How To Influence "Up"

What do you do when you have to navigate your way "up" through your company?

Even CEOs have people to whom they are accountable and with whom they have to exercise influence. I used to get a bit angry--now I get amused--at those who think "influencing" involves a bunch of techniques that you do to someone. Actually, you usually can pull off one big, influential scam. If it's with your boss, chances are you'll have to try it out on a new boss. Somewhere else.

The easiest and most effective way to influence is for you to become influential. So, here are:

 Four Things You Can Do

1. Build and Maintain A Solid Reputation

Start by showing the senior people that you can handle responsibility. Actually, just begin by being seen as someone who gets results no matter how small the assignment. The better your track record, the more likely it will be that your ideas and insights will get attention--and, be taken seriously.

2. Be Adaptable With Your Ideas

There's one big difference between you and your boss(es): they have more responsibility than you. Their jobs require them to constantly be in discussions requiring long-term, strategic thinking. They filter ideas through those lenses as well as how the ideas will impact the organization as a whole. When you share your idea, show how you have considered these as well.

3. Use The Right Criteria

If you propose your ideas to a group, look at who is there. Finance? Marketing? R&D? HR? All of the above and more?

Take time to anticipate the concerns of each and acknowledge them. You'll be seen as an organizational thinker.

4. Timing Can Be Everything

You are unlikely to have a receptive audience if the person or group is straining under a heavy workload. Simply mention that you have some ideas to share and ask when a good time would be to discuss them. Then, make the appointment.

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Comments

[JetJaguar]

Our company currently has no mission or purpose statements, nor corporate values/guiding principles. I believe these are valuable, especially when the people can actually relate to them, and when they are taken seriously by management. I asked my boss, a VP, about this a few times, and finally he told me to bring it up in the management meeting. Maybe he wanted a "from the mouths of babes" approach, meaning I'm low on the mgmt totem pole, not a babe per se.

So a few meetings later (I had to work on what I'd say), I opined "So, with a new year beginning, and a new product focus, I wonder if it's time to look at establishing some guiding principles" Silence. Crickets chirping outside heard. The CEO, who had not slept much the night before said something like "in what way", or something to that effect. I can't remember what I said next, but he agreed, and said he had developed them in the past at other places, and the director of sales threw his support behind it. My boss believes in it as well, but for some reason, which really doesn't matter to me, wanted me to bring it up. So now he and I are having a rousing 90-minute meeting each week working on corporate values, and mission and purpose statements. Soon we'll be taking them before the rest of the mgmt.

So, to Steve's points above, I have been told that our CEO sees me as someone who excels gets things done without drama. So hooray for me, but the point is, I concur with Steve's first point above.

As for point 2, yes, I'm not insisting on dictating all these values and statements. The main thing is having them and using them. I'm a convert to Jim Collins' Built to Last and Good to Great ideas.

Point 3, it was a general mgmt meeting, appropriate for the subject matter.

Point 4 seems to be honored, as well.

[Wally Bock]

First off, kudos for "influencing up" instead of "managing up." It's more realistic.

It's important for people to realize that what you describe is not only difficult, but likely to frustrate you often. Try to frame what you have to say in terms that make it worthy of the time of the people who will listen to you. Even so, understand that often the answer is "no" even when the idea is good. And always, always entertain the possibility that you just might be wrong.

And, thanks for the kind words on the newsletter. I'm honored to have you as a reader.

[Steve Roesler]

Jet,

That's exactly the kind of real-life situation that is helpful to readers...much appreciated.

This is speculation, but it sounds as if your boss did, indeed, have a sense that you would receive a hearing as a less senior manager. There are some who would be appalled that the two of you are crafting the documents; purists might insist that this isn't participatory enough to represent the organization.

My experience is different. I've seen large groups struggle through the process together and come out at a good place; others just don't want to play. I've also seen the model that you are using be quite effective. Heck, you are managers and in tune with the company. You are able to create a document that can be discussed and modified until it reflects the entire group's thoughts.

Keep us posted...

[Steve Roesler]

Wally,

I never liked the "managing up" thing. Catchy phrase but not very accurate.

This stuff isn't easy and often isn't even well-received. Yet if people don't try to make a difference, they often feel frustrated at not having given it a go. So, let's give the process and the principles that will help the most.

Thanks for adding the part about "no." That's a valid response. Perhaps it should be added that how one responds to a boss's "no" can also add or detract from one's reputation.

