Management Skills for Communicators MODULE 1: BUILDING POWER AND INFLUENCE Angela Sinickas, ABC angela@sinicom.com 22365 El Toro Road, Ste. 139, Lake Forest, CA 92630 TEL: 714/277-4130 FAX: 714/242-7049

Power and influence This…

Power and influence This… Not this…

Sources of power and influence Your job title / level in the company is one source of organizational power, but not the only one: Positional power Personal power

Sources of power and influence Your job title / level in the company is one source of organizational power, but not the only one: Positional power Personal power CEO VP VP VP VP Director For a new job, negotiate your title and reporting relationships as diligently as your compensation.

Sources of positional power Centrality: having a wide and deep communication network, horizontal and vertical Understanding how changes affect all parts of the organization Visibility: results of work being seen by influential people How many people you interact with, face-to-face better than email Flexibility: having the freedom for discretionary decision-making Lost if the job becomes fully “routinized” Relevance: alignment of your work with organizational priorities Source: Whetten & Cameron Communicators’ positions inherently have centrality and visibility. We need to make sure our work is seen as relevant and expand our discretionary decision-making.

Sources of personal power Expertise: work-related knowledge through continuing education, self-directed learning, or experience Can lead to becoming a perpetual specialist, not a leader Personal attraction: characteristics associated with friendship, like charisma, likable personality, agreeable behavior Effort: commitment of more time than expected, being dependable for getting things done “Enhancing the boss,” not “impressing the boss,” leads to more responsibility Legitimacy: doing things in a way that fits the values Source: Whetten & Cameron Communicators too often rely mainly on our communication expertise and being liked, but this can actually marginalize us. We need to develop an equal expertise on understanding our organizations and their markets.

Transforming power to influence The goal: getting others to work with you in reaching an objective. Three techniques: Retribution: threaten or intimidate E.g., forcing all business units to use new logo and brand themes Reciprocity: bargaining or creating obligations E.g., help an executive in a crisis and get him to recommend involving you earlier in the next emerging issue Reason: present facts or appeal to personal values E.g., referring to expert opinions, survey data, or appealing to “the higher good” Source: Whetten & Cameron

Neutralizing negative influences on yourself The goal: avoid feeling powerless, manipulated and exploited in situations where you should be taking initiative, not complying and still delivering Retribution strategy: offer alternative approaches with fewer negative consequences that accomplish the original demand Reciprocity strategy: ask questions, decline the “gift,” suggest an alternative exchange, or outright refuse Reason strategy: acknowledge their need and explain that while a request might be reasonable in general, explain why it isn’t at this moment; be firm with “no”; appeal to their sense of fairness (or point out the inconsistency with organizational values) if they consistently expect you to help them out of their problems at the last minute Source: Whetten & Cameron

Sample neutralization strategies for communicators Given an impossible deadline: explain the little you can do under the circumstances; probe for flexibility in the deadline and explain what more you could do given more time Asked to take on more work than can be handled with current resources: track your staff’s time like a consulting firm; identify the hours needed to maintain ongoing projects and channels and for administrative work (meetings, expenses, etc.); identify the remaining time for one-off projects; estimate the time needed for new requests; show the numbers to your leadership with a recommendation for either eliminating some projects, adding to staff, or hiring contractors Asked to take on work that is not strategic: develop a project intake sheet showing the criteria for work to be done by your staff, approved by senior leadership; show how low the “score” is for the new request; recommend a free-lancer; train others to handle repetitive requests