuse about a personal interest and to do likewise with them (though, again, don’t overdo it – you do not want a reputation for being overenthusiastic about something to which they are indifferent or hostile). If a subject is identified from your fishing behaviour – a belief, an opinion, a preference, a shared interest of some kind – that is all the better. By respectfully encouraging their enthusiasms you reinforce their positive feelings. To succeed in enthusing you had best convey a sense of your excitement in your manner. An emotionless tone does not energise those you wish to enthuse.
Example: enthusing ‘Tell me, what was it like just before you parachuted?’ ‘Why do you like playing tennis?’ ‘How many times did you meet Picasso?’ ‘What’s the secret of building accurate model aircraft?’
People like to talk about their enthusiasms but are often discouraged from doing so, either from mocking reactions or from brutal cut-offs by insensitive people who are not interested in anybody but themselves. It is certainly the case that trying to influence people to support a multiparty project without enthusiasm will never get them excited enough to bother.
Activity 4.6 Identify your own enthusiasms. To whom recently have you spoken about them?
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That you overtly encourage people to talk about their special interests – by fishing – contrasts with their normal experience. They will note the difference. This alone does not amount to a major breakthrough but it could lead to one. You grow your relationships with people precisely because they behave differently from those with whom you choose (and you do choose) not to grow a relationship.
Activity 4.7 Identify the people who have special interests of which you are aware. When did you last ask any of them about their interests? What about the people whose special interests you know nothing about? Energise and engage them in enthusing behaviour.
From the influencing angle, it is more likely that you will influence someone you encourage to relate enthusiastic accounts of their special interests, predilections or experiences. They will be as guarded as you in revealing details of (unusual) special interests and their opening remarks may tentatively test the water. It is unlikely that they will commence an in-depth account of their special interests within minutes of meeting you, but if they do, you must endure it while you evaluate their sense of proportion. It is, as always, a question of striking the right balance. But the more relaxed they feel about your interest in their enthusiasms, the more likely they are to be receptive – in due course – to your influence about your enthusiasms. Their reaction to a perceived lack of interest or, worse, a mocking rejection of their enthusiasms, limits the extent to which you will be able to exert influence on them.
Exercise 4.3 How might the young Congressman in the Prologue have used knowledge of the special interests of his fellow Congressmen and Congresswomen to build his relationships with them?
4.3.3
Wallowing ‘Wallowing’ is engaging in empathetic probing of incidents, problems, moods and doubts. Wallowing is counterintuitive as an influencing behaviour. Many think wallowing is pointless and time-wasting gossip. Generally, however, people are delighted when they practise wallowing exercises. Perhaps this is why, once its purpose is appreciated, I have never experienced the slightest difficulty in enthusing managers to practise wallowing. Many claim to be pleasantly surprised at what wallowing does for them. Wallowing has many applications in influencing, persuading and the management of meetings. It is also widely used between friends, though few probably call it wallowing. For that reason, wallowing is barely mentioned in management literature.
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Examples: wallowing (or not) 1
Jackie tells you she had an awful journey to work. You barely listen to her, or you ‘top’ her tale of woe with a moan about your own journey to work, which, allegedly, was ‘much worse’ than hers. You don’t ask her to elaborate on the details of her awful journey; you don’t make empathetic noises; you don’t fish for her feelings about her stress – you don’t, in short, encourage her to wallow.
2
Mohamed tells you he cannot attend to your request for data because he is up to his ears testing software for the Omega project, which is running behind schedule. You complain about his priorities, cast doubt on the importance of the Omega project, tell him how important it is that you receive the data, and eventually storm off in high dudgeon. You don’t listen sympathetically to his scheduling problem and you don’t encourage him to expand on the ‘unreasonableness’ of the Omega people, how they keep changing their minds, and how they don’t appreciate what he does for them. You do not empathise with him. Letting Mohamed wallow, you believe, would be to ‘waste’ time. (And so you still don’t get your data.)
3
You believe that Ndela needs your services but she appears uninterested. Your system is much more reliable, runs more efficiently, has separate controls in each room, can adjust automatically through sensors to the number of people entering or leaving a room, and above all it is cheaper to run than the system her predecessor installed. You told her about your product only after she admitted she has occasional problems with the air conditioning in the head office. Nothing you said punctured her apparent indifference. When pressed, she shrugged her shoulders and said, somewhat aggressively, that she had another appointment. Where did you go wrong? You failed to let her wallow in her ‘occasional’ problem and merely tried to solve it by selling her your alternative system. In short, you did not earn the right to solve her problem.
Three examples of wallowing – or rather its absence – show by implication what encouraging a little wallowing could do for you. Wallowing is too easily dismissed as self-indulgence, and is easily – and frequently – discouraged. People in a hurry have no time to waste listening to someone ‘moaning’. Right? Wrong!
Activity 4.8 Note how many times you terminate your conversations before you allow the other person to commence wallowing. Now think about the possible consequences in each instance.
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In brutal fact, if you cut people off before they wallow, it may curtail the boredom of your listening but it also eliminates opportunities to consolidate your relationships. Wallowing is commonplace with people who do not intellectualise about what they do in their relationships. The problem for most of us is that we do not consider what we miss when we intentionally avoid letting others wallow. An absence of shared wallowing probably explains 90 per cent of the reasons why you do not develop relationships with others effortlessly and why those who do allow wallowing are better influencers than those who do not. To appreciate what you miss when you curb wallowing behaviour, consider the results of in-depth research conducted into the sales sequence (Neil Rackham, Making Major Sales, Gower, Aldershot, 1987), which shows the factors that make some people effective as sellers and the majority merely average or worse. Less effective sellers were found to initiate their sales pitch the moment the prospect suggested that they had a problem that the seller’s product could possibly solve. According to Rackham, as soon as you admit that you are feeling hungry, below-average sellers jump in with an offer to sell you a bar of chocolate. If you admit to having trouble getting to work using unreliable public transport, below-average sellers tell you the benefits of buying one of their cars. If you admit that the rate of profit in your current line of business is disappointing, below-average sellers try to sell you another one. And so on. Rackham’s research showed that effective sellers, in contrast, do not jump in with instant answers to problems. They note the opening they get from your having a problem, but they also encourage you to elaborate (i.e., wallow) on the wider consequences of your problem. This raises the current profile of your problem and brings it higher up your personal scale of priorities. They do not assume that having a problem automatically ensures an urgency to do something about it. In fact, postponement of a solution is the most common response to most problems. When you wallow you feel ‘psychic pain’ from having the problem. Problems mentioned en passant do not yet have a high enough priority urging you to do something about them. Few people buy to solve low-priority problems. Wallowing focuses attention on the scale and intensity of your problem which you may recollect too dimly for it to require urgent action. Recounting any disamenities associated with a problem induces powerful emotional memories of how you felt the last time you experienced it. By skilfully inducing those memories, the seller gives you a greater urgency to do something about the problem. Sharing those memories and feelings strengthen relationships in an influencing sequence.
Activity 4.9 Select opportunities with a few people to induce a wallowing sequence. Listen for a reference to problems they have experienced recently. Do not cut them off and do not offer instant solutions. Fish with wallow questions, such as by asking them:
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• • • • •
to elaborate on the problems how they were affected by the problems how they felt at the time what they did to adjust to the problems what the benefits to them would be if the problems were solved.
Exercise 4.4 Suppose one of the new Congressmen the man of many showers meets that morning mentions that he got in very late last night and has had only a couple of hours tormented sleep. What five wallow-inducing questions could the young Congressman ask him?
4.3.4
Revealing Relationships in which there is a series of intimate revelatory exchanges are stronger than those with only a few or none (though it is difficult to conceive of a relationship in which neither party knows anything relatively intimate about the other). The majority of your contacts and exchanges probably have not developed much further than brief fishing forays and some limited mutual enthusing (and very little wallowing). This is a problem of time and opportunity. Revealing takes time and the correct circumstances (unless one of you is na¨ıve or overcurious). Revealing behaviour is not about salacious confessions nor need it include them. The revelations can be purely trivial though they would be much more than your ‘name, rank and serial number’. The main criterion for the successful exchange of revelatory behaviour is that what is revealed to you is not something that is normally revealed to others. Those with whom you have no relationship – passing encounters – may not get beyond a morning greeting or similar courtesies, and perhaps not even those. People in a relationship mutually reveal details of their private lives, feelings and hopes and their revelations are mutually proportionate. Details of who they are, where they come from, how many children they have, how many marriages, their current domestic arrangements, current job circumstances, their sexual preferences and so on are exchanged, and each lets the other enter her private territory in reciprocation for being allowed into the other’s private territory. Giving your own detailed ‘biography’ without listening to details of theirs would be inappropriate, except in anticipation of them having a turn at revealing their own later. To give them no turn at all would cut you off from them no matter what you revealed to them. Revealing one-sidedly signals that you are not interested in them. Nor is a disproportionate revelation in which you ‘top’ their low-level revelations (age, job, background and circumstances) with highlevel revelations about your wildly exotic life and circumstances. That is why
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relationships are difficult to maintain when the people live in distinctly different circumstances. Revelation in influencing is mutual, proportionate and balanced. It also becomes increasingly intimate as it moves from the standard introductory revelations to the non-standard ‘confessional’ type of revelations that are shared only by close friends. People who have shared their ‘innermost secrets’ are more likely to influence each other than if they remain virtual strangers. Of course, some ‘secrets’ are shared from familiarity – little bits of information about each other are gradually revealed from constant contact. Some ‘secrets’ are revealed via gossip – third parties retell what they have learned to wider audiences than was intended. But relationship-building revelations are slightly different in that it is not what is accidentally or unintentionally gleaned that characterises the growing relationship as much as what is intentionally revealed by one person to another.
Activity 4.10 With whom among your colleagues have you exchanged revelations? What do you know about each other that, as far as you know, is not common knowledge? To whom do you find it easy to talk and listen? Select someone to reveal at an early opportunity a little more of your personal life, always remembering that it should be proportionate to what you know about them.
Exercise 4.5 How might the young Congressman in the Prologue have used revelatory behaviours in his career?
4.4
Behaviours for a Push Strategy Push behaviours tend to be viable only where there is a robust relationship between two parties. They are unlikely to be successful where the parties are virtual strangers or where there is an element of suspicion between them. Influence rests on relationships that are built over time and through various circumstances. Potential relationships can be severely weakened or totally destroyed through the attempted application of push behaviours to fragile relationships. Managers who seek influence must first of all improve their relationships with those whom they wish to influence. Using push behaviours to influence people with whom you have no relationship is a forlorn quest. You will come across as arrogant, presumptuous, threatening and ‘unbalanced’. Hence, resorting to push behaviours presumes a previous investment in developing a relationship through combinations of pull behaviours. This leads to a singular conclusion: taking the necessary steps to improve – even establish – relationships through pull behaviours is a necessary precondition for using push behaviours to influence them. In short, pull influencers earn the ‘right’ to use push behaviours.
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Exhibit 4.3
Push behaviours
Behaviour
Description
Reasoning
Using logic and rational argument to point to the ‘required’ decision
Suggesting
Making general recommendations
Asserting
Using assertions to identify the ‘correct’ decision
Coercing
Using pressure to compel someone to take a course of action
The four push behaviours described in Exhibit 4.3 appear at first glance deceptively normal for many managers. They are what managers do every day without thinking too much about them – which is part of the problem. Inappropriate behaviours are counter-productive and some people resent and react to the careless use of push behaviours against them.
Activity 4.11 How many times recently have people reacted negatively to the way you allegedly said something to them? Do they accuse you of using an aggressive tone, abrupt language or disrespectful gestures when, in your view, you merely told them to do what they were supposed to do?
Some (usually female) managers do not feel comfortable when contemplating push behaviours and they feel self-conscious when told to practise them. 4.4.1
Reasoning Rational reasoning is highly regarded in the West, where there is a strong prejudice in favour of rationality in managerial theory. In argumentative discourse, logic is assumed to be superior to subjectivism. From a given premise a logical conclusion follows. Any other conclusion is false and, by logical implication, should be rejected.
Examples: reasoning ‘It stands to reason that if we cannot sell in their territory then they cannot sell in ours.’ ‘On the basis that you wish to impose an inhibition on my writing a book on the same subject for another publisher, logically I must require you not to publish another author’s book on this same subject.’ ‘There is no logic in my accepting prices below my costs of production.’
Asserting that a decision is based on logical reasoning bestows authority or legitimacy on it. The ‘numbers are neutral’ and Giacomo only conveys the message: ‘We must always submit to the evidence’, etc. A manager’s capability Influence
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for logical analysis (such as in a facility for using quantitative methods) is a powerful intervention in a dispute on what should be done. When you tell someone ‘you can’t argue with the facts’, their role in the decision is secondary rather than primary because the facts exist independently. And when you insist that they ‘set emotion aside’, their discretionary influence on the decision is correspondingly diminished; dismissing a contribution as ‘emotional’ or ‘illogical’ is usually sufficient to discredit it. They become a mere cipher in an impersonal decision process. Hence, no discussion on the role of rationality can neglect how claims to rationality may be manipulated by those anxious to claim objective authority for the decision they prefer. In principle, a rational decision has a powerful claim to be meritorious in its own right; in practice, your claim to have chosen rationally may be spurious.
Activity 4.12 How many managers do you know who resort to claims that their decisions are rational? How many of them demonstrate formally how they arrived at their rational decision?
Exercise 4.6 Give a rational argument for why you deserve a pay rise but a colleague does not.
4.4.2
Suggesting Suggestions are sometimes regarded as the ‘softest’ of the push behaviours. Because a suggestion, like advice, does not have much weight, some people make a case for reclassifying suggesting as a pull behaviour. It is, however, different from advice in that anybody can and does offer advice (which strangers mostly ignore), whereas in an influencing exchange a suggestion presumes a relationship (the suggestion is freely sought and legitimately offered) and, therefore, that there is some confidence that the suggestion will be seriously considered. The likelihood of the suggestion being implemented is directly related to the strength of the relationship.
Examples: suggesting ‘Have you thought of contracting out these services?’ ‘In my view, a request for compensation is best backed by a lawyer’s writ.’ ‘Pick whom you want but I think you would be better with Morag in that post, not Michael.’
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Suggesting behaviour is not an offer of impersonal and disinterested advice. As influencers we have a direct interest in the outcome and our suggestion is geared to achieve the outcome we favour. So when strangers ask for advice on the shortest route to a dockyard, we are indifferent whether they heed or ignore us. In suggesting to colleagues that they should support a scheme to build a new dockyard, we have a direct interest and would be anxious if they chose instead to check our suggestion with a third party (particularly one known to oppose our stance) before committing themselves. Our confidence in our relationship with those to whom we feel free to make suggestions is closely bound up with our confidence that they will heed what we suggest because we have influence over them. That is why suggesting is a push behaviour – it is a unilateral determination of what we think should be done by others and not what we jointly agree might be best.
Exercise 4.7 A friend consults you about an irritating legal problem that she feels strongly about (and you allowed her to wallow). After listening to the details, you form the opinion that she will not win the case. How would you suggest to her that she drops her suit?
4.4.3
Asserting Asserting is a step up from the right to make general suggestions to someone (with an expectation that it will be acted upon). In asserting that this or that is the correct decision for someone to make, there is a much more complex relationship implied by the fact that the assertion was made. A stranger making such an assertion may be ignored; a close ally would not be ignored.
Examples: asserting behaviour ‘You must stand up to Linda on this issue.’ ‘Your team must score at least four or better on the evaluation scale if it is to be awarded an extension to its contract.’ ‘If you don’t fight back now, you will pay for it over and over again.’
Assertive behaviour is not meant to be ambiguous. As in Tit-for-Tat behaviour, you know where you are with assertive people. Therefore the language they use is clear and to the point. In appraisal interviews it is necessary to be assertive if those being appraised are to be absolutely clear what they must do to achieve a satisfactory rating. Praise for what they have achieved is matched by direct comment on where they have fallen below the organisation’s standards and what they must do about it. If something less than assertive behaviour is used, the substandard behaviour has less chance of being corrected because the people are not sure what they have to do. Advice that ‘you must try harder’ is less valuable, for example, than Influence
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specific targets they must reach in attendance, timekeeping and completion of assignments on time. Evasive decision-making styles that use language like ‘on the one hand . . . and on the other . . .’ and anything that invites uncertainty about what must be done are well short of assertiveness.
Exercise 4.8 How would you use assertive behaviour to influence a US Senator who is undecided on the vote for impeachment in, say, the Clinton trial? (Take either side, for or against.)
4.4.4
Coercing Coercive behaviour can work in robust relationships. It is at the extreme of the influencing relationships. The influencer puts pressure on the target to act in a specific way or manner in pursuit of his or her goals. The form of the compulsion may vary from a direct instruction that is highly likely to be obeyed (‘vote for the rejection of the minutes of the Board meeting’) to an instruction combined with a threat (‘if Harry wins the vote because you fail to support me, then I will not support your promotion’). The difference between asserting and coercing is that asserting is direct advice (‘you must stand firm’) and coercion is a direct command (‘you will stand firm, or else’). The use of coercion rather than the softer influence behaviours indicates some form of power over the target. Relationships give power to the influencer and, ironically, partners behave towards each other in ways that would not be tolerated if there were no relationship. Examples of altercations between domestic partners come to mind (it has been observed that spouses treat each other much worse than they treat their lovers), as do interpersonal tensions between politicians in the same party (some cannot bear to be in the same room as certain fellow members).
Examples: coercing ‘Go to the match, but I will not be here when you get back.’ ‘Remember, “hell hath no fury like a woman scorned” and not supporting Amelda on this vote will cost you dearly.’ ‘If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.’
Coercion is a complex relationship behaviour that is hardly different from bullying and intimidation. It may be willingly accepted by the parties and as vigorously resisted if an indeterminate line is crossed. Coercion is often accepted out of a sense of obligation or duty, but it is also fiercely resisted if the person feels humiliated or exploited (and if there is a viable option to switch sides).
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Exercise 4.9 In what circumstances might you use coercive behaviour to gain the compliance of a colleague?
Case study 4: Giacomo Casanova [Please note that the names of personnel have either been changed or withheld to protect confidentiality.] Giacomo has ambitions to be influential but the problem is that he thinks he is in the business of providing remedies to problems. Giacomo is there to influence you, and he only engages in a polite exchange of pleasantries with the sole intention of ensuring that you ‘need’ what, fortuitously, he prefers. Will you be influenced? Unlikely. He makes the same mistake all the time – once you mention a problem, he pounces. You mention: ‘The budget assessment reports always arrive at the last minute and they are too long and detailed to study properly before we make the decision.’ He jumps in: ‘That’s why you should vote for Henri for Comptroller of the Budget, to bring some administrative experience to the job. He ran the Westgate Project and was voted the best project leader in the district.’ Sure, there may well be contexts in which instant responses are appropriate. Mostly, there aren’t – and therefore they aren’t. Giacomo’s knee-jerk response betrays his impatience. He shoots from the hip, on sight and without thought. Not that Giacomo sees it this way. He genuinely believes that he does a good job because he pushes you to one of his solutions. Consider how Giacomo could induce you to wallow over the delays to the assessment reports. Essentially, Giacomo needs to bring the problem you have revealed further up your personal agenda, preferably to the top, so that it pushes aside all the other distractions vying for your attention. ‘The assessment reports always arrive at the last minute and they are too long to study properly before we make a decision,’ you admit. ‘Is that inconvenient?’, asks Giacomo. ‘You bet it is.’ ‘How do you cope then?’, he asks. ‘Winging it to be honest.’ ‘Does that worry you?’ ‘Sure it does. I suspect that the delays are intentional because recently I felt some figures were not right but I didn’t see why until I studied them more closely after the meeting. They were not as good as Sales had predicted in the Spring, on the back of which they got a £100 000 increase in their staffing budget at my department’s expense.’ ‘How did you feel when you found that out?’, Giacomo follows through to fuel your wallow. Influence
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‘Bloody livid, I can tell you! They conned the budget committee and got away with it, plus our IT investment was held back for another nine months as a result.’ See what Giacomo has done differently? Instead of advising you to vote for Henry for Comptroller of the Budget, he has made you remember more details of what happened and even managed to get you to think about your feelings. Now he’s acting like a clever man! Recalling your feelings is a powerful attention grabber. You relive how you felt. Even the physiological changes you experienced earlier can be experienced a second time (for instance, your heart rate increases, anger flows and you sweat more). Your ‘bloody livid’ feelings become real to you again. You are also far more susceptible at that moment to suggestions about voting for Henri as Comptroller. Question 1 If Giacomo makes a statement such as: ‘I hope it’s a short meeting tomorrow’, should you simply recommend that he vote for your motion to terminate the meeting? How might you respond, instead, by inducing him to wallow?
EPILOGUE Linear presentation necessarily gives a misleading impression of the linkages between relationship behaviours. While it is true that we can speak of pull behaviours as being associated with the early, more tentative and fragile stages of a growing relationship and push behaviours as being associated with mature and more robust stages of a relationship, this is not to suggest that there is a strict linear one-way progression from fishing to coercion. You will combine and sequence the behaviours throughout a relationship to suit circumstances – sometimes fishing, sometimes suggesting and sometimes coercing. You are unlikely to exhaust the incidence of the repetition and elaboration of mutual revelations. As for wallowing, variants of it will be exercised sometimes with enthusiasm and sometimes in sadness (at the content). Exhibit 4.4 shows the linkages between the behaviours as criss-crossing the linear layout, which corresponds more accurately to how they are related in practice. The eight behaviours discussed in this module are main headings with many subtle variations. They can be combined in many ways too. The key is to recognise how to behave to achieve the results you seek from the relationship. Concomitantly, it is necessary to know how not to behave when the circumstances dictate that certain behaviours are not appropriate. There is, for instance, nothing to be gained from push behaviour when pull is called for, or from pull behaviour when a more direct push behaviour is required.
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Exhibit 4.4
Push and pull relationship behaviours
Push
Coerce
Assert
Suggest
Rationalise
Influence
Edinburgh Business School
Pull
Fish
Enthuse
Wallow
Reveal
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Module 5
The Currencies of Influence Contents PROLOGUE 5.1 Introduction
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DIALOGUE 5.2 First Rule of Influence
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5.3
The Reciprocation Principle
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5.4
Non-reciprocation
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5.5
Bad Turns
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5.6
The Currencies of Influence
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Case Study 5: Influencing Downwards
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EPILOGUE
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PROLOGUE 5.1
Introduction Kim stood by the water-cooler savouring a plastic cup of refreshingly cold water. She was waiting for a photocopying job that she expected to collect by 4.30 p.m. from the print room across the corridor. She preferred to wait outside in the corridor rather than inside the less-than-cool and very cramped waiting area in the print-room foyer. As the clock hit 4.30 she entered the print room and stood aside to let Barry pass. He was carrying a large pile of yellow-backed reports. He was also tightlipped, red in the face and scowling to match. ‘I hope you’re not in a hurry to collect anything important,’ he said. ‘They have no sense of time in there and couldn’t care less about providing a decent service.’ ‘What do you mean?’, Kim asked. ‘Look, I put this stuff in on Monday and told them I must get it by 10 a.m. today to get it distributed before the Remuneration Committee meeting this afternoon. They’ve only just completed the job even though they had four days to print them. Miserable shower, no bloody use to man nor beast.’ With that he scurried off. Kim closed the door behind her, already worried about her own print job being ready because she had put it in only that morning. She needed it before
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5.00 p.m. She was pleasantly surprised to find her papers not only completed but also neatly wrapped and waiting for her when she asked for them and to find Moira, the print supervisor, her usual cheery self. ‘What’s the matter with Barry?’, she asked Moira. ‘Him!’, said Moira. ‘He’s the most irritating man. He comes in, demands immediate attention, wants everything in a hurry and never says thank you or anything. He’s always moaning about what we do and keeps reporting us for anything and everything that does not suit his magisterial Lordship.’ ‘I see,’ said Kim, not wanting to be drawn into a departmental dogfight. ‘So what’s the creep saying to you?’, Moira asked. ‘Something about his reports being late,’ said Kim, as tentatively as she could. ‘Late! No bloody wonder they were late. He rushed in here on Monday just before we closed up and demanded we printed his precious reports before anybody else’s, plus that we bind them into special folders, which we don’t carry in stock. His disk was a mess. It had three versions of the report on it and we couldn’t find him all day Tuesday to tell us which one was the right one. When Peter got hold of him on Wednesday, he blew his top as if it was Peter’s fault.’ Kim could see that Moira was getting as heated as Barry had been as she recounted her version of the events. ‘I told Peter to take no notice and get on with other work. If Barry can’t bother to get it right, then we won’t bother too much to meet his deadlines,’ said Moira. Kim slipped away, clutching her papers, thankful that she did not have to suffer Moira’s wrath. Falling out with the Head of the Print Room was not a wise move in her opinion. Too much was at stake to irritate those who ran the worst bottleneck in the office. Why could Barry not see that simple truth too? Why upset people who could mess up your plans by refraining from straining overly much to help you achieve your goals? And you need not grovel slavishly to get them on your side, she mused – though no doubt Barry saw it differently.
Exercise 5.1 Select the correct answer from an influencing point of view from those available: (a) Barry and Moira are behaving unreasonably. (b) Barry is behaving unreasonably and Moira is the victim. (c)
Moira is behaving unreasonably and Barry is the victim.
Exercise 5.2 Is Moira wise to refer to Barry as a ‘creep’?
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DIALOGUE 5.2
First Rule of Influence Exercise 5.3 Before reading farther, complete the sentence: ‘ONE GOOD TURN
.’
Most people have no trouble completing the sentence though they seem unimpressed with its message. Yet, for influencers it is crucial. What do we mean when we say that one good turn deserves another? By ‘good turn’ we mean a kindness such as an intangible favour or benevolent act that we undertake voluntarily for someone who has need of one. A good turn could consist of any of the activities in Exhibit 5.1. Exhibit 5.1
Some examples of ‘good turns’
Giving them a lift to or from work
Warning them of an inspection visit
Working their inconvenient shift
Giving them advance notice of an event
Covering their temporary absence
Sharing confidential information
Delivering a parcel or message
Turning a blind eye to something
Swapping shifts or holidays
Giving evidence on their behalf
Lending them a resource (staff, etc.)
Watering their office plants
Giving up a place in a queue
Bringing them items from the canteen
Accelerating their priority work
Letting them use your parking space
Not reporting a work-related incident
Assisting them with their work tasks
Sanitising a damaging report
Appointing their preferred candidate
Not supporting a rival
Publicly praising them to senior management
If somebody does you a good turn, then they deserve to receive a comparable good turn from you. The principle upon which the saying rests is that of reciprocity. From Exhibit 5.1 you can see the working of the reciprocity norm as it might apply to a work-related situation. For example, if you volunteer to work somebody’s inconvenient shift because the person has a sudden domestic problem, you would naturally expect them to do the same for you if sometime later you faced a similar circumstance. Or if you watered Karl’s office plants while he was absent on holiday, you might be miffed if he let your plants wither during your holidays.
Activity 5.1 Note some other good turns that would qualify for inclusion in a table like Exhibit 5.1.
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5.3
The Reciprocation Principle The early human bands we discussed in the mind game in Module 1, with their nascent tendencies to co-operation, did not play one-shot Prisoner’s Dilemma games. Their games of co-operation or defection in the band were played repeatedly with people whom they knew intimately. We have no reason to believe that early humans were fundamentally different in their behaviours from ourselves. There would be the usual quota of enthusiastic co-operators mixed with devious defectors. So testing any individual’s well known proclivity selflessly to contribute or selfishly to exploit the contributions of others would not have required a forensic ability beyond their intelligence. For co-operation to work, the benefits of co-operating must exceed its costs. If an individual co-operated (i.e., shared their finds or kills) and everybody else defected, the co-operator would be no better off. Why? With no co-operation, everybody would be dependent solely on what they found or killed and they would go hungry when they found nothing to eat. Meanwhile, defectors would eat any shared finds made available to them by co-operators and eat or waste their own. Defectors would become marginally stronger than co-operators as long as co-operators continued to feed defectors. For the benefits to exceed the costs, co-operation has to be reciprocated and defectors have to be punished or avoided. This was as true 100 000 years ago for people in the Pleistocene era as it is for the modern manager. Countless sequences of acts of co-operation, sometimes followed by non-reciprocation, have been repeated endlessly through the millennia entrenched in our psyche, and in our culture, reciprocation as a universal principle, accompanied by hostility towards acts of defection. The punishment for defectors in human hunter–gatherer bands probably (we don’t know for sure because, unlike bones, behaviour does not fossilise) varied from degrees of chastisement to exclusion from the band. In modern society, extreme punishments for defection are not typical! But punishments there are, and while modern defectors are not usually beaten up in the coffee break they can suffer varying degrees of emotionally painful ostracism. Anybody who has managed groups larger than two will know only too well of the emotional ‘crises’ that arise when an individual feels excluded from a group of workmates. You may not have managed many people or for long, and so you may not have had a tearful session with individuals feeling the brunt of their colleagues’ hostile treatments for their alleged misdemeanours against the ‘code’ of the group. If this is outside your current experience, consult people working in the personnel function of any large organisation for cases and examples – they will have many!
Activity 5.2 Have you experienced group ostracism, either against an errant individual or as the victim of it? Try to recollect its causes and how you felt at the time.
The most obvious punishment of defectors who have not reciprocated appropriately is not to treat with them again. This goes to the core of the reciprocation 5/4
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principle and raises some interesting, though false, ‘ethical’ issues. Advocates of the principle of reciprocation are alleged to imply that people do someone a good turn because they hope that they will receive a good turn in reply. To some doers of good turns this notion is wholly unacceptable; they reject it as a description of their motives in doing good turns and they reject it as a prescription for others to follow. They raise high red flags against such notions. They do good turns, they assert vehemently, solely because good turns are ‘good to do’ and not from any base motive or devious expectation that they will receive anything in return. They confuse, however, the sequence of events necessarily and inescapably bound up with the doing of good turns and their eventual reciprocation. It is perfectly possible for a person to do someone a good turn with absolutely no thoughts of public acknowledgement nor hopes of receiving anything in return. The reciprocation principle is not about the motives of any particular person’s acts of kindness. Good turns, like romantic love, are often unrequited. It follows from the previous paragraph that the reciprocation principle is not a simultaneous, conditional and contingent event that links together the givers and the receivers of good turns. Reciprocation is not analogous to an explicit transaction (such as a negotiation) linking the specific act of taking to the specific act of giving (‘If you do this for me, then – and only then – will I do that for you.’) In reciprocation, the exchange – if there is one – is separated in time; the response of the person receiving the good turn is uncertain and until that response is made it remains implicit. Reciprocation is not always, nor necessarily, consummated. Defectors in a negotiation are likely to be spotted quickly once what they have explicitly promised to do (i.e., pay their bills, or supply their product) is not done. The courts are full of defendants resisting defection charges brought against them by aggrieved parties to the explicit transaction (and above 90 per cent of defection disputes are settled, or not proceeded with, before they get to a court). Rarely are defectors to a reciprocation transaction brought to court by an aggrieved ‘doer of a good turn’. And, if they were, the aggrieved parties must make a case that the implicit reciprocation was in fact explicit – i.e., the transaction amounted to an agreement, and it was not merely a case of them ‘doing someone a good turn’.
Exercise 5.4 In what way is negotiation distinguished from influencing?
5.4
Non-reciprocation A veritable saint could do good turns for the purest of motives. But the reciprocation principle does not address the motives that precede the good turn. If nothing happens afterwards that breaches the principle of reciprocation, then no grief is caused to the saintly doer.
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But what happens later when an occasion arises in which the receiver of the original good turn is in a position to return a proportionate good turn? While the motives of the original source of the good turn are not relevant, the action or inaction of the non-reciprocator becomes highly relevant.
Activity 5.3 Can you think of any occasion in which you might have failed to reciprocate a good turn from someone? Can you think of anyone who has failed to reciprocate a good turn? How do you feel about the latter?
The reciprocation principle suggests that it is doubly unwise not to do a good turn for somebody who at some time in the past did one for you. The principle of reciprocation is sanctioned by aeons of human history and it remains a deeply held conviction common among people transacting today.
Exercise 5.5 Why might it be unwise not to reciprocate?
Counsellors of dysfunctional families, or cynical workgroups in floundering organisations, relate how often they hear charges of various forms of nonreciprocation (often mutually charged and countercharged by the parties) surface in the litanies of the alleged interpersonal ‘atrocities’ of others. Neighbours fall out over an incident in which one of them lent the other her lawnmower in an emergency, but later, when she had a comparable emergency, her neighbour did not reciprocate, though he was in a position so to do. The quarrel escalates if the non-reciprocator refuses to acknowledge his obligation or makes what are considered to be pathetic excuses for his conduct.
Activity 5.4 Who have you fallen out with (including those who have fallen out with you) recently over an act of non-reciprocation?
Memories of instances of serious and serial non-reciprocation recharge otherwise emotionally drained antagonists with new surges of recriminatory energy. It is the one sure event to seal the fate of a putative relationship. It will destroy a relationship faster and more certainly than any other event. The victims of serious non-reciprocation can become totally unforgiving and immune to counter-reason. Most of the time, though, the penalty is on a much lower key. Non-reciprocation is followed by an informal embargo on doing good turns for the guilty non-reciprocators in future. People, so to speak, use up their ‘credit’ with those for whom they have not done unilateral good turns – or, worse, not reciprocated for the good turns that were done for them. Looked at from this perspective, you can explain much of your lack of influence by the extent to which you are in ‘credit’ or ‘debit’ in your good turns’ balance sheet of those you want to influence. 5/6
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Activity 5.5 How would you assess your present ‘good turns balance sheet’ with somebody whom you wish to influence?
