7

Influence Loops

You are constantly in the mode of influencing in order to get things done. You must build support, seek advice and counsel. You must seek buy-in.

—KAREN DAHUT, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, BOOZ ALLEN HAMILTON

When Sara arrived at work, she found she had a “new opportunity.” She currently managed HR for the wealth management division of a large U.S. investment bank. That morning, her boss gave her additional responsibility for all human resources functions for an investment banking company that her bank had recently acquired.

Sara had managed mergers before this, but in the past there was more rampup time for planning, and the businesses in question had been smaller and less complex. She would need to reorganize the operational aspects of the combined businesses, reassign staff, get up to speed on entirely new processes, and create a new organization chart.

Three things were immediately clear to Sara:

1. The HR teams of both banks were nervous about the integration. Many individuals felt the teams would need to remain entirely separate to ensure that important projects and “sacred” processes were maintained.
2. The CEO of the newly combined organization wanted the HR integration managed without additional expense or negative publicity. He was especially concerned about morale taking a hit.
3. Stakeholders in the business units were looking to Sara to pull the two HR groups together quickly so HR could help lead the business units through their own reorganization process.

This was the career turning point Sara had been waiting for, and she said she felt “nervous but up to the task.” The first thing she did was find a large whiteboard to sketch out a plan for organizing the new division. She used black marker for the parts she felt were nonnegotiable, blue for the pieces that were slightly more speculative, and green for the parts that were entirely open to input.

Over the next several weeks, she visited each of the HR teams (old and new) separately, flying in remote workers and field agents to get people into the room and allow them to talk face to face. E-mail would be faster, but she knew it would not be effective in changing minds and getting people on board. She brought the original whiteboard drawing into each meeting to signify that her plans were still fluid and she needed their feedback and expertise.

She met with each HR group, listened to their ideas and concerns, and factored in the changes she thought would work. She then revisited the CEO and his executive team and made adjustments based on their input. She went on to meet with the finance and operations leaders and factored in the logistics that were of concern to them. All of these meetings required considerable time and a great deal of listening. Sara and her team worked tirelessly to accommodate all reasonable changes in the plan. Sara then returned to each of the groups to share the updated version of the plan. Each meeting generated more input, and Sara’s collaborative approach built trust among all parties.

Finally, Sara was ready for a full-day meeting with the combined HR organization. She walked through the new organizational chart, the timeline, and other specifics. In addition to outlining what would change in the new organization, she focused on the past accomplishments of both HR groups and made a point to talk about the things that would not need to change.

After that meeting, it was a done deal. Not everyone was entirely comfortable with the new organization, but they bought in. They saw that the process had been open and that they had input. The way Sara handled the integration sent a signal to employees that the corporate culture of the new organization was open and collaborative and took the needs and ideas of each person seriously.

THE UNWRITTEN RULE: Use Influence Loops to Create a Coalition for Change

Sara’s story illustrates a powerful tool called influence loops. Stated simply, influence loops are a systematic process to get input from multiple groups of stakeholders. Influence loops are the beginning of coalition building. The intent is to coalesce groups around ideas by sharing openly, soliciting feedback, and creating a process for input. Sara used influence loops when she aced the HR integration at the bank.

As Figure 11 illustrates, Sara went out multiple times to numerous groups with an evolving message. She used influence loops to test her ideas and bring people on board. She started with the loops of both the new and acquired HR leaders, which consisted of individuals on two separate teams. Sara used the loops to bring them up to speed, get their input, and help diffuse their anxiety. Her third loop included her champions: her boss and the CEO. She presented her plans at a high level and received the go-ahead to proceed. Sara’s fourth loop was her key stakeholder loop. She met with IT, operations, and financial leaders to get their thinking on logistics and execution. She revisited each loop multiple times as her plans became more concrete, and each new pass achieved a different objective—neutralizing resistance, getting feedback, securing buy-in, achieving closure, and so on.

Sara used what she learned from each consecutive influence loop to improve her plan and her messaging. She was listening, learning, and responding the entire time. She went back and forth between her HR team (loop 1), the acquired HR team (loop 2), her champions (loop 3), and other key stakeholders (loop 4) numerous times. Ultimately, she had a sound plan that had broad support.

FIGURE 11 Influence Loops

Influence loops are simple and effective and, as Sara demonstrated, they enable you to improve your plans as you bring people on board. In order to create a coalition, your stakeholders need to be heard and they need to be included throughout the process. Ultimately, they become as excited as you are.

LIMITING BELIEFS That Curb Our Influence

Being asked to lead a complex and potentially unpopular change initiative like Sara’s will probably activate a host of limiting beliefs in our heads: “I’m not ready.” “They’ll know I’m an impostor.” “This takes too much time.” “I shouldn’t ask for help.” These negative messages are discussed elsewhere in this book. There are two additional limiting beliefs that we want to address head-on right now.