[Dan Erwin]

Steve: I certainly agree with all that you've said about influencing. However, I come at these issues from the perspective of client demands, as well as from the skills of influence management and managing your boss. Numerous clients attain director level in major companies and realize that in spite of all of the above, they still can't get ideas and projects through the system. Typically, they've not built relationships of reciprocity throughout the system. As a result they have to nearly start over in relationships.

Managing up is vastly misunderstood. There seems to be a very solid middle-class angst attached to it. Yet, Kotter and Gabarro spelled it out in detail in a classic article in HBR back in the '80s. Ronald Burt at UChicago has recently completed very significant studies on networking which support the notions of managing up.

Let me be clear, technically managing up is 40 light years away from "sucking up."

Althugh flexibility, adaptability, reputation, etc., are fundamental also, the issues of becoming influential--technically, "a political animal"--not the meaningless banter about "politics"--require relationship reciprocity. The American culture is built upon that kind of relationship--nearly unique among world cultures.

In working more than 25 years with well over 450 execs and officers in long-term relations of 12--24 months I have yet to meet a manager that didn't respond positively to managing up and networking as necessary igredients of influence.

I have met numerous lower level employees, however, who told me that they didn't "do politics." I usually responded with something such as, "that's an interesting form of vocational suicide," or "hmmm....that ceiling over your head looks pretty impenetrable to me." Since when is reciprocity--technically, politics--always a dirty word?

Of course,I shouldn't push this issue too much. It's a terrific money-maker for me, and there's little competition for that training in the consulting field.

[Steve Roesler]

Well, Dan, you certainly won't get an argument from this end.

Having been in the organizational consulting field for 30+ years, the practicality of relationships is simply a fact of organizational life. Perhaps those who don't want to "do politics" have been exposed to the "sucking up" part rather than mentored about the influence of relationships. Or, it could just be naivité.

Either way, you've got a long career ahead...

[Hayli @ Rise Smart]

I wonder if this is part of the reason Gen Y is so often accused of jumping jobs. Highly motivated, they are the types to jump on a process/idea and improve it or implement new ones. This isn't always received well from upper management, so Gen Y gets frustrated and moves on.

[Steve Roesler]

Hayli,

I think the generic descriptions of Gen Y behavior--or any other generation--are grossly inaccurate when it comes to workplace performance and results. (They are unbelievably accurate when it comes to buying behaviors and how they spend their free time).

Such pronouncements are comforting to those who can't live without classifying people, socks, and underwear in order to feel in control. And, they offer terrific excuses for each demographic to avoid cooperating in ways that are productive. They also create a marketplace for "consultants" who, somehow, manage to convince many corporate people that "Gen Whatever"needs special attention.

If Gen Y wants to jump on a process and improve it--as well as implement new ones--then that's outstanding. It is also no different than young employees that I have observed in companies, charities, and the military for the past 40 years. Young people bring energy, ideas, and life to organizations of all types. Here's the trick:

When one decides to make organizational life the source of income, then a trade-off is having to learn how that organization really functions. Ideas and processes don't get implemented in isolation. The larger the organization, the more one has to learn about "how to get 'er done.

If one decides to leave after a thorough analysis and understanding of the situation, that's a mature decision. Leaving just because your "great idea" wasn't fawned over and implemented shows a lack of maturity at best and is childish at worst.

Note: I left a Fortune 50 company whose 401k program would have made me a multi-millionaire today. The company was filled with people who I enjoyed working with and with whom I am friends to this day. However: There were ideas, processes, and programs that I knew I could never get through the system in a timely way. So I went out on my own (the company immediately became a client and remained so for 20 years).

That's my take...

[Chris Young]

I love the idea of "influencing up", Steve! Your four tips are a great place for the aspiring professional to get started.

I've shared your post with my readers in my weekly Rainmaker 'Fab Five' blog picks of the week (found here: http://www.maximizepossibility.com/employee_retention/2009/02/the-rainmaker-fab-five-blog-picks-of-the-week-2.html) to help them to better utilize influence within their organization.

Be well Steve!

[Mile High Pixie]

Bravo, Steve! This is right on! I'm so glad to hear someone provide advice on working for the bottom ranks. There's so much advice on management from the top down, but no advice for those of us starting out or a few years into our careers. The first step is the most important--you have to perform well and consistently in order to have the capital, as it were, necessary to make changes happen.

[Steve Roesler]

Chris, thanks as always for your willingness to share posts with your readers. I greatly appreciate it...

[Steve Roesler]

MHP,

Pleased to know that this hit the target for the intended audience. Most of all, I hope it provides some guidance for people who haven't considered some of these things...