5.5
Bad Turns Exercise 5.6 Complete the sentence: ‘ONE BAD TURN
.’
The corollary of what good turns deserve ought to be even more potent as a warning than the original because they both work together, either for or against the would-be influencer. Why should a bad turn tend to be reciprocated by a bad turn? For much the same reason as its corollary reciprocates good turns with good turns: it is what humans do to each other, irrespective of occasional counter-exhortation by high-minded individuals. Note: It is assumed in Exhibit 5.2, that you can do a good turn without major cost to your own objectives. Exhibit 5.2
Some examples of bad turns
Driving past them in the rain
Not warning of an inspection visit
Avoiding working their awkward shifts
Not sharing confidential news
Not covering their temporary absence
Giving unhelpful evidence
Delaying delivery of a parcel or message
Not watering their office plants
Sticking rigidly to the schedules
Refusing them use of parking space
Holding on to spare resources (staff, etc.,)
Copying critical memos to their boss
Refusing to give up a place in a queue
Appointing non-preferred candidates
Making their work and them wait
Criticising them to the senior management
Gossiping about something
Raising damaging issues
Supporting a rival when indifferent
If, as they do, people take unkindly the non-reciprocation of their good turns, they react much more sharply to gratuitous and unilateral bad turns from anyone. Best of friends, lovers, relatives, partners, colleagues, neighbours and strangers fall out, sometimes permanently and sometimes violently, over bad turns allegedly inflicted by one on the other. It is easy to react badly to people you meet for the first time. If you affect them negatively they take umbrage. What could in other circumstances have flowered into a working relationship suddenly spirals downward from mild hostility to outright hatred. ‘I never liked her from the moment she took advantage of me on my first day here,’ says an aggrieved Jim years later. Recently, two prominent Cabinet Ministers in Britain were described as being ‘barely able to be in the Influence
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same room together’, an observation – if true – that suggests an ineffective government team. Non-reciprocation of a good turn is a serious breach of an ancient code and the imposition of a bad turn is the same, only more so. Normally, people remember incidences of bad turns more vividly – and more quickly – than good turns. Suppressing anger at the perpetrator’s behaviour is not easy. Nor is it easy to suppress the desire for revenge.
Activity 5.6 How deep do you have to dig to recall the bad turns done to you – or the bad turns you did to somebody else?
Bad turns beget bad turns. Whether or not they should is not relevant; they do, and that is enough to make it a concern for an influencer. Without wishing to anticipate what follows, some general observations can be made about the reciprocation of bad turns in an organisation. Where there is a high incidence of bad turns exchanged between two individuals, their working relationship is bound to be fraught. An organisation is likely to be dysfunctional that contains many pairs of individuals, or whole groups, who habitually reciprocate bad turns, and you can expect it to be in trouble. Organisational performance must suffer if its people do not get along together. There are always likely to be some bad turns between people in any organisation. Reciprocated bad turns harm an organisation if their incidence rises above some tolerable level.
5.6
The Currencies of Influence Adam Smith is famous for many things, one of which is his treatment of selfinterest. In one of his most quoted of paragraphs he advises you to seek your dinner from the butcher, the baker and the brewer by appealing to their selfinterest rather than to their ‘benevolence’, because their ‘self-love’ is more likely to motivate them on your behalf than their sense of charity. Now, this most sensible of observations is also soundly traduced by some critics. They detect that Smith had low opinions of his fellow men and women. Worse, they give it a wholly inappropriate slant, quite the opposite of the common meaning of the words Smith uses. So what is Smith suggesting? Simply, that you are more likely to serve your own interests by addressing yourself to the interests of those who have what you want. In short, serve others to serve yourself! The alternative – expect others to serve you – is exploitative as well as being na¨ıve and self-centred. Any person subscribing to this alternative as a lifestyle is likely to be disappointed. So, taking account of what Smith meant, how does his 18th-century observation help us to develop an influencing strategy in the 21st? Smith, of course, was referring to monetary transactions in a trading context. Each party negotiates to exchange something explicit (bread, meat and beer in
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exchange for money). In influencing, the exchange is often intangible and always implicit. But it also involves ‘currencies’, albeit not in the form of physical money (though money and other tangible goods may be part of the transaction). Influencing currencies are mainly intangible and are more like services rendered, sentiments expressed, commitments made or obligations fulfilled. They take numerous forms and different people desire different currencies. The knack of using influencing currencies in an influencing strategy is to identify which currencies are sought by which individuals and deliver them accordingly. Your influence on potential allies and partners within an organisation is likely to be greater when, over many trials and opportunities to co-operate or defect, the people you want to influence perceive that you consistently do them good turns and that simultaneously and consistently you avoid doing them bad turns. In short, you are perceived to contribute something positive to their sense of well-being and to their self-interests. Of course, a consistent record of doing the opposite – damaging their sense of well-being or frustrating their interests – is likely to reduce and ultimately eliminate your influence over them. The idea behind influencing currencies is not that everybody seeks to transact in all of them, or that any particular person would accept ‘payment’ in any particular currency from anybody offering it. People don’t and won’t. They are often fussy over the currencies in which they transact and with whom they transact. They can also become irritated by people who ‘misread’ their preferred currencies, as when you refrain from sharing information with them that they need to do their job. Influencing currencies at the generic level include, but – as lawyers say – are not limited to, those in Exhibit 5.3. We shall run through some of them quickly to flavour their role in an influencing strategy. The people you wish to influence almost certainly prefer some currencies over others. One of your tasks as an influencer must be to identify correctly which of the available currencies will be best received by a particular individual. If you want to influence people who deal in inspirational currencies, such as vision, excellence and ethical principles, you are more likely to do so if you demonstrate to them that you share their visions. Remember, though, that these are only labels for their preferred currencies and not clearly defined taxonomies; one person’s sense of inspiration may differ markedly from another’s. You have to identify the particular version that satisfies the individual recipient. Leaders have a vision for their organisation, which they identify with their role in it. They are irritated by scepticism, pessimism, conflicting visions and criticism and by people whom they perceive as obstacles. They seek people around them who solve problems with solutions consistent with their vision. To influence them you must help them, or at least be neutral (‘if you can’t help, don’t hinder’). The same goes for the inspirational currency of excellence. If the persons you wish to influence proselytise for excellence in everything the organisation does, a reputation for sloppy work, or a tolerance of it, will not extend your influence. But it goes further than that. These people trade in the currency of excellence (however they define it) and it is necessary that you support their ethos and avoid mocking, undermining or criticising it and that you aim for Influence
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Exhibit 5.3
Some generic influencing currencies
Inspiration Vision Excellence Ethics Task Resources Assistance Support Response Information Position Recognition Visibility Reputation Belonging Contacts Relationship Understanding Acceptance Backing Personal Gratitude Esteem Comfort Source: adapted from Cohen & Bradford, Influence Without Authority, Wiley, 1990
excellent standards in your work (a ‘safe pair of hands’). Always remember your vulnerability to others gossiping about what you say to them ‘in private’ and the near certainty of its getting back to rival bidders for influence. As for influencing people who are imbued with a sense that everything they do must be guided by strong ethical principles, it is not helpful if you are known to offer solutions involving ‘short cuts’, less-than-honest manoeuvres, and behaviours that sully their ethical principles. It is best to treat what they profess at face value and to deliver solutions in terms that they recognise as ethical. If you suspect humbug in the flaunting of their ethics, it is best not to share your suspicions or to give comfort to others who reveal similar suspicions to you. Influencers keep their own counsel. Organisations mobilise resources to achieve their goals. An organisation is task-oriented. This creates many opportunities to influence the people charged with accomplishing these tasks (and to undermine your influence by failing to facilitate the people in it). A deficiency of resources makes it more difficult to accomplish the tasks set for people. All tasked operations consist of: 1 5/10
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2
an added-value process inside and under the control of the task group;
3
outputs delivered outside the task group.
This enables you to identify many opportunities to extend your informal influence with other people in the value chain. You can think of an organisation as consisting of linear and criss-crossing chains of the basic input–process–output model (Exhibit 5.4). Exhibit 5.4
The basic model
External
Task group
External
Inputs
Process
Outputs
The task may be simple (checking a form and passing it on) or complex (assembling many components into a circuit board), but the most complex parts of any process may be disaggregated into sub-processes. The basic model also applies to non-manufacturing processes, where the added value in the process is of a discretionary and not a physical nature (for example, that by an academic who is grading examination answers). Of course, an added-value process may receive many inputs from many sources and it may supply its outputs to many destinations.
Activity 5.7 Sketch input–process–output models that are relevant to your task group in your organisation. Label each component with the names of the people you take inputs from and those you send outputs to.
People striving to complete their assigned tasks in an organisation are more likely to be influenced by people who assist or make it easier for them to complete their tasks than those who add to their difficulties (real or imagined). We can guess what Barry feels about Moira’s print department – he complained about her to the first person he met and no doubt will continue complaining at every opportunity. Undoubtedly, he was not happy with his treatment. Neither was Moira with Barry and neither has much prospect of influencing the other in future. Suppose, in assessing your current linkages with other task groups in your organisation, you see potential instances of a Moira–Barry type of relationship; then you might want to reassess whether it is in your best interests as an influencer to let them continue in this negative way. Influence
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Activity 5.8 Conduct a quick assessment of the state of the relationships you have with the people you labelled in Activity 5.7
Supporting people in their endeavours to obtain, maintain and retain the resources they need to accomplish their tasks is a powerful source of influence. Of course, there is stiff competition for resources in any organisation and it is easy to become partisan when fighting for resources for your own task group, but where there are winners there are losers, and not all losers accept their fate with equanimity. Blinkered self-promotion of one’s own requirements at the expense of others is a risky strategy – it creates multiple enemies among the losers and among those who fear the outcome when they join the resource queue. However, a reputation for getting what one wants raises one’s profile as a powerful player. But a demonstrable reputation for being powerful enough to help (selected) others get what they want also raises one’s influence. Favours done are favours owed. The influencer, when beginning a currencies’ strategy, is a long way from being able to ride the line between helping one task group to acquire the resources it needs as opposed to another such group. Initially a currencies’ strategy must be spread across many competing groups. Where you cannot help some managers get the resources they believe they require, it is better to remain neutral and silent. If you cannot exchange the currencies of support or assistance, you can avoid exchanging the negative currency of obstruction. (Again, if you can’t help, don’t hinder.) Positional currencies are powerful influencers. It is observable that people like to be noticed. In the famous Hawthorn experiments, recognition in the form of being the focus of attention was a significant variable in the behaviour of the employees participating in the experiments. This was discovered when the researchers looked for an explanation for increases in productivity no matter how they changed the environmental conditions (e.g., if they improved the room lighting or made it worse). Whereas smarmy recognition is obligatory for winners at Oscar ceremonies, it is nevertheless valued by many who deserve, or believe they deserve, public acknowledgement of their contributions. Not acknowledging somebody when there is good reason to do so, and when you have the opportunity, causes deep offence, while deliberately and publicly acknowledging a rival’s contribution, especially a deadly rival, does wonders for your reputation as a fair-minded peacemaker. Recognition as an influencing currency is closely related to visibility. Some people like visibility; a few can never get enough of it. Some chief executives and most politicians, for example, crave visibility. If you are in a position to supply visibility, you won’t do your influencing much good by deliberately withholding it. Visibility is a tangible form of recognition. When shared with others, even to the point of self-denying selfeffacement in their favour, it piles up credits in the influencing balance faster 5/12
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than most alternatives – assuming, of course, that they prefer to trade in visibility. In contrast, self-promotion at the expense of others is destructive of influence and causes sotto voce mockery by one’s peers. Most people trade in the currency of anything that enhances their positive reputation, however they measure it. Undermining reputations by gossip, rumour and innuendo is a certain way to undermine your own influence. If it is too embarrassing to defend a reputation, the next best course is silence. Influencing is about building good and positive relationships with many people in a lot of places in and around the organisation, and particularly with those whom you wish to influence. Understanding what they are about – their intentions and aspirations, and their difficulties and challenges – is a key activity that can only be accessed if you can grow a relationship with them. This, necessarily, is a slow process. Not threatening the present positions of other people, both when it fits your own goals and when it does not, is important when the current incumbents feel insecure or are known to be vulnerable. Trading in threats to their position undermines your relationship with them. Being overly keen to replace them – sometimes referred to as ‘carrying their coffins on your back’ – is not productive with them or with onlookers. Trading in backing people is better than backstabbing them. Ultimately, relationships are personal and face to face. Expressing gratitude is not just good manners. It is too easily forgotten, yet it takes only moments to transact and has a disproportionate effect for the effort involved.
Activity 5.9 In which currencies do you wish to transact? Make a list from Exhibit 5.3 and add any others not mentioned.
Case Study 5: Influencing Downwards Some years ago, the General Manager of a whisky-blending business in Scotland would every week walk round the plant personally handing out to the individual employees their pay packet. He thanked them individually for their efforts and asked them about any work-related problems they had experienced or he commented on problems they had raised previously. If he noted lack of progress in a task he had promised to undertake, such as repairs or replacements in and around their work area, he would apologise and ask for a report on what had been done or not done by those he had sent to do the work. If the problem was personal – a pay or welfare-related issue – he would send them to the pay office for it to be sorted out if he could not deal with it immediately. Not everybody, fortunately, had work-related problems but he took the time to share a bit of banter with them. He knew, for example, which employees supported which of the three local football teams and he would comment on their performance, teasing them if their team was in the news and commiserating with them on last weekend’s results. Influence
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He would talk for a few moments with employees who had other hobbies and interests and sometimes exchanged opinions on current affairs, particularly near Budget days when changes in the excise duty on spirits were in the news. He gave out information about the company and its performance and any new developments affecting particular work groups. He also enquired after family news and had a good memory for children’s names. He commiserated over reports of bad news and congratulated them for their good news. He kept the older and longer-serving employees informed if they asked after his family. He conducted this walkabout as his father and grandfather had done before him. It may not have been an efficient use of his time and it may be impossible as we reach the end of the 20th century, but it surely made an impression on the employees’ attitudes to him and the company. His son, when he took over, abandoned the policy as ‘patronising, old-fashioned and inefficient’. Purely coincidentally, five years later the company was taken over – his son’s ‘more efficient’ practices having failed to save it. Questions 1 In what influencing currencies was the General Manager trading? 2 In modernising the company, what mistake might his son have made?
EPILOGUE Influencing currencies, linked to the reciprocity principle, form the basis for influencing strategies. They address commonly held psychological needs, though in different mixes, which may be identified with a little effort in the people you seek to influence. There is more work to do to turn these ideas into a strategy, but for the moment your understanding of the phenomenon of influencing currencies – which you will recognise from a little introspection into your own psychology – is crucial to what follows. People are grateful for favours done for them. The greater the need, the more a good turn is appreciated by the receiver and, by corollary, the greater the damage, the more a bad turn is deplored. The implicit obligation of reciprocation for good turns is a commonly held universal code for behaviour. Disappointing someone with non-reciprocation of their good turn inevitably provokes a degree of hostility best avoided if you want to influence them. Of course, not all good turns are reciprocated and evidence of this having happened in the past is a sure guide to the state of the relationship between the individuals concerned. Seeking out opportunities to do people good turns is one element of the development of influence. That some of your efforts fall on stony ground is part of the cost of influence. As you do not know for sure who might be receptive to your influencing, or who might over time be worth influencing, you cannot sensibly and without risk neglect to do good turns for particular people with 5/14
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whom you come in contact. The advice ‘to be nice to the people you meet on your way up in case you meet them again on your way down’ is worth heeding. People trade in markets for priced goods and services and the mechanism for ensuring that markets work is negotiation (the explicit exchange of goods for money currency or, more generally, obligations for a consideration). People also have requirements to transact in implicit currencies, such as reputation, acknowledgement, gratitude, vision, self-esteem and recognition. These can be intangible (words spoken) or tangible (words printed or rewards given) but they are no less important to the recipients and beneficiaries. Their absence – deliberate or unintentional – can be hurtful and may alter a person’s behaviour detrimentally to the culprit’s interests. Hence, carefully considering the preferences that people have for receiving the currencies they desire and delivering them whenever within your gift is a basic building block of your influencing strategy in an organisation.
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Module 6
GAME Contents PROLOGUE 6.1 Introduction: New Harbour Co (I)
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6.2
6/3
Preparation Tools
DIALOGUE 6.3 GAME 1 – Generate Objectives
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6.4 6.4.1
GAME 2 – Arrange Access New Harbour Co (II)
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6.5
GAME 3 – Mobilise Allies
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6.6
GAME 4 – Execute Strategy
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6.7
Sequences of a Game
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Case Study 6: GAME-ON: an Interorganisational Game
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EPILOGUE
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PROLOGUE 6.1
Introduction: New Harbour Co (I) Mei has been assigned by her boss to set up and manage a new joint venture to redevelop 300 acres of a derelict and semi-derelict harbour front site in a large city in Australia. The recently privatised Port Authority (PA) is keen to participate in a project for the sprawling and untidy site, of which it owns the largest single portion. Funds raised from the project are to be used by PA to resite and modernise a docks and warehousing complex and to reconnect an abandoned rail link to the national network. A few warehouse and transport companies, with some light manufacturing businesses, continue to operate in small pockets on the site, but most of it consists of the abandoned shells of factories, loading bays, scrap machinery, harbour cranes, piping, cables and mountainous piles of industrial rubbish. There are a few overgrown green acres too, much in need of landscaping. A partly dismantled petroleum, oil and lubricants (POL) tank-storage farm, with disconnected tanks (some leaking), rusty pipe lines (many buried) and badly vandalised pumping stations, occupies about fifty acres. The old pier, once used by sea-going tankers every day, needs to be demolished.
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The National Environmental Agency (NEA) recently published an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report, confirming that the POL tanks would have to be dismantled and the ground decontaminated before any new building could be permitted. Decontamination costs of about $20 million would eliminate the expected commercial gains from selling the site for redevelopment and it is doubtful if the project is commercially feasible for the private sector alone. The local city council, keen to get the project underway, is negotiating to purchase the POL site. It knows that the NEA’s Decontamination Orders scupper any hopes of redevelopment profits – unless decontamination is paid from public funds. Mei’s assignment is to form a joint venture company (New Harbour Co) to rejuvenate the 300 acres into a new inner suburb, with a mix of leisure facilities, quality residences, business parks, light industry, holiday and business hotels, and a modern marina. Estimates of the investment capital that could be attracted to the venture run as high as $500 million spread over a ten-year period. Mei’s problem is where to start. Except for a single meeting with Bruce Allan, the council official managing the negotiations to buy the POL tank farm, she has not met any of the other people likely to have interests in the project. She does not have large independent investment funds to motivate compliance and she does not have the political clout to force the pace; but she does have access to state funding if she can make a solid business case to the government. The local council, judging from press releases, assumes that its managers will run the project, which precludes the council ceding control to a joint-venture company. Bruce believes that the council’s acquisition of the tank farm would give it a prime reason for it to be in control of the whole project; furthermore, the POL tanks are right in the middle of the project and nothing could be done without the council’s participation. But nothing can be done, either, without government funding and matching investment from the private sector. Mei expected the council to acquire the tank farm quickly and, in view of its condition, for a nominal amount. The council has limited funds to clear the site and none at all to decontaminate it. Her boss has told her that the council’s financial weakness was her opportunity to exert leverage on behalf of the department. Bruce admitted at their meeting that the council does not have the expertise to manage such a huge commercial undertaking. Mei believes that the council is not sufficiently commercially minded, that it is harassed by the usual budgetary constraints, and that it does not have the necessary credibility to bring private investors of the right calibre into the project. Once the oil company that owns the tank farm became aware of the site’s condition, it became anxious about its obligations to pay for decontamination. In these new conditions, the council’s offer to purchase the site and take over the NEA obligations was a welcome lifeline. Meanwhile, several dozen other smaller site-owners wait in the wings, hoping to make windfall gains from selling their land. Mei wants the entire site consolidated under the ownership of New Harbour Co. And she insists that this is agreed before she makes a business case to commit funds to prepare the site for redevelopment. But Mei has a lot of work 6/2
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to do before she can implement her intentions for the project. She cannot rely on her charisma or credibility, her good arguments, her rationale, or her authority. She is purposeful but not charismatic. She has yet to earn credibility. She knows that arguments are insufficient to earn her the right to be taken seriously. As for authority, she has none. Mei knows that without knowledge of the players involved, she cannot hope to influence them. She is clear that she needs them to accept a joint-venture company that will own all of the cleared and decontaminated site and will manage the project through to completion. Above all else, Mei has to work without political clout to influence parties who do have political clout (for instance, the local council) and have national influence (the oil company). This is a typical influencing dilemma: how to leverage influence over others when they are mainly influenced by political or economic power.
6.2
Preparation Tools Preparation for influencing takes time and you do not save time by skipping it. Lack of preparation shows, and influencers who try to ‘wing it’ fall flat on their faces. If they risk ad hoc reactions to what the other players say and do, they are bound to be out of touch with the informal currents that drive the events. In time, the poorly prepared become bystanders. Walking into meetings with a view to ‘hearing what they have to say’ and reacting immediately to events as they unfold ensures lack of influence on the meeting, particularly if others have prepared what they want to say and do. Command of the detail is an essential ingredient of effective influence.
Activity 6.1 Recall the circumstances of a meeting in which you became aware or suspected that some of the people present had co-ordinated their contributions prior to a meeting.
Preparation takes time but it is time well spent. This is true in most managerial endeavours, only more so in influencing. So, no matter how formidable the problems that you (or Mei) face at the start, they can be brought under manageable control by systematic preparation. True, preparation alone does not eliminate your problems – you still have to execute your influencing strategy successfully – but preparation provides an agenda through which the initially overwhelmingly complexity is simplified. For this purpose, we shall discuss in this and the following module how some simple ‘tools’ give influencers command of the detail. Using these tools you are able to select appropriate activities that will help you within the available time frame to build on the relationships you have or must establish. These influencing ‘tools’ come from various sources in the literature. Their main claim for inclusion here is practicality – they work! They are not scientific instruments in the sense usually accorded to quantitative methods or formulae; they are more like back-of-an envelope ‘doodles’ that help to organise your data. Influence
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Adapt them to suit your needs and the degree of complexity of your influencing project. To start, I replace the ponderous title of an ‘influencing project’ with the anything but frivolous word ‘game’. I define ‘game’ in this context as a distinct self-contained sequence of influencing events. And I use GAME in capitals as a mnemonic for the phases of conducting an influencing game: ‘Generate objectives; Arrange access; Mobilise allies; Execute strategy.
Exercise 6.1 What must Mei do before she does much else?
DIALOGUE 6.3
GAME 1 – Generate Objectives Influencing requires focus. It is undertaken for a purpose. Aimless influencing is as pointless as its cousin, aimless discontent, and as unsatisfying. Influencing is more than building relationships (see Modules 4 and 5), which plant the seeds of future influencing. The influencer has some purpose in mind. For what purpose do you influence? What do you intend to achieve? Or, putting it another way, what ends do you have in mind when you decide that influencing is appropriate to achieve them? It need not require a complicated mental process to answer these questions. You rarely need to spell out the details of the multistep strategies that you believe are necessary to secure your influencing goals. Indeed, the more complex your strategy, the more likely it will abort as the wayward actions of independent players and the abrupt intrusions of events influence the outcome unpredictably. Objectives are best dealt with in layers, beginning with, say, ‘to be appointed head of the department’, and then cascading, for example, to ‘expand departmental functions horizontally and vertically’; ‘increase departmental presence on two key investment committees’; ‘consolidate departmental alliances with “smaller fry” for quid pro quo support’, and such like. Objectives dictate policies. Events and new information change policies. Flexibility in initiating policy changes is required because, while your objectives may endure, the means to achieve them, the obstacles in their way and the sheer inconvenience of unexpected events dictate the necessity for tactical changes. Mei’s objective is to ensure the redevelopment of the site. Specifically, she wants this to be a commercial, environmental and social success. This means she has to persuade the parties to subsume their individual agendas into a common agenda that is best assured, in her experience, by the formation of a single joint-venture company, preferably headed by her agency or, at the very least, headed by a figurehead who is driven by her agency’s policies. Attempts to redevelop on this scale by the mere ‘co-ordination’ of multiple miniprojects, each with their limited horizons and private agendas, are bound to fail.
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Agreement by the parties on the structure of the joint venture and the adoption of focused priorities are the essential preconditions for her agency’s involvement and backing. None of the individual parties can achieve redevelopment on its own: they do not have the finance or the commitment to look beyond their narrower interests and, at this stage, they may not even accept their limitations. Hence, Mei’s objectives have to be fought for within the decision-making processes of several parties, often without highlighting deficiencies that are obvious to Mei but that could be embarrassing to individuals. She must tread a narrow line between being forceful without being brutal. Inviting honest introspection without bruising egos is a challenge to her interpersonal skills. She wants a joint-venture company (New Harbour Co) to be formed that will take into ownership all the components of the site and submit to a single development plan. She is wary of a piecemeal development free-for-all, for in her view it would dissipate focus and lead to multiple and disjointed miniprojects and a ‘tidy’ (because new) mess. Control goes with ownership and this is a major challenge to the commitment of the parties, particularly the PA as the largest single landowner on the site. How can Mei get them to give up ownership of their land to a new company in which they are shareholders rather than controllers? How can Mei persuade them to hand to her (or her nominee) executive control? What can Mei bring to the party that assures her of an irresistible momentum for the realisation of her objectives? Influencing for these stakes is different in scale from influencing for smaller stakes but not different in the methods used. The ‘tools’ are the same or similar; only the ends are different.
6.4
GAME 2 – Arrange Access Influencing is about people and the first thing Mei, for example, has to do is to identify the people who may be important to her objectives. Influencers think of these people as ‘players’. Some influencing authors call them ‘actors’. I prefer to call them players because I think ‘players’ fits better with Shakespeare’s distinction between ‘acting’ and ‘playing’ in As You Like It: All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts, . . .
The players that Shakespeare had in mind were not the actors who adopt fictitious roles written for them by others and who, when the curtain falls, go back to the grim realities of their lives. Players are real people who in their lifetimes never cease to play their parts for real. They cry real tears, feel real pain, shed real blood, laugh real laughs, and suffer and enjoy real emotions. Players are real; actors merely act. Exhibit 6.1 sketches the simplest of tools for influence (you can see why it is a ‘doodle’!). Draw it on a pad while taking instructions or later when you muse (perhaps on a PC) through various lists, adding or subtracting names to suit. Influence
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You may draw as many or as few boxes as you require, starting with the key player in the game you are about to play – and in some games there may be only two boxes: yours and the key player’s). In general, for each influencing game and for each phase of a game there are different key players. At a glance, the Key Players diagram shows your current access to key players and those others whom you have yet to access. As you make access to the players – and you must access all of them – you should draw in straight lines connecting every named player to you. Exhibit 6.1
Key players in a ‘game’
Key player
You
As you identify each key player, enter their names into a box. Where you do not (yet) know their names, enter their department or organisation. Your first cut, remember, is to get an overview of those whom you know and those whom you have not yet contacted.
Activity 6.2 Think of a recent or current influencing project in which a number of people are players. Draw a Key Players diagram and enter their names in boxes.
Most boxes in Exhibit 6.1 are not joined by a straight line to you in the centre box, signifying that at present they are ‘strangers’ to you. Two boxes that do not have lines connected to you have a dotted line connecting them, and this shows that these players, independently of you, have connections with each other. 6/6
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This is also a worthwhile reminder that players to whom you direct individual messages, but who have independent contact, might compare notes and that influencers with ‘forked tongues’ are easily spotted (and as swiftly resented). In some influencing games, you already have access to the key players because they are colleagues with whom you have dealt, perhaps over many years. In these cases, the diagram is easier to complete. Knowing the key players has its advantages, except when they know you for the wrong reasons! However, you still have to contact them, either directly or through a third party. Normally, influencing cannot be conducted from an armchair or a bar stool (though there is no bar on successful influencing from a mobile wheelchair!). Influencing normally can only be done by physically going from place to place and seeing the people you must deal with in person. There are rare exceptions but changes of technology (e.g., digital conferencing) may modify this assessment in due course. Influencers expend energy while they pursue their goals. They don’t just talk about what they might do, or what they could have done, or what might have been. Putting it bluntly, sometimes foghorn messages from the street speak volumes and, with absolutely no offence intended, influencers gain access by applying the GOYA admonition, not in appreciation of Goya’s art (though that is not entirely precluded), but as in the injunction: ‘Get Off Your Ass!’ Influencers find the time to meet the people whom they need to influence. They energise. They don’t wait for events to influence them; they go out, access and influence the people who create events. Influencers supplement (though do not safely substitute) GOYA with GOTT: ‘Get On The Telephone’. Influencers use the telephone as if it was free (that it isn’t free is one of the costs of influence). Even here, where you would think that the lethargic would come into their own, they don’t. Making calls requires less energy that criss-crossing town or the country to gain access, but the lethargic mostly don’t even know the numbers to dial. So they don’t.
Activity 6.3 Think of someone whom you could call right now to report some useful (for them) information, or whose support in some matter you would be happy to enlist. Now GOYA or GOTT. In short: do it!
Poor influencers stare blankly when asked if they have called Fred to tell him about Mary’s memo. Variously, they thought somebody else would call Fred; that Fred was not available; that Mary’s memo didn’t have a chance anyway; that they were too busy; that they felt awkward; they weren’t sure of Fred’s views; and, in final demonstration of na¨ıvety, that their call would not make any difference anyway. If this accurately reflects your normal response, it is a serious neglect of your interests and is the cause of that feeling of fatalism (in extreme cases, paranoia) that ‘the world is against me’. Efforts at influencing on an ad hoc, occasional and intermittent basis seldom succeed. Ringing Fred out of the blue to discuss something of more concern to you than Fred (and of whose relationship with Mary you are ignorant) is going Influence
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to be ineffective and might be counter-productive. Your neglect of Fred before you need his support has a price – if he knows nothing of your interests in Mary’s memo, he will act without considering them; if you know nothing about his interests in Mary’s memo, you cannot help him. Either way, you are at the mercy of events. Because of that you may experience that most uncomfortable of outcomes, ‘where ignorant armies clash by night’ (Arnold). So an influencing strategy is not best cobbled together on a fire-fighting basis. You have to invest in influence and the price of your investment is not your money. The price is your commitment, your time, your energy, your persistence and, above all, what you have done to and for Fred (and all the other ‘Freds’, including Mary, identified in your Key Players diagram!).
Exercise 6.2 Use the key players diagram as a visual assessment of a mass of detail and the access you have gained, or have yet to gain, in an influencing game in which you are active at present.
6.4.1
New Harbour Co (II) Exhibit 6.2 shows the situation at the start of Mei’s game. She has noted her current contact with her boss (straight line) and also surmised some independent contacts between some of the key players (dashed lines). It is an illustrative diagram and not forensic evidence! The key player in Mei’s case is Bruce, from the council, for some purposes (dissuading the council from purchasing the tank farm) and Hans, from the oil company, for others (persuading him to waive his proposed sale to the council and to sell the site direct to New Harbour Co). Exhibit 6.2
Key players in Mei’s influencing game
Mei’s boss
Bruce Allan (council)
Henri Ironside (central gov’t)
Mei Won
Hans Gruber (oil co.) Sid Redfern (PA)
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The players at the start of Mei’s GAME are her boss (Jean Dubois) and Bruce Allan, the council official. She knows her boss well, of course, but has had only one meeting with Bruce. From the file, she has gleaned the identities of some of the other key players, beginning with Sid Redfern, Property Manager for the Port Authority; Hans Gruber, a director of the oil company; and Henry, a public servant at the state Treasury. She assumes that behind these people there are other, as yet unidentified, personnel plus several committees, boards of directors and other agencies who will participate in the game, but she cannot include them in her diagram until she identifies them and their roles. What is clear is the absence of direct connections between Mei and other players she has yet to meet, though these players have direct and independent connections with each other (dashed lines). Bruce, for example, has independent connections with the oil company (the file contains copies of minutes of some of his meetings); and there is extensive correspondence going back two years between Hans and Sid. Mei has to complete Phase 1 (Generate Objectives) and move to Phase 2 (Arrange Access). Diagrammatically, she must move from the situation in Exhibit 6.2 to that of Exhibit 6.3. According to the connecting lines in Exhibit 6.3, she has established contact with all of the key players. The extent and depth of the contact with those players are significant. She needs to analyse the information she has obtained. She must spend time to get this phase right, for out of her analysis she will make judgements about whom she can work with as allies and with whom she has more work to do (with a view to turning them into allies or neutralising them before they become active opponents). Exhibit 6.3
Mei’s ‘game’ (Phase 2): Arrange Access
Jean Dubois
Bruce Allan (Council)
Sid Redfern (PA)
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Henri Ironside (central gov’t)
Mei Won
Hans Gruber (Oil Co.)