“I don’t like bargaining/selling/asking”

Why do certain people get chosen for leadership positions? Yes, some people are chosen for the wrong reasons. However, many leaders are chosen because they know how to drive change successfully in the organization. Think about it. The primary reason organizations need leaders is so that the organization and its people can remain nimble and responsive in the face of massive and often unpredictable changes in the marketplace.

Being good at driving change means being good at selling ideas and influencing other people’s behavior.

It’s no major surprise that women have exceptional selling talents. In fact, Tom Peters said that women make better salespeople than men.¹ What we’ve found in coaching senior-level women, however, is a dichotomy. Women working in sales jobs are the best in class at what they do—and they love it. Yet, women in nonsales roles tell us they would prefer a trip to the dentist over selling. Unfortunately, selling is one of those things—like public speaking—that we avoid at our own peril. It is a requirement for leading change in any organization.

Changing minds requires a willingness to sell your ideas. It also requires making deals. The women we interviewed for our research professed a disdain for side deals and bargaining tactics. They felt that making deals was sneaky and dishonest, especially when they happened behind the scenes. This type of thinking calls for a simple mind shift. Several successful women we interviewed equated bargaining with being deliberate and disciplined, not dishonest.

We know that selling, doing deals, and contracting with colleagues is how business works. Thinking about these as tools as opposed to tricks makes them more palatable to us as women.

“I have the CEO’s support, and that’s all I need”

You are excited. You have a mandate and funding from the CEO to lead an important change initiative. This is your chance to enhance your reputation and manage a high-profile project within your company. You have a well-researched master plan for new processes, and technology that will vastly improve efficiency. You have an ambitious timeline and team members to help you. You are anxious to get started. This is going to be great!

Wait a minute. Not so fast. You’ve got the CEO’s backing, but that’s not all you’ll need to be successful. You also need to bring other key stakeholders on board. Any major change initiative is also a shift in organizational culture, and cultural change takes time and patience.

Organizational culture is made up of the norms, mores, traditions, and unwritten rules in an organization. A skilled influencer knows her organization’s culture and navigates through it. If not, culture can stop a change agent in her tracks. The legendary Peter Drucker allegedly said that “culture eats strategy for breakfast,” and many management experts agree with the idea that strategy and culture need to be aligned for any change process to succeed.²

STRATEGIES for Creating Influence Loops

Using influence loops is an effective way for women to drive change, change minds, and gain ongoing support. This smart tool leverages women’s considerable strengths and works particularly well in environments with competing agendas and multiple levels of power and control.

1. Build trust before you need it

The reason we teach women to use influence loops is that it builds trust before you need it. Influence loops can be used to surround yourself with trusted allies in advance of creating any agenda that you need to elevate. In fact, they can be used to build a strong layer of support for your career—not unlike the scaffolding we described in chapter 3. Because of that, trust is a key component of any effective influence loop strategy.

Yet trust can be elusive. Peter Block, author of The Empowered Manager: Positive Political Skills at Work, asserts that there are two dimensions that impact our ability to influence others: trust and agreement.³ According to Block, influence is much easier if the trust is high, even when there is significant disagreement. It is important to understand that trust and agreement are not the same thing. Disagreement without trust is usually a showstopper. Of course, trust is easier to develop before there is disagreement. As we said in chapter 4, the power of the informal can go a long way toward developing trust. Be intentional in developing trusted relationships—whether you are using the informal settings discussed in chapter 4, the relationship maps described in chapter 5, or the influence loops suggested here. All of these tools help to create trust, even when agreement is withheld. In fact, disagreement can actually be helpful because it forces the parties to look deeper to find the path to a greater outcome.

2. Identify key stakeholders

We’ve already described how Sara identified key stakeholders for her HR merger project. There were four groups in her influence loops:

1. The CEO and Sara’s boss, who were sponsors of the project
2. The newly acquired HR leaders
3. The HR leaders who were already at the bank
4. Other functional stakeholders (finance, IT, and operations)

Identifying your stakeholders is really very simple. Ask yourself, who are the individuals and groups of people who will be affected by this change? Your list will dictate your different influence loops. As you make out your list, be sure to ask your colleagues, “Who else do I need to touch base with?”

3. Prepare yourself

We’ve put together the key questions to ask yourself as you cycle through the process of using influence loops.

BEFORE YOU BEGIN, ASK YOURSELF THE FOLLOWING:

• Am I open to changing my ideas based on stakeholders’ input?
• Am I willing to revisit my ideas multiple times with numerous key people until the best solution is found?
• Am I acting with integrity and ready to build trust with others?
• Am I vulnerable and courageous enough to seek help?

AS YOU PLAN YOUR LOOPS, ASK YOURSELF THE FOLLOWING:

• What is the intention of my strategy, change, or idea? What will be different as a result?
• Who are my key stakeholders?
• What parts of my plan are fixed and what is negotiable?
• What is the appetite for change in this organization?
• Who are the potential resisters around me?

