Influence and Authority: Use Your Personal Power to Get Things Done

TS
Half-day Tutorials
5/6/2014 1:00:00 PM
Influence and Authority:
Use Your Personal Power to
Get Things Done
Presented by:
Johanna Rothman
Rothman Consulting Group, Inc.
Brought to you by:
340 Corporate Way, Suite 300, Orange Park, FL 32073
888-268-8770 ∙ 904-278-0524 ∙ sqeinfo@sqe.com ∙ www.sqe.com

Johanna Rothman
Rothman Consulting Group, Inc.
Known as the “Pragmatic Manager,”Johanna Rothman helps organizational leaders identify
problems and risks in their product development and recognize potential “gotchas,” seize
opportunities, and remove impediments. Johanna is the technical editor foragileconnection.com and
is author of Manage Your Job Search, Hiring Geeks That Fit, Manage Your Project Portfolio:
Increase Your Capacity and Finish More Projects, the 2008 Jolt Productivity award-winning Manage
It! Your Guide to Modern, Pragmatic Project Management, and Behind Closed Doors: Secrets of
Great Management. She is currently writing a book about agile program management. In addition,
Johanna writes columns for Stickyminds.com and projectmanagment.com, and blogs
on jrothman.com, andcreateadaptablelife.com.

Inﬂuence and Authority:!
UsingYour Personal Power to  
GetThings Done
Johanna Rothman
www.jrothman.com
@johannarothman
jr@jrothman.com
781-641-4046
© 2014 Johanna Rothman
Why AreYou Here?
What are your objectives today?!
!
Everyone: write three cards:!
Where did you want to use inﬂuence or power and you
tried but were not as successful as you wanted to be?!
When did you think you did not have enough authority?
"2
Influence and Authority: Using Your Personal Power to Get Things Done
www.jrothman.com jr@jrothman.com 1

Inﬂuence
Based on developing mutual outcomes!
First we build rapport!
Based on being congruent!
With the situation!
With the other person
"3
What is Congruence?
Blaming – Consider Self and
Context, Disregard Other!
Placating – Consider Other and
Context, Disregard Self!
Super-Reasonable – Consider Only
Context!
Irrelevant – Consider Neither Self,
Other, or Context!
Congruent – Consider Self, Other
and Context appropriately
"4

People are CongruentWhen…
They take all three pieces into account:!
Self, other, context!
Blaming? Nope!
Placating? Nope!
Super-reasonable? Nope!
Irrelevant? Nope!
"5
InﬂuenceWorksWhenYou Are
Congruent
It’s not about calmness!
You can have an effective conversation!
Even if you’re congruent, you have other prerequisites
"6

Discussion About Congruence
How can you tell if a person is ready for an inﬂuence
discussion?
"7
Other Prerequisites for Inﬂuence
The other person has to believe in your competence!
The other person has to believe in your trustworthiness !
You have to build rapport
"8

How do People Believe inYour
Competence?
They see your results!
You build small wins, every day, over time!
You build your portfolio of value!
Other people vouch for you!
Testimonials, references!
You can claim competence
"9
The Other Person’s Belief inYour
Trustworthiness
You must not gossip about other people.!
You must meet your commitments, or explain why you cannot
meet your commitments.!
Be consistent in your actions and reactions!
Make integrity a cornerstone of your work!
Be willing to discuss, inﬂuence, and negotiate. Don’t get stuck
on your position!
Trust in yourself and your colleagues
"10

Build Rapport
Discussion: How do you build rapport now?!
Several ways:!
Matching!
90 degrees!
Side-by-side!
Activity: Build rapport
"11
Inﬂuence with Integray
Aim for a speciﬁc result!
Be positive!
Take in the sensory data!
Dovetail your desires with those of the other person!
Entertain short- and long-term objectives!
Genie Laborde’s 5-step approach
"12

Activity
In teams of three:!
Influencer, Influencee, Observer!
Take a card (or writer a new card_!
Practice building rapport and influencing. I will time you.!
You will have a chance to debrief in your teams.!
Rotate.!
We will debrief together
"13
About Authority
Does anyone ever have enough authority to accomplish
what they need to get done?!
Title-based authority is weak!
People tend to help you because they respect or like you!
It’s your personal power
"14

Sources of Personal Power
Ambition!
Energy!
Focus!
Confidence!
Self-knowledge!
Capacity to tolerate conflict!
Empathy with others
"15
Ambition
Not ambition to climb the ladder!
Ambition to achieve influence
"16