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Among the new facts she discovered from Hans at the oil company is that while he is willing to sell the derelict site to the council for a nominal $1, he insists on an ‘irrevocable agreement’ for his company to receive 40 per cent of any profits the council makes when it resells the site for redevelopment. Privately, Mei is shocked by this inequitable demand in view of the huge costs of decontaminating the site. She is concerned that the council will agree to this onerous condition in its rush to conclude the sale quickly and to give credibility to its claim to manage the project. Mei is also concerned that Bruce did not inform her of Hans’s demand in her meetings with him. If accepted by the council, this clause would significantly undermine the basis on which her department could make a business case to the Treasury to fund decontamination. To accept onerous conditions purely to gain leverage strikes her as myopic. She did not question Bruce on the details of his negotiations with Hans because she felt it ‘too soon to do so’ (only two short meetings) and he had not volunteered to discuss them. Partly, she had assumed – wrongly as it turned out – that after the NEA’s report the negotiations would be routine. It did not occur to her that Hans would make over-the-top demands, nor that Bruce would accept them. Her initial meeting with Sid produced nothing untoward. Sid confirmed the PA’s commitment to the 10-year project and he made the point several times that he was impatient with anything that delayed it. The evident interest of her department in becoming involved was well received by Sid, for it removed a question mark over how to finance the decontamination costs, and he indicated his support for New Harbour Co to run the project. He expected, he said, the PA to be given a role in New Harbour Co and a share in its equity. Beyond that he stuck to generalities and they exchanged telephone, fax, pager and e-mail details. On the advice of Jean, her boss, Mei had not yet met Henry from the state Treasury and she agreed to wait until a formal meeting, due the following month. Jean had hinted at the possibility of difficult protocol issues if she made her own arrangements instead of going through ‘normal channels’.
Exercise 6.3 How would you rate the key players as Mei’s allies on the basis of the information on their roles and attitudes?
6.5
GAME 3 – Mobilise Allies The Force Field diagram is a popular doodle for Phase 3 (Mobilise allies). It can be presented with varying degrees of simplicity or sophistication, depending on what is at stake. It is easy to comprehend and to construct and it is a powerful visualisation of the influencing forces that help or hinder the achievement of objectives.
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The Force Field diagram originated in Kurt Lewin’s Field Theory in Social Science (1951), and it has gone through many developments and adaptations as it has been disseminated by management educators and practitioners. Originally it was an organisational change model but it is now extensively used in problem solving and in influencing. The Force Field diagram rests on the simple idea that at any one moment there are ‘forces’ operating on a situation, some of which ‘drive’ for positive changes in the status quo and some of which ‘restrain’ the driving forces to maintain the status quo. To the extent that these forces cancel each other, the status quo prevails.
Activity 6.4 Think of a current discussion about a problem in your work role where there are competing solutions. To what extent can you identify the people who are in favour of and those who are against the competing solutions to the problem under discussion?
To change a situation, drivers must overcome restrainers. Those who wish to change a situation will work to strengthen the forces for (drivers) and weaken the forces against (restrainers); those who do not wish to change the situation will work to achieve the reverse (weaken the forces for and strengthen the forces against). Exhibit 6.4 shows a generic Force Field diagram, applicable to an influencing game. The influencer identifies the forces that are present in the situation and divides them into forces for and forces against and assesses the impact that each force has on the situation. Some forces are more important than others because of their impact for or against change. These degrees of importance can be noted on the diagram by brackets alongside an entry, such as ‘(H)’ for high importance; ‘(M)’ for medium importance and ‘(L)’ for low importance (NB: always keep it simple). Exhibit 6.4
A force field
Desired objective Forces against
Balance of forces
Forces for Current situation
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Those forces that are highly important will attract the most attention (assuming they can be strengthened or weakened), although a typical error in influencing games is to attend mainly to those forces than can be easily influenced, irrespective of the significance of their impacts. For example, we tend to spend more time influencing people who are already on our side – ‘preaching to the converted’ – and to avoid those more difficult targets who are most entrenched against us.
Exercise 6.4 In a survey of loan managers in a bank, to which functional heads of departments in the organisations of prospective customers do you think the majority of them made calls to arrange a meeting: (a) the CEO; (b) the Finance Director?
For each force in a field, the influencer develops specific strategies to weaken or strengthen the important forces, the presence or absence of which are consistent with the achievement of the influencing objective. This calls for judgement by the influencer, who must not only discriminate by the degree of importance of the force as a determinant of the outcome but also by the susceptibility of a force to influence. Again, it is best to keep your strategies simple. While importance is marked as ‘low’, ‘medium’ or ‘high’, you can also grade their relative susceptibility to influence as ‘easy’, ‘moderate’ or ‘difficult’.
Activity 6.5 How would you grade the importance of some of the influencing tasks in a current problem within your organisation? Who is the easiest to influence in a current problem, who moderately difficult and who the most difficult?
Influencing works through people. Those people who mobilise on our behalf are clearly our ‘allies’ and those who cannot are ‘potential allies’ (for you should be loath to write anybody off, even if they appear for the present to be the most rabid of your opponents). The Force Field diagram is helpful in this respect: in a specific version, we would label the forces with the names of people we know to be (or who are likely to be) favourable or unfavourable. The names of your key players are likely to reappear in your Force Field diagram. If some of them do not reappear, this indicates that at present you do not know where they stand and that you have more work to do to find out. In Exhibit 6.5(a) and (b), partial force fields are shown for two major issues in Mei’s influencing game, namely the formation of a New Harbour Co and the immediate issue of the terms for the purchase of the tank farm. Mei makes a preliminary decision on which of the key players are for or against the issues – and note how the players in Exhibit 6.5(a) who are in favour of New Harbour Co are against the purchase of the tank farm in Exhibit 6.5(b). There is a great deal more to be done besides identifying the key players for and against an influencer’s objectives. The Force Field diagram can be adapted to take account of ‘arguments’ for and against the issues and relevant ‘events’ 6/12
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that have a bearing for and against the outcomes that Mei seeks. (Note that by ‘argument’ I do not refer to a rowdy altercation; an argument can be conducted without rancour.) The Force Field diagram enhances the quality of the information available in the Key Players diagram because it focuses on what might be done to secure a desired outcome. Use it to identify allies and potential allies and to suggest lines of approach to weaken opposition and to strengthen your support. Exhibit 6.5
Force fields: (a) form New Harbour Co (b) Council to buy POL site
(a) Form New Harbour Co
(b) Council to buy POL site Buy POL site
Form New Harbour company
Sid
Bruce Hans Forces against
Henry Jean
Forces against
Balance of forces
Forces for
Balance of forces
Forces for Sid
Henry Jean
Current situation
Bruce Hans Current situation
Experience suggests that it is often easier to weaken an opponent’s pressure than it is to strengthen your own. This creates problems of maintaining your sense of balance if the objective you seek is bitterly contested. You do not want to appear overly negative when attempting to weaken an opponent’s pressure and you must curb your frustration when tempted to personalise the disputed issues.
6.6
GAME 4 – Execute Strategy There are two parts to the execution of an influencing strategy. The first is to be clear on what it is you that want to happen (and why), and the second is to have clear ideas about who is to do what, by when and with whom. Given your objectives, and in the light of your subsequent contact with the key players, what specifically do you want to happen? Has anything emerged from these players to modify your original objectives? In Mei’s case, for instance, when she began visiting the key players, her first meeting with Hans produced news of the ‘40%’ proposal. This gave her a new objective – intervening to stop the negotiations concluding between the council and the oil company. It also gave an added urgency to gaining acceptance among the parties to establish New Harbour Co, which, in her view, was the appropriate vehicle to acquire the contaminated site.
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A review of the original objectives requires attention to detail. It may require revision of existing objectives, or the generation of new major initiatives, and as many or more minor initiatives, with some scheduled to happen in sequence while others occur in parallel. Influencers work to multiple agendas and must keep track of many moving targets. In Exhibit 6.5(a) and (b), the two initiatives appear to be quite distinct in themselves but they are closely bound together in the context of the larger objective of the 10-year development plan. Mei needs to stop Bruce accepting the ‘irrevocable’ terms demanded by Hans and she needs agreement to form New Harbour Co to own all of the land and conduct the planning and execution of the development. Her agenda is increasing. Strategies of strengthening the forces for and weakening the forces against aim to achieve her objectives. For this to be credible she must select realistic objectives – the influencer seldom gets his or her own way totally and trying to achieve fantasy ‘wish lists’ mostly ensures that players suffer disappointment. One test of the realism of your influencing objectives is found when you detail individual tasks, responsibilities and behaviours for your allies to accomplish within agreed time frames. Unrealistic objectives soon reveal themselves when partial outcomes from contacts with the players fall far short of your objectives. For example, your plan requires a departmental head to subscribe to your stance on an important issue by the end of the month but, while broadly sympathetic – at least he listens to your pitch – he is sceptical of the radical steps you propose. He makes uncertain commitments, he qualifies his statements with excuses, he is vague on taking matters further and he generally acts as someone with other things on his mind. In short, he does not share your sense of urgency.
Activity 6.6 Have you experience of someone fudging their support for something to which you feel strongly committed? Have you ever been put in the same position in respect of something upon which another person is keen?
If you have not moved forward with your allies among the key players, you are not going to execute your influence programme; and if your timetable drifts, so will the objectives. On the other hand, realistic objectives sustain their own momentum. The execution of your influencing strategy depends on players, arguments and events. Over none of these forces do you have total control. You only have the opportunity to exert influence on them or to cope with their influence on you. How the players are disposed towards your objectives is expressed by the relative strengths of the arguments that they perceive have been made for or against your objectives. You need to become aware of the arguments against your case and not just with the merits of your own. If you are to influence the case against you it may take more than a rehearsal of the arguments that support your own case and probably more than a spirited attack on the people who oppose you. 6/14
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When UK Prime Minister Macmillan was asked what he feared most in the politics of governance, he replied, poignantly: ‘Events, dear boy, events,’ which was a point made somewhat more poetically, though no less poignantly, by Robert Burns in his lines about ‘the best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men’. Exhibit 6.6
Extended generic force field
Players
Arguments
Events
Forces against
Balance of forces
Forces for Players
Arguments
Events
To ignore the influence of events in an influencing game would be a serious folly, and the more so when those events are surprising intrusions on your ‘best laid schemes’.
Exercise 6.5 In Mei’s case, what do you think would be the consequences if Bruce signs a contract that gives away 40 per cent of the profit uplift from selling a decontaminated site funded by public money?
The Force Field, though simple in concept, has great scope for enrichment through the inclusion of detail. It provides an influencer at a glance with a manageable ‘picture’. The act of constructing a Force Field diagram itself gives the influencer a structure by which to sift through a mass of disparate detail. Prioritising the importance of the forces for and against and assessing the relative difficulties of strengthening or weakening them produces agendas of activity for the influencer to progress the game. Those agendas become the strategies of influence.
6.7
Sequences of a Game An influencing game is not necessarily played in a rigid linear GAME sequence from ‘G’ through to ‘E’. The sequence can be ordered in any direction (Exhibit 6.7).
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Exhibit 6.7
GAME sequences
Generate objectives
Arrange access
Execute influence
Manage allies
Tidiness suggests you move linearly from Generating objectives, to Arranging access, to Managing your allies and then to Executing your influence. But real life is not tidy; sometimes it sequences in a tidy manner, but more often it does not.
Case Study 6: GAME-ON: an Interorganisational Game Mei prepared a Force Field diagram to summarise the situation in respect of the 40 per cent proposal. Remember, Mei has to influence an outcome that is in the hands of people in two separate organisations. This is an example of interorganisational influencing.
Activity 6.7 Are your influencing games that are predominantly inter- or intra-organisational?
Exhibit 6.8
Mei’s Force Field doodle
Objective: Stop Bruce agreeing to Hans's demand for a 40% profit uplift Forces against:
Players
Arguments Makes council a player
Events
Weaken
Bruce Hans
'Ticket to top table' Rewards oil co for co-operating
Near signing
Current: Strengthen:
Mei Sid Jean Henri
Politically naïve Not good business
'Lean on’ council Leak to District Auditor Lobby MPs
Forces For
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Mei has identified the players (Bruce, Hans, Sid, Jean and Henri) and some as yet unnamed groups (MPs, District Auditor’s Office, and ‘the council’). She has not decided to approach Hans or his company because she believes the best way to stop the proposal going through is to use political rather than commercial pressure. To ‘lean on’ the council, Mei has planned to exert what pressure she can on Bruce’s colleagues. She will have to do this carefully because she needs the same council people (including Bruce) to co-operate in forming and running the New Harbour Co. For this reason, she must start with a direct approach to Bruce to discuss the political implications of what Hans is proposing. Only if that approach fails to unnerve Bruce’s determination to proceed should she escalate into ‘lobbying’, ‘leaking’ and ‘leaning’, which are effective ingredients of political pressure, especially when exercised together.
Activity 6.8 Can you recall instances when people have ‘leaned on’ you? Or when you ‘leaned on’ other people? How effective were you in changing their behaviour?
The MPs know that they are vulnerable if they do nothing about a controversial issue once they have become aware of what is going on. The MPs who are political allies of the council may warn their colleagues off from what Bruce is close to accepting. They know that their opponents will make political capital if they do not act: ‘When were you informed and what did you do?’ can be devastating questions. The District Auditor’s (DA’s) role is to audit the activities of public bodies, especially but not exclusively on financial matters, and a land-acquisition contract with a private company is within their remit. By ‘leaking’ quietly to the DA’s Office what is being considered, a high-level warning from the DA may be conveyed to the council leader. Questions from a DA are not safely ignored. Mei’s main arguments against the deal are political (‘public money and accountability’) but they are also commercial (‘Why share profits with the oil company that caused the contamination and did not contribute to the costs of decontamination?’). Her private arguments to Bruce would concentrate on finding another means for him to secure a seat at the ‘top table’ besides promoting the idea that the council should buy the tank farm. If she can show him that there is a major role for the council in the New Harbour Co, and that he can achieve his goal without the financial (and political) expense of a deal with Hans, she is confident of his support. Questions 1 Which is the better argument to dissuade Bruce: the fact that his actions are ‘politically na¨ıve’ or ‘not commercially astute’? 2 In what order should Mei conduct her ‘lobby’, ‘leak’ and ‘lean’ strategy? 3 Under what circumstances might Mei consider only lobbying and leaking to the Opposition and not to the governing party? Influence
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4 Are there circumstances where Mei might approach Hans to persuade him to withdraw the 40 per cent proposal?
EPILOGUE Influencing games require attention to a myriad of detail, and influencers need some simple tools to keep track of changes in the detail. The tools must be simple because if they are complex they will take too much time to use and, inevitably, will be abandoned by busy managers. The mnemonic ‘GAME’ is a first cut at structuring the events that guide an influencing project and it is used to introduce two simple ‘doodles’, the Key Players and the Force Field diagrams. More work needs to be done on the game plan and practice is needed through applying it to other influencing cases. Mei had an objective from the moment she was assigned to the redevelopment project to undertake this through a single company, New Harbour Co, as this was the normal vehicle used by her agency in these projects. She did not have large funds at her disposal, which could give her authority, but she would have to make a business case for such funds to government and the private sector. Her early access to some of the key players revealed a possible obstacle to her plans in the purchase of abandoned land on onerous terms. This necessitated that she act quickly to prevent such a purchase going ahead. The urgency of her new objective ‘kill the deal’ risked damaging her relationships with the council’s key player almost before she had had time to establish a good working relationship with him. Influencing is aided by strict attention to detail, and simple tools such as the Key Players and the Force Field diagrams convey at a glance a lot of detail that is usually left jumbled together in the heads of influencers. These tools can be created quickly on a sheet of paper and their construction reveals the gaps in an influencer’s preparation. Not being able to enter the names of players reveals instantly that there is work to do in finding out who they are and where they are. Arrangements have to be made to meet with them or meet with people who can give an account of the attitudes and the best lines of approach to take with them. Ignoring gaps in a Key Players’ diagram is not advised, though whether they are approached immediately is a matter of judgement. Leaving gaps through ignorance, or lack of information, or from the fog of overwhelming detail, is risky. You can cut the risk by using a simple doodle. From the Key Players diagram it is a short step to developing a Force Field diagram that neatly captures the balance of forces for and against your proposals. These are so simple to construct that you can do one quickly showing the disposition of the Key Players for and against the current situation, and then construct two more diagrams that concentrate on the arguments for and against – and the arguments that are being used, fairly or otherwise – and the presence of threats or events that will affect the game. You can combine all three onto one Force Field diagram and identify what has to be done, bearing in mind that it is 6/18
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often easier to weaken the opposition against a change than it is to strengthen the forces for a change. The mnemonic GAME helps you to remember the phases of conducting an influencing campaign: ‘Generate objectives; Arrange access; Mobilise allies; Execute strategy’. These are top-level phases, with much work to do within them, and they are to be thought of as flexible rather than strictly sequential. From deciding on your objectives, which may be modified, added to or reduced as people, arguments and events impact on your campaign, you go to active involvement with the players. Some players will be unambiguously on your side; others against. There will also be players who deserve to appear on both sides of the balance of forces – they are against you to some degree or in some respects, and for you in others. This is a not unusual phenomenon. Sometimes you are not sure where certain players stand. Nominally, because of their position, past associations or prejudices, they may be required to support their department’s (opposing) views, but in private conversation with you or third parties they may well aver that they support what you are attempting. On the Force Field diagram place their arrows for and against opposite each other. Players may start off in opposition and during the influencing campaign they may switch sides (as some might who begin on your side, of course). The diagram is so easy to construct you can redraw it in minutes to take account of swaying loyalties (and the intrusion of unforeseen events – such as a major ally becoming seriously ill, or being arrested on serious charges, or innocently resigning). There is much more to do in respect of marshalling allies and executing the influencing strategy, but with the two diagrams described in this module the foundation is laid to conduct an effective influencing campaign.
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Module 7
Influencing for Results Contents PROLOGUE 7.1 Introduction
7/1
DIALOGUE 7.2 Inter and Intra Games
7/3
7.3
Will it Play?
7/4
7.4
Who to Access?
7.5
Winning Allies
7/11
7.6
Influencing for Results
7/12
7.7
Imperatives
7/15
7.8
The Grid
7/18
7.9 7.9.1 7.9.2 7.9.3
Content of the Influence Messages Themes Stances and Justifications Responses and Counters
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Case Study 7: ‘HELP!’ is Not Just a Four-Letter Word
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EPILOGUE
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PROLOGUE 7.1
Introduction Blake is a manager in Brunsfield Hospital, a newly acquired private general hospital that previously had been managed by the state. In common with hospitals around the country, Brunsfield is on the verge of major developments in the delivery of hospital services, mainly brought about by changes in medical technologies. The problem with which Blake is wrestling is how to configure the demands of the new medical developments with the long-established working patterns inherited from the state health service. One example is that of ‘day surgery’. Except in a minority of serious or complicated cases, many routine operations and other procedures could be safely completed inside a working day and the patients returned to their homes without the necessity of an overnight stay (though the option remains to stay for as long as is medically necessary).
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Day surgery works best if the medical staff work in closely integrated teams, without the restrictions imposed by the traditional barriers between the medical professions, which are a source of inefficiency and devoid of medical grounds for continuing. Also, different working practices (hours of work, etc.) for different groups of employees, that have nothing to do with medicine, hold back the full integration of teams. Blake thought there was an opportunity for Brunsfield to expand its daysurgery services in the region served by the hospital. While ‘unglamorous’ in some respects (it was not at the ‘frontiers’ of medicine), day surgery, properly organised, could provide a substantial service to many thousands of patients awaiting treatment and it could generate a secure stream of income to the hospital. To put the scheme into effect, surgeons who were prepared to specialise in repetitive and routine procedures and work closely with other support services – nursing, radiography, laboratory and medical records – would be recruited. Some nursing personnel would require to be enskilled as ‘Nurse Practitioners’ in certain medical procedures beyond those presently permitted. An expansion of ‘post-op’ nursing specialists would be required but several middle grades of nurses would be replaced with relatively unskilled staff. The traditional roles of the radiographers, laboratory services, occupational therapists, social work and medical roles needed substantial revision. These would need to be supplied to the Day Surgery Unit on an exclusive basis, which was a major break with the centralised tradition common in general hospitals. Changes in working arrangements on this scale, Blake knew, would require a new remuneration system to replace the decades-old highly structured system, in which progression through the many grades was laborious and slow and rigidly constrained by rules and precedents, most of which had origins lost long ago in the mists of time. Blake ran through his initial thoughts with his colleague, Brenda, from Nursing. She asked some questions but overall did not raise any major objections to what Blake proposed. She did not think it would be easy to carry through, though. ‘There is an in-built resistance to changing from the familiar to something completely different,’ she observed. ‘It’s not that what we have is perfect – far from it – and everybody knows that the grading system is in need of a radical overhaul. But people will assume that any change will make them worse off.’ ‘I appreciate that Brenda,’ said Blake, ‘But “if it ain’t working we ought to fix it”, and with changes in medical technology accelerating, the current pay system will not cope. Either we change it or we fall behind and lose out to those who do change.’ ‘I completely agree and if you can get it past the Medical Board it will be a step forward. Your regrading structure is appealing and on its merits it would pass without a problem. Unfortunately, there is a problem – it’s called change and people don’t like it. Have you spoken to anybody else, yet?’ ‘Not directly,’ Blake replied. ‘I thought I’d run it past you first and then work my way round some people in other departments. I intend to do just that, unless you advise me to forget the whole idea.’ 7/2
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‘I think most others will agree that something has to be done but I expect they will also caution you about the chances of success. Others have tried to do something – though none along the lines that you are thinking – and they all failed miserably. I wish you luck and I will support your move if asked. Let me know what the Medical Director says.’ With that Brenda scooted off down the corridor and Blake thought about his next move. He wanted to discuss his plan with Douglas and Sean, a couple of surgeons he knew, and also with Clive in Personnel. The Medical Director could wait a little while longer.
Exercise 7.1 Why do you think Blake asks Brenda, Douglas, Sean and Clive about his plan before he takes it to the Medical Director?
DIALOGUE 7.2
Inter and Intra Games Blake’s influencing game is different from Mei’s. Hers required influencing across several people in separate organisations; his is about influencing people in the same organisation, albeit divided by departmental and professional barriers. She starts with relatively firm objectives drawn from her experience of running large-scale development projects. Blake is playing an influencing game that, though it starts with a fairly firm set of objectives, has yet to be tested, refined and amended (perhaps even abandoned if his soundings prove negative). Blake will iterate through the GAME phases, sometimes moving on to the next phase, sometimes backtracking or crossing to earlier phases. For now, though, Blake will sound out his contacts and see how many will become allies. Unlike Mei, he knows most of the people whom he has to influence. His allies are known to him (as are his opponents). Unlike Mei, he is not exploring unknown territory. Blake knows the key players and they know him. He is aware of the problem he has to address and so are many of his colleagues. He is finding out what they think of the plan before he starts influencing to execute it. Blake is working inside the organisation that will make the decision to accept or reject what he proposes. Mei is working from the outside.
Activity 7.1 Is Blake’s game more like one of your influencing projects because it is within the one organisation?
In the game, it could be that something happens that causes the players to pause while the problem is addressed. This may mean going from Executive Influence to the Generate Objectives. Or while trying to Manage Allies, new Influence
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players are identified and the influencer must return to Arrange Access before returning to Managing Allies. Indeed, it may be necessary to Manage allies at several points during a game in order to execute this or that influencing move, and such activities could require new objectives. The influencer has to be clear which phase of the game he or she is in and switch back and forth as the need arises. It is also necessary to be able to work in one phase with particular players and another phase with other players. That is why a common reaction when these requirements are spelled out is that it is all far too complicated! But, if influencing is complicated with GAME to guide you, think how complicated it must be without any structure at all.
7.3
Will it Play? If Blake wants to get his plan implemented, he had better check first that his plan is needed. And the best way to check that out is to consult with those people who share the alleged problem and who are in the best position to know whether or not there is a problem worth rectifying. If it is only a problem to Blake and not to others who are affected by it, then it will never play as an influencing game; the organisation is not going to change just because Blake thinks it has a problem. He may well be right, but others may not be convinced that the problem is sufficiently serious that something has to be done about it – particularly if what Blake wants done is fairly radical. ‘Am I the only person around here who thinks the current remuneration system obstructs necessary changes in our working methods?’, Blake might ask colleagues when he is generating his objectives. If nobody agrees with him that the remuneration system obstructs necessary changes, or they do not think that the obstruction amounts to much and can be dealt with by some simple tinkering, Blake might consider switching his attention to something else. It is easy to become obsessed and to dismiss the disavowals of others as myopic. It is also easy to be discouraged by the apathy of others. Neither reaction is ideal. If your colleagues are slower to appreciate your insights into a problem, this at the very least dictates a cautious approach, which has the side-benefit that you get more time to collect data and to test the robustness of your solution. Influencers need to bring people with them. If the people closest to you cannot be roused by your perception of the problem, it is unlikely that those less disposed to you are going to rush to adopt your solution. Not all ideas survive or deserve to survive their first exposure to the people likely to be affected by them. In the myriad of informal discussions that take place in sidemeetings, over coffee, at the water-cooler, at lunch breaks and while journeying to meetings, as many flashes of insight are articulated as there are solutions to ‘problems’. Some of these are said in jest – those present laugh a little – some are said in anger. Most ideas perish shortly after their birth. Sometimes an idea once expressed is then forgotten, but for at least one person it nags away at the back of the mind, until he or she asks ‘Why not?’ The answer may be revealed the first time you mention the idea: ‘We tried that once and it failed miserably,’ they tell you. That may be enough to kill it for
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good. However, it may start you wondering whether the situations are strictly analogous.
Activity 7.2 Think of the last time you had, or heard of, a solution to a work-related problem that was discounted by colleagues because it had been tried before and found to be wanting. Do you think the old arguments still hold?
This process filters the vast informal flow of ideas and solutions (many of them plain silly or otherwise impractical), leaving the few that may be taken seriously. Ideas that survive the filtering process remain fragile. Remember that, in practice, ideas and solutions to organisational problems are not judged solely on their merits. For a start, some people react to other people’s ideas because it was ‘not invented here’; they are against an idea because they did not think of it first. Moreover, if they are hostile to the person who did invent it, they are doubly opposed on emotional grounds. Their hostility may be based on not much more than that they fear that the originator will reap ‘undeserved’ credit or some other benefit. It makes sense, therefore, to try out your solutions to problems with trustworthy colleagues first. If they respond positively – even offer supportive suggestions – you can enrol them into your alliance to make the change. Ask them whom else should you see? They might make useful suggestions or sponsor introductions to other key players who can influence the outcome. Do not just harvest support and leave it there. If the change is radical, it will take detailed planning to iron out all the defects (and all plans begin with inbuilt defects because you cannot see or anticipate every contingency). Allies can provide useful feedback on the workability of what you propose. Tap into these sources by keeping your allies fully informed of any changes you contemplate to make the plan workable and carefully consider their comments, criticisms and suggestions. Your plan has to become their plan too if your influencing project is to make progress. The opening phase of an influencing game is also fraught with the risks of a ‘takeover’ by other key players who see the initiative as more beneficial to them if they, rather than you, sponsor it. This is a critical moment. Some of these attempted take-overs are benign and necessary to implement the change; others are malign, such as when rivals are only interested in taking over the leadership of the change in order to deny you the credit. Here you have to decide on your own motives. Are you proposing the change solely to enhance your own credibility and prospects, or solely to address the organisation’s problem? Which of these motives is uppermost? They are both legitimate but if the enhancement of your own position is uppermost over the organisation’s problem, you are more likely to resent the intrusion of those bent on a take-over. If the organisation’s problem is uppermost, you are more likely to welcome others into a leading role if it assists the push for the change. Your welcome may still be cautious – you suspect them of opportunism, perhaps – but if their commitment to the change is helpful and necessary, you Influence
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may have to share the credit, and perhaps forgo any of it. The test should be whether their intervention is decisive for the change to be implemented. If it is, the organisation will benefit. At least your closest allies – the people with whom you raised the problem first – will know that you initiated the change and will credit you accordingly, particularly if what you initiated is seen to be picked up and implemented by those more senior than you, who exercise their powers to get things done. Your credibility is enhanced if powerful people respond positively to your influence.
Activity 7.3 Have you endured a take-over of something you initiated and for which subsequently you received no credit? How did you feel? To what extent have you remembered the ‘bad turn’ somebody did to you?
The alternative of monopolising the initiative and, in a fit of pique, repelling boarders who attempt to take it over, could do significant damage to your credibility. It is better, while building your influence in the organisation, to be credited as an initiator of change than to be disparaged as an ‘awkward’ colleague who is too possessive and egotistical to be a team player. Anybody powerful enough to take over your solutions once initiated should have little difficulty squashing your attempts to hang on to them, and privately discrediting you to others. When rivals on the same level as yourself attempt ‘take-overs’, the best way to handle them is to welcome their involvement and then ‘out-GOYA’ them. You become the link between the disparate allies in the organisation who support the change and you energise the process between inception and delivery. Tactically, you delegate and closely monitor the individuals who undertake to deliver. Set ‘SMART’ objectives as criteria when delegating. All delegated tasks should be: • • • • •
Specific Measurable Achievable Realistic Time-bound.
By delegating SMART tasks in this way to people whom you suspect are trying to take over your project, the achievement of SMART standards benefits your initiative – because the job gets done when SMART criteria are used, provided the individuals meet these criteria. That way you also sort out the ‘wheat’ from the ‘chaff’, should individuals fail to deliver what they were delegated to do. Using SMART criteria also tests the motives of those who join the game to take it over. If they shape up and deliver, this helps your game; if they fail to deliver, their bids to usurp your project are easily rebuffed. But beware of paranoia. Most of your early influencing games are unlikely to be about major transformations in an organisation. They are going to be relatively minor projects that opportunistic rivals are unlikely to usurp. Only 7/6
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when the stakes are much higher is there likely to be a serious threat to the paternity of your project and, by then, you will be a much more formidable player than a beginner. Also, by then your allies will probably have formed into a reliable coalition or network, not easily taken over by hostile rivals, because they are used to working with and not against you.
7.4
Who to Access? Blake prepared a Key Player diagram (Exhibit 7.1) placing his key players in an inner circle. They are his initial contacts and he accesses them first (to validate his proposals for changing the working arrangements to expand day surgery) and then, assuming their reactions are favourable, he uses them to gain access to their department heads, or to whomsoever else they identify as the major influences in these functions (placed in the outer circle). Exhibit 7.1
Key players: Blake’s game Blake’s boss Medical director Human resources
Lomas Clive Miriam Blake
Consultant Sean surgeon
Stephanie Brenda
Head of Nursing
Medical records
Head of Laboratories
Barbara Austin Head radiographer
Occupational therapy
Not all titular heads are the most influential person in their function. The second-in-command, for example, or similar senior personage, may exercise more influence on the function’s decisions by virtue of the lethargy of the boss, his or her impending retirement or newness, the deputy’s closer contacts with other major influences in the organisation, or some other circumstance not captured by a formal organisational chart.
Activity 7.4 Have you worked in a section in which the titular head was not the person who ran the function? Do you know of other functions where assistants or deputies know more of what is going on than their boss?
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People who control access to important and influential people exert influence belied by their formal rankings. The Chief of Staff of the US President exercises greater power than the Vice-President or Secretaries of State if he or she controls access to the President. So does the President’s private secretary, if the President’s appointments’ diary is controlled from the desk just outside the Oval Office. Blake relies on his contacts and allies to inform him of the subtle but real influential powers of the top-level decision makers. Sometimes an approach through a third person is the best way to gain access and exert influence. If that third person is a highly regarded adviser to the target (i.e., highly regarded by the target and not necessarily by onlookers) it is essential that the initial approach is directed at the adviser. Attempts to circumvent key people are usually futile and may be misunderstood by them as an attempt to demean their role. Antagonising such people with shabby manoeuvres to circumvent them is foolhardy – they might decide to demonstrate to you their indispensability. The concentric circles diagram is an adaptation of the Key Players doodle (which in passing illustrates the versatility of doodles – I used a version of Tony Buzan’s ‘Mind Map’ to achieve something similar in a recent highly complex influencing game). Visually, Exhibit 7.1 maps the links between the influencing targets in relation to each other and is much more relevant than the official organigram. Blake must cover the players in the inner circle before moving on to the players in the outer circle. A highlight pen is useful here to show who has been contacted and to whom these contacts have led. It is important that influencing contacts lead to other relevant decision makers (in Blake’s case, from senior managers to the Hospital’s directors). At his meetings with the people in the inner circle, Blake has a purpose – to make progress and not just to have conversations. He uses the information he collects to complete Force Field diagrams (being simple to produce, they can be redrawn at will to reflect changes in the Force Fields), to identify changes in the players for and against his proposal, changes in the arguments they use to support their initial stances, and changes in the circumstances that affect the outcome. Blake gleaned important information from Brenda about the tendency of people to resist change. He must decide how important that resistance is likely to be and how deep are its roots among those affected by the changes he proposes. He will have to address such issues if he is to weaken them and to do this he should be thinking about how to counter such resistance if it is a major element in the situation. Exhibit 7.2 is an extract from the Force Field diagram that Blake drew after his meeting with Brenda. He recognises that the fear of change is an important argument against making radical changes, and this alone warrants its inclusion. Blake correctly recognised that such fears also provide an opportunity for those who oppose the changes, for whatever other reasons, to whip up greater resistance – and, crucially, to weaken the commitments of those pushing for change – which he has to confront carefully if he is to make progress. It is no use Blake dismissing these fears as ‘groundless’, ‘emotional’ or ‘na¨ıve’ (although they may be all of these). Too cavalier a reaction by Blake only plays 7/8
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Exhibit 7.2
Blake’s Force Field diagram (extract)
Forces Against
Arguments
Priority
Fear of change Effect on jobs
High Medium
Better off More Pay
High
Current situation: Forces For
into the hands of those set on making mischief. In this case Blake must carefully consider the arguments used or likely to be used against the change, uncover what is behind them, and treat them with respect. The proponents of a change in the status quo should always remember that it is incumbent on them to make the case positively and bring people with them. Nothing exacerbates opposition more quickly than perceived attempts to ram something through without taking proper account of people’s sensitivities.
