Influence, Power, Integrity and your career in IT  Creating an effective and respected personal leadership brand Masterclass held at the ACS Youth in IT conference 2014 (Asia Pacific)

1. Masterclass
Youth in IT Conference 2014
© All rights reserved. Rob Livingstone Advisory Pty Ltd. Unauthorized redistribution prohibited
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Influence, Power, Integrity
and your career in IT
Creating an effective and respected
personal leadership brand.

2. Influence, Power, Integrity and your career in IT
Agenda
1. Power, Influence, integrity – when the planets align
2. Evidence based decision making vs. Opinions
3. Is your personal ‘brand’ important?
4. Managing your situational ‘circle of influence’?
5. The foundations of a resilient career
6. Masterclass exercise
7. Wrap-up and conclusions
8. Next steps

3. 1. Power, Influence, integrity – when the planets align
Power
Influence Integrity
How do you see
yourself ?
How do others see
you?
Reputation
Professionalism
$$$$$
Trust
Brand

4. 1. Power, Influence, integrity – when the planets align
• Management, Leadership and integrity – what’s in the mix?
• Analytical and charismatic / entrepreneurial managerial
approaches – where two worlds collide?
 Analytical:
o Many task oriented individuals are driven by facts,
processes, evidence.
o IT professionals, engineers, accountants, for
example, need to work with precision and in the ‘real’
world
 Charismatic / emotive / subjective:
o Short term, fast moving, goal oriented, agile, etc

5. 1. Power, Influence, integrity – when the planets align
Power vs. Influence?
… it all depends on the situation

6. 1. Power, Influence, integrity – when the planets align
Categories of personal Power
• Formal Power – tied to a formal position where the responsibilities of
that position includes the ability to influence or make decisions affecting
a community
• Informal Power – not tied to any position, often resulting from personal
characteristics. This power allows the person/group to influence and/or
represent a community without formal decision making.
Sources of formal or informal power:
1. Resources – money, knowledge, skills, materials
2. Elected or appointed position
3. Community support and/or representation

7. 1. Power, Influence, integrity – when the planets align
Sources of personal Power
1. Expertise – knowledge, skills and experience relevant to the task
2. Reward / coercive – You have the ability to reward or drive people and
situations
3. Personal attraction – characteristics associated with likeability (“charisma”
and ability to inspire)
4. Effort – dependability and evidence of higher than expected time
commitment
5. Legitimacy – actions clearly display a particular value commonly held
among partners
6. Connections – power through networks, association, etc
7. Information – Only you have the information that others need
Discussion Can you think of any others? What bad experiences have you had /
are having with anyone wielding their power, and what did /can you do about it?

8. 1. Power, Influence, integrity – when the planets align
Tips for creating influence
1. See value in empathy
2. Managing the ‘conversation’
• Steer, don’t block!
• Open questioning
• Inviting responses
3. The fragility of personal
reputation
4. Handling objections from
influential players
5. Controlling the discussion
• Keeping focus
• Never emotional
6. See and appreciate the broader
context
7. Managing uncertainty and anxiety
• Mental resilience
• Self confidence (minus the ego!)
8. Avoid binary thinking

9. 1. Power, Influence, integrity – when the planets align
Sessio
n 4
Here’s a tip for destroying influence

10. 1. Power, Influence, integrity – when the planets align
You have the ability to control your response to
situations, and it is how you shape your response
that will determine your ability to influence others.
Formulate and direct your responses wisely.

11. 1. Power, Influence, integrity – when the planets align
Integrity and Ethics at the Organisational level
• Organisations intend to operate with integrity.
• Integrity breaches can cause serious damage to organisations, and
even lead to their demise
– brand damage
– Staff satisfaction and high staff turnover
– consumer boycotts
– Investor / valuation downgrades
– legal action
– fines from regulators

12. 1. Power, Influence, integrity – when the planets align
Morals and Ethics
Morals:
• Concerned with the principles of right and wrong behaviour
(Oxford)
Ethics:
• Moral principles that govern a person's behaviour or the
conducting of an activity (Oxford)
– Industries, professions and companies have ‘Codes of ethics’

13. 1. Power, Influence, integrity – when the planets align
Points for discussion:
• What is ‘morality’ and how does that differ from ’ethics’?
• How ’ethical’ are your top managers?
• What are your ‘personal’ ethics and do they clash with your
company? (eg Would you work for ‘big tobacco’?)
• Can you interview for Integrity?
• How can you distinguish ‘integrity’ errors from ‘genuine’ mistakes?