Energy
Energy is contagious!
It inspires other people to work on your behalf
"17
Focus
When you specialize, you build relationships!
You develop functional skills and knowledge!
You complete work!
Remember that competence business?
"18

Confidence
The more confidence you have, the more powerfully you
behave!
It’s a basis for building more power and influence
"19
Self-Knowledge
The more you reflect and know yourself, the more you
learn about yourself!
You develop yourself
"20

Capacity toTolerate Conflict
How well do you handle “difficult” people?!
They may not think they are difficult!
How well do you handle stress at work?!
Which kinds of stress?
"21
How much Empathy DoYou Have
With Others?
Sympathy and empathy are different!
Sympathy is feeling for another person!
Provide comfort!
Empathy is feeling with another person!
Often arises from experience!
Which one do you think is more powerful?
"22

A Potential Power Radar Chart
"23
Activity
Part 1:!
Alone: chart your capabilities from a 1, which is low, the
center, to a 5, which is outside on this radar chart. !
We’ll debrief together.!
Consider: How well does your power ﬁt the culture of
your organization?
"24

Schein’sWork on Culture
Three things:!
What people can discuss!
What the organization rewards!
How people treat each other
"25
Hofstede’s Classiﬁcations
1. Power distance: Relationship to authority!
2. Individualism:The relationship between individual and society!
3. Masculinity: to paraphrase Hofstede:‘Masculinity is about the
person’s ego. Femininity is about the relationship with other people.’!
4. Uncertainty avoidance:Ways of dealing with conﬂicts, including the
control of aggression and the expression of feelings !
5. Long-term orientation: Does the organization look to the long term
or the short-term when making decisions?
"26

Dimensions Are Neither Good Nor
Bad
They just are!
Organizations tend to have an overall classiﬁcation!
Your manager might lean one way more or less
"27
Power Distance
Extent to which the less powerful expect and accept that
power is distributed unequally
"28

Individualism
Individualism/Collectivism: whether the interest of the group
prevails over the individual prevails over the group
(collectivist) or whether the interest of the individual prevails
(individualist).!
If you have a collective culture, and a large power distance,
you must start at the top for inﬂuence. No point in starting
anywhere else.You might build allies lower down, but that’s all
they are, allies.They can advise you, but they cannot help you.
"29
“Masculinity”
What’s important to the person:Achievement or work
environment?
"30

Uncertainty Avoidance
How comfortable do you feel in ambiguous or unknown
situations?
"31
LongTerm Orientation
How much do you work for the long term or orient
towards the short term?
"32

Activity:What’s Important toYour
Organization?
Alone:What’s most important to your immediate
manager and your manager’s manager? We’ll debrief
together
"33
Activity: What’s Important toYou?
Now, decide what’s most important to you!
We’ll debrief together
"34

Activity
Now that you have the ideas of power and culture, we’ll
do the speed influence again. !
Influencer, influencee, observer, 3 rounds!
Debrief between each round!
Final debrief all together
"35
References
Hofstede, Geert, Gert Jan Hofstede, Michael Minkov, Cultures and Organizations :
Software for the Mind,Third Edition, McGraw Hill, 2010.!
Laborde, Genie Z. Influence with Integrity. Crown House Publishing.Wales, 1998.!
Pfeffer, Jeffrey. Power: Why Some People Have it and Others Don’t. HarperBusiness.
2010.!
Shell, G. Richard. Bargaining for Advantage: Negotiation Strategies for Reasonable People. !
Solomon, Robert C., BuildingTrust: In Business, Politics, Relationships, and Life, Oxford
University Press. 2003!
Weinberg, Gerald M. Quality Software Management,Volume 3, Congruent Action.
Dorset House. 1994.
"36

More Reading
Prepare to Become More Inﬂuential, http://www.jrothman.com/
2013/02/prepare-to-become-more-inﬂuential/!
Building Rapport, http://www.jrothman.com/2012/04/building-rapport/!
Working Together—Not Just Working Together, http://
www.jrothman.com/2010/03/working-together-not-just-working-
together/!
Who Decides What Done Means for a Program?, http://
www.jrothman.com/2011/07/who-decides-what-done-means-for-a-
program
"37
Stay inTouch?
Pragmatic Manager: www.jrothman.com/
pragmaticmanager!
Please link with me on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/
johannarothman/
"38

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