Activity 7.5 Think of a situation in which there was a controversial proposal under discussion. Which arguments had the greatest effect on you: (a) those that cast doubts about whether the change would work or could be afforded; or (b) those that incorporated an outright denunciation of the proposal and of the people supporting it? Recall the details of your examples.
When trying to change minds and arguments, influencers should consider the implications of Exhibit 7.3, which represents how a group might divide for or against a proposition. The thick sloping line shows the position when about half the people affected are in favour and half are against a proposition. Distances above the neutral horizontal line indicate the strength of support or opposition. The point S above the line indicates those people who are very strongly in favour of the change and the corresponding point, R, below the line on the extreme right indicates those who are very strongly against the change. Most people have less strong views for or against the changes and those closest to the horizontal line (N) are more or less neutral.
Activity 7.6 In your experience, have you found that people have varying degrees of support for, or hostility to, almost any proposition? Recall the details of your examples.
To illustrate the dynamics behind Exhibit 7.3, suppose for illustrative purposes that Exhibit 7.4 correctly identifies the spread of support and opposition to Influence
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Exhibit 7.3
Strongly for S
Neutral N
R Strongly against
Blake’s proposals for day surgery. Now, whatever the situation among the group of managers and employees in the hospital when Blake commences his project, he does not want to drive people into opposition. He wants to pull people into support, which in Exhibit 7.4 is equivalent to raising the initial thick line (SR) towards the thinner line above it (S*R*). Exhibit 7.4
Strongly for S* S
N*
Neutral
N R*
R Strongly against
Note that this line has most of its length above the neutral line (N has moved to N*), which suggests that the majority of people are now in favour of the change, which is good news for Blake. Only a small rump of them (close to the right-hand extreme) remain opposed – some strongly, others lukewarmly, and a 7/10
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few who are neutral. One thing Blake must be careful to do in this situation is not to provoke this small minority into recruiting new adherents from those who support the change at present (they are presently above the line, shown as from S* to N*). And this again underlines the need to take seriously the doubts, fears and concerns of people who do not want the changes with the same enthusiasm as you and your allies.
Exercise 7.2 To test your understanding of the diagram in Exhibit 7.4, where would the thick line move to if Blake inadvertently drove more people into opposition? Draw on the diagram where you think the new line might be located.
7.5
Winning Allies You win allies by arguing convincingly for change and by weakening the arguments against it. Crucially, though, you do not have to dislodge everybody from opposition (especially those most strongly opposed) but you must do enough to marginalise intractable opponents by winning over those who are only lukewarmly opposed. And this is where the mobilisation of your allies is so important. If you remain the lone fighter for change, you rely on miracles to win your case. It is much better if others – many others – make the case for change to those who doubt that a change is needed or practicable. Consensus generates its own momentum. Those who are only marginally opposed are susceptible to hearing regular expressions of support for the change and hearing doubts about the case against from those whom they respect. Lukewarm opponents are a key target group (though people often make the elementary mistake of concentrating their fire – and their bile! – on those who are prominent in the opposition and by treating mild expressions of opposition as if they were tantamount to treason). Your allies are not immune to swings away from a proposed change or occasional doubts about it when they are left without regular and enthusiastic infusions of the arguments for change from the influencer and his or her allies.
Activity 7.7 Think of a powerful argument that was made against a position you hold and the effect on your commitment if you did not hear a counter-argument or rebuttal relatively quickly. Did you sustain your support for your position, modify it or change sides?
The battle for the ‘hearts and minds’ of those affected by the change and of those who make decisions to implement the change is not well served by a ‘fire and forget’ approach. Doubts grow, advocates waver and allies make excuses, unless the influencer keeps the momentum going by reinforcing the arguments for the change. This is why one of the most commonly used and successful Influence
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blocking strategies against change is to slow down the commitment process by calling for more studies, reassessments, pilot trials, surveys of practices elsewhere, consultations of all interested parties, invitations to prominent critics to ensure ‘balance’, ‘full and proper costing of the implications’, and other plausible devices.
Activity 7.8 Have you participated in one of these devices? Have you used one for the purpose of blocking a change? Recall the details of your examples.
This is not just a test of the arguments for the change; it is also a test of endurance of its proponents. Of course, every delaying tactic can be countered by appealing to the same cautious inclinations of reasonable people. Where the radicalism of the change inhibits its adoption by the cautious, a ‘salami’ strategy is a viable means of winning over cautious managers by exposing them to demonstrations ‘a slice at a time’. Trials, pilot schemes, observations of experimental projects and such like can build the alliance necessary to gain approval for the full version of change – assuming that these salami activities prove successful. People who oppose something usually find fault with the details. The devil, it has been said, is in the detail, and a dismissive lament along the lines of ‘Great in theory, BUT . . .’ has broken the momentum of more than one proposed change. Therefore, it is absolutely essential that you respond effectively (and politely) to all objections. It is not prudent to dismiss the persons who raise detailed objections (even if you feel you have excellent grounds for exposing their foibles). It is the effect on the people who could be influenced by the objection and not your assessment of the objection’s (or the objector’s) merits that counts. Unanswered ‘flaws’ fester. They corrode your influence. Again, it is necessary to GOYA and to answer them. If the objections have substance, be thankful you found out before they found you out. And do not forget to ‘thank’ the people who brought the problem to your attention, because there is nothing like acknowledgement for making opponents into ‘allies’.
7.6
Influencing for Results One way of looking at your organisation is to segment the people in it into categories, starting with those you know and ending with those you do not. Roughly the growth in the details of this segmentation corresponds to the time when you joined the organisation to where you are now (unless this is your first day in post, in which case everybody practically is in a single category: you don’t know them). On your first day, you knew nobody and, as a stranger, it took time to get to know the people whom you would have to deal with to do your job. If you have been in post for some time, you will know a lot of people from your interactions with (and in some cases, possibly, against) them.
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From your first day, what is going on and who does what is a bewildering jumble. You are unlikely to feel involved because you are too new to be of much operational use. Such introductions to people as you receive are not likely to mean much or be memorable, though you are likely to search for clues to what is going on visibly around you (unless – as I was once – you are left all day with nothing to do and no contact with anybody at all, in a closed room with no windows; they had ‘forgotten’ I was there!). So on your first day the chain of people you know will be confined to a few strange faces. Gradually, as you are brought into the organisation’s work, you will meet more and more people and the number of people you know will grow. From what you have discovered about influencing so far, you may regret some of the things you did or how you reacted to some of the things done to you in your earlier days. You may have failed to build relationships with people whom you have discovered since are central to the completion of tasks that are important to you. It is time to take stock, perhaps conduct an influencing audit of your relationships; make no mistake, the state of your influencing potential determines your work-related performance. Influence or be influenced. Use your time and energy to meet your goals, or have your time and energy, unwittingly perhaps, used to meet somebody else’s. You are a player or a pawn and, while the latter can be quite comfortable (ignorance can be bliss), it leaves you performing well below your potential. Although thinking through the number of people you now know helps you to take stock, you will benefit from another simple diagram. I will introduce it using a linear presentation corresponding to how you would explore an organisation if you were consciously auditing your influence within it. The organisation that you join first is usually set out in neatly drawn charts showing managerial and departmental titles. What these all mean may be shrouded in mystery at first. ‘Functionaries’ are the people who make things happen according to their titles. The accountant accounts, sales staff sell, buyers buy, producers fabricate and so on. If you want something done, functionaries do it. Normally, you do not go to the secretarial service to arrange transport for your warehouse, or to the buying department to send sales staff to an exhibition. Knowing who does what – initially, who is supposed to carry out the functions you seek – is the first step in building your influence. The second step is to identify those whom you hope or expect to act with you in a manner that is more than that of a functionary charged to complete the tasks you need to do your job. These are people with whom you have established friendly relations, ranging from the normal ‘banter’ between the people you know, greet, gossip with and ‘kid’, to those with whom you have progressed through the varying steps in relationship building (see Module 4). These people are your potential allies, towards whom you are broadly empathetic and they are to you. The last step is to identify the people who are allies for your project. When they exert influence on your behalf they make things happen. They are a Influence
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strategic group of players for an influencer. For you they are a valuable and scarce resource. Exhibit 7.5 illustrates the people you know in your organisation, roughly in the order in which you will meet and identify them. Exhibit 7.5
People you know in your organisation
Functionaries
Potential allies
Allies
In equilibrium, the relationships between these three groups is shown in Exhibit 7.6. The functionaries, who consist of everybody in the organisation and therefore the largest group, occupy the largest circle. Exhibit 7.6
Equilibrium status
Functionaries
Potential allies
Allies
Two smaller circles are shown, one marked potential allies and other allies. It is presumed that you will have many more potential allies than allies, if only because many people with whom you have friendly contact will be in no position to give you direct help in particular influencing games. For example, you may have some potential allies in the mailroom – valid in itself, perhaps, but they are not able to help you in a budgeting game with senior players who are much further up the power scale. The allies you need in such a game will generally be a smaller group than all of your potential allies. The two circles that overlap in Exhibit 7.6 represent the situation in an influencing game in which some of your allies are drawn from people outside your pool of potential allies. The head of the mailroom could be a player in your game (an ally) and some of her staff could be among your potential allies, but they might not be players, let alone allies, in the game. Obviously, developing 7/14
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someone as an ally who is a functionary of whom you know nothing is much more difficult in the short run than bringing a potential ally into play. Hence, the broad rule that should drive your relationship-building activities is that you should keep in touch with potential allies throughout the organisation and build these relationships into allies. Allies come from potential allies among the functionaries. Now, all functionaries are decision makers if they hold control of a budget or other resource strings or information, etc., and they are relevant if you need such resources etc. to make your decisions.
Activity 7.9 Note three or four people you know in your organisation from each category – functionaries, potential allies and allies.
7.7
Imperatives If you intend to achieve an objective, there are certain imperatives that must be met if you are to meet your objective. An imperative can be political – adopt a policy, win an election, or secure a nomination. It can be commercial – reduce labour costs, enlarge market share or raise prices. It can be related to people – recruit programmers, retrain electricians or change supervision. Imperatives must be achieved, like tactical objectives in a military campaign, if the strategic objective is to be achieved. For example, if you intend to raise profitability in your unit, it may be imperative that you reduce reworking, you trim costs, you make your people more productive, you get them on-side and working together, and so on. Each of these imperatives, if met, delivers your objective; if each of them is not met, you will not reach your objective. Identifying, therefore, the four or five imperatives in each project that will deliver your objectives is crucial to planning. Use the Key Players diagram to identify the functionaries who are essential in order to meet the imperatives that will deliver your objective – who (and this must be personal) among the functionaries can deliver each and every imperative.
Exercise 7.3 How will you know specifically that the imperatives are met?
If you are trying to reorganise distribution and you need the co-operation in the job functions of, say, the merchandising manager and her team to provide information that only they can provide, your acquisition of that specific information within a time period is an imperative: no information, no reorganisation. Once an imperative is delayed, the objective is delayed – and, conversely, if it is not delayed, it is not an imperative. If the imperative is fudged, the objective is compromised. Influence
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Your objective may be a major or a minor change. In all but the most trivial of cases, you should prepare a Force Field diagram of the players, the arguments and the events that are relevant to each imperative and to the overall objective. In the players’ column, identify each one by name. Just putting in the name of a department, without inserting the names of the players, advertises the gaps in your preparation. Fabricated steelwork is not delivered to a site by ‘transport’; it is delivered by supervised drivers, loaders and truck maintenance and repair people, who have names and locations (yes, you will probably have to GOYA!). Along with the names of relevant functionaries, rank them as potential allies and allies. You could try coloured highlight pens to aid rapid visualisation: say, blue for potential allies; green for allies and red for the rest, including where you have functions but not names in the diagram. A sea of red suggests that you have some way to go before you are ready to exert influence. One useful device to develop from the Force Field diagram is shown in Exhibit 7.7. This helps to survey the state of your relationships with the players you have identified as essential to achieve the tactical imperatives and provides a simple programme of contact work with each player. There will, for instance, be key players whom you do not yet know to any degree – they are in the set of functionaries, i.e., employees in the organisation whom you need for the project – but everybody has the potential to become an ally. Exhibit 7.7
An influencing agenda for potential allies
Identify potential ally Analyse ally’s world Assess your resources relevant to ally’s world Diagnose your relationship with ally Select influencing approach Implement and monitor your approach
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Some functionaries may be in the set of players with whom you have, to put it mildly, tense relationships. They stand in an antagonistic or unsympathetic posture towards you, either because of events or your carelessness in the past. They might be rivals, or people who see you as some sort of threat to them or their function. You may have aligned yourself previously to others towards whom they are antagonistic (organisations are not always paragons of ‘sweetness and light’ and some are riven with dissent).
Activity 7.10 How would you describe your organisation? One big happy family? Occasional dissent? Riven with strife?
You ought to adopt a strategy that will bring antagonists on side, even if only temporarily, though hopefully permanently. You might also reflect on the costs of carelessly (or worse, gratuitously) antagonising colleagues. Some antagonism towards you is inevitable. If, however, you tread so carefully that you never upset anybody, you will be too submissive to have any effect. On some issues you must take sides; on others you must not. Neutrality is not dishonourable. Nor is a comforting word to prominent losers. To bring people into play as allies requires your understanding of how they see their world. You should analyse their world and how they see it and assess what resources you have that can assuage their concerns about how the changes you are proposing will affect them – in their terms, not yours.
Activity 7.11 Think of the function with which you have the most ‘trouble’. Now rehearse how they see your role in theirs. If it is not easy, run over their complaints about your function’s role, or their ‘excuses’ for not meeting your expectations.
Many of the relationship-building techniques discussed in Module 4 are relevant here, though it is to be hoped that you have had these techniques in play for some time prior to the moment when you need allies (including those with whom you have a good relationship). Influencers who only appear when they want something are as cynically received by allies and potential allies as politicians who only visit when there is an election coming up. It may be that certain individuals are as resolutely opposed to you as they can be and no amount of effort on your part alters their disposition. The best you can hope for is their neutrality; more likely you will have to go ‘head-tohead’ with them if they actively campaign against your proposals or undermine their implementation. This is unfortunate and it can be made worse if relations between yourself and those who oppose you deteriorate to the point that they affect the effectiveness of the organisation. Such situations happen and can result in drastic action by the CEO against both of you. The one thing you can do of a preventive nature is not to personalise a dispute. Once a functional clash is personalised, it spirals out of control. Influence
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Activity 7.12 Be candid: is there anyone in your organisation whom you cannot stand?
If tempted to personalise a dispute, or when watching one developing between others, I recollect the ultimate personalisation of a dispute, namely that between the Argentinian navy and its air force some years back. Briefly, the navy acquired an aircraft carrier but the air force insisted on the planes remaining under its control. The navy argued that planes on an aircraft carrier belonged to the navy. The dispute got so bad that, in an ultimate outburst of personal antipathy (or less politely: ‘madness’), the air force ended up trying to bomb the aircraft carrier! So, think ‘Argentinian aircraft carrier’ before you enter into a personality clash. Otherwise, you might be ‘bombed’ by your own boss. You need allies to get the job done. Begin, therefore, to cultivate potential allies long before you need them as allies. If they are needed for specific projects, identify who they might be, how they see their world (not yours), and what you can do yourself, and through third parties, to develop your relationships (think ‘wallowing’). The very qualities in players that draw you to them are usually what draw them to you. Expand your potential allies across the organisation and at all levels. Help them where you can and seek opportunities to demonstrate your benign intentions (avoid, if you can, instances where a malign interpretation of your behaviour and intentions is possible). Listen sympathetically to their accounts of their ‘adversities’ and joyously celebrate accounts of their ‘triumphs’. And do not put a verbal gloss on what you hear from them to third parties. Joe was not ‘moaning again’ – he was ‘disappointed’; George was not ‘smirking’ – he was ‘happy’. The language you use about others, when you think it is safe to be frank, damages you if your third party ‘confidant’ spreads it about as confirmation of his own prejudiced opinions and it gets back to your (‘ex-’) ally.
7.8
The Grid Identifying people to assist you in an influencing project and hoping they will contribute in the manner you require is best not left to casual interactions. If you do not think about what you need done, and who is best suited by circumstances and inclination to do it, you will probably end up force-fitting whoever is in a ‘safe’ circle of friendly faces into roles for which they are not suited. The Key Players diagram contains the names of the people whom you need to influence to complete your project and not a list of friends of varying quality who might at a pinch substitute for people qualified to do the job. You are not forming an ad hoc team from scratch to do an unusual job, like robbing a bank or building the first atom bomb; you are mobilising people in situ to do something that you prefer them to do and that is legitimately within their discretion, instead of doing something different for somebody else. You start, therefore, with the people in post. If the people in post cannot do what is required, you may be tempted to assemble a new team and circumvent the people in post, but then you have to influence the people who can authorise
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the formation of a new team to do what the present team cannot do. This is an altogether more difficult influencing task and one fraught with career-breaking dangers. These initiatives usually result in a resort to new teams that are often called ‘special projects’ teams.
Activity 7.13 Have you ever been a member of a ‘special projects’ team? Did you get back into the mainstream?
Many a member of a ‘special projects’ team has disappeared into organisational limbo, along with the special project and the people behind it. Once you leave your functional role in an organisation, it is difficult to get back. Your rivals know this and they will probably encourage you to sideline yourself in this manner. Hence, beware of people who tell you that a ‘special project’ is ‘good for your career’ or your ‘development’ or your ‘experience’. And watch out for being shuffled into a ‘working party’, especially of the interdepartmental kind, as these usually are the organisational version of the funeral procession for inconvenient ideas. One way to keep your feet on the ground, is to use a Grid diagram like that shown in Exhibit 7.8. It consists of six columns, each one headed by the tasks set out in Exhibit 7.7. The grid enables you to keep track of where you stand in regard to each player that you identified in your Key Players Diagram. The number of entries can be as long as the number of known key players, and as new players become known, they can be entered into new rows on the same grid, or a new grid that is drawn in moments (or you could have a standard layout preset on your PC so as to print off copies as you need them). Exhibit 7.8
Identify
Influence
Edinburgh Business School
The Key Players Grid
Analyse
Assess
Diagnose
Select
Implement
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In column one you enter the names of the key players, some of whom you will know, and you mark these as one of ‘F’ for functionary, ‘PA’ for potential ally or ‘A’ for ally. If all the entries are marked ‘F’, you have a lot of work to do; if they are marked as ‘A’, your project has a good start and is probably well under way, though never take anything or anyone for granted. Allies have to be looked after, because neglect is a powerful signal to them of the shallowness of your attitudes towards your relationships. Most likely, there will be a combination of ‘F’, ‘PA’ and ‘A’ in the Identity column. For each player you need to analyse, as best as you can from what information you have, how they see their world. For the functionaries, of whom you know little or nothing directly, you may have to rely on information about them from allies who know them, always treating, of course, the opinions of other people – even allies – cautiously. Your own assessments have higher value, providing they are candid. Those you identify as potential allies will be people with whom you have had some contact. In time, functionaries should be redesignated as potential allies and some (all?) of the potential allies are likely to be redesignated as allies. Each player is moved through the same sequence on the grid. How do they see their world and their role in it? Do they regard themselves as the linchpin of the entire organisation? Are they in charge of the final barrier to the organisation collapsing? Must they be involved, if only to keep an eye on things? Are they leaders-in-waiting or happy to go with the flow? Do they see their role to defend the boundaries of their function from the incursions of the ‘jealous’, the ‘petty-minded’ and the ‘madmen’ in other functions, whose schemes threaten the organisation (I am quoting from a Key Players Grid, completed by a manager who formed distinct – disturbing? – conclusions about one of his colleagues!). In my experience, you find in any group of managers larger than six a wide range of views of the world and their places in it. Some want a quiet life; others prefer to remain in the state of whatever equilibrium they are in at the moment; others want to expand their activities; some want to preserve a self-image of their own importance; still others are out to get others into trouble (for past sins or omissions, or from the fear of future vulnerabilities). Sometimes, a player’s world does not have you, and whatever you are trying to do, in it at all and intruding on their attention span irritates or offends them. Whatever their views, try to cast it in a single sentence or with some bullet points. If they are players, whatever the state of their view of their world, you need to get to grips with it if you are going to progress your project. Whatever drives them – however ‘weird’ they are – will affect what you are trying to do if they act against you. That is why, in assessing your resources relevant to their world, it is important that you think carefully about how you can help them, or how you can persuade them to make an exception in your case if they perceive you as a threat of the kind that bothers them, given their view of the world, or how you might induce them to feel obliged to help you on the basis of the reciprocation principle. It need not be all bad news from this exercise. The Grid helps to think about how you act and react as the players come into your game. Players may have a 7/20
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positive view of what you are doing and how it affects their world. Their views of the world and their role in it may perceive you to be sympathetic, on their side and worthy of encouragement. Their views could be ‘golden’ because they are totally aligned with yours. Assessing your resources relative to their needs, you could find yourself with an abundance of options to bring them into your game and to keep them there to its successful conclusion. Your resources, remember, include the intangible good turns you can do – and the bad turns you must avoid – for the key players. If they have fears, comfort and assure them; if they have ambitions, support and encourage them. How are your relationships with all the key players? Frank diagnosis is called for in the Diagnose column. With functionaries, your relationships are nonexistent and you ought to have plenty to think about in completing this column. Be careful, though, that you do not project backwards your hopes of being able to write good things about your relationships. Desperate to diagnose a good relationship, you might delude yourself into dubious behaviour. There is no point in misleading players by telling them what they want to hear without regard to the truth. This dictum does not just apply to the truth about your intentions, which should anyway be robust in an interrogation by any of the players; it also applies to factors such as the amount of time and actual work that the project will commit players and participants to undertake should it go ahead with their support. Frankness is also required in such matters about who supports the project, who is lukewarm and who opposes it. Fudging the level of support is tantamount to gaining support by false pretences, and when you are found out – as you will be – your credibility will slide. As in other relationships, candour is the best policy. Minimising the extent of opposition to your proposal is dishonest and might be self-defeating. Some people will work harder for something that is opposed than for something that appears, according to you, to be an easy ride. The state of your relationship with players tends to depend on how recent your last contact was with them. Life moves on, and long periods of neglect of your allies can change a strong relationship into indifference. (Cast your mind back to those of your courting experiences that withered from lack of contact.) People become allies because they share experiences, including social contacts, with you. They want to be involved and to feel part of the ‘team’ that helps each other, that passes on information and news about anything that affects them, and that renews the regard each has for the others through regular contact. The penultimate and vital step is to select the appropriate behavioural tactics that will influence each player or group of players. Individually note these against each name in this column. If you leave gaps, you leave weaknesses in your influencing plan. Are you going to persuade people by presenting the proposals demonstrably amended or adjusted to take account of the discussions you have had with the players, removing those aspects that ‘harm’, in some way, the interests of players while incorporating those aspects that ‘benefit’ them? Have you incorporated suggestions and advice of the efficacy of this or that proposal? Have you provided adequate visibility in the proposed method of implementation for those allies and others who desire it? Have you offered or delivered to individuals Influence
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quid pro quo side deals, both explicit and implicit? What manifest benefits are you highlighting – in some cases, offering – to the players? Some influencing projects have prospered by the proverbial ‘walk-in-thewoods’, where two key players have a serious ‘heart-to-heart’ discussion, alone and in private, where they seal a compact that enables a project to go through without a player’s opposition in return for some future benefits from the grateful influencer. Such events are less rare than supposed. The belief in their rarity is widespread, of course, because of their confidentiality and lack of visibility. Once you have decided on how you are going to bring the players into play, it remains to implement what you have decided. This will require a large amount of GOYA, and some GOTT. Near the date or time of relevant meetings you should get in touch with your allies and check to make sure they are minded to attend, and to make ad hoc arrangements to solve any logistical or other problems in their way. An extract from the Grid, which represents what was completed by Blake, is shown in Exhibit 7.9. It has gaps and a few ambiguities. But remember that the Grid is a working document and not an exhibit (keep your Grids secure!). It is an organiser and not a decoration. Every entry is reduced to a single word purely for illustration. The exact details would require a much longer briefing of the case. Exhibit 7.9
Blake’s Key Players Grid
Identify
Analyse
Assess
Diagnose
Select
Lomas PA
timid
Barbara PA
defensive
no threat
Sean
A
ambitious
supportive
strong
interests
Clive
A
ambitious
supportive
moderate
interests
Miriam PA
Implement
done
innovative
Stephanie A wants change
provide
Brenda
A
antibureaucratic
empathy
very strong
opportunity
Austin
F
timid
assurance
weak
favours
Persuasion involves many skills as varied as the relationships between the people. Some people are easily persuaded and change their minds according to who has most recently spoken to them. Others are easily persuaded by certain individuals and stubbornly resist being persuaded by anybody else. For the 7/22
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bulk of people, their susceptibility to persuasion depends on the circumstances. In the absence of a magic formula to ensure that persuasion is effective, some general advice is relevant here. Influencing attempts can involve a proposal that is judged entirely on its own or in competition with other proposals. Of course, putting forward a proposal that does not have directly competing proposals creates its own competition in the form of the case against itself: the decision makers may veto it at the instigation of its opponents, who may have no ready alternative, except ‘don’t let’s do it’. This is akin to the situation that a sales person is in when attempting to sell something to a potential customer. There are some well practised persuasion techniques commonly used in selling that have applicability in influencing, and I will run through them briefly. Persuading people to buy a product with various attributes and features that allegedly meet the needs of the customer is different in many ways from influencing people to adopt a proposal; but one thing they do have in common is that people make considered decisions in major purchases or significant policy changes according to criteria. The criteria form the basis of support or opposition to accepting the influencing attempt or making the purchase. A rational individual, according to rational decision theory, will go through a process that can be summarised as: awareness of a problem; search for a solution; and selection of a solution according to criteria. At each stage in the process the individual may abort continuing. The problem may not be as pressing as others of which the individual is also aware – realising you have no sugar in your tea may not require continuing to search for sugar if simultaneously the house catches fire. At any one moment various problems vie for attention. Having searched for a solution there may either be none that is viable or so many that the individual stops searching under information overload – a problem every shopper faces in a mobile phone store. Lastly, selecting one solution that best fits the chosen criteria may become impossible if some part of the criteria cannot be met by any available solution. If the product must operate perfectly in all respects and in all environments for ever, it may be impossible to guarantee that criterion. When approaching individuals with a proposal, the criteria by which they make their decision should be of great interest to an influencer. For one thing, in the absence of persuasion to the contrary, they will make their decision on the basis of their criteria against which your proposal may be found wanting. Not knowing by what criteria they will make their decision is, to say the least, risky. Also, finding out their criteria and dismissing it, overriding their objections, and disparaging their worth or relevance usually leaves them more firmly attached to their criteria – and unpersuaded. What you regard as important and what others regard as important may be different. You may have thought through every aspect of your proposal and you may have carefully evaluated every alternative that you can think of to arrive at the particular set of solutions contained in your proposal. Your listeners may not have thought much about it at all, though they may well have adopted criteria by which they will judge your proposal. Existing criteria may be the result of long-established company policy; they may be due to technical prejudice; they Influence
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may be socially or politically biased; or they may conform to an individual’s idiosyncrasies. However irrational, irrelevant or incredible their criteria, they stand in the way of your persuasion. Why you should believe that the merest exposition of your proposal should be enough to overwhelm all their doubts, prejudices and criteria is a problem only you can resolve. By whatever criteria they will rely on to make their decision, it is likely to be prioritised from highly important criteria that must be met, through a range, to criteria of low importance. So you not only need to know by what criteria they will be influenced for or against your proposal, but also in what order of priority they will assess it. Is it more important to some of them that disruption in services is minimised, or that costs are contained below £200 000, or that differentials are reduced, or that local environmentalists are not provoked, or whatever? The reason for understanding their criteria and priorities is that persuasion is more difficult when their criteria and priorities do not match yours. Wonderful if they do match, of course, but unlikely. As an influencer, your task is to bring into alignment your criteria with theirs, by influencing the priorities by which they use their criteria to judge your proposal. To do this, your initial approach to a player would consist of generating awareness of the problem to which your proposal, to be revealed later, is addressed. This is much like the circumstances in which you would use the technique of wallowing, except that you are not just aimlessly wallowing but are encouraging wallowing for effect. In discussing the problem, it is inevitable that hints of the criteria to which a solution must conform, will surface: ‘This must be dealt with quickly’; ‘It can wait unless it is of low cost’; ‘We must avoid a precedent’; ‘We cannot embark on yet more change and reform so soon after the last round’, and such like. Your problem may be that your proposal involves one or more of the inhibitory criteria that surface. Whatever else you do, do not attack any of the criteria you hear: ‘Speed is less important than getting it right’; ‘It cannot wait, whatever the cost’; ‘Damn precedents’; and ‘Change is necessary now’. Much better – mandatory, even – that you ask questions to finesse out more details of your listener’s apparent decision criteria: ‘How would we do it quickly?’; ‘What would be an acceptable cost?’; ‘How do we avoid precedents?’; ‘What problems did the last round cause?’ Your basic thrust is to use questions to return their focus to the problem and the need for a solution rather than reinforce their focus on the problems of the solution. If you do hear them mention a criterion that your solution does indeed meet, you will want to strengthen the importance of that criterion (not your solution) before you leave them: ‘I agree, I think it is necessary that we find a way to motivate our agents without conceding exclusive territories’ (you do not need to mention how your proposal will do that). In your absence they will talk to colleagues about the problem and it is better that they highlight criteria which your proposal addresses than that they list criteria that it does not. In the many conversations that ensue between the people you have met, your solution will benefit from the reinforcement of compatible criteria becoming widely accepted that your solution meets. 7/24
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Decision criteria, necessarily prioritised, compete for prominence. Provided that you have not reinforced criteria that they have initially regarded as important by attacking them, it remains possible that their initially important criteria can be dislodged by upgrading the importance of less important criteria, to which they are not yet attached, or, by introducing other criteria that they have not thought about but for which your proposal has strengths. ‘Have you thought about who might lead this task force?’ ‘Not really. Any competent technician could do so.’ ‘Would a technician-grade employee have the clout to pull in resources from all these departments?’ ‘Probably not. Perhaps we have to find someone who is senior and brash enough to stand up to some of our hard-nosed departmental heads. But a technical background is essential. Anybody in mind?’ ‘Not yet, but we agree that a task force is required; it must be led with determination and the person must be technically literate.’ What was an inconsequential issue to the potential ally is now higher up the attention scale. What of those criteria that are highly important to the potential ally but that do not feature strongly in the influencer’s proposal? Because important decision criteria are not easily changed by influencers, some special persuasion techniques are needed. These are known as ‘reframing’ and ‘levering’. ‘Reframing’ is well known in counselling. If individuals have a fixed view of something that affects them – from trivial to profound – it is not effective to go head-to-head with them over its importance. The classic case from neurolinguistic programming was that of the tidy mother who caused herself and her family a lot of stress from her obsession with keeping rooms tidy. She became ill. When she was asked to consider that a perfectly tidy room with no foot marks on the perfectly tidy carpet would mean that her untidy children were no longer living with her and leaving foot marks, she came out of her obsession. The insoluble problem – untidiness – was reframed into the solvable problem of no longer having the children she loved in the house. Another example is the proverbial half-empty or half-full glass. You can practise reframing and quickly get the hang of it. I once quoted a client’s price for doing a side-deal in a share transaction, which the buyer considered outrageous: ‘He wants £1 million for getting the board to vote to sell? You have to be joking!’ I replied: ‘Don’t think of it as £1 million; think of it as a cheap price for you to acquire a business worth £650 million without the greater expense of a hostile bid.’ How can you reframe your proposal to meet the sensitive criteria of potential allies? A consultancy cost of £230 000 sounds horrendous until you reframe it as a day-rate charge of £143 per head; bribery is illegal and unethical so reframe it as a ‘commission’; outsourcing raises hackles until reframed as higher profits; and, in that classic example of reframing in a ‘B’ movie film script, when the US marine queried the sergeant’s orders: ‘Retreat?’ ‘Retreat hell. We’re just advancing in the other direction!’ ‘Levering’ is more difficult because you want to lever the criteria that you can meet into a higher priority than the criteria you cannot meet. You are helped Influence
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to some extent by not directly comparing the criteria. You lever yours without reference to theirs. ‘Apart from the cost, how important is reliability?’ ‘Vital.’ ‘Why is it vital?’ ‘Because these chips must reach California for design checks on time every time.’ ‘What happens if they do not?’ ‘It could put our chip production programme out by days and at $56 a chip that is a lot of dollars – about $1.2 million in fact.’ ‘At that cost, I think reliability must be a very important consideration for you, then.’ The influencer has levered reliability (which his courier company excels in) as a criterion close to, if not above, price (on which his company is weaker than rivals).