14. 1. Power, Influence, integrity – when the planets align
International Journal of Disclosure and
Governance Vol. 7, 3, 198–212, 2010

15. 2. Evidence based decision making vs. Opinions
How do you make decisions on your career?
• Stress-test your assumptions: In the face of uncertainty and
complexity, assumptions lie at the core of all our decision
making, whether they be job, career or business related.
• Decisions made on the basis of incorrect assumptions can
profoundly and adversely affect your career’s outcomes.
• Distinguishing between correlation and causation, as well as
common errors in logic (Type I and Type II errors)

16. 2. Evidence based decision making vs. Opinions
Copyright: Rob Livingstone Advisory Pty Ltd
‘Direction through Disruption”

17. 3. Is your personal ‘brand’ important?
The mythology and reality of
Personal Brand

18. 3. Is your personal ‘brand’ important?
• A great deal has been written and said about ‘personal brand’ in
recent times.
• No longer is it adequate to just do a great job, you have to tell the
world about it, and more.
• An entire industry has sprung up helping to fuel the personal
branding movement, with many proponents offering a set recipe, or
a ‘A winning 10 step program’ on how to develop that winning brand.
• If it were only that simple!

19. 3. Is your personal ‘brand’ important?
Identity and Negotiation
• Your personal brand
– Who are you?
– Is this aligned with your career’s mission?
– Will this identity have a market value?
• Selling is just negotiation
– IT professionals are not generally good at selling and
promoting themselves in the organisation (tend to be task and
outcome oriented)

20. 3. Is your personal ‘brand’ important?
Recognition and communications
• Overcome fear that driving for deserved recognition will make you
appear obnoxious or egotistical
• Delivering the message
– The fundamentals of effective communication
– Communication and presentation skills
(Workshop and practical skills … Join Toastmasters)
– Active listening and observation skills

21. 3. Is your personal ‘brand’ important?
Networking
• ‘Professional’ networking
– what, when, how, why, who cares?
– Importance of networking: Expanding your professional world
– it’s key to you thriving and surviving
– More than swapping business cards
– Exchanging intrinsic value

22. 3. Is your personal ‘brand’ important?
Consider the following broad definition:
• A brand should indicate a consistent measure of quality
associated with a product or entity.
In the context of your career, however, personal branding can be
loosely thought of as:
• The practice of individuals consciously defining themselves, as
well as their careers with a specific set of attributes that are
visible to others

23. 3. Is your personal ‘brand’ important?
• Personal brand, authenticity and perception management
• Without contributing to the hype of personal branding or putting
a ‘spin’ on this topic, the importance of the judicious and careful
consideration of your personal branding to your career should
not be underestimated.

24. 3. Is your personal ‘brand’ important?
Here are some guidelines on defining your personal brand:
1. Be authentic: It is not advisable to misrepresent your fundamental persona.
Your personal ethics and morality should play an integral part of your brand.
2. Be consistent on the fundamentals of who you are. Having rock solid reliability
will stand you in good stead.
3. Define trustworthiness as part of your brand. Why should you be trusted?
Trustworthiness is built on a mix of consistency and authenticity.
4. Not a public statement: Your sole purpose of developing a brand model is to
help you shape your responses to challenges and define your approach to
dealing with others. As an employee, the overt branding of yourself or flagrant
self-promotion may be counterproductive in your career …. Or, on the other
hand, it may be helpful! Know the implications.

25. 3. Is your personal ‘brand’ important?
Here are some guidelines on defining your personal brand:
5. Has little to do with ego: Your feeling of self-esteem or self-importance has
little to with the expression of your personal brand. Leave the ego at the door,
unless your ego is your brand.
6. Confidence and objectivity: If you are able to be objective, that is, seeing
yourself through the eyes of others, your brand will more likely be seen to be
‘authentic’.
7. Personal brand should not be confused with reputation: Reputation is a
consequence of your actions, and is formed by others’ perspectives of you.