FINALLY, BEFORE YOU ROLL OUT THE FINAL PLAN, ASK YOURSELF THE FOLLOWING:

• Have I communicated repeatedly with my stakeholders? (You don’t want them to be surprised.)
• Have I gathered input from people who may resist or have concerns about my plan?
• Have I listened to the gossip about me or my plan?
• Have I considered everyone who needs to be on board for change to succeed?
• Have I identified some early wins?

4. Have face-to-face meetings

An important aspect of leading change is building trust and consensus with key stakeholders. This means that your influence loops should be in-person meetings, whenever possible. Why? Because an in-person meeting signals that something important is going on and that the people at the meeting are also important. In the business world today, most meetings are virtual. It is not easy to build trust and agreement with people over the phone or e-mail. You need to be able to read body language and energy to determine how someone is reacting to the discussion. Your job as the change leader is to connect with and listen to your stakeholders. As you continue to conduct influence loops, your stakeholders will begin to see themselves in your vision. That’s when you’ll know you have succeeded.

5. Repeat!

This bears repeating: influence loops are not “one and done.” Yes, they require an investment of time and energy. However, they save us headaches now and reduce the number of blockers in our path later.

We, as women, are innate relationship builders. As such, influence loops suit our needs as a practical strategy we can adopt and customize. In addition, they make it easier for us to be transactional, problem solve, and move forward when our agenda hits a snag or encounters resistance. In fact, with influence loops, resistance is addressed in advance and blockers are brought on board with the change. This is an especially effective tool when we get stuck, with little idea about what our next move might be. Make a loop and listen! Then revisit the loop and listen some more.

6. Use the gift of the gap

Influence loops won’t eliminate all pain points on the way to achieving buy-in. There are times when we need to regroup. We call this the gift of the gap. The space in between loops offers a chance for reflection. Gaps create opportunities to think deeply as opposed to bulldozing ahead. We can then refine and perhaps redesign our response, or even create a new approach altogether.

The gift of the gap is important when you need to let something marinate. Whether it is a new opportunity, a career change, or constructive feedback, time to reflect leads to better decisions.

A gap is particularly important in emotional situations or in dealing with difficult personalities.

Tonya is a bank executive. The culture at the office where she works (as senior vice president of consumer banking) is conservative. They have a clear hierarchy, formal attire, and a mostly male team of top executives. In fact, Tonya was the only woman on the finance leadership team.

Tonya was working on a new mortgage platform that would involve the entire finance team. She took her time building a coalition of support using four key stakeholders. As expected, she encountered resistance. One person in particular, Bob, the bank’s operations leader, was known to be a bully, and Tonya knew he would be a problem.

Sure enough, Bob appeared unannounced at one of Tonya’s meetings—which was essentially an influence loop. He sat quietly at first, but then he began to make snide remarks about the project and how she was managing it. It was clear that his remarks were designed to embarrass her in front of her stakeholders. As Bob went on, Tonya reached a boiling point and was close to losing her composure. With extreme effort, Tonya put on the brakes and maintained control of herself. She quietly but firmly said they would discuss his concerns one on one. If she ever needed the gift of the gap, it was now.

Tonya waited. A few days later, she saw Bob walking by her office. She stood up and asked him to stop in. (It was important for Tonya to be in her own office—on her “turf.”) She approached the conversation with confidence and poise, and she stated simply, “The next time you want to attend one of my meetings, I insist that you let me know in advance. I would like to discuss your concerns in a respectful way. You are more likely to get what you want if you act professionally.” Bob was caught off guard and said very little. After that, Tonya reviewed what she felt were his objective concerns about the project, and they managed to have a civil conversation.

Tonya and Bob never became allies, but he never tried the power game again, either. Ultimately, Tonya received the support she needed for her mortgage platform. The gift of the gap was a game changer.

Building coalitions and changing minds seldom happens overnight. That’s why influence loops work—they have a cumulative effect. The gap in between loops can strengthen your case as you accumulate more information and greater support.

We know that the process of learning influence loops is not easy. In fact, it is complex, almost like three-dimensional chess. It requires you to look at situations from multiple perspectives and plan many moves ahead. It requires you to be both creative and savvy. It demands discipline, maturity, and persistence. Using influence loops is not a requirement for every small change project, but it is a necessity for the big ones.

Executive Summary

• Influence loops are a systematic way to reach out to multiple levels of contacts and stakeholders. It is a campaign to share your idea, gain feedback, and accumulate buy-in.
• Doing deals and contracting with colleagues to drive change is how business works. We need to look at these tactics for change as tools as opposed to tricks.
• The toughest part of any change project is understanding the corporate culture. The best change agents show their appreciation for past accomplishments and customs, even while they move to create a culture shift.
• Leading change across a team or business is not an individual endeavor. It requires creating coalitions and unifying them to the cause.
• Using influence loops can help you build trust before you need it.