7.9
Content of the Influence Messages So far I have said much about what to do in an influence campaign but hardly anything about the content of the influencing messages. Partly, this is because the messages will vary as widely as the influencing campaigns underway at any one moment and it would be tiresome to address every variation and circumstance you could come across. Another reason is that mixing messages with method can be confusing. By now though, you have a good grounding in method and it is time to say something about content. Content is, of course, the essential ingredient that makes your influencing activities operational. Drawing a Key Players Diagram is the first step; deciding what messages you are going to impart to the people named on it is the second. Likewise, no Force Field diagram has any operational value devoid of content: to what exactly are the People in favour of or to what are they opposed to?; what are the contents of the Arguments to which they favour or oppose?; and what precisely is the nature of the Events that may help or hinder the resolution of the influence campaign? On the Player’s Grid exactly what policies are you intending to Implement from the last column? Having said that, we are still left with the same problem that has inhibited discussion of content in previous Modules, namely the vast possibilities for various contents even in similar contexts. Hence, once again, I am compelled to confine our discussions to a relatively tool-based format – how you develop the influencing content rather than provide a ‘Content Manager’s Manual’ – with the exceptions of the topics I have chosen to illustrate examples of the methods used to develop the content of your influencing GAME. We influence for a purpose; there is some end in view which we wish to influence for or against (just as in negotiation there is some end in view for which we negotiate for or against). It is never a simple matter of stating the alternatives and asking, or leaving it to, the people in the GAME to choose. We wish to influence their choice and, frankly, simply laying out the alternatives
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and then stepping back and leaving them to choose is pretty useless. Mostly, people do not choose in that manner because they are seldom left alone to make their own mind up. The issues before them at any moment may not get their full attention and they may have many other issues to be decided in front of the ones we proffer for their consideration. As soon as we step back or terminate the call, their mind goes back to the issues further up their agenda and they put aside our alternative choices. We already know that while the papers, reports and data files lie on the table there are other influences at work, both from within their own minds and from the efforts of other influencers. A decision-maker has conversations with many others and things said to them, perhaps tangentially associated with the decision that affects us, can influence them in ways unanticipated by ourselves. They read newspapers and watch television, and the comments they pick up chip away at yesterday’s certainties. What starts as a doubt can produce a decisive swing for or against an option they favoured the day before. Consider a government department deciding on the purchase of an engine for its defence aircraft, which are about to undergo a four-year refurbishment programme. The bids from several (including two foreign) engine manufacturers are in, so are the engine performance reports, maintenance schedules, spares requirements, engineers’ training plans, costs and signed commercial memoranda of understanding. Every document that is required is set out on separate tables at the Defence Ministry and teams of evaluators are beginning to work their way through the details to make their recommendations to the Minister in ten month’s time. That’s it then. We sit back and wait for the Ministry to call us in for discussions? Not likely. There is still much to do. Not the least of which is to watch the domestic media (including the specialist press) closely for stories that may influence the Minister’s decision. Supposing some stories emerge as small items, nothing sensational, deep on the inside pages, perhaps provoking a few short letters too, that raise the question of domestic versus foreign suppliers of aircraft engines in sensitive defence roles? It is not the size of the articles that matters, because the Minister’s press cutting agency will clip any story of any size, even letters, bearing on any of his responsibilities (and you can be sure that other government departments, such as the Treasury, Industry, Employment, Foreign Office, Security Services, and Regional Development, will clip the same stories too). A two-paragraph report of someone’s speech to the Aeronautical Club can generate a lot of mileage where it matters, as can an academic’s paper that addresses related issues. Now consider how this small story in the press affects the contending bidders in what might have been a simple decision between qualified bidders. For the domestic engine firms it could be good news, enhancing the chances of their bids winning; for the two foreign firms it could be bad news if the Ministry is influenced by concerns generated by the news item and it downgrades their bids, not on their intrinsic price or performance but on grounds of unspecified risks. Even if their engines have lower acquisition costs and better all round performances compared to any of the domestic engines, it could be enough to disqualify them at some stage of the bidding process. Influence
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7.9.1
Themes Let us think of the ‘security scare’ story as a ‘theme’, because themes play a large role in the content of competing influencing messages. A large part of influencing preparation is the creation, development and placing of themes. These are messages that are presented, planted and repeated throughout a GAME to win over allies, to reduce support for rivals and the stiffen support for our objectives. They form part of the content of the influencing activity. Every influencing activity we undertake expresses themes whether we think of them carefully or make them up as we go along (the former is recommended over the latter). Themes are best developed at each stage in the influencing agenda (see Exhibit 7.7), preferably as early as possible and preferably reviewed as regularly as possible. Some themes may prove counter-productive with some or all of the people and should be dropped and replaced with other, more helpful themes. Some themes, though accurately reflecting real concerns, grow stale by constant repetition and the evidence of counter-facts. For example, playing the domestic preference theme on security grounds might prove of diminishing effect if the domestic products fail in some significant ways (requiring serious overhauls and refits that deplete the front line defences of needed aircraft below some minimal level, especially when exposed by an embarrassing Event) or end up costing significantly more than the rival foreign engines fitted in aircraft elsewhere. This would provoke themes, spread by stories planted by influencers from the foreign firms in the international media (and picked up locally), along the lines of the ‘reliability’ of foreign branded engines that do not ‘expose’ a country to military ‘weaknesses’. Themes are short stories, heavy in content, that carry compact messages to listeners or readers and which are memorable in their repetition by third parties among themselves. They require work to create, including ‘staff work’ to check the data upon which they may be based. For example, in the case of a major bank, which I was assisting in developing its influence campaign aimed at its corporate customers, the issue was one of convincing people who had never been charged the cost of servicing their banking requirements to pay certain ‘fees’ in addition to the usual ‘service charges’ that paid for ‘activity in their accounts’, such as processing cheque payments into and out of their current accounts. The need for additional fees arose when the corporate customers required overdraft facilities, loans of various kinds, and short notice standby fund facilities to take advantage of opportunities for acquisitions (where speed of response was critical). Such arrangements required the consideration of expensive specialist staff (analysts and credit sanctioners, supervised by senior management), whose costs were not covered out of the interest the loans generated (the cost of money plus credit risks) or by bank charges for activities in the account. Taking these costs into account it was found that 25 per cent of the accounts of the Bank’s corporate customers were either just breaking even or running at a loss, and therefore depressing the Bank’s profitability compared to its rivals. The Bank’s low share price reflected its poor competitive position, placing it in danger of a hostile take-over.
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Selected corporate relationship managers were tasked with creating influencing themes to persuade corporate customers of the need for ‘arrangement fees’. Data were collected (staff work) on the actual profitability of every corporate account in the Bank and analysed. The effects of securing arrangement fees of 1, 3, or 5 per cent for the additional services were calculated. One question was obvious to an outsider – why did fees have to be calculated as a percentage; why not use a monetary fee? It is always easier to limit movements downwards under pressure in minimum steps of one-pound currency units than in quarter percentage points involving thousands of pounds. For example, a 1 per cent fee on a loan of one million is ¤10 000, but a reduced fee of a 1/2 per cent cuts this in one step to ¤5000, and a 1/4 per cent cuts it to ¤2500. By quoting a fee as ¤10 000, and not mentioning percentage points, a movement from ¤10 000 to ¤8000 is quite a big move, likely to be highly regarded, leaving the customer feeling he had done fairly well in mitigating the fee and the Bank feeling better off in saving ¤3000 from not using a percentage model. The themes that were developed by the corporate managers (not the consultants!) covered subjects as diverse as ‘the costs of doing business had to be recovered if the Bank was to remain in business’; ‘bankrupt Banks cannot loan money to anybody’; ‘the bigger the loan the more the reliance on analysis, the more senior the people who were involved and the more risky the consequence of the wrong decision, therefore the more it cost to give a safe ‘yes decision’; and ‘Banks that make poor credit decisions have to make large debt provisions and this increases the costs of making good loans to good customers.’ From these short ‘scripts’ were developed and refined into key sentences that corporate managers could use to make the case to individual customers (note that this Bank had 1200 corporate relationship managers), and placed in press releases of speeches the top managers would deliver at various events. 7.9.2
Stances and Justifications Sometimes, the disparate themes were summarised into short statements called ‘stances’. One such was: ‘Only profitable Banks can stay in business’. The idea of a stance statement is to trigger off consequential ideas related to the reasons for the influence policy with target audiences and to stiffen the resistance of influencers ‘wobbling’ when under pressure. And ‘wobble’ they do if pushed hard enough. The stance statement acts like a mantra; quiet repetition of it rekindles one’s resolve to stick with, or elaborate upon, the theme. If only profitable banks stay in business it means that unprofitable ones go out of business. Agreeing to soften the price increase for customer A means charging customer B a greater amount to make up the losses of customer A. If customer C is excused paying his way, then poor old customer D will be lumbered with a bigger increase in costs, and so it goes on. Much better not to wobble in front of A or B or C or D and to charge them the cost of having them as customers because ‘Only profitable Banks can stay in business’. It is a sure bet that when something is proposed that affects the listener’s interests the first question it provokes is something like: ‘How do you justify what you have just proposed?’
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It is one question anybody may ask without apologising. And you had better have a convincing answer if you wish to influence them positively in your favour. This does not mean that your answer will convince them – it takes more effort than that – but if it is unconvincing your chances of ever influencing them rapidly diminish towards zero. Justifying usually elaborates upon the theme you have used to make your proposal. It can encompass expansive explanations, clarifications, evidence and examples, data (those most useful of supporting evidential proofs), the histories of the decisions and the compelling case for doing it the way you propose as opposed to other ways that might be suggested by the listener. Your justification should be summarised as bullet pads on a flip chart or A-4 pad or on your laptop. Always bear in mind that it is better to have two or three excellent reasons for something than a dozen or more weak ones. The listener will focus on the weakest reasons and will ignore the strongest one or two. Hence, just give one or two strong reasons. 7.9.3
Responses and Counters People whom you are trying to influence are not passive participants, especially when what you are proposing affects their interests. Where the influencer has considerable experience of the exchanges between him or her and the target audience, it is possible to capture the series of usual ‘Responses’ and ‘Counters’ that pass between them. Most corporate bankers have heard the typical responses of customers faced with an addition to their banking costs, often many times over. Teams were tasked with collecting the typical responses and offering suggestions on the most useful counters to make. By comparing the teams’ outputs of this exercise it provided some interesting insights into just how varied the untutored responses of individual managers were at this Bank. Taking one exchange of responses and counters fairly typical at that time (early-1990s) it ran like this: ‘You just want me to pay for the Bank’s exposure to its losses from Third World Debt.’
It was agreed that this was indeed a most common response to anything to do with Bank charges or interest rate hikes. When asked what was their counter, a whole host of answers, varying from straight denials to assurances that Third World Debt had nothing to with domestic lending, were forthcoming. Opinions varied on the truth of these counters and their relative worth in such exchanges. Here is where the analysts’ obsession with data proved invaluable. Just how exposed was the Bank to debt from over lending to Third World countries? When the figures were found and compared with the four other major UK banks, the Bank was clearly the least affected by a wide margin by its debt provisions for unsound loans – tens of millions not hundred of millions, or the billions experienced by two of its rivals (including the rival supposedly acting in the role of a predator). There is nothing like data to assist an influencer in making a case. To sum up this brief look into content management we can list the tools of the method used to articulate influencing content (see Exhibit 7.10). 7/30
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Exhibit 7.10 Tool
Tools for managing content Role
Problems
Theme(s)
Short story presenting a concise statement likely to be persuasive.
Themes too long, too complicated and inaccurate.
Stance(s)
Assertive single line statement that stiffens an influencer’s resolve in support of the Theme.
Stance is used instead of the Theme and it comes across too harsh.
Justification(s)
Anticipates the inevitable question of ‘Why?’
Too many weak reasons given (focus on one or two strong reasons only).
Anticipated response(s)
How the receiver is likely to respond to the Theme(s).
Unanticipated responses (experience counts).
Intended counter(s)
How the influencer will try to counter the receiver’s response.
Influencer forgets the counters or fluffs them.
Exhibit 7.10 also indicates some of the common problems of using the tools. The best antidote to some of the problems in the third column is to thoroughly prepare the tools. Theme writing is not a quick run through some rough ideas. It is best to work in a team if possible (good task for a brainstorming session). Themes are meant to be sharp not diffuse. It is better to have several themes separated than one multi-theme story. This also works better because different stages of the influencing GAME will require different themes – especially as different themes emerge from the multiple ‘GAMES’ underway from your rivals and arguments wax and wane under the pressure of events. Stances act as ‘back stiffeners’ when influencers feel under pressure. At one time during the Bank’s influence campaign several branches with large numbers of (seriously unprofitable) agricultural accounts were under pressure to take on no more loans to farmers from the centre and were also under pressure to justify losing customers as a result of no loans when it threatened the viability of their Branch. This caused some senior managers to ‘wobble’ and question the policy. A new stance was spread round, from Economics 101: ‘The demand curve slopes downwards’, saying in effect that if the Bank raised its prices it would lose some of its customers and was best to lose the least profitable to rival banks! Influencers are always asked to justify their proposals or suggestions and you should anticipate your explanation. Biggest problem is having too much to say in justification, and going for the longest list of reasons you can think of even at the expense of their validity, which exposes you to a loss of credibility – and of influence. Another problem is that you have not anticipated a response and you get caught out in having no clear thoughts of a counter. Of course, experience helps here but you cannot easily substitute for inexperience while face-to-face. Probably better to focus on learning about the unanticipated response by asking the target questions and trying to assess how serious the listener is about the content of the response. You may wish to ‘think it over’ before committing yourself to a specific counter. I was once caught on the hop by a question about the effect of my suggestions on their pensions, something nobody had Influence
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anticipated nor considered. As I did not know the answer I said I would get back to her, checking before I did so exactly what were the nature of her concerns and how she thought the suggestion would affect he pension. Her responses to my questioning suggested she might have a point, which told me not to offer a blanket re-assurance until I was sure what it might cost. Forgetting your prepared counter or fluffing its delivery happens. Apart from more careful preparation there is not much you can do once you have spoken, except apologise and move on. You can always come back to the topic when you are better prepared. One way to fluff your lines is to cut into their statements with your head shaking and saying variations on the theme of ‘No, you are wrong’. I once saw that done in a law court where the witness interrupted a question from the prosecutor with the statement: ‘I can see where you are going and your imputation is wrong because. . .’, and then he launched into an explanation which was more incriminating of his friend in the dock than the prosecutor could have hoped for before her convoluted question (which in my view was going nowhere) had been interrupted by the witness! (As an interested plaintive I was, of course, delighted.)
Case Study 7: ‘HELP!’ is Not Just a Four-Letter Word A recently defeated US Congressman surprised a number of party colleagues when he came out publicly to support an unknown who had declared himself as a US presidential candidate and joined a crowded field of more famous hopefuls. His friends chided him for supporting a ‘nobody’ against some powerful and well known national candidates, who could do more for him when it came to his own re-election campaign in two years time. When pressed on why he had decided to throw his lot in with the unknown, he replied: ‘He is the only candidate who asked me to help in his campaign. Hence I am.’ A year later, the unknown nobody won the Democratic Party nomination and went on to become President of the United States. His name was Jimmy Carter. And the ex-Congressman went on to become a Senator. The well known national figures who didn’t ask for the Congressman’s help became less well known, but it is unlikely that they learned the lesson: ask if you want to receive. Questions 1 When should you ask for help? 2 When might it be risky to ask for help?
EPILOGUE Influencing games are not for the faint-hearted! They do not always – if ever – operate with ‘sweetness and light’. There are choices to be made, many of which carry risks; and the wrong choices create self-inflicted and unintentional setbacks. Dithering between choices is no option either, but effective influencers 7/32
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consult with friendly allies before they make irreversible choices. They make what Rosabeth Moss Kanter calls ‘sanity checks’ (The Change Masters, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1983), and others call ‘reality checks’, on their proposals with confidants. As information accumulates about the people, the arguments and the situation, a Force Field tool captures the initial detail in an economical manner and allows the influencer to continue to capture detail as it changes. The Grid brings this information together and also monitors what is being done and what remains to be done.
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Module 8
Power and Influence Contents PROLOGUE 8.1 Introduction
8/1
DIALOGUE 8.2 Power
8/2
8.3
Politics
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8.4
Political Activity
8.5
Managing with Power
8/9 8/12
Case Study 8: A Future for Futures Exchanges?
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EPILOGUE
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PROLOGUE 8.1
Introduction There are two distinct approaches to influencing as it is taught in executive programmes and MBAs in Business Schools. One approach to the study of influence – and the one we have followed predominantly in Modules 1–6 – is best defined as ‘managing without power’, or how to influence when you neither have power nor authority (or at least, not much of either) over the people you wish to influence. By extension, it is assumed that you wish to consider how to acquire the power or authority you lack. In the other approach, you study how people in powerful positions in organisations – be they in corporations, political parties, government departments, intergovernmental agencies or such like – use the extensive power they have acquired to influence those with whom they interact, both formally and informally, for their organisation’s (and their personal) goals. One of the leading exponents of the influence with power approach is Jeffrey Pfeffer of Stanford University. His study of this kind of influence through power is documented in his book, Managing with Power: politics and influence in organizations (Harvard Business School Press, 1992). In fact, Pfeffer’s title, ‘managing with power’, neatly defines the basic difference between the two approaches. Pfeffer, and other exponents of the managing-with-power approach, observe how powerful men and women exert influence, how they acquire more power
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and thereby more influence, and how, sometimes, they lose their power and with it their influence. This approach is backed by a formidable body of academic research. The exponents of this approach also draw from a rich field of commentary, biography and autobiography of the world’s most powerful players. Being celebrities, the powerful have found, and attracted, a ready audience for their memoirs and ‘secrets’. In this module we shall examine how power is a source of influence and how powerful people influence their organisations, or the situations in which they operate. This module, therefore, expands on some of the themes developed by Bob Dailey in Module 7 of Organisational Behaviour for Heriot Watt University’s MBA course (Pitman, 1990).
DIALOGUE 8.2
Power Power has many definitions. My preferred definition is this: ‘Power’ is the ability to make someone do what they otherwise would not (or stop them doing what they otherwise would).
This definition incorporates both the overt effect of power on behaviour (those who are affected by a person’s exercise of overt power commence or desist in certain behaviours) and the invisible effect of power on certain behaviours (the people affected behave in reaction to other people’s covert power). Examples of the effect of overt power on behaviour could be when employees start operating new work schedules, or when they desist from smoking near hazardous chemicals, because they are instructed so to do. An example of the covert effect of power on behaviour could be when an employee does not pursue a harassment case because she persuades herself that it is not in her best interests, or where she holds back from seeking promotion because she believes the selectors prefer another person.
Activity 8.1 Have you experienced covert power in a decision you made about something important to you? Did you forgo doing something, say applying for a promotion, or a post in another company, because you believed the odds were stacked against you?
Bob Dailey (Organisational Behaviour, p. 7/3) defines power as ‘the ability to influence someone else’ and relates it to the ‘capacity to modify employee behaviour in a desired manner while being able to avoid having one’s own behaviour modified in undesirable ways’. Dailey considers it to be appropriate to look at the relationship between power and influence and to consider how this relationship operates in organisations. It is also important to recognise that power is an interdependent relationship between people. It expresses itself through people who are in varying degrees 8/2
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dependent on each other. A powerful leader without followers is a meaningless expression. The academic study of power is dominated by myriad citations of the work of John French and Bertram Raven (‘The bases of social power’, in Dorwin Cartwright, ed., Studies in Social Power, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1959). French and Raven classified five sources of power (often listed in varying orders): • • • • •
Legitimate – Reward – Coercive – Referent – Expert –
deriving deriving deriving deriving deriving
from from from from from
the right of authority; an ability to reward; an ability to punish; intrinsic qualities, such as charisma; specialised ‘know-how’.
Legitimacy as a source of power need not be effective in all contexts. Having the right to order someone to do something does not guarantee that they will do it. Authority is not the same as power because a conferred right does not necessarily ensure an ability. If people comply with your instructions, you can be said to have legitimised your right to instruct; if they do not comply, your legitimacy is in question. For example, an army commander may legitimately order 200 000 soldiers to attack and if they do so they confirm his legitimacy; if they do not attack, they demonstrate his lack of legitimacy.
Activity 8.2 Do you have legitimacy of any kind that gives you power in any sense? Are you, for example, a parent?
Reward power enables people to exert influence by virtue of their ability to reward those who obey their instructions. A sales manager who awards bonuses to sales staff for exceeding quantitative sales targets has considerable influence over the behaviour of those staff who desire a bonus, as does a manager who conducts appraisal interviews with employees whose appraisals affect their salary progressions.
Activity 8.3 Do you have reward power in your job function? How do you exercise it? Or does somebody have reward power over you?
Conversely, the power to punish matches the power to reward. Withholding a reward punishes; actively imposing sanctions on someone to ensure their compliance is coercion. People who can coerce others have discretion to impose avoidable punishment. An employee assigned by a supervisor to do routine, boring and repetitive tasks, week after week, and who is denied access to more interesting work, may be coerced into altering his behaviour (including quitting). Influence
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Activity 8.4 What coercive power do you experience in your job? Have you ever felt a supervisor was picking on you for coercive treatment?
Referent power captures the perceived characteristics associated with an individual by those influenced by them. Charisma is one such example (as is any aspect of that elusive quality, leadership). Being ‘much respected’, ‘highly regarded’ and ‘a safe pair of hands’ and so on can clinch a bid for promotion in an organisational crisis. Referent power is the often intangible and inherent quality of the individual that gives him or her power and influence over others, much as a hero-like reputation for a quality (probity and integrity) that is considered useful for certain tasks.
Activity 8.5 Have you worked for anyone who had referent power? Could you specify something about the form it took and how you and others recognised it?
Expert power is more tangible and is often subject to evidence. ‘Red’ Adair had a considerable reputation in extinguishing fires in oil wells. Airline pilots have expert power evidenced by tough training and continuous re-examination of their flying skills. Data processing managers, in the early days of business computing, wielded significant expert power over their non-expert colleagues by virtue of monopolising the understanding of the technology and what it could do, and their ability to deal with experts from IBM, Digital, and Hewlett-Packard on an expert-to-expert basis.
Activity 8.6 What expert power do you have, and could you develop it as an influencing tool?
Looking through French and Raven’s list, you may be struck with the thought that some of their sources of power are mutually reinforcing. For example, an army general, such as George Patton, had significant legitimate power as a commander in the US Army and had significant referent power from his extraordinary charisma. He also had great expert power from his professional competence in waging war. His legitimate power was supported by reward and coercion power – he could promote and demote those around him. (He was punished after an incident in which he exercised illegitimate coercive power in lightly assaulting a soldier he perceived to be malingering.) Sources of power can also sometimes mutually conflict. A person who exercises legitimate power (from holding a position in a hierarchy, for instance) can provoke resistance to his influence by unfairly exercising coercive power – as was the fate of Lieutenant William Bligh, commander of HMS Bounty, in 1789. In contrast, commanders such as Captain James Cook and Admiral Lord Nelson, who exercised significant influence over their subordinates despite being tougher disciplinarians than Lieutenant Bligh, compensated for their excessive coercive power with extraordinary charismatic referent power. 8/4
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Activity 8.7 Does anybody you know combine different sources of power or compensate between them?
The five sources of power identified by French and Raven are not exhaustive. To them can be added emotional sources of power, and thereby of influence, from such qualities as love, friendship, comradeship (especially in situations of shared high stress or danger), solidarity and loyalty. These emotional qualities can be sources of power and influence that so bind together the people they affect that extraordinary self-sacrifices are possible from subordinates, even at the cost of their lives. A senior manager in the oil industry once remarked to me, with reference to the manifest solidarity of unionised employees when they were engaged in collective action against a company, that no management was ever able to exert such discipline upon employees that the unofficial union leaders exerted on the members. There are other sources of power, notably positional power (discussed in Module 2 of this work), in which power and influence originate from occupying a crucial position in an organisation (and which, at first glance, may not even appear important). Positional power is not the same as the power of legitimacy (power accorded to the holder of a rank or title) because positional power comes from controlling key resources, even though the position may be relatively low in the formal hierarchy. Chairmen of key committees, who control what and when something appears on the agenda, can exert enormous influence, particularly during a controversy. Some key committees in the US Congress, such as Ways and Means, provide relevant examples of positional power for their members. And it is not only the formal head of a committee who exercises influence over others. Membership of a committee may be sufficient, particularly in those with a ‘lazy’ or less energetic head who is nominally in charge.
Activity 8.8 Are you a member of a key committee of any kind, or could you seek to join such a committee? What key committees would provide you with positional power if you could choose to be a member?
Remuneration Committees in corporations exert great influence over the members of the main board because the committee decides on remuneration, including the size of share options, and the amounts granted as golden handcuffs (to retain) and golden parachutes (to terminate). Similarly, with budgetary committees processing applications for funds from other departments, and staffing committees allocating promotions and recruitment between competing supplicants. Thus, the possibility that power can influence others from multiple sources in different combinations and that relationships between people can also influence their behaviours, suggests that the links between influence and power are as complex as they are interesting. Influence
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They are also subject to changes, prominent among which has been the erosion of deference in society over recent decades. Hierarchies have flattened – some dramatically – and people holding previously highly regarded positions in organisations no longer attract the same degree of deference that their predecessors enjoyed, often merely by virtue of their holding specific positions. This loss of respect for those at the top of hierarchies – the ‘establishment’ – is not caused solely by cynicism, though this is a contributory element. Across all organisations and institutions, authority – and thereby legitimacy – has declined. Paternal domination has declined in the basic family unit (as has the traditional family unit of two married parents and 2.4 children).
Activity 8.9 Ask anybody over the age 50 about changes they may have noted between their upbringing in a family and the way their grandchildren are brought up, particularly in the area of discipline.
Legislative protection of children’s rights in the home and at school gives structure to the consequences of the widespread behavioural changes spread across society. Where once parental authority was enough to ensure compliant behaviour from children (backed occasionally by low-level coercive intervention), it is now more common for adults to use various non-authoritarian inducements to promote acceptable behaviours from children in their charge. Legitimacy is probably less of a source of power and influence than it was, and in some contexts it may be counter-productive. A single, unarmed, lone police officer in the past might have prevented a crime by being present and visible to a criminal gang at the scene of a crime; today, he or she has more chance of becoming the gang’s victim. The unilateral discretionary powers of managers have also become constrained. Legislation to protect employees from unfair and arbitrary dismissal, tyrannical or unsafe work practices, harassment of various kinds, pay cuts, and extensions to hours of work or attendance, weaken the power of a manager to use the promises of reward or threats to punish employees they wish to influence. And beyond the legal protection of employees, a large part of the reward and coercive apparatus, once allocated to individual supervisors, has been removed to committees of managers who operate relatively strict procedures for changing individual remuneration, selecting for promotion or demotion, and allocating duties. Managers, to exercise reward or punishment powers, have to persuade, influence or negotiate with colleagues where once their discretion was near absolute. This has weakened the reward and coercive bases of managerial power as exercised by individuals.
Activity 8.10 In your organisation, who decides budgetary, disciplinary, remuneration, and promotion issues? Is it (unlikely) a single person or (more common) senior managers in committees?
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Increasing technology and more complex information flows are changing the shape of management structures. In place of top-down hierarchies there are mutually dependent centres of decision making. Managers have to get things done through other people who bring to the process their expertise in their specialist areas. These managers need to interact formally and informally to process their bit of information into the group decision. Interpersonal skills, primarily comprising influencing and communication, are at a premium at all levels in the modern organisation because managers increasingly are dependent on the co-operative goodwill of each other. Changes in the bases of power (less deference, less respect for authority, greater division of expertise into smaller units of information, which is quickly outdated, lower reliance on referent qualities in leadership) have increased the role of influencing strategies because of the wider use of groups in decision making. Where groups thrive, politics proliferates.
8.3
Politics One interesting way of looking at politics in an organisation is by way of a simple diagram. Exhibit 8.1
Politicians in an organisation
Politically naïve
Beginners Innocent
Scrupulous
Politically astute
Followers Apathetic
Leaders Cunning
Unscrupulous
Retiring Astute
Scrupulous
Exhibit 8.1 represents the distribution of managers along two dimensions that are critical to political behaviour: their political awareness and their scruples.
Activity 8.11 In which box of Exhibit 8.1 would you place yourself?
Managers may be politically na¨ıve or politically astute and all points in between. Former US Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, confessed to his own political na¨ıvety before he experienced high-level politics: ‘Before I served as Influence
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a consultant to Kennedy, I had believed, like most academics, that the process of decision making was largely intellectual and all one had to do was to walk into the President’s office and convince him of the correctness of one’s view. This perspective I soon realised was as dangerously immature as it is widely held.’ (The White House Years, Little Brown, Boston MA, 1979, p. 39). Kissinger, of course, learned his craft fast and became one of the most astute of political managers in post-war US government. Political na¨ıvety is strongly associated with inexperience, though for many managers the condition continues long after experience should have cured it. Beginners are most prone to political na¨ıvety. They adhere to Type I models of decision making (see Module 2), like the early Kissinger, and are innocent of how decisions are made. They can also acquire experience and remain na¨ıve. Unable or unwilling to develop their political skills in the organisation, they choose to leave the politics to others and slip into the role of followers (of the ‘hewers of wood and drawers of water’ variety), forgoing all interest in, and responsibility for, decision making. In the extreme, this na¨ıvety may be foolish and, when combined with a lack of moral scruples, morally repugnant (as in the Nuremberg defence: ‘I was only obeying orders’). The scrupulous–unscrupulous dimension is the second definer of political behaviour. To what extent is a manager guided by scruples? The young, inexperienced, person tends to idealism, and so far has unchallenged and innocent scruples. The experienced manager’s scruples have been tested by events and by temptations of ambition and convenience. Political astuteness is associated with experience (though some learn from their experience a lot faster than others) and the experienced practise their politics in the prime of their managerial careers. They know ‘where the bodies are buried’ – and they may have helped their bosses to bury them in their early careers. They know how decisions are made in the organisation and how to get others to do what they want done, cunningly using all the artifices of political manipulation at their disposal. They exercise their influence through judicious use of their power over their colleagues and their followers. They share with their followers a willingness to disregard or suspend such scruples that others profess to uphold. They ‘get the job done’, often regardless of the collateral damage to their relationships.
Activity 8.12 Consider your own organisation and assess which of its managers you would describe as politically astute. Are there many of them in your organisation?
When powerful managers pass their prime and approach retirement (not having been found out or caught out before then), they pass from a tendency to ruthless unscrupulousness to a sort of rediscovery of long-forgotten scruples. They become astute but not na¨ıve. They can still make things happen in the organisation – especially in a crisis – but mostly they seek to remain ‘above the fray’. They no longer feel the passion for the battle that they once had. They tend to be dismissed by subordinate leaders as ‘no longer up to it’ and they suffer from moves to remove them or to ‘kick ’em upstairs’. 8/8
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Politically astute managers, who know when they have passed their best, bow out gracefully. Others try to carry on as if nothing has changed, which may be a mistake if the business has changed fundamentally from, say, technological developments or new rivals sweeping the market. If they are not astute enough to recognise these changes, they will be swept aside by those who outplay them at the political game at which they once excelled.
Activity 8.13 Have politically astute managers been seen to be ‘over the hill’ and pushed aside in any organisation you know of in your experience? How did things pan out? Were they pushed or did they jump?
Arrogance, overconfidence, defiance and non-relevant memories of past victories over rivals are so common in the political end games that signal the demise of the men and women who overstayed their welcome that it is a wonder so many wise, experienced and capable people suffer the public ignominy of a boardroom coup. If they did see the writing on the wall, why did they not quit while they were still ahead?