26. 4. Managing your situational ‘circle of influence’?
Copyright: Rob Livingstone Advisory Pty Ltd
‘Direction through Disruption”

27. 4. Managing your situational ‘circle of influence’?
Define context and scope:
ie: Relationship between me and these individual stakeholders
for <state purpose or objective>
Copyright: Rob Livingstone Advisory Pty Ltd
‘Direction through Disruption”

28. 4. Managing your situational ‘circle of influence’?
Keep
Satisfied
Monitor /
observe
Manage
closely
Keep updated
and informed
High
Interest
Power
Low High
Low
Mendelow's Power-interest grid
Stakeholder Analysis model

29. 4. Managing your situational ‘circle of influence’?
CEO Boss
Keep
Satisfied
Monitor /
observe
Manage
closely
Keep updated
and informed
High
Interest
Power
Low High
Low
Mendelow's Power-interest grid
Stakeholder Analysis model
B
A

30. What organisation model is your career based on?
Self sufficiency, adaptability, speed,
multi-skilled, innovative, receptive
and perceptive and responsiveness
key to survival
Comfort in structure, passing control
to others, single purpose, local
adaptability not encouraged, ‘family’
5. The foundations of a resilient career

31. 5. The foundations of a resilient career
• As an employee, start thinking of your career as your business.
For the most part, you have one client. That client is called your
employer, and hopefully that employer is your employer of choice,
not necessity.
• Investing in your most important lifelong income generating asset,
that being your career, makes good sense.
– Employers are not intrinsically concerned about the long term
wellbeing of your career, as their shareholders are not your
personal shareholders.

32. 5. The foundations of a resilient career
• By treating your career as your business, you will progressively
equip yourself with the skills that extend far beyond just doing a great
job where you are currently employed.
• It is the gradual and systematic development and acquisition of
complementary and supplementary skills and experience that are
in line with the goals and objectives embodied in your Career’s
Business Plan that will contribute to you having options.
It is having options that leads to career resilience

33. 6. Masterclass exercise
In attempting to apply a dab of rigour to important career decisions it is helpful to distinguish
between a hypothesis and an assumption as well as fundamental errors in logic.
What’s the difference between a hypothesis and an assumption?
A hypothesis is intended to explain certain facts or observations. Often expressed in the form of
an “If ….. then” statement.
• If you smoke, you will eventually get cancer.
• If you drive fast you are more likely to have an accident.
An assumption is a hypothesis that is assumed to be true
• I assume that my marriage will last a lifetime.
• I assume that my boss is angry because of something I did.

34. 6. Masterclass exercise
Consider the following statements in the context of a career.
Can you pick the assumptions, hypotheses or possible logic errors?
1. If I studied for a reputable MBA degree, I will more than recoup the cost and effort
with a better paid job in less than 3 years through a higher salary.
2. If I succeed in my current job, I’ll be able to easily get work elsewhere because I’ll
have a glowing resume.
3. If I work hard and always comply with my manager’s instructions, I will eventually
be promoted.
4. Others just know how valuable I am to the organisation.
5. I plan to gain a lot of industry knowledge – that’s my guarantee of always getting a
well paid job in my industry.

35. 6. Masterclass exercise
Consider the following statements in the context of a career.
Can you pick the assumptions, hypotheses or possible logic errors?
6. I work for a major, successful multinational. There are plenty of opportunities for
me here.
7. My technical skills will sustain my career in the long term
8. My industry is unlikely to change much – it’s been around a long time and is
considered an essential service.
9. If I work long hours I will eventually expect to be rewarded (e.g. increased pay,
promotion, bigger office).
10. Other jobs will not be as good as the one I currently have in today’s difficult
environment.
11. I have to be more active in work ‘politics’ to get ahead.

36. 7. Wrap-up and conclusions
Organisations are:
• Complex
• Many interactions are poorly understood
• Mostly focused on the short term
• Like a ‘living thing’
Your career is your responsibility:
• Consciously invest in our career – it’s
your most valuable asset.

37. ThankYou!
ROB LIVINGSTONE
- Fellow, University of Technology, Sydney
- Principal, Rob Livingstone Advisory Pty Ltd
W: www.rob-livingstone.com
E: rob@rob-livingstone.com
P: +61 2 8005 1972
M: +61 419 632 673
F: +61 2 9879 5004
Tw: @rladvisory
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