8.4
Political Activity If the degree of political awareness is an indicator of political activity, to what extent can you identify the behaviours of political activists? I shall differentiate between what the literature calls ‘High Machs’ and ‘Low Machs’, but not because these categories exhaust the possible ranges of political activity, which they do not, but because they provide a swift way into what can be a confusing and complex terminology. By ‘Mach’ I refer to the 16th-century Italian political thinker, Niccolo Machiavelli, whose books, The Prince and the Discourses (1515), are still in print. They continue to generate controversy, and Machiavelli’s name is associated in popular comment with political manipulation, intrigue and amoral behaviour, though this may be a case of the messenger being blamed for the message. Machiavelli worked at the heart of the Florentine court and observed and wrote about the behaviour of the rulers of 15th- and 16th-century city-states in Italy. He was the original political scientist who was dispassionately interested in how successful rulers (‘princes’) held power and how others lost it. Several leading business managers of my own acquaintance claim to have used Machiavelli’s The Prince in their rise to the top of their companies – one showed me his battered copy from a drawer in his office desk – though to what extent this was youthful boasting is hard to judge. The fact is that Machiavelli’s image (more so than his actual writings) is a useful category for certain types of behavioural analysis and it is well established in influencing studies, as evidenced by the use of ‘High Machs’ and ‘Low Machs’ in the literature. ‘Machs’ were first described by Richard Christie and Florence Geis (Studies in Machiavellianism’, Academic Press, New York, 1970). They described ‘High Machs’ as people with a manipulative orientation who are cool, emotionally
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detached and ‘logically’ (by their own standards) oriented. Allegedly they act in disregard of their feelings and the feelings of others. Their behaviour is summarised by the popular notion that ‘the end justifies the means’. High Machs also believe that they are the masters of their destiny who, alone, are responsible for what happens to themselves. People, by contrast, who complain about their personal fate, in the view of a High Mach, are pathetic figures who are unworthy of the sympathy they crave. ‘Low Machs’ are the opposite kind of people. They are emotionally involved in what they do, hold to ethical principles and codes, and are affected by their feelings and the feelings of others. Low Machs subscribe to the view that ‘the means determine the end’ and would never justify evil or immoral means to achieve a worthy end. They also see their personal destinies as determined by forces outside their control or influence. They are comfortable with the status of being a victim of the behaviours of others. The nature of the organisation influences the way High Machs and Low Machs thrive. Highly structured organisations (traditional bureaucracies, for instance) are not conducive to High Mach behaviours because employees in them have to work within the system as given by their rules, regulations and restrictions. In contrast, Low Machs can do well in such organisations because they are comfortable working within structures that have rules and constraints determined by others. Organisations with limited formal or bureaucratic structures are far looser, open, adaptive and flexible than their highly structured counterparts. High Machs thrive in such circumstances, while Low Machs are ineffective and uncomfortable in the absence of strict structures (where they have difficulty, for example, coping with ambiguity). (Parenthetically, you should note that in practice highly structured organisations are not devoid of politics. My own experience and observations of the behaviour of men and women employed at the top of three tightly structured UK organisations – the Co-operative Movement, the National Health Service and the Police Force – suggest that they operate in a very political environment, certainly in matters related to strategy and the succession.) Succession politics dominates in the traditional bureaucratic organisation very much as it does in the less structured – it just takes a different form! Being adept at the slower and more regularised game of succession is a political skill at and near the top in the structured organisations I have observed and it is every bit as demanding as rising rapidly in a low-structured organisation. For one thing, High Machs, assuming they can sustain their interest for long enough, have to play very hard at appearing to have all the attributes of Low Machs, if they are to succeed all the way to the top in the bureaucratic organisation. Observation suggests that disguising one’s inherent Machiavellianism (and its amoral tones) in the tight confines of a bureaucratic regime for long periods without detection is extremely difficult and demanding. This situation supposedly gives the political advantage to the genuine Low Machs but cunning and well camouflaged High Machs who seek high office can do just as well. Another explanation, of course, and one that has made me uneasy about the ‘High–Low Mach’ distinction in the context of structured and unstructured 8/10
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organisations, is that people are not fixed in their propensities for High Mach and Low Mach behaviours and that when the stakes are high enough, Low Machs can switch into bouts of High Mach behaviour. Becoming Chief Executive – or Chief Constable – is no mean political task. Similarly, it is observable that key players – the founders, no less – in loose, quasi-anarchistic, businesses have suffered the consequences of their political blind spots (or even na¨ıvety). They leave the finances – and the politics – to their accountants. How would we expect High Machs to behave? What tactics would they follow? In what way would you recognise what they were doing? Generalising, High Machs keep their emotional distance from those around them. They do not get too involved with colleagues. They do just enough to ingratiate with potential sponsors above them and to create dependency relationships with potential prot´eg´es around and below them, because if they become too close, they might have difficulty ditching someone who becomes an embarrassment in the organisation. For example, it may be that a decision to close a department that is run by a close friend is difficult to execute – or to remain passive about – if emotional issues intrude. Indeed, for the High Mach to win the confidence of upper management, it could be essential to be assigned to execute the decision, or to be seen to support it. Many a new personnel manager expresses doubts about the efficacy of a particular policy; some (Low Machs?) resign; most overcome their doubts. They realise that they will never initiate their alternative policies if they do not get promoted to the positions of the people who initiate the policies with which they disagree. Avoiding close friendships is accompanied by highly selective choices of with whom to share decision making. If they do not need to know certain information, then they are not told by the High Mach. Keeping decision making confined to a tight group keeps it under control and protects the High Mach from unforeseen events, such as an unwelcome consensus influenced by rivals or random and maverick outsiders. Also, participative democracy does not fit the image of bold and confident leadership that the High Mach strives to project. Niggardliness in the sharing of information is also practised, at least from the High Mach to others. Receiving information from others and storing it until it might be fruitful to pass it on is commonplace. Basically, the High Mach receives more information than he or she shares. Joining a function in the organisation that has a future is a classic sign of a High Mach at work. So is joining a moribund department that can be used as leverage to a better position in the future. A moribund department is not the same as a declining function. A department may be moribund because it is not performing under the current leadership or circumstances. A declining function may be terminally declining with no hope of recovery. Consider the great film studio companies in Hollywood towards the end of their Golden Era, following the advent of television. High Machs who joined television production as it was taking off towards its mass consumer base made great careers and acquired a future for themselves and their net wealth. As the old studios declined – there were too many producers (many with impeccable credentials as High Machs) with not enough money – jobs, careers and personal Influence
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fortunes waned. The studios were in decline but their film library divisions were just moribund. Those who spotted the difference made their careers and their fortunes by acquiring control of the film libraries and selling or leasing old films to television stations desperately short of programmes to fill their time slots. One caveat about joining a growing department with a glowing future is the old adage that ‘all that glisters is not gold’. What looks impressive and thereby tempting may turn out to be a disaster. In a particular construction company, for example, during the great oil-price boom, several ambitious managers switched to its new Middle East subsidiary and basked for 18 months in ever growing order books and successful tenders. One of them joined the board and developed a power base that led towards the top spot of CEO. It ended in tears though, as the boom turned to bust, contracts were cancelled, clients failed to pay or paid late, and losses mounted. The heir apparent to the CEO and his team eventually left the company and their careers never recovered. A prominent characteristic of High Mach behaviour is what I call the gift of mimicry. High Machs are able to mimic convincingly the expression of the beliefs, attitudes and behaviours – and even the lifestyle codes – of those above and around them. I know of a major bank that for many years had a senior cohort of its managers in one of its three divisions who all professed avidly to support the same football team, while in another division, everybody at and near the top seemed inclined to be keen rugby fans. This may have been accidental – though because the situation changed with retirements and resignations over a seven-year period, I am inclined to think it was not.
8.5
Managing with Power Power is exercised by various means that serve to badge those who exercise it. The Chief Executive has a chauffeur-driven limousine and various grades of employee who require a car for their job function are permitted to drive certain models only. I once recommended a sales bonus system to a poorly performing company that would give all sales staff who reached enhanced sales targets the right to a company Mercedes. Though the model was the basic Mercedes 200 and even though it would cost less than the Ford Granada saloon that they were entitled to (I had checked with a dealer), and though the sales director acknowledged that such an image of having a Mercedes would really fire up his people, it was knocked back by the (then beleaguered CEO) because he was ‘the only one going to drive a Mercedes in this company’. Such power symbols exercise enormous influence on the holders, and those who aspire to become holders, of high office. Office dimensions, furnishings, views, privacy and other perquisites can take on a ridiculous importance. Strict codes are elaborated to ensure that managers know their place in the hierarchy and that their place is known to everybody that knows the code. In some offices certain people have international dialling from their phones, others have bars on anything but local calls, while others stretch across their desks to share phones. Some have carpets and some don’t. Some have meeting tables and chairs beside their desks, and some share their desks (‘hot desking’).
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Many firms now have open-plan offices that ostensibly eliminate visible status differentials. I was in a company recently where the entire operation – offices, stores and workshop – were totally open-plan. It suggested an ‘open hierarchy’ without status symbols. Some acquaintance with the company soon suggested that, while the symbols of status were absent, the managerial style of the top managers was unusually autocratic, which conflicted with the ‘democratic’ layout of the buildings. If location is important in retail shopping, location is as important in influencing with power. A senior manager who locates physically distant from the building where the other senior managers operate close to the CEO is in danger of becoming sidelined as the company evolves. Even location on a separate floor in the same building could have a deleterious effect on the exercise of influence. A senior manager promoted to the board, who chose to remain in the building where his department was run from and not in the same corridor as the other directors in the head office two miles away, missed out on the informal, unscheduled and ad hoc discussions engaged in by his colleagues and rivals. This was taken as a lack of total commitment to the company and to nobody’s surprise he was soon head-hunted away. All things being equal, location is important in the building of alliances and in the containing of threats to an executive’s power base. If an executive is in a power position from the grace and favour of a powerful player, that dependency will condition the exercise of the executive’s power. Dependency is a source for transmitting support, and power players look for opportunities to enhance their own power by making less powerful players dependent. Seeking opportunities requires contact and location is a factor in facilitating contact. Jeffrey Pfeffer (Managing with Power: politics and influence in organizations, Harvard Business School Press, 1992) claims that Robert Moses, as New York’s Parks Commissioner, was as influential as such 20th-century icons as Roosevelt, Churchill, and Ghandi. He uses the career of Robert Moses to illustrate a variation of the Golden Rule (‘The person with the gold makes the rules’): the person who controls (but not necessarily owns) the resources that others want to access can exercise enormous influence, sometimes way above their formal station. Moses’s control of the erection of public works in New York rested on his effective – some would say ubiquitous – chairmanships of the city’s key commissions, authorities, committees, departments and projects. He had informal positional power from his formal position in the city’s government. He was a public servant, not an elected politician, and he served the city for 44 years. Less spectacular examples of using positional power to generate influence are extremely common. They show how influencers use their positional power to generate influence and also why some managers who neglect their positional power have little influence beyond the boundaries of their office. Take a small local council that spends its revenues from local taxes to provide public services to the community. Those eligible elect councillors to supervise the employees of the council who provide the services. Councillors serve fouryear terms and, if re-elected, may serve a sequence of terms until they retire or are defeated in an election. The employees of the council, once hired and subject Influence
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only to their reasonable behaviour and continuing health, may serve until their retirement or until they seek employment elsewhere at their sole discretion. How does informal influence work in practice? It certainly is not recorded in any official minutes or in anybody’s job descriptions. And be clear: I am not referring to instances or habits of personal corruption. Influence for personal monetary gain is illegal. Robert Moses exercised his enormous influence without graft – he was more interested in accumulating power to extend his influence than he was in mere money. Local councils divide their budgets departmentally for such services as education, roads, parking, sanitation, buildings, refuse collection, planning consents, parks, policing and housing. The public officials, often with a Chief Executive in overall charge, who manage these services are supervised by committees of elected members. The people who control the departments that supply the services can use their positional power to gain influence, though on a much smaller scale than was exhibited by Robert Moses. The main goal of elected politicians is to be re-elected. The main goal of public officials is to protect their jobs. True, both have many sub-goals, such as favourable publicity, protecting their department’s budgets, hiring more staff and avoiding scandals, etc. If the politicians fall out with a council official, this may threaten the official’s job; if a council official causes maladministration of a service, the electors could vote out of office the politician they regard as responsible politically for the service. Therefore, each is interested in the other’s welfare to protect their own interests. The official in charge of the maintenance and repair of the council’s roads, for example, does not have unlimited discretion over the roads budget. He or she does have discretion over day-to-day operations and there are usually more demands on the budget than can be accommodated in any single period. Potholes, eroded tarmac, weathered markings, awkward corners, dangerous cambers and such like are the stuff of local politics. Councillors are judged by how effective they are in removing these problems, and the electors’ expectations increase with the duration of the problem. Roads that need repairs or improvements create opportunities for informal influence. Roads officials find these opportunities by the fortuitous creation of extra resources – work gangs, equipment, materials and spare budgets that they ‘squeeze’ out of the limited budget they have by their ‘good management’ – and they offer succour to beleaguered councillors harassed by their electors for immediate action in some corner of their ward. In effect, influencers ‘buy’ political protection from councillors, who in turn benefit from their discretionary support when they remove actual or potential electoral liabilities for them.
Activity 8.14 Can you think of examples of apparent collusion between officials and local politicians in your area to deal with local problems in council services?
Players who can gain control of resources – the Golden Rule – exercise power disproportionately. In a trade union, the official who controls the votes of 8/14
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the largest branch effectively can sometimes control the union executive. An ambitious and energetic union officer in the UK built up the union’s branch at London Airport so successfully that when the then General Secretary resigned before the end of his term, he was unstoppable as the new General Secretary even though he was a young 26 and had several older and more experienced rivals. In a university, as a second example, the ‘gold’ is in the form of budgets, almost entirely contributed by government funding and research grants (mainly from public bodies). Large departments of long standing exert more influence than small departments in esoteric disciplines with expensive requirements. New disciplines have a hard time establishing themselves, unless government policy changes and favours them. These budgetary realities have little to do with worth, competence or demand. Coalitions of other departments prevent the growth of departments where student demand for places is high (accountancy, law and business) by imposing quotas on their student numbers, even if the admission of more of these students and less of some other traditional disciplines would raise the average academic quality of the university. It is not, of course, a rational decision but a protective decision by those likely to be made redundant. If, however, a department that wants to grow can source funding from outside the government, it can then break through a coalition that wants to hold it back. If such funding comes free of restrictions upon what it can be spent on, that department is able to exert disproportionate influence on the given university. It can also judiciously break up the former coalitions that were against it. As indicated by these two examples, the ‘gold’ does not have to be money. It can be promotions, recruitment, resources, facilities, visibility and the many ‘currencies’ discussed in Module 4. Their dispersal works on the reciprocation principle in exactly the same way that has been discussed previously. In an organisation where decisions on these issues are made by interlocking committees, it is essential that the players who seek influence locate themselves or their dependent allies on these committees. Hence, expect to find players basing their influence by membership of key committees in the organisation. Membership of committees is a chore to most people and the reluctance of people to work them assiduously provides gaps in the structure through which power bases can be built. Powerful people have influence to the extent that they ‘know’ everybody that matters (and many that don’t) and they know whom to call (GOTT) or visit (GOYA) and whom they can invariably expect to return their calls or find time to see them. Communication networks in an organisation – formal and informal – are well traversed territories for people with power and those searching for power. Influential managers have powerful associates. They meet formally within the organisation’s communication structure and also informally on a semi-social level. Watch with whom they lunch or socialise after work. Because they mix with the powerful, they appear to be powerful themselves by implicit association (a point noted by the ambitious). This means spending a considerable amount of time socialising with people whom they do not particularly like (compared with others that they could meet) and participating in social activities that would not Influence
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be their first choice in entertainment. Their willingness to endure some of these events and the people who go with them is part of the price they pay to obtain and exercise influence. A willingness to execute tough decisions and see them through against opposition is a decisive requirement for the powerful influencer. The tough decision can be a policy issue – a major change in direction – or a personnel problem, including removing a serious rival from contention in the hierarchy. Successfully executing tough decisions is a powerful confirmation of a person’s influence and, providing the decisions are successful, a reputation for success reinforces a claim to power. Conversely, a failure in either respect – to carry through the tough decision or to successfully implement it – can be a career-breaking move. Machiavelli warned that it was not good enough to ‘wound the Prince’; he had to be killed, because a wounded Prince could fight back. He had to be removed, permanently. Because people are closely bound up with policies, defeating one usually means defeating the other. Boardroom battles over policy issues or between people usually amount to the same thing. If a major policy has to be defeated, the people behind the policy have to go too. Examples of recent board-level battles are representative of what can be at stake and of the typical tactics employed to secure victory. These vary from the relatively underhand to the almost benign, though equally decisive. Underhand tactics include meeting without the target person present and securing the votes to dismiss him or her before the formal meeting. One CEO realised his time was up when he was called to an emergency board meeting late at night and found everybody present amidst visible signs that they had been meeting for some time without him – the side tables had trays of food and dirty dishes piled on them and the board table was strewn with papers in post-meeting disorder. Another example, was when a firm’s bankers called a meeting with the chairman and a majority of the board for 11 a.m. when they knew full well that the leading advocate for avoiding a take-over was on his way to the capital 50 miles away on board business. Notice of the emergency meeting was sent to his home by messenger and timed to arrive 45 minutes after he had left for his appointment. By the time his wife telephoned him at the office in the capital, the emergency board meeting was over and the hostile take-over accepted by his colleagues on pain of the bank putting the company into liquidation. Trade union leaders can be as ruthless as capitalists in removing opposition. A union leader on sick leave was spotted on his way to a holiday resort by a colleague at an airport. He was supposed to be bed-ridden with a serious life-threatening illness and had been off work for two months on full pay. His colleague, who owed his own rise to prominence in the union to the patronage of the ‘sick’ leader, reported his former mentor to the union’s executive, which voted to suspend him from office. In the ensuing election, the whistle-blowing colleague was voted in as the new leader. Other attempted coups that go wrong – where votes to dismiss fail to carry the day – result in the challengers themselves having to resign, or in them falling victim of a counter-coup. Sniping from the sidelines, dithering when push comes to shove, or incompetently pressing the attack can all lead to career crashes. 8/16
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Case Study 8: A Future for Futures Exchanges? Electoral contests are open influencing processes. Candidates expound their differences with each other – often heatedly – and find issues around which to contrast their differences, which may be deeply held policy commitments, sharp contrasts in style or tone, or contrasting personalities or public images. Some candidates may have some difficulty in identifying significant differences between them on any set of criteria, which gives no incentive to the electorate to vote either way except on grounds of personality. Stable situations tend to produce bland election campaigns with a prejudice in favour of the incumbent – ‘better the devil you know’, etc. Unstable situations, or threats of them, produce livelier campaigns, particularly where the contestants are able to differentiate credibly their solutions to the instability. In periods of threatening instability, the incumbent is vulnerable – if only for being, and necessarily so, on the defensive. Of course, ambitious candidates may attempt to create the spectre of an impending threat unless they are elected, but if the credibility of the spectre is in doubt, so is the candidate alluding to it. The 150-year-old Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) is the world’s largest futures exchange. It is housed in a magnificent classical building (for those who have never seen the CBOT building, it bears a passing resemblance to London’s Savoy Hotel, only it is much larger). Its ‘open outcry’ method of executing contracts had a venerable history; and dealers paid large sums to acquire a seat – the necessary attribute to trade in ‘the pit’ – which reflected the lucrative licence that seats gave their holders to make money. In the late 1990s, electronic technology became the most serious threat to the traditional beneficiaries of pit trading. For a start, electronic trading is cheaper. It slashed the high back office costs of the trading firms that reconciled their trades manually. The 1998 election for the post of Chairman was a knife-edge affair. Only 19 votes separated the contenders. The defeated candidate, the four-term incumbent, Patrick Arbor, fought a difficult campaign. He was trying to reform CBOT from within by several radical initiatives that aimed to reconcile the exchange to the electronic age. His opponent, David Brennan, a 41-year-old soya-bean trader, capitalised on the widespread fears of the trading firms that felt most threatened by the competition of electronic trading exchanges, and he ran a successful FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) campaign – the scary option always open to challengers against incumbents. Proposals by Arbor to face the electronic challenges with radical reform of the ways that CBOT did business were characterised as ‘unsound’ and alluded to Arbor’s alleged ‘complacency’ in the face of the very real threat from electronic trading. This spin clearly found a response in the votes of the discontented, who witnessed a sharp slump in seat prices (one clear measure of the confidence traders had in the future of the exchange). Radical changes always provoke discontent – some of it aimless – among those inconvenienced by both the threat of change and the response to it. Arbor at one point, getting personal, called Brennan a ‘flat-earther’, alluding to his obstinate refusal to accept the inevitability of the demise of the open-outcry Influence
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traditional system. This allusion was true, not just in Chicago but anywhere in the exchanges of the world where proponents of open-outcry tried to stem the inevitable triumph of the cheaper, faster and more efficient electronic trading alternatives. Arbor wanted to move CBOT towards electronic trading before electronic trading drove CBOT into impotence. This is a difficult policy to articulate in an atmosphere of fear. The more the inevitability of change is highlighted, the more the fear of change is excited, and the more the practicalities of reform are questioned by those affected by it. Thus, Arbor’s proposals to work with CBOT’s rival, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, and with Eurorex, the European exchange, in developing electronic common clearing to cut their back-office costs caused widespread concerns among the smaller trading firms. These concerns were aggressively exploited by Brennan, who articulated a vivid but conservative stance. To some extent, Brennan’s campaign was aided by the apparent stance of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the government regulator, which had imposed a moratorium on the introduction of electronic links to foreign exchanges in 1997. This protectionist measure stemmed from the obvious position of weakness of the US exchanges in the face of more advanced electronic competition from Europe. But it was no long-term solution, and resistance to change was bound to crumble as the evident success of the Eurorex exchange demonstrated the long-term superiority of electronic trading. Under competitive pressure from Eurorex, the prestigious London International Financial Futures and Option’s Exchange (Liffe) had been forced to give way to screen-based trading, and it was clear that Chicago could only hang out for a short period, even if sheltered by the CFTC. Hence, Brennan’s electoral success was a mixed blessing. The die-hards who voted for Brennan against Arbor, the incumbent, voted for the least satisfactory outcome. They prevented rapid reform towards electronic trading but got themselves stuck in an uncertain mire. Brennan, the beneficiary of conservative fears, was trapped in the twin pressures of the inevitability of technical change towards screen-based trading and the impossibility of sticking with the open-outcry system of the past. He talked of transforming CBOT into an ‘electronic open-outcry exchange’. But trading firms, unable to overcome their fears or to afford the investment for the technological switch, were also the least able to afford the higher costs of the traditional methods they voted to preserve. Brennan’s platform of somehow merging the two methods was a triumph of the rhetoric of electoral expediency over practical necessity. Within hours of his election victory over Arbor, Brennan was making noises remarkably like an acknowledgement of the good sense of Arbor’s reform programme, including the proposed alliance with Eurorex. He spoke of the ‘mutual interests’ of CBOT and the Chicago Board of Options Exchange (another neighbour of CBOT). Source: adapted from The Financial Times, 14 December 1998, Nikki Tait
Questions 1 How would you explain the electoral struggle between Arbor and Brennan in the light of the definition of ‘influencing’? 8/18
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2 If Arbor, the incumbent, was vulnerable while implementing difficult reforms, was Brennan’s campaign anything more than an opportunist exploitation of his opponent’s vulnerability? 3 What could Arbor do to mitigate Brennan’s appeal to the smaller trading firms?
EPILOGUE The study of the influence of power can be a fascinating experience. The lives, loves and tribulations of powerful men and women hold the attention of most people, as evidenced by the popularity of films, books, documentaries and gossip about them. There is a lot to be learned from these accounts, be they a serious study or a daily flimsy story. In the age of mass media, the appetite for information about the powerful and the famous – some famous because they are powerful, others powerful because they are famous – appears to be insatiable. As students of influence, we have a different agenda. It is not for vicarious pleasure that you study the powerful – how they got there, what they do while they are there, and how, eventually, they lose whatever power they had. Your studies, in contrast, aim to inform you about how to emulate the powerful, perhaps on a smaller scale (to become head of your function) and perhaps on the world stage (to become president of the corporation, or even president of your country). This quest for knowledge links both the people with power and the people without power or authority. The same lessons, from different perspectives, confront both groups. They are both part of a common process, appropriately named the ‘greasy pole’ by past players, but they view it from different places on the pole. Some look ‘up’ to what they might be; others look ‘down’ to where they might go. Organisations consist of people who have titles, functions and interests. Sometimes their personal interests coincide with their corporate interests; sometimes they do not. But their interests are important inputs into the games they play and can never be discounted. The ability to understand how interests coalesce and divide to produce coalitions and factions with ever changing compositions is an essential attribute of those who would become, and of those who are, influential. Influencing is not about leading a group of like-minded ‘happy campers’ towards some end they find attractive. Influencers must be able to influence disparate groups of people, some of whom cannot bear to be in the same room together, to do what they otherwise would not do, or not do what they otherwise would do. Managing a coalition of allies means managing a coalition of interests. Some people you regard as mere pawns in your grand plan may privately, regard you as the pawn and themselves as the would-be kings. The eventual denouement will educate one of you in the politics of the careless attribution of roles (and where you are, or are going, on the greasy pole!). If you survive, you will do so only by accumulating power in the organisation and the wider environment in which you operate. Having power also follows Influence
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the universal rule of ‘use it or lose it’. For a time, it may be enough to use what power you have to gain more power, but accumulating power and merely holding on to it exacts an enormous toll in time and energy. Unless it is directed to some agenda (re-election, acquisitions, market share, profitability and so on), your power base will atrophy and you will provoke rivals to manoeuvre to replace you. It is easy to become distracted by the trappings of power (for instance, status, executive jets, penthouse suites, deference and publicity) and lose touch with the purposes for which you sought the power you have. That is why observation of the doings of the powerful – foibles and all – are a never-ending fascination for so many of us. To keep a sense of perspective, I am mindful of the apocryphal story of the CEO of a global corporation, who took a holiday on one of the lovely Greek islands and relaxed each day on the beach for a week, not doing much. It was totally relaxing for him. He also occasionally conversed with a local beach boy, who ran a typically disorganised Greek beach stall, from which he was often absent, and sunbathed and swam and fooled around with friends, drinking beer and chasing girls. In his last conversation before he flew off in his private jet back to his corporate empire, the CEO suggested to the young Greek that he changed focus and joined a company, work his way up it, and took it over. ‘Why should I do that?’, said the beach boy. ‘Well,’ said the CEO, in a triumph of ambitious reasoning, ‘you would have lots of money and could holiday on any beach in the world, like me.’ The boy looked around the beach and then at the CEO. He shrugged, saying, ‘But I am already here on a beach.’
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Module 9
Retrospection You have come a long way since you started at Module 1 and it is time to look back in retrospect at some of the territory you have covered. One way to do this is to find opportunities to listen to people you observe to be active influencers in your organisation. They may not reflect too closely on what they do and probably seldom think about it, but with a bit of gentle probing they may be willing to talk a little about some of their experiences (because most people, given the chance, are happy to talk about themselves). When you find people willing to share some of their views and experiences as influencers (or players of organisational politics), you know how to encourage them to wallow by asking open-ended and supplementary questions. If you gain their trust, they may reveal valuable insights into how influencing is conducted in the real world. If they do, you are advised to keep everything confidential. You can also read the papers – or reports on the Internet – and collect items that cover stories of the activities of influencers. Business pages, powerpolitics features, interviews of powerful people, and stories of ‘rags to riches’ (and ‘log cabin to White House’) or your country’s equivalent are replete with hints and histories of what some people have done in pursuit of influence and power. Much of these will be biased tales of self-projection rather than objective analysis. You will have to discount some of the tales they tell – being humble is not normally a characteristic of a successful man or woman – and also realise that they will have left a lot out of their account because it is too embarrassing (or criminal) to reveal. Also, look for stories closer to home. The outbreak of hostilities in a local voluntary organisation can be every bit as tense and instructive as a sudden resignation in a multinational boardroom. Between you and that boardroom there is a multitude of organisations – literally hundreds of thousands – that have political lives, where influencing in all its forms thrives, and each time you peel back the veils that protect them from scrutiny you will learn more about the subject of this text. Above all, examine your own organisation – you can start with your family and then work outwards. Who are the players? Are there any obvious pawns? How do they relate to other players – or pawns? Who among them appear politically astute and who totally unaware? Are there any games afoot? What about the people you know? How would you rate your relationships with them? Is it all push behaviour? With whom do you have good pull relationships? If a relationship is faltering, perhaps, from neglect, what can you do that will restore the relationship – and give you practice in relationship building while you do so? Try drawing Key Players diagrams and Force Field diagrams for some of the public disputes to which you have access, or which are heavily reported in the Influence
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media. These take only a few moments to construct, and they can be redrawn as quickly to incorporate new information, which is one of their strengths as influencing tools. If you are drawing any diagram with sensitive information on it, remember to dispose of it sensitively and, if you keep it, to keep it securely. The best way to cope with embarrassment from unintended disclosure is to avoid it in the first place. The essence of changing behaviour is to practise the behaviours. Trying to recall distant memories of fishing, wallowing, suggesting and so on is futile because you won’t, and will probably muck it up. Take some time to write out ‘scripts’ of question interchanges and try them out on people. See how long it takes you to fish for something in common with a stranger, how long you can keep somebody in a wallowing spiral, and how assertive you can be when it is appropriate. Next time something goes wrong that inconveniences you, tell them what you want done about it without uttering a single complaint or raising your voice. Practice and more practice is required to change behaviour permanently. Of course, there will be setbacks. You may hesitate outside a senior manager’s door for fear of disturbing her, but what is the worst that can happen? She can tell you to leave her office, which places you back in the corridor. But that is where you were before you entered her office. So what have you lost? I recommend that you practice because that is the best way to understand what influencing is about. Doing it is a better school for understanding than merely reading about it. This is true for influencing, negotiating and also socalled hard sciences such as mathematics. Reading a book on calculus without working through examples and applying those examples to realistic problems is not recommended as a sound approach to proficiency. For those who find influencing too complex, too manipulative or too close to the borders of personal ethics, an acknowledgement of your concerns is in order. This is not an untypical reaction by a minority of people. I do not think a cynic’s sneer is acceptable or adequate. Cynics often make poor influencers, incidentally, and I think they do so because a degree of enthusiasm for the game is necessary and cynicism drains enthusiasm and energy away in equal measure. It is perfectly sensible to do only what you are comfortable doing. Complexity is bearable if you can divide the difficulties into manageable pieces. The simple tools we have discussed should help you manage this task. As for manipulation, almost all social encounters have some degree of manipulation in them. Only the rude and the ignorant refrain from the social courtesies that make interactions at work, at home, at the dinner table, on the road and in general free from strife. Observing the social courtesies is manipulative. To observe the difference they make, try a day – even an hour! – without them. As for your ethics, these are personal and I hope they include recognising that other people (the overwhelming majority) are ethical too. Some people (West Point cadets, Trappist monks, sectarian fundamentalists and so on) observe the strictest of codes; some are more relaxed. A few apparently have abandoned all semblance of ethics (guard bullies in the camps in Nazi Germany, the Soviet Gulag, parts of the former Yugoslavia and other notorious places across the world). 9/2
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What distinguishes the influencer from the unethical bully is the difference in means. Influencers affect the thoughts, feelings and behaviours of others over whom they may have limited or no formal authority or power. Their tools are persuasion, information, advice, communication and social exchange. They do not physically coerce, they do not make war on the innocent, and they do not bully. In that difference there is a world of room for ethical conduct. Do what you feel comfortable doing to get done what you want done or prevent happening what you do not want to happen. Remember the iron law of influence: influence or be influenced.
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Appendix 1
Answers to Exercises and Case Studies Contents Answers to Exercises
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Answers to Exercises Exercise 1.1 If Gripper suspects that Slug might defect and confess, then Gripper is vulnerable if he alone does not confess (Slug goes free and Gripper gets 12 years in jail). Thus to protect himself he cannot risk defection by Slug and, therefore, Gripper confesses.
Exercise 1.2 Most certainly. People notice defections – even if the cost of the defection is trivial valueless points?). Managers have been defection behaviour in the red–blue game
and remember them long afterwards (and what is more trivial than some known to argue about each other’s days after they have played it.
Exercise 1.3 The red player gains +8 from each play and the blue player receives −8. Over ten rounds of this play, the red player can gain up to +96 and the blue player suffer −96.
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Exercise 1.4 Unilaterally behaving as if everybody seeks the same win–win outcome as you do encourages defection, particularly if the players are rewarded by further blue play instead of punished with a red. Blue assumptions may beget red consequences: if you proclaim your intentions of always playing blue, they may craftily exploit you with a red. There is no point in being annoyed if your partners do not live up to your imputation of their virtues.
Exercise 1.5 Behaviour is visible – you can notice what people do – whereas a person’s stated intentions are vulnerable to judicious editing and biased interpretations of the evidence. You cannot see inside their heads, but you can observe how they behave and judge accordingly.
Exercise 1.6 A Tit-for-Tat sequence could become trapped in a red–red sequence that continues indefinitely. As it requires the original red player to switch to blue play to break the red–red sequence, this may not happen. After a few red exchanges the parties are likely to differ on ‘who started it’, and the original red player may be waiting stubbornly for the original blue player to stop playing red. This spiral of defection is fairly common in long-running disputes between antagonists.
Exercise 2.1 A Type I model conceives of decision making as a rational process, usually in three steps: (1) awareness of need; (2) search for options to address the need; (3) selection of an option that meets certain specified objective criteria. A Type II model conceives of decision making as a ‘political’ process driven by subjective influences and the preferred solutions of the dominant or most influential players.
Exercise 2.2 There are several possible weaknesses in Henri’s preparations. The people that Henri calls to the private meeting may not all be ‘safe’ supporters of the decision he prefers; some of them may also be the lobbying targets of the uninvited vice-presidents; the paper is presently unedited and may contain injudicious comments that have been circulated to the non-attending vice-presidents; his private meeting may prove unsuccessful in rallying support and therefore become counter-productive; and Dan O’Reilly may take a dim view of his vice-presidents if they participate in private caucus meetings.
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Exercise 3.1 (a) One benefit of this response is that it gives Mary, privately, the necessary information without suffering public humiliation from applying and failing. She might also pick up from John some sense of her prospects for eventual promotion. It may be that the person John has in mind has exceptional qualities and is seen as an eventual (or imminent) replacement for himself, which would create a vacancy again in the near future for the Deputy’s post, and for which John may be inclined to encourage Mary to seek promotion at the appropriate time. On the other hand, seeking clarification could force John to tell Mary that in his view she has no chance of securing a Deputy’s post in that museum. This would force her to accept that she was not going to be promoted with his support. Or she could defiantly apply anyway and lobby for a favourable decision. If she thought that the former choice was unpalatable and that the latter was a waste of effort, she could seek promotion elsewhere with a view to an early resignation. Alternatively, John may not be willing to be candid and, from his embarrassment, he may raise false hopes by misleading her as to her realistic prospects. (b) This is an altogether more ambitious strategy. Depending on how well she knows and trusts the governors, she could elicit quite a lot of information that she may be denied if she followed option (a). The governors are more likely to know, or be able to find out, just how strongly John feels about recruiting an outsider, maybe even who the person is and where he or she works and, most importantly, the reasons why John is pushing this solution to the vacancy for a Deputy. Of course, Mary risks ‘embarrassing’ those whom she lobbies. They may consider John’s arguments in favour of an outside candidate to have considerable merit; they may resent Mary if she approaches them about a confidential personnel matter in which she has a personal stake; they may inform John of her approach and she may irreparably damage her relationships with them (and still not get promoted). To avert any of these outcomes, Mary would have to tread very carefully and select with the greatest of care the persons whom she approaches. She would have to distinguish between expressing subjective concerns at the turn in events, given her personal interest in the outcome, and inducing doubts in the minds of the governors about the wisdom of what John is proposing.
Exercise 4.1 The effort involved in getting up and hanging round the bathroom separated the young Congressman from all the others, and he showed throughout his career Influence
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the same dedication to detail in everything he did with those whom he wanted to influence – which probably explains why he served many more terms before he went on to become a Senator. Later he became Senate Majority Leader (the most influential politician in Washington, next to the President) and eventually Vice-President. And following the assassination of President John Kennedy, he was sworn in as President. His name was Lyndon B. Johnson.
Exercise 4.2 The LBJ example can be considered pretty good and an almost perfect example of fishing. [Any thoughts on how you might apply a similar fishing technique where you presently work?] Johnson would be able to put a face to the names of those he met (and most of them would recognise him when they saw him around the Capitol). Mutual recognition is a major aid in getting on with people, particularly when they are new to the scene and unsure of themselves. The situation of their first meeting would prove memorable for years to come: ‘I didn’t recognise Johnson with his clothes on for years because when I met him he was buck naked.’ (Note the exaggeration – an essential ingredient for barroom raconteurs.) The one friendly face on their first day had a lasting impression, particularly as they remembered his big, friendly Texas welcome. They would be bound to associate him with their first morning in Congress – before their party managers and the others they met that first day would be lost in a blur of faces.
Exercise 4.3 First, he would discover their special interests by fishing and enthusing behaviours. Then he would seek opportunities to reinforce his links with them by supplying helpful information on their special interests (press cuttings, papers, meetings of experts in their fields, and such like). Lastly, he would seek opportunities to assist them in legislative work associated with their field, put them in touch with like-minded politicians and lobbyists, and support them where possible in pursuing their interests.
Exercise 4.4 Many wallowing questions are possible and my selection is illustrative of what Johnson might have done:
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What made you so late?
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How were you treated by the airline whose plane was delayed?
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How do you feel about what the airline did for passengers at the time?
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What did you do when you realised it was going to be a long delay?
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What could the airline do that it didn’t do on this occasion? Edinburgh Business School
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Note the preference for ‘open’ questions (how, what, where, why, when, who) that invite opinion, commentary and detail, over ‘closed’ questions (did, were, have, was) which can only be answered ‘yes’ or ‘no’. In the wallow you want expansive rather than terse answers.
Exercise 4.5 Johnson used revelatory behaviours a great deal. He became a master politician in the Senate through the use of information about the private lives, feeling, aspirations and hopes of other Senators, some of it revealed through careless gossip but a lot of it from one-on-one exchanges with them. Revelatory behaviour must be proportionate, and in the form of an exchange, to prevent manipulation.
Exercise 4.6 All rational arguments are expected to contain a premise: if the premise is true, then logic defines the conclusion. Here is an argument about pay rises: Those who pass their probation receive an immediate increment in their pay. I passed my probation last month and therefore I am due a pay rise this month. Georgina failed her probation and therefore she should receive no increase in her pay.
This is one such plausible argument but, like most others, it contains a logical weakness. Can you spot it? [Georgina’s situation detracts from the logic of his claim. Passing probation means a pay rise; I passed, hence I receive a pay rise.]
Exercise 4.7 If you answer by saying: ‘I suggest you drop the suit’, then you are unlikely to be successful in influencing your friend. She is are bound to want more than a bald statement like ‘drop the suit’. A better approach is: In view of the expense, the delays, the unreliability of witnesses and the lottery of our legal process, I would reconsider your decision to get dragged into a legal suit.
Exercise 4.8 Something like the following could be appropriate: Your duty is clear. Nobody is above the law and that man’s conduct cannot be tolerated. You must vote to impeach.
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Or Your duty is clear. None of the charges amount to a threat against the republic and to deprive anybody of due process cannot be tolerated. You must vote to acquit.
Exercise 4.9 Coercive behaviour could well be used when the outcome of your colleague’s compliance is of great importance to you. If it was not that important, you would afford yourself the luxury of letting your ethical senses restrain your behaviour.
Exercise 5.1 (a) Most likely but not altogether surprisingly. (b) From an influencing point of view Barry is his own victim. (c) From an influencing point of view Moira is her own victim.
Exercise 5.2 Probably not, though it is inevitable that she will use disparaging language about somebody known to upset her friend. However, in an influencing context use of disparaging language about third parties is risky if it is repeated during a confrontation (‘Everybody calls you a creep – ask Moira’).
Exercise 5.3 ‘One good turn deserves another.’
Exercise 5.4 Negotiation is a process to determine whether or not a specific trade can be agreed (‘If I get this, then you get that’). The agreed transaction is simultaneous, contingent and specific. Influencing is a process that is an implicit ‘trade’ – the beneficiary of the act by the influencer may reciprocate at some indeterminate date in the future. While the parties to a negotiated contract have legal recourse if a party does not perform as agreed, there is no formal contract between influencers and those they wish to influence, and no recourse to legal remedies if a party does not perform what is only implied.
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Exercise 5.5 People notice when good turns are not reciprocated and, in consequence, they feel aggrieved – sometimes bitterly. Aggrieved people resort to various remedies to your detriment, including being unresponsive to your efforts to influence them.
Exercise 5.6 ‘One bad turn deserves another.’
Exercise 6.1 Mei has to prepare carefully and thoroughly. She cannot do her job by relying on her charisma or credibility, her good arguments or rationale, or her authority. Of her charisma we know little and it is unlikely to be sufficient. Her credibility cannot be assumed and projected onto the key players (some more ‘key’ than she is). Credibility comes from reputation or from prolonged contact that demonstrates she should be taken seriously. Good, meritorious and rational arguments are insufficient to win adherents to her solutions. She has to earn the right to be taken seriously as she lobbies for support. As for authority – the right to make people do what they otherwise wouldn’t – she has not got any yet.
Exercise 6.2 Answers will vary.
Exercise 6.3 Clear allies include Jean (her boss), Sid (PA) and perhaps Henri (state Treasury). Jean and Sid favour forming New Harbour Co to take over the project. Bruce is a rival at present, as is Hans. Their side deal is unacceptable to Mei and her allies, Jean and Henri, and will require political pressure on the Council to reverse. Hans stands to gain from the site redevelopment, particularly with the ‘irrevocable’ profit clause, but may be susceptible to pressure once he realises the political unacceptability of such a clause with public funding for decontamination of his company’s former site.
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Exercise 6.4 Over 70 per cent of them called the Finance Director to arrange appointments, which was generally explained as a bid to speak to somebody with whom they felt most ‘comfortable’. The most common explanation from those 30 per cent of loan managers who called the CEO of potential customers was that it was the CEO who had the biggest influence on a borrowing decision and not the FD.
Exercise 6.5 Bruce’s action would be an intrusive event of the most serious magnitude because it would jeopardise her ability to raise public funds for the development project once the politicians considered the implications of an oil company making large profits from public expenditure. How would that play in the media? What would the Opposition do with that revelation?
Exercise 7.1 Blake was checking out his radical plan for ‘sanity’ with colleagues he knew and respected. If they dissuaded him from pursuing it, he would be inclined to heed their advice, assuming that their objections related to the details of the plan and were not just expressing their pessimism about his chances of success. The most brilliant influencing game is a waste of effort if it is played in pursuit of an objective that respected colleagues considered to be deeply flawed. Friendly critics can spot flaws (both minor and major), can test for thoroughness in planned solutions, can comment on the realism of the objectives, and can make positive suggestions that improve the plan and its proposed execution. If your influencing game does not play well with your friends, it is hardly likely to be convincing with your hostile rivals.
Exercise 7.2 If Blake inadvertently drove more people into opposition, this would move the line significantly below the line of neutrality, as in Exhibit A1.1 below. Only a few people would support the change (the small segment above the line of neutrality) and Blake will have lost the argument – and with it his prospects of implementing the change.
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Exhibit A1.1
Strongly for
S S# Neutral N#
R Strongly against
R#
Exercise 7.3 If the imperatives are met you will have achieved your objective. You will have a higher likelihood of them being met to the extent that the imperatives conform to SMART criteria, i.e., that they are Specific; Measured; Achievable; Realistic and Time-bound.
Answers to Case Studies Case Study 1 1 Prisoner’s Dilemma is about the choice between co-operating to make both parties better off or defecting to make one party better off. In the situation described in the case between PB and OrganTran, they are not strictly in a Prisoner’s Dilemma, though elements of one are present. An opportunity for co-operation has arisen that will, according to PB, make both parties better off. That is a matter of judgement. In a Prisoner’s Dilemma game the pay-off for co-operation is usually unambiguous, as is that of defection; and the pay-off for reciprocated co-operation is better (in the original game, a one-year sentence is less than five or ten years in jail). A problem arises because of the uncertainty of reciprocation, making not confessing liable to 10 years if the other party confesses. OrganTran seems to consider its short-term goal better for it against the risk that PB is motivated by a desire to generate monopoly profits from Influence
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falsely inducing OrganTran to co-operate and reveal its costing, profits and intentions. Prisoner’s Dilemma might help Fraquelli’s understanding of OrganTran’s response to his sensible proposal for partnership development of Z28 to the extent that the risks of co-operation sometimes drive parties to defect, even though by defecting they risk making themselves worse off as a result.
Case Study 2 1 A Type I model can be defined using the three steps of rational decision making: •
Step One: Awareness of a need to alter current arrangements.
•
Step Two: Search for options.
•
Step Three: Choose an option.
In short, Type I decisions eschew subjectivism, favouritism and personal prejudices. Type II decision processes are neither rational nor objective (in the sense usually meant by these terms). Type II decisions are prejudiced and susceptible to varying degrees of manipulation by people who succumb (consciously or otherwise) to influences outside of a so-called rational calculus. The Opel case reveals characteristics of a Type II model (subjective judgement and susceptibility to manipulation), though this does not preclude the original decision having been made in accordance with a predominantly Type I model (rational decision making) by somebody in the chain of command. The recall of Cowger (who was originally opposed as the local boss of Opel in Germany) to Detroit sparked off protests both at his recall and then, only four months later, against his nominated replacement (Peter Hanenburger). Wilhelm Gab, head of the Opel Supervisory Board, resigned over being ‘sidelined’ by GM executives, who had discussed his replacement with members of the Opel main board before consulting him (a normal practice outside Germany). Previous managerial in fighting between David Herman (Opel boss before Cowger) and Lou Hughes (GM International Operations Executive) was ‘resolved’ by replacing Herman with Cowger and recalling Hughes to Detroit. These moves suggest non-rational decision-making processes, lack of foresight about the consequences of certain actions, and the encroachment of ‘external’ influences on local rationality. A1/10
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2 The problem that forced the recall of Garry Cowger originated in Detroit. Labour relations had deteriorated over attempts by North American management to improve efficiency at plant level in the heavily unionised US plants. Cowger was recognised as a ‘heavy hitter’ in these situations and clearly Jack Smith, CEO of GM, considered that his recall was the most sensible way to resolve the US problem. To what extent Smith considered the collateral fallout that would arise within the Opel plant at Russelsheim from his decision is not known but there must have been some thought given to the likely reaction, given the opposition to his appointment only four months previously. It is not too far-fetched to imagine that the hostile reaction to Cowger’s appointment might have provoked a subsequent misreading of the likely reaction to his recall along the lines of: ‘Well, as they didn’t want him in the first place, this makes it convenient to give them what they want and remove him.’ This view ignores the sensitivity of those at Opel who feel that their interests are sacrificed, or are secondary, to the interests of GM Detroit. If Detroit wants something, it appears that they take it irrespective of how inconvenient it is for subsidiary plants outside North America – remembering, of course, that Opel is not just a GM plant producing GM cars but also one of GM’s main brands in Europe. From Opel’s point of view, the company is likely to feel that its interests are subordinate to GM North America’s interests. Even more frustrating was the fact that, because they objected to the appointment of Peter Hanenburger, their first-class local product-development manager at Russelsheim, to the top Opel job, as a consequence they had had Robert Hendry, GM’s top troubleshooter from the US, imposed on them. (Incidentally, Hendry continued to run Saab part-time.) 3 Without more detail it is hard to judge, but on what evidence there is it would appear not to be the case. The switch of personnel involved suggests more of an ad hoc management decision style than one of rational judgement. But we must be careful. It could be argued – and probably was by the people involved – that each decision (‘exile’ Herman to Moscow; recall Hughes to Detroit; replace Herman with Cowger; recall Cowger to Detroit; propose Hanenberger; drop Hanenberger when resistance became public; and bring in Hendry, even part-time, to reverse the decline in Opel profits) was individually a ‘rational’ decision compliant with the three steps (awareness, search, select). That, in the view of many managers, smacked of firm leadership rather than dithering. They chose, in their view, the appropriate decision on each occasion. The outcry came from people uninformed of the facts and, frankly, not in a position to have to take responsibility for their actions. It is easy to carp from the sidelines but this is a luxury top managers do not have, unless they are commenting on the performance of other, rival, managers. Influence
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4 The answer would depend upon from whose viewpoint we judge. That there was controversy over Cowger’s appointment four months previously was known to Smith. As it was, he faced up to the opposition and convinced the Supervisory Board that Cowger was the best replacement for Herman. To what extent Herman’s clashes with Hughes were clashes between German and North American working methods is not reported, but if there were some national sensitivities involved it would be incumbent on Smith to take these feelings into account when he replaced Herman with another North American, Cowger. It would be even more important for Smith to anticipate some reaction to the abrupt recall of Cowger to Detroit when only four months into his Opel appointment. That there was some misreading of the situation is suggested by the abortive attempt to replace Cowger with Hanenberger. The reaction of local management – and the German Supervisory Board – to the replacement of a North American with a German may have surprised Smith. (Once emotional resistance replaces rationality, it leads to all sort of contradictions and unexpected positions.) Again, Smith ‘resolved’ the issue by bringing in Robert Hendry (another North American) from his successful turnaround of Saab, and this move proved less controversial. (Perhaps the local Opel people considered Hendry a safer pair of hands than Hanenberger and their survival instincts dominated other sensitivities.) In general, Smith may have acted too hastily in underpreparing Opel’s top management and the Supervisory Board for the impending changes he had decided upon, and whatever the pressures he was under (e.g., long-term strikes in the North American plants that threatened to get out of control) Smith may have ridden roughshod, or appeared to have done so, over the personal dignities and sense of involvement of his managers at Opel. People respond to a crisis if they are involved at the earliest in dealing with it jointly with those who ultimately make the decisions (leadership). People affected by the decisions that others might make are able to influence those decisions if they can mobilise influencing strategies in good time. In cases where this is not possible – for whatever reasons – the result is the kind of personnel crises reported at Opel.
Case Study 3 1 Even if Bill wasn’t keen on football – perhaps he preferred rugby – he must appreciate that others in the bank, including upper management, are keen on visiting United matches because of the bank’s hospitality package, which includes chances to meet the players and the club’s famous manager and to get autographs. Bill must start from the interests and predilections of the people whom he wants to influence, albeit in pursuit of his own career. A1/12
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2 Within months he could work his way round the bank’s upper echelons to get himself known, sometimes responding to requests for tickets and sometimes initiating shrewd suggestions to certain people when a team from their area was visiting Didchester. Bankers like to take their clients to events to develop personal relations with them. The bank’s United box was for this purpose and, by scanning the match schedules, Bill could initiate calls to local branches to invite the manager to book seats for when their local team was playing and a client would be interested in travelling to the United match. He could extend such invitations to selected senior managers for the ‘big’ matches (there are always ‘big’ matches in any sport) and he could personally ensure that the bank’s hospitality had a positive effect on the clients. 3 While he piled up favours by attending the matches to superintend the details for his bank’s clients, he would be in liaison with United’s hospitality staff as a matter of course. He would get to know the high-profile football players and could sometimes arrange for them to do promotions for bank customers, who had a steady demand for autographs and memorabilia. This activity would also put him in touch with senior staff at many business corporations who were also important customers of rival banks. There is some limited crossing-over in contact between business clients, who would meet their friends who were guests of other banks at the same matches. These introductions would be useful to Bill, as would collateral introductions to senior managers of rival banks.
Case Study 4 1 Giacomo must induce you to wallow about the reasons why you hope for a short meeting. Expressing your reasons will remind you how anxious you are about the duration of the meeting and the more anxious you feel, the more receptive you will be to his solution of curtailing the meeting.
Case Study 5 1 Gratitude Support Assistance Solving problems Resources Concerns, interests and hobbies Recognition Visibility Information Belonging Influence
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Understanding Comfort Response 2 From the evidence, it does not appear that the son put in place anything remotely like the contact his father had with the employees. If this is really the case, the influencing currencies will have ceased to be exchanged and this is bound to have affected relationships and performance. The fate of the organisation rests to some extent on how the employees then perceive their role in the fortunes of the company.
Case Study 6 1 The answer depends on how the arguments are presented and the state of Mei’s relationship with Bruce. She certainly needs to find out a lot more about how this decision is being made, with whom it has been discussed on the political side of the local council, what the pressures are within the council to go down this route, and what alternatives have been considered? To imply somebody is ‘na¨ıve’ is a risky accusation. That they are doing something that is ‘not commercially astute’ also carries negative implications. It may be better to attack the oil company’s motives and their expectations. If all the costs of decontamination are added into the profit calculation, it might be argued that some profit share was in order, provided that Hans does not charge more than a nominal $1 for the land. 2 The reverse order is probably the best. She should do what she can to undo the momentum to the deal from within the council first. Then, failing that, she should move on to ‘leaking’ to the DA and, finally, to MPs. As the latter are unlikely to let the matter rest in private – nobody leaks like a politician with a soundbite in mind – it will be difficult to contain resentment. The MPs would make certain that the argument would become public knowledge, and this may make it more difficult to get the local council to review its stance. As always, it depends on the structure of the political system, the relationships between the parties, and how decisive a blow it would be for the council to purchase the tank farm on Hans’s terms. 3 Dealing only with the Opposition is a high-risk strategy that leaves Mei open to charges of political bias and improper, even disloyal, conduct. Governments are sensitive to what their employees do. And Oppositions, while not averse to ‘leaks’ from government departments, know that they can easily become victims of leaks when in office. It might be appropriate to leak to the Opposition, however, when a government is close to the end of its term of office, particularly if it is unlikely to win the next election. If the purchase contract is to be signed imminently and leaking to the Opposition is the only way to stop it through publicity, A1/14
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the case for selective leaking is (almost) irresistible. Leaking via a public fax machine takes seconds and is virtually untraceable to the sender (whereas using a secure fax in the encryption section is a brazen invitation to be unmasked as the sender). 4 Yes. If the political route is judged to be too risky and she is ill-prepared or has too few contacts in it, Mei might consider returning to Hans to discuss his proposed sale. During this discussion she might rehearse the political pitfalls of such a contract and the public relations effect if its details become public. Companies do not like negative publicity. If Hans withdrew the 40 per cent proposal, this would take the pressure off Bruce and, in retrospect, he might be grateful. Why Hans would agree to this is another question.
Case Study 7 1 Some lonely people, who consider themselves tough (the two states of mind often go together), would never admit to asking someone for help. During their late-night litanies of advice for tough guys, they readily advise themselves never to seek help, never to offer it and never to respond to requests for it. Help is just not in their vocabulary or within their understanding. For an influencer, help is much more than a four-letter word. It is a powerful currency for creating, exchanging and exercising influence. It is both a strategic objective and a tactical instrument. Whatever else the ladder to success is composed of, there are certain to be large elements of people helping each other in it. It is almost conceivable that influence can be exercised by somebody who does not seek help from those who have the capacity to offer it nor dispense help to those who want to receive it. But this would be a very exceptional case and, like most exceptional cases, it would not be a good idea to make your career dependent on it. People like to help as much as they like to be helped. Mostly, they only have to be asked. The fact that many ambitious people don’t like to ask for help (of a direct kind) leaves a lot of scope for those ambitious people who overcome these inhibitions and do ask others for help. 2 Conventional wisdom opines that it is easier to ask for help from colleagues of roughly equal status in an organisation than to ask a boss, and the received wisdom appeals to intuitive reasoning. Bosses may react negatively to a request for help; or, certainly, if there are too many requests. Maybe, they might conclude that you can’t do your job and that you lack initiative. Colleagues are not just people of equal status. They are also potential rivals and asking them for help not only implies some dependence on them but it also creates an obligation (the norm of reciprocity!) towards them. Bringing someone into a project to help you reveals to them possible opportunities Influence
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for their own advancement, and this may induce them to make a take-over bid for your initiative, or, at the very least, stimulate them to press for a large share of the glory. This probably explains why many requests for help are directed towards people of lower status in an organisation, or people who are quite clearly junior partners in initiatives. Some junior people are happy to play this role because they see it as an opportunity for them. You should never forget that you are not the only person in the organisation who seeks more influence – that smiling bright-eyed and energetic junior may be putting her first foot on the ladder you bring with you!
Case Study 8 1 ‘Influencing’ has been defined as: the process by which we obtain what we want by affecting the thoughts, feelings and behaviours of others who are able to make decisions that affect ourselves and over whom we may have limited or no formal authority.
Both Arbor and Brennan want to be elected to the highly prestigious office of Chairman of the Chicago Board of Trade. Their election campaigns have been aimed at affecting ‘the thoughts, feelings and behaviours’ of the electors, whose decisions definitely affected the fortunes of the candidates. That the result was so close suggests that the electorate were almost evenly divided between them. By all accounts it was a bruising campaign. The incumbent was forced onto the defensive. His attempted reforms to save CBOT by adopting new technology and forming alliances with rivals were attacked by the challenger as sacrificing the interests of the smaller firms in favour of the larger firms. His own policy of a hybrid market – part electronic and part-open cry – simultaneously appealed to those fearful of all-out change and those fearful of too speedy a transition to the inevitable. 2 It would have to be an exploitative campaign if Brennan wanted to win. If you aim for the top job there is no room for half measures. The electors’ decision is final: one candidate wins and the other loses. Subtlety is not a trump card in these circumstances, whereas it might be in the longer runup towards the top job in an organisation, particularly where it involves holding delicately matched coalitions together for long periods. An election is a ‘make your mind up’ time. And influencing in these conditions is likely to be sharp – even brutal – in its characterisations of an opponent’s intentions, capabilities and motives. All actions by the opponent, both real and imagined, will be castigated as damaging to the interests of the electors. Brennan appears to have used scare stories, plots and the implied conspiracies by foreign (i.e., European) rivals to instigate fear uncertainty and doubt among traders who believed they were vulnerable to forces beyond their ability to resist. A1/16
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3 Not much, unless he had an imaginative ‘rescue’ plan for those already suffering from the downturn in trade. He could ‘do the numbers’ and calculate that such a scheme would be a waste of support among those larger trading firms who might feel they had to pay for it (and losing by a 19-vote margin suggests if he did ‘do the numbers’ in this manner and he did adopt this conclusion, he was not far out).
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Appendix 2
Practice Final Examinations Contents Practice Final Examination I
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Practice Final Examination II
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Model answers to the following practice examinations are found at the end of each examination.
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Practice Final Examination I Case Study: Promotion Charles seeks promotion to Section Head at Phoenix Enterprises in charge of a construction project in Ogoland. Promotion will satisfy two objectives for Charles. First, he believes that promotion will provide new and interesting challenges in his work role, for which he is convinced he is ready after 10 years working on various international projects; and, second, with promotion he will increase his salary and improve other parts of his remuneration package, which will raise his living standards. Charles knows that promotion is not granted automatically in Phoenix Enterprises. Many people seek promotion, but for most employees in his grade, because promotion remains a distant objective – as was the case with Charles until recently – it is neither sought nor expected. Many people do not apply for promotion because they would be embarrassed by rejection. Promotion is in the gift of the organisation’s vice-presidents and other senior managers, including Vincent, his own boss. Charles has much work to do to induce them to consider him for promotion to Section Head over the claims of some of his colleagues, who have been working for promotion for some time. Edna, for example, has taken on extra work to improve her profile and is reported to be on good terms with Vincent, who in turn is a good friend of Rodney, one of the vice-presidents. Charles in not impressed with the accuracy of Edna’s budgetary-control work, normally mandatory for a Section Head in a major project. She admitted to Janvier, a friend of Charles, that she was uncomfortable about undertaking a trip to Ogoland with Henri to visit the Phoenix construction site, which is close to an area where there have been skirmishes between the local police and environmental demonstrators. Barry has also made moves to acquire a stronger profile, in his case by joining an interdepartmental working party chaired by Henri, Vice-President (Marketing). Barry has recently become its secretary, and this work takes him away from the head office in London to meetings in Paris and New York. Vincent believes that Barry is getting a taste for a wider role than he would get from promotion to Section Head and that he is gradually losing touch with the mainstream work related to the section. Against the claims of Edna and Barry, Charles believes his own case is fairly good. He has often deputised for the Head of Section, who resigned six weeks ago, and he knows the section’s functions well. He has no problem with visiting Ogoland on Phoenix business – he made the last trip with Henri. Against his proven competence, however, Charles has clashed with Vincent over what Vincent described as his alleged ‘lack of commitment’, occasioned by his refusal to work at short notice on a weekend recently for ‘personal reasons’ (though he has worked weekends before). Last week, when Vincent suggested that Charles postpone his annual holidays, due in three weeks time, ‘until the A2/2
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new Section Head is in post’, regretfully he said he would ‘think about it’. It was the request to postpone his holiday that sparked his decision to apply for promotion. Charles feels that if he is doing the Section Head’s job he might as well do it officially. If promotion was a real prospect he would not mind postponing his holiday. Assume that Charles, an acquaintance you socialise with occasionally, asks you for some confidential advice about his promotion bid. How would you answer the following questions on the basis of the information in the case, assuming you know nothing other than what Charles tells you about Phoenix and its people? Case Study Questions Each question is worth 8 marks. Total marks for the Case Study = 40. 1 Where do you think Charles is vulnerable in the promotion stakes, and why? 2 How might Charles handle the problem of a ‘preferred’ candidate? 3 How safe are Charles’s views of the promotion prospects of Edna? 4 How safe are Charles’s views of the promotion prospects of Barry? 5 What advice would you give to Charles if he were to mount a promotion bid from scratch instead of the way he has done it this time?
Part Two: Essays Write essay answers to the following questions. Each essay is worth 20 marks. Total marks for the Essays = 60. 1 How might a knowledge of Prisoner’s Dilemma explain a failure of two influencers to co-operate when it is manifestly in their interests to do so? 2 Why should you exchange influencing currencies with colleagues? 3 How might a Force Field diagram assist an influencing project?
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Model solutions Case Study Answers 1 Charles’s entry is a late one occasioned by some sort of incident between Charles and Vincent, his boss. If Charles is thinking about the incident and what it suggests, it is probable that Vincent is too. Vincent has already questioned his commitment over his attitude to the emergency weekend working and the recent evasion over postponing his holidays suggests a pattern that may make Charles unsuitable as a Head of Section. True, Charles probably has full explanations of the unreasonableness (as he will see it) of Vincent’s requirements. These explanations might be good ones – Charles, say, had already worked three weekends in a row and the notice he was given (4.55 p.m. on a Friday) was too short to change arrangements he had made to visit his sick mother!) – but it is the reaction of a boss who might not share Charles’s concept of reasonableness, especially if a refusal meant Vincent would have to work instead. In general, Charles is vulnerable because his promotion bid does not appear to have been planned or prepared for. 2 People charged with responsibility for promotion tend to be in informal contact with each other and with the heads of those departments that have vacancies. The members that form the promotion board or panel will seek, if only privately, to ascertain who among the applicants is the ‘preferred’ candidate. This status does not assure anybody of selection, but the views of the department’s manager will generally carry a lot of weight. This leads to shorter meetings and avoids other department heads antagonising a department by ‘picking’ the ‘wrong’ candidate. Promotion processes are not necessarily ‘fixed’. There are open processes as per the rules, but constant interaction between people on promotion panels inevitably leads to informal acquiescence in abiding by preferredcandidate choices. This quid pro quo allows other departments to exercise their preferences when it is their turn to fill a promoted post. Managers are always anxious to have the biggest say in who is promoted within their department. Because Vincent might know whether there is a ‘preferred’ candidate, asking him, or someone privy to Vincent’s views, could be helpful if Charles gets a truthful answer, and if, more importantly, he does not offend the person he asks. Vincent may not admit to there being a preferred candidate. He might, as a ‘blind’ to the real situation, encourage Charles to apply for the post on the grounds that the ‘experience’ of being interviewed, whatever the result, would be beneficial for him in some way. Usually, being advised to apply for ‘the experience’ means that there is a preferred candidate in play. A more specific confidential naming of the preferred candidate is a solid hint that Charles should ‘not bother on this occasion’. A2/4
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[Examples by the candidate of any personal experience of attempting to deal with the problem of the preferred candidate would be worth extra marks.] 3 The obvious weakness is that the views held are the impressions of Charles, which are not necessarily accurate and may not be shared by the promotion panel. As an objective advisor – an acquaintance of Barry, not his best friend or an employee of Phoenix Enterprises – you only have Barry’s account of what Edna and Barry have been doing. He has ascribed motives to his apparent rivals about why Edna took on extra work or Barry joined Henri’s working party. Edna, for example, could be on good terms with Vincent, because he appreciates the work she is doing, and this may have nothing to do with her seeking promotion. If Vincent and Rodney are good friends, she is doing the right thing if she is seeking promotion, but their friendship is not solely for Edna’s benefit and it could be beneficial for Charles too. Note that it is Charles who is ‘unimpressed with the accuracy of her budgetary control work’ and not necessarily Vincent, and this may anyway be a non-critical criterion in selecting someone for promotion. That Charles was told by his friend, Janvier, ‘that she was uncomfortable about undertaking the trip to Ogoland with Henri’ may also be of little consequence. For a start, friends often tell each other what they want to hear and people process what they hear to suit their prejudices. Her discomfort about visiting the construction site may have something to with a relationship with Henri which neither Janvier nor Charles know anything about. If Henri is a key player in promotion, her attitude hardly squares with her comments to Janvier. She would surely see this as an opportunity to impress him with her competence. 4 A similar caution is required for judging the reliability of Charles’s view about Barry. It is Vincent who surmises that ‘Barry is getting a taste for a wider role.’ Could this be nothing more than pettiness and a touch of cynicism at the supposed lifestyle benefits of international travel to Paris and New York? The mind-set that contrasts the visits Charles makes to the construction site in up-country Ogoland, where there is some civil unrest, with the bright lights of Paris and New York is predictable. Also, where Charles considers himself working at an income-earning project, Barry is deemed to be wasting his time and the company’s money on another low-priority ‘working party’ for Henri. Similarly, on the matter of Barry’s absence from the section while on working-party business, absence is not necessarily a barrier to becoming Section Head, as would be shown if Phoenix appointed an external candidate who has had no previous contact with the Section. Absence from contact with the people who make the promotion decision, or who advise them, might be a barrier – ‘out of sight, out of mind’, so to speak. That Influence
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is always the danger of getting sucked into a ‘working party’ that is a side-show away from mainstream functions. These kinds of thoughts always bubble to the surface during contests for promotion, budgets and in so-called ‘turf wars’. Mostly they are harmless but sometimes they break out into personalised abuse and the ascription of malign motives to opponents. 5 Charles must first familiarise himself with how the formal promotion system works in Phoenix Enterprises. He must also become familiar with how it works informally. In applying for the Section Head’s post, he must review the extent to which he meets the formal criteria for promotion and how he might deal with any gaps between the formal criteria and what is shown in his c.v. If he is deficient in any of the criteria, he must assess how he is going to overcome those deficiencies and whether they are critical to the successful performance of a Section Head. Examples always help a candidate’s answer if they show the application of general advice to the real world. For example: If the Section Head requires to be fluent in Urdu and he does not speak the language, he is unlikely to get the job as things stand. And if he does get the job, he might be less than effective in managing Urdu-speaking local employees in Pakistan who do not speak his language. But if Charles speaks a related language, such as Hindi, and if he can convince the selectors that he would quickly acquire the necessary fluency, he might overcome this obstacle. This process of examining the selection criteria and assessing how you compare against it, is general advice for promotion and sales. The way to deal with mismatches is to try to raise the importance of the criteria you meet and to lower the relevance of the criteria you do not meet. Next Charles must check the appropriate way to initiate his entry into the formal promotion process. Some promotion procedures insist on a formal invitation from senior management to potential candidates to apply before they are permitted to do so, and others leave the initiative to the employee (if they do not apply, they will not be considered). A third variant combines a mixture of the first two. By carefully selecting someone in the system, who can provide informal advice on these matters, Charles could clear the way for his application. This points to the cultivation over time of a friendly coach or mentor in upper management, which is a key preparation task for advancement. Charles had also better sort out his commitment to additional hours – and weekends – of work. This is, perhaps, his greatest weakness – fair or otherwise – in his current application.
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Answers to Essay Questions 1 Prisoner’s Dilemma is about the choice between co-operating to make both parties better off, or one or both of them defecting with the intention of making one party (themselves) better off. If an opportunity for cooperation arises that could make both parties better off, but there is also an element of distrust present, and the parties perceive they would be better off individually without risking co-operation, a potential Prisoner’s Dilemma problem exists. In a Prisoner’s Dilemma, the pay-off for co-operation is usually unambiguous, as is that of defection, and the pay-off for reciprocated co-operation is better (for instance, in the original game, a one-year sentence is less than five years or twelve). The problem arises because of the uncertainty of co-operation, making the person choosing not to confess vulnerable to 12 years in jail if the other party confesses. [If supported by an accurate box diagram, for the original game or similar, such as that shown below, this is worth extra marks to the candidate.]
Prisoner B C
D
C
1 year each
12 years, free
D
free, 12 years 5 years each
Prisoner A
Both prisoners must contemplate what the other prisoner will choose. Their fate is dependent on the choice of the other prisoner; neither of them can unilaterally choose the outcome because their choices are inextricably bound together. Clearly, compared with their other choices it would be best if they both chose ‘not to confess’ because they receive a one-year sentence instead of five years or twelve. But will Prisoner A and Prisoner B choose not to confess? Or will they choose what is best for themselves alone, i.e., confess in the hope that the other doesn’t – and thereby gain their freedom? If A chooses not to confess, he risks B confessing which gives A a sentence of 12 years and B his freedom. But why would B not see that the optimum choice for both of them is ‘not to confess’? B, of course, is vulnerable to A reasoning in the same way, and instead of A na¨ıvely not confessing (which Influence
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gets A 12 years if B defects and confesses), A too might decide to ‘confess’, giving them both five years in jail. They are now both worse off than if they had both ‘not confessed’. Hence, when the influencer wants to explain why two parties do not cooperate when it is manifestly mutually beneficial to co-operate, he or she should look to see whether there are circumstances in which it is better for them to do what is best for themselves alone or do what is best for both of them. If there is such a choice, a potential Prisoner’s Dilemma exists. [An example of a Prisoner’s Dilemma type of situation from a work-related event would attract extra marks. For example:] There are three proposals A, B, C, before a meeting, only one of which will pass. If things are left to a free vote, any one proposal has a random chance of passing, the other two having to wait at least until next month’s meeting for success. However, if the supporter of proposal A was to form a coalition with the proposer of B, offering to support her at the next meeting if she supports him at this meeting, then A is certain to be passed at the meeting and B is certain to be passed at the next meeting. The supporter of C will have to wait even longer. However, the proposer of B may not trust the proposer of A to support him at the next meeting and prefer instead to take her chance at the meeting. She risks having to wait until the third meeting and beyond if either A or C are passed at the first two meetings (and both A and C may join a coalition against B). 2 You are more likely to serve your own interests by addressing yourself to the interests of those who have what you want; so serve others to serve yourself! In influencing, the exchange is intangible and implicit. People exchange intangible ‘currencies’, such as services rendered, sentiments expressed, commitments made or obligations fulfilled. Different people desire different things. In influencing, you identify and deliver the different intangible currencies sought by individuals. Your influence on potential allies and partners within an organisation is greater when the people you want to influence perceive that you contribute to their sense of well-being and to their self-interests. But people do not transact in all influencing currencies and they are fussy about which currencies they accept and with whom they transact. If people deal in inspirational currencies, such as vision, excellence and ethical principles, you are more likely to influence them if you demonstrate that you share their visions. Likewise with the currency of excellence: a reputation for, or tolerance of, slipshod work will not help. People imbued with ethical principles prefer straight dealing and honest actions. They are more likely to be influenced by people who help them to complete their tasks in the ethical way that they want them done than by those who sully what they are doing by causing them ethical dilemmas. A2/8
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Failing to acknowledge somebody’s contribution causes offence, while publicly acknowledging a contribution (even a rival’s) is a sensible influencing currency. Some people like visibility; some can never get enough of it, so withholding it often offends (a bad turn). Visibility, when shared with others, is good for influence. People trade in anything that enhances their reputation, but gossip, rumour and innuendo undermine your influence. Influencing is about building relationships with many people. Understanding their intentions and aspirations, difficulties and challenges is a key activity. Ultimately, relationships are personal. Expressing gratitude is not just good manners. It takes moments to transact and has a disproportionate effect for the effort involved. [An example of the candidate’s (or somebody else’s) intangible currencies and how they interact using them will attract extra marks.] 3 Originally, the Force Field diagram was an organisational change model but it is now extensively used in influencing. ‘Forces’ operate on a situation, some of which are forces for a change in the status quo and some of which are forces against a change. The current situation is a result of the balance of these forces for and against a change. We talk of strong ‘opposition’ or ‘resistance’ to change and the ‘popularity’ or ‘unpopularity’ of a proposal. We also talk of something that ‘cannot be done in the current circumstances’, and the Force Field diagram is a means by which we can identify the different elements that make up what we mean by the words ‘current circumstances’. Basically, in order to change a situation the forces for the change must overcome the forces against it. Influencers who wish to change a situation try to strengthen the forces for and weaken the forces against; influencers who do not wish to change the situation try to weaken the forces for and strengthen the forces against. A generic Force Field diagram applicable to an influencing game is shown in the diagram below.
Desired objective L H M Forces against
Balance of forces
Forces for Current situation
The diagram summarises the balance of forces in the situation and assesses the impact of each force. The forces have different degrees of importance Influence
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and these can be noted on the diagram as ‘H’ for high importance; ‘M’ for medium importance and ‘L’ for low importance. The influencer must not only discriminate by the degree of importance of the force but also by its susceptibility to influence. It is usually easier to weaken an opponent’s pressure than it is to strengthen one’s own, provided a sense of balance is maintained and the issues are not personalised. The Force Field diagram takes account of arguments for and against the issues involved. People articulate their support or opposition to a change by using arguments. These may be well reasoned and well thought through, rationally put and persuasive; they may also be emotional, manipulative, dishonest and persuasive. There is often a battle of ideas, expressed by each side or individual in the argument. Again, the influencer has to be selective, answering the case against with effective counters. Influencers must recognise the strong arguments that are used by opponents. The Force Field diagram captures the recognition of the opponent’s strong arguments and highlights the need for an effective response. People will join or switch sides if strong arguments are not countered. Nit-picking through inconsequential arguments loses influence and the Force Field enables the influencer to distinguish between the strong and the trivial. The strength of an argument is not determined by the influencer’s views; it is determined by the audience’s views and their susceptibility to persuasion. In addition, a part of the Force Field diagram is devoted to the impact of events that have a bearing for or against the outcomes. Events can help or hinder an influencing project. A plane crash on some houses can swing public opinion against an airport runway extension; a fire in the Channel Tunnel temporarily swung public opinion against use of the rail link; a corruption trial impacts on public debate about policing; and so on. Where events are foreseen (a possible company take-over, for instance) they can be countered. Where they are a surprise (the Channel Tunnel fire), they can be entered into the Force Field and their impact assessed and incorporated into strategy. An extended Force Field diagram is shown below.
Players
Arguments
Events
Forces against
Balance of forces
Forces for Players
Arguments
Events
Current situation
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The Force Field enhances the quality of the information available to influencers because it visualises what might be done to secure the outcome. It is also used to identify allies and potential allies and to suggest ways to weaken opposition and to strengthen support.
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Practice Final Examination II Case study Mary, Vice-President, Materials Management, at Phoenix Enterprises, wants to influence an outcome – namely the introduction of outside haulage contractors – that affects people in several departments, not the least her own. This is because inadequate supplies of essential materials are currently jeopardising her department’s monthly output targets and a decision to move to outside hauliers should improve the situation. She has identified the key players in the decision (Wolfgang, Logistics; Benjamin, Logistics; and Rowan, Internal Audit). To lobby Wolfgang, the most virulent opponent of her plans, Mary prefers to exert what pressure she can through colleagues, starting with Benjamin, his deputy. She has to do this carefully as she needs Wolfgang to co-operate in integrating outsourced services with in-house provision. For this reason, she will make a direct approach to Benjamin to discuss Wolfgang’s continuing opposition and what it is doing to revenue in some critically competitive markets. Only if her approach to Benjamin and his subsequent quiet lobbying on her behalf fails to unnerve Wolfgang’s determination to veto her proposal will she escalate into a ‘lobbying’, ‘leaking’ and ‘leaning’ campaign to mobilise support from other key members of the Phoenix Board. The people in the Logistics Department know that they are vulnerable if their current performance does not improve. They know that Mary will make trouble for them if they do not act quickly, but they believe that they cannot improve their services without a substantial increase in their budget for new vehicles. Wolfgang is using the service failures as a lever to increase the department’s budget. Allowing contract haulage firms into the company would undermine his campaign for new vehicles and it would set an unwelcome precedent if ‘temporary’ outsourcing, once introduced, were to expand. He thinks he has allies on the board who can be marshalled against Mary’s proposal (because ‘outsourcing’ is also a threat to them), but he cannot rely on their support if by increasing his budget he reduces the budgets of his allies. The local press has reported that a haulage firm in town has gone on strike. The company’s internal auditor’s role is to prove financial probity at all levels in the company. Mary believes that outsourcing will stem current losses at less cost than purchasing a fleet of new vehicles. By ‘leaking’ the data quietly to Rowan, the internal auditor (who reports directly to the CEO), and portraying the dispute as an attempt by Logistics to blackmail the board for a higher budget, Mary hopes that Rowan will reveal the facts to the CEO, who will then force Wolfgang to back down. If Rowan warns Wolfgang privately against a blackmail ploy, the issue need not get to the board, but if Rowan acts too clumsily, it will seriously damage Mary’s relationships with Logistics. Mary’s main arguments for outsourcing and against increasing Wolfgang’s budget are commercial: ‘Why increase the budget for a department whose inadequate and expensive services cause losses?’ Her private arguments to Benjamin A2/12
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will concentrate on giving him reasons to distance himself from Wolfgang and to support the hiring of haulage services instead of relying 100 per cent on Logistics, which already consumes a (too) large proportion of the company’s budget. If she can show Benjamin that outsourcing is a sensible alternative and that Logistics is not under a terminal threat – that there will always be in-house capacity – Mary is confident that her active intervention will persuade Wolfgang to drop, or at least soften, his opposition. Case Study Questions Each question is worth 8 marks. Total marks for the Case Study = 40. 1 How might Mary prepare to influence the key players in her influencing game? 2 What does Mary want each key player to do? 3 What might Mary’s Force Field diagram include at the start of her campaign? 4 What is meant by a ‘lobbying, leaking and leaning’ campaign? 5 In what ways is Mary vulnerable, and has she an alternative?
Part Two: Essays Write essay answers to the following questions. Each essay is worth 20 marks. Total marks for the Essays = 60. 1 What are the main characteristics of two approaches to studying influence? 2 How important is the distinction between push and pull behaviours? 3 What is the relationship between scruples and experience?
Influence
Edinburgh Business School
A2/13
Appendix 2 / Practice Final Examinations
Model solutions Case Study Answers 1 Influencing is focused not random. It concentrates on the key players and not just on people generally. Mary is not running for election; she is influencing to secure a decision. ‘Key players’ are the people directly involved in the decision that Mary seeks. She has to identify them, find a means of gaining access to them, and assess which influencing tactics she will use to swing their support in her favour. A Key Players diagram will help Mary to identify the people she must influence, and a possible diagram is given below:
Raymond
Benjamin
Mary
CEO
Wolfgang
Key players in Mary’s influencing game
In Mary’s case she knows all of the players (she is a vice-president) and this is shown by straight lines connecting her to each named individual. The individuals also know each other and they have independent contacts with each other. These are shown by broken lines. It is Mary’s intention to use the independent contacts between Benjamin and Wolfgang, Raymond and Wolfgang, Raymond and the CEO, and eventually (perhaps), between the CEO and Wolfgang to win her campaign. She knows, therefore, that her approaches to the key players must be prepared properly to secure from them behaviours that supports her objectives. A2/14
Edinburgh Business School
Influence
Appendix 2 / Practice Final Examinations
2 She wants Benjamin to put pressure on Wolfgang by persuading him that the commercial realities do not support substantial extra investment in additional vehicles and that trying to force the issue by providing an inadequate service to other departments is causing them to suffer financial losses. If Wolfgang does not change his policies, the CEO has an alternative Logistics chief in Benjamin; if this thought crosses Benjamin’s mind, it might spur him to be at least neutral if not outright critical of his boss. She wants Rowan to be alerted to what is happening financially, in the hope that he will investigate, warn off Wolfgang from trying a blackmail tactic to secure more investment, and perhaps reveal the problem to the CEO. If the CEO asks her about the problem, Mary can present the damage that the impasse is doing to Materials Management and present her viable alternative, namely the outsourcing of some transport services, which would be cheaper to run than the financial losses that her department is suffering. 3 A Force Field diagram visualises the contending ‘forces’ in a situation, some of which are forces for a change in the status quo and some of which are forces against such a change. To change a situation, the forces for must overcome the forces against. Mary identifies the forces for and forces against and assesses the impact each force has on the dispute. Some forces are more important than others because of their impact for or against change, and Mary notes their importance by ‘H’ for high importance, ‘M’ for medium importance and ‘L’ for low importance. Mary’s diagram is shown below.
Objective: Supplement the services of the Logistics Dept with some outsourcing. People Forces against – Weaken:
Benjamin (M) Wolfgang (H)
Arguments Weakens Logistics (L) Breaches monopoly (M) Sets precedents (H)
Events
Strike in local firm (H)
Current: Forces for – Strengthen:
Mary (H)
Rowan (M) (CEO)
Cheaper than budget Increases (H) Causing losses (M) It's blackmail (L)
[It is important that a candidate picks up from the case study the news that a local haulage firm is on strike and lists this in the Events column because its inclusion indicates the candidate has noticed that this affects the argument.] Influence
Edinburgh Business School
A2/15
Appendix 2 / Practice Final Examinations
4 ‘Lobbying, leaking and leaning’ is an influencing process that starts with persuasive lobbying of individuals, that moves to leaking data or other information to key players to which they will be expected to react, and, finally, that uses some key players to lean on others by exerting pressure of some kind to bring about a sought-for decision. Lobbying is the soft element of this process. It implies contact to persuade key players to adopt a policy or modify the one that they hold. It is usually carried out by the influencer or his or her allies meeting with the people who are to be lobbied. Leaking is not always possible – if everybody is fully aware of the information – but may have be used when the implications of somebody’s actions are made clear to a key person who would be alarmed in some way at what they had heard or seen. Politicians are beneficiaries and victims of leaks; so are managers who are subject to scrutiny and accountable for their conduct. Leaning is much more problematic. It implies applying pressure of some kind. People can take their grievance or concerns directly to the CEO as a prelude to him or her leaning on the person whose behaviour or decision they are trying to influence. This could be misguided in some cases, if the person receiving the pressure resents the involvement of the senior person in what they regard as a matter best resolved at or near their own level. The senior person could also react negatively to being involved in some matters. 5 Mary’s influencing campaign is vulnerable to any of her hopes and intentions not being fulfilled. She is banking on being able to prise Benjamin from loyalty to Wolfgang, but Benjamin may be wary of going against his boss. A determined boss is not likely to be happy with a deputy who disagrees with him and will probably retaliate against one who colludes with the opposition. Her sortie towards Rowan is also problematical. He might consider that his job is to monitor probity and not intervene in management. As long as Wolfgang is keeping within the rules, he may feel that he has no grounds to intervene. The fact that Materials Management is losing revenue from lost output is a policy issue, not a probity issue. Its causes are disputable – and, indeed, Mary and Wolfgang dispute the causes. Mary accuses Wolfgang of deliberately accepting inadequate performance to press his claims for investment in additional vehicles and describes it as a ‘blackmail’ tactic. Investment is a budgeting decision. As long as that decision is made properly, it is not within the remit of Internal Audit. Experience suggests such tactics are common. Telling the CEO about it may not look an impressive use of his time. If Rowan says nothing to the CEO, Mary’s hopes will be dashed. As Mary is a vice-president, she has direct contact with the CEO. Perhaps, as an alternative tactic, she should make her points to others to gauge her support and then, if favourable or at least not hostile, make her own case directly to the CEO. A2/16
Edinburgh Business School
Influence
Appendix 2 / Practice Final Examinations
Answers to Essay Questions 1 The two main approaches are influence without power or authority and influence with power and authority. The former, broadly speaking, is about influencing upwards; the latter, influencing downwards. Influencing without power or authority is defined as: ‘The process by which we obtain what we want by affecting the thoughts, feelings and behaviours of others who are able to make decisions that affect ourselves and over whom we may have limited or no formal authority.’ This corresponds to the influencing situations experienced by most people at the start of their managerial careers. They have to get things done – the tasks with which they are charged to undertake in their functions – through other people, who have agendas, motives, tasks and constraints of their own. When other people are not in a power relationship with each other, influencing in this manner, is relevant. If other people cannot be compelled to do something, their thoughts, feelings and behaviours can only be affected by the influences exerted upon them. They are variously persuaded, manipulated and induced to do what the influencers want. Upward influencing techniques are softer than coercive pressure (threats, intimidation, physical attacks) and implicit rather than explicit. They include such techniques as favours, exchanging influencing currencies, alliances, networking and persuasion. The study of upward influence is a study of the techniques that people use to influence those above and around them. These techniques include the use of some simple tools to prepare and conduct the influencing process. Among such tools are the designation of key players (the Key Players diagram) who are, or will be, actively involved; the Force Field diagram, showing the forces (players, arguments and events) for a change and the forces against such a change; and its derivative, the Grid, which indicates the six phases of an influencing process: Identify, Analyse, Assess, Diagnose, Select, and Implement. Another approach to the study of influence is to examine how people with relative power and/or authority acquire and exert influence. These studies usually feature the men and women who exercise power over others, defined as the ability to get people to do what they otherwise would not do, or the ‘capacity to modify employee behaviour in a desired manner while being able to avoid having one’s own behaviour modified in undesirable ways’ (text from Organisational Behaviour by Pfeffer). The exercise of power is a study in itself, along with leadership and motivation. Influencing in this approach tends to be a subsidiary subject to power, and sometimes it is difficult to distinguish which is the independent variable: is it the power that begets the influence or the influence that begets the power? Moreover, for most practical purposes, influence with power is vicarious, with few practical applications, unless the researcher has power through which to exercise the lessons of the studies. Influence
Edinburgh Business School
A2/17
Appendix 2 / Practice Final Examinations
2 Pull behaviours include, ‘fishing’ (finding something you have in common), ‘enthusing’ (being enthusiastic about special interests), ‘wallowing’ (empathising about problems) and ‘revealing’ (sharing confidences). Push behaviours include ‘reasoning’ (claiming logical support), ‘suggesting’ (nudging someone into a specific action), ‘asserting’ (directing clearly) and ‘coercing’ (using pressure). Using pull and push labels alludes to the influencer building a relationship either by ‘pulling’ a person to his point of view, or by ‘pushing’ his point of view onto the other person. Pull behaviours are softer in tone and execution than push behaviours. They are normal when the individuals hardly know each other, though by no means must they be confined to strangers, because an influencer is expected to use pull behaviours with people he or she knows well and when they are appropriate. Harsh push behaviours are not normally tolerated between strangers, whereas long-time partners appear to tolerate fairly outrageous behaviours. Pull behaviours are ‘pulling’ someone towards a set of preferences rather than ‘pushing’ preferences onto them. Behaviours can be more ‘pushy’ in execution. You ‘push’ your preferences onto people, while not intending to destroy your relationships and hoping that their robustness will absorb the relative harshness of your behaviour. In the extreme, in a fragile relationship, pushing behaviours may be entirely inappropriate. Thinking in terms of pull behaviour being appropriate for the introductory phases of a relationship and pushing behaviours more acceptable in an existing strong relationship can give a misleading impression. While it is true that in one sense there is the introductory prevalence of pulling, this does not imply a strictly linear progression from ‘fishing’ to ‘coercion’. The linkages between the sequences of the use of push and pull behaviours is a criss-cross between them (see diagram below), rather than a linear progression. Influencers combine and sequence the behaviours to suit circumstances, sometimes fishing, sometimes suggesting and sometimes coercing. They do not exhaust the use or the repetition of any of the pull–push behaviours. The eight pull–push behaviours have many subtle variations, which can be combined in numerous ways. The key is to recognise how to behave to achieve the results sought from a relationship. Concomitantly, it is necessary to know how not to behave when the circumstances dictate that certain behaviours are not appropriate. There is, for instance, nothing to be gained from push behaviour when pull is called for, or from pull behaviour when a more direct push behaviour is required. Knowing the difference is important.
A2/18
Edinburgh Business School
Influence
Appendix 2 / Practice Final Examinations
Push
Pull
Fish
Coerce
Assert
Enthuse
Suggest
Wallow
Rationalise
Reveal
3 Political and moral interactions in an organisation can be demonstrated in a diagram, as set out below.
Politically naïve
Beginners Innocent
Scrupulous
Politically astute
Followers Apathetic
Leaders Cunning
Unscrupulous
Retiring Astute
Scrupulous
This diagram shows links between two qualities, namely political awareness and scruples, and suggests that managers may combine being na¨ıve or astute and scrupulous or unscrupulous. Na¨ıvety is a quality associated with inexperience, though being experienced does not make anyone immune from na¨ıvety. Absenting oneself from engaging in politics leaves politics to others. Na¨ıvety combined with unscrupulous behaviour is dangerous. The scrupulous–unscrupulous dimension defines the morality of behaviour. Inexperienced persons may be idealistic because nothing has challenged their ideals, but experience is about events testing ideals and scruples. Influence
Edinburgh Business School
A2/19
Appendix 2 / Practice Final Examinations
Political astuteness comes from experience. The astute have learned how the people in an organisation make decisions and how they get others to implement the decisions they want done. They learn to exercise influence through power over their colleagues and their followers, by using manipulation and pressure. They disregard or suspend scruples if they have to do so to ‘get the job done’. When they pass their prime, politically astute individuals tend to abandon unscrupulousness and rediscover their scruples. They nevertheless remain astute. They make things happen but remain ‘above the fray’, finding willing unscrupulous acolytes to do their bidding. This regime lasts until an unscrupulous junior conspires and carries out a manoeuvre to ‘kick her upstairs’. Arrogance and defiance are so common in these end games that it is surprising that so many astute and experienced people suffer the public ignominy of removal from office. They should be clever enough to realise what is coming. Why do they not quit while on top? Perhaps, they have lost their passion for the political game?
A2/20
Edinburgh Business School
Influence
Index
access 6/5–10 added value 5/11 allies 7/14–18, 7/21 mobilising 6/10–13 winning 7/11–12 Ann Arbor 8/3 appraisal interviews 4/15 Arbor, Patrick 8/17–18 arranging access 6/5–10 arrogance 8/9 assertive behaviour 4/15–16 associates 8/15 audits 7/13 authority 3/5, 8/3 bad turns 5/7–8 behaviours asserting 4/15–16 changing 9/2 coercion 4/16–17, 8/3, 8/6 effect of power on 8/2 enthusing 4/7–8 High Mach 8/9–12 joint-maximising 1/7 Low Mach 8/9–12 person-to-person interaction 3/16–17 pull 4/2–12, 4/18 push 4/2, 4/12–17, 4/18 reasoning 4/13–14 reliability of 1/8 revealing 4/11–12 suggesting 4/14–15 tit-for-tat 1/7–9 wallowing 4/8–11 Blake, Robert 3/7 board-level battles 8/16 Brennan, David 8/17–18 budgetary committees 8/5, 8/15 bureaucratic organisations 3/5, 8/10 careers depression 3/15–16 promotion 3/1–3 Cartwright, Dorwin 8/3 case studies career depression 3/15–16 electoral contests 8/17–19
Influence
Edinburgh Business School
GAME-ON 6/16–18 Giacomo Casanova 4/17–18 Help 7/32 influencing downwards 5/13–14 Opel 2/9–10 OrganTran 1/13–14 personnel problems 2/9–10 Portcullis Biochem (PB) 1/13–14 change of behaviour 9/2 resisting 7/8 charisma 8/4 Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) 8/17–18 Christie, Richard 8/9 coercion 4/16–17, 8/3, 8/6 collegiate organisations 3/8 committee membership 8/15 common ground 4/5–7 communication 3/6, 8/15 compartmentalised organisations 3/9 competitive organisations 3/8 concentric circles diagram 7/7–8 conflict and disputes 2/6–8, 7/17–18 consultative management style 3/6 conversations 4/2 co-operation 1/3–4, 1/9–13, 1/14, 5/4 principle of co-operative reciprocity 1/9–10, 5/3, 5/4–5, 5/14 co-operative organisations 3/9 councillors 8/13–14 criteria for decision making 7/23–25 culture 3/7 currencies of influence 5/8–13 excellence 5/9 inspirational currencies 5/9 positional currencies 5/12 recognition 5/12–13 short cuts 5/10 supporting people 5/12 visibility 5/12–13 Dailey, Bob 8/2 decision making criteria 7/23–25 executing tough decisions 8/16 and politics 2/4–6 rallying support 2/5–6
I/1
Index
rational decision theory 7/23 Type I models 2/2–3, 2/4, 2/5, 2/11 Type II models 2/3, 2/4, 2/5, 2/11 decision making evasive styles 4/16 defectors 1/3–4, 1/9–13, 1/14–15 in negotiations 5/5 punishment of 5/4–5 dependency 8/13 dilemma game 1/3–4 discretion 3/5 disputes and conflict 2/6–8, 7/17–18 downsizing 3/6 Effusi’s game 1/1–4 electoral contests 8/17–18 emotional power 8/5 enthusing 4/7–8 equilibrium in relationships 7/14 ethics 9/2–3 evasive styles of decision making 4/16 excellence 5/9 exclusion 5/4 executing strategy 6/13–15 executing tough decisions 8/16 expert power 8/4 fishing for common ground 4/5–7 force field diagram 6/10–13, 6/15–19, 7/8–9, 7/16 French, John 8/3 functional conflict 2/6–8 functionaries 7/13, 7/15–17 GAME arrange access 6/5–10 case study 6/16–18 execute strategy 6/13–15 force field diagram 6/10–13, 6/15–19, 7/8–9, 7/16 generate objectives 6/4–5 GOYA/GOTT admonition 6/7, 7/6, 7/22 ideas and solutions 7/4–5 implementing plans 7/4–7 inter and intra 7/3–4 mobilise allies 6/10–13 sequences of 6/15–16 Geis, Florence 8/9 General Motors 2/9–10 generate objectives 6/4–5 Giacomo Casanova case study 4/17–18 good turns 5/3, 5/5, 5/14
I/2
GOYA/GOTT admonition 6/7, 7/6, 7/22 grid diagrams 7/18–26 group divisions 7/9–11 Hawthorn experiments 5/12 Help 7/32 ideas and solutions 7/4–5 imperatives 7/15–18 implementing plans 7/4–7 individual discretion 3/5 influencing aims 3/4 benefits 3/4–5 definition 3/3–4 targets 3/4 influencing downwards 5/13–14 information sharing 8/11 initiative 3/5 inspirational currencies 5/9 inter GAME 7/3–4 interpersonal skills 8/7 interviews 3/2–3 appraisal interviews 4/15 intra GAME 7/3–4 job-related tensions 2/6–7 joint-maximising behaviours 1/7 Kanter, Rosabeth Moss 7/33 key players 7/7–11 concentric circles diagram 7/7–8 diagram 6/6–7, 6/8, 6/12, 6/18 functionaries 7/13, 7/15–17 grid diagrams 7/18–26 take-over attempts by 7/5–6 Kissinger, Henry 8/7–8 Le Beouf, Henri 2/1–2, 2/4–6 leadership 2/4, 5/9 legislation 8/6 legitimate power 8/3, 8/6 levering 7/25 Lewin, Kurt 6/11 listening skills 4/3–4 location 8/13 Machiavellianism 8/9–10 Making Major Sales (Rackham) 4/10 management style 3/6 consultative 3/6 Managerial Grid 3/7
Edinburgh Business School
Influence
Index
managers past their prime 8/8–9 manipulation 9/2 meetings 6/3 membership of committees 8/15 mobilise allies 6/10–13 modern organisational structures 3/6 moribund departments 8/11 Moses, Robert 8/13, 8/14 Mouton, Jane 3/7 natural selection 1/9–10 negotiations 3/4, 5/5 New Harbour Co 6/1–3, 6/8–10, 6/12, 6/13, 6/18 non-reciprocation 5/5–7, 5/14 objectives and targets 3/4 generating 6/4–5 and policies 6/4 Opel 2/9–10 open-plan offices 8/13 opposition, removing 8/16 organisational structure 2/8–9, 3/5–6, 8/10 bureaucratic organisations 3/5, 8/10 collegiate organisations 3/8 compartmentalised organisations 3/9 modern structures 3/6 OrganTran 1/13–14 person-to-person interaction 3/16–17, 4/2 personal interests 8/19 personnel problems 2/9–10 Pfeffer, Jeffrey 8/1, 8/13 Phoenix Enterprises 2/1, 2/4–6 plans group divisions against 7/9–11 implementing 7/4–7 policies 2/8, 6/4 politics 2/2, 2/6–9, 8/7–12 and decision making 2/4–6 High Mach behaviour 8/9–12 Low Mach behaviour 8/9–12 status symbols 8/12–13 succession politics 8/10 Portcullis Biochem (PB) 1/13–14 positional currencies 5/12 positional power 8/5, 8/13 power associates and 8/15 and authority 8/3 coercion 4/16–17, 8/3, 8/6 definition 8/2
Influence
Edinburgh Business School
and dependency 8/13 effect on behaviour 8/2 emotional sources 8/5 expert power 8/4 and legislation 8/6 legitimate power 8/3, 8/6 and location 8/13 managers past their prime 8/8–9 managing without 3/16 positional power 8/5, 8/13 referent power 8/4 and resource control 8/14–15 reward power 8/3, 8/6 sense of perspective 8/20 sources of 8/3 preparation tools 6/3–4 principle of co-operative reciprocity 1/9–10, 5/3, 5/4–5, 5/14 prisoner’s dilemma 1/4–5 production function 2/6–7 promotion 3/1–3 interviews 3/2–3 sense of rivalry 3/2 pull behaviours 4/2–12, 4/18 enthusing 4/7–8 fishing for common ground 4/5–7 revealing 4/11–12 wallowing 4/8–11 punishment 5/4–5, 8/3 purchasing function 2/7 push behaviours 4/2, 4/12–17, 4/18 asserting 4/15–16 coercion 4/16–17, 8/3, 8/6 reasoning 4/13–14 suggesting 4/14–15 Rackham, Neil 4/10 rallying support 2/5–6 RAND Corporation 1/4 rational decision theory 7/23 rational reasoning 4/13–14 Raven, Bertram 8/3 reasoning 4/13–14 reciprocation principle 1/9–10, 5/3, 5/4–5, 5/14 recognition 5/12–13 recriminations 3/5 red-blue games 1/5–9 common plays 1/6–7 tit-for-tat strategy 1/7–9 referent power 8/4 reframing 7/25 relationship building
I/3
Index
actions and reactions 1/12 asserting 4/15–16 coercing 4/16–17 enthusing 4/7–8 equilibrium status 7/14 fishing for common ground 4/5–7 listening skills 4/3–4 pull behaviours 4/2–12, 4/18 push behaviours 4/2, 4/12–17, 4/18 reasoning 4/13–14 and results 3/7–9, 7/12–15 revealing 4/11–12 small talk 4/5 smart summaries 4/4 suggesting 4/14–15 wallowing 4/8–11 reliability of behaviour 1/8 removing opposition 8/16 remuneration committees 8/5 remuneration system 7/2 replication 1/10–11, 1/12 reputations 5/13 resistance to change 7/8 resource control 8/14–15 results 3/7–9, 7/12–15 revelatory exchanges 4/11–12 reward power 8/3, 8/6 rivalry 3/2
sense of rivalry 3/2 sharing 1/11 short cuts 5/10 small talk 4/5 SMART objectives 7/6 smart summaries 4/4 Smith, Adam 5/8 solutions and ideas 7/4–5 special project teams 7/18–19 speech 4/2 status symbols 8/12–13 strategy 6/13–15 succession politics 8/10 suggesting behaviour 4/14–15 supporting people 5/12 symbols of status 8/12–13 take-over attempts by key players 7/5–6 task orientation 5/10 tit-for-tat behaviour 1/7–9 tough decisions 8/16 training and development 3/6, 3/7 trust 3/9 Type I models of decision making 2/2–3, 2/4, 2/5, 2/11 Type II models of decision making 2/3, 2/4, 2/5, 2/11 visibility 5/12–13
sales function 2/6 sanity checks 7/33 scruples 8/8 self-interest 5/8
I/4
wallowing behaviour 4/8–11 winning allies 7/11–12 working practices 7/1–2
Edinburgh Business School
Influence
