George B. Bradt - Influence and Impact

Some have been in roles where they feel they are flying, but then things slow down. Others are in jobs where they are overwhelmed, overburdened, under-resourced, time-pressured, and feeling stressed, lonely, and exhausted. Still others feel a general sense of malaise, as though they are stuck in place, and do not look forward to going to work every day. Millions of workers, managers, and executives find themselves in this situation at some point in their career.

In most jobs, you find meaning and value by being able to influence others and have an impact on the organization and its mission. In all of the scenarios above, you likely feel you have lost your ability to influence the people around you. When your capacity to bring others along is diminished, or you are not contributing to your organization's overall success, your job satisfaction and engagement drop, your frustration increases, and your stress level rises.

Why does this happen so often? Sometimes, the reason truly is not under your control. In some cases, your manager is difficult or unsupportive, and is not likely to change. Sometimes, there are structural problems with the job, and there is no way to have influence or impact under the current framework. But this book is not for those situations. For a large majority of people, the struggle to have influence or impact and satisfaction in their work comes, not from external factors, but rather from something that they are able to manage and change.

What has become clear to us, through our work with people from CEOs to first-line managers, and even individual contributors, is that many people are unintentionally misunderstanding critical aspects of their job. When organizations send clients to us for executive coaching or onboarding, we look carefully at how they spend their time, how they think about their job, and how they do that job.

Many times, we find that they are not focused on the essential elements of their job . They may be doing someone else's job unintentionally. They may be trying to do their colleagues’ jobs, either implicitly or by making a premature power grab to take on greater scope or responsibility. Sometimes, they are only doing one part of their job—the part they like, or the part that is most familiar.

Sometimes, when working with leaders, we find they are doing the right things, but in a way that is inconsistent with the style, attitudes, and mores of their organization. In some cases, they are decisive when they need to be collaborative. They are direct and blunt when they need to be tactful and patient.

One client, Ian, worked in a formal banking setting. Everyone wore Zegna suits or St. James knits, but he persisted in wearing casual clothes. This leader was doing the right work, but his style and approach undermined his ability to influence other bankers. He was fortunate to have a senior manager watching out for him. As he gave him a promotion to lead a business unit, he told him, “You are to throw out all your shirts and sweaters, and I'm taking you shopping. You have to look the part I know you can play.”

Some people do this because they believe that their approach has worked in the past, or was appropriate for the last organization they were in. They may feel that their style is core to their identity, and to change it would be to change who they are. Or they may not have thought about their approach at all, doing what comes naturally rather than making a conscious and deliberate effort to act in a way that works within the current context.

To repeat the most important point of this introduction, and this book, people lose their ability to influence others and impact the organization because they are not focused on the most essential, mission-critical business and cultural priorities. They usually do not even know what those are! Often, organizations and managers are not as explicit as they should be about the focus of their employees’ work, the culture of the organization, or their own needs and expectations.

The really great news is that despite these common challenges, you can enhance your influence and impact by focusing on the mission-critical parts of your role (the business) without anyone explicitly telling you what they are. You can be more effective by learning about and adapting to the behaviors, relationships and mores of the organization (the culture)—or you may realize, after reading the first parts of this book, that it's just not a fit and you would flourish more in a different organization.

What is influence? What is impact? How are they different? Influence is the indirect or intangible effect you have on others, based on what you do, how you do it, how you communicate it, and who you are. Impact is the direct and observable effect you have on the entities you deal with—your manager, your team, your organization. We are particularly focused on helping you improve the effect you have on others—your influence—in ways that result in a significant or major effect on your manager, your team, and your organization—your impact.

This is the key to professional success in organizations: Doing the job that is needed, in the way that is needed, consistently and effectively. Managers, leaders, and executives can do this by understanding the essential, but often unwritten or implicit, parts of their job, and the unwritten or implicit aspects of the organizational culture. Developing an enhanced focus, delivered in a manner that is aligned with what their job is invariably results in more influence with other people, and a larger impact on the organization and its mission.

People work for different reasons. For some, it is simply to have enough money to live their life the way they want. For others, it is a passion, something they do to feel fulfilled. But whatever the reason, having influence on others, and an impact on the organization you work for, is going to make you feel good about what you are doing. One of the major sources of job satisfaction is feeling that you make a difference, that you have an effect on the people you work with and the organization you work for. Whether you are looking to climb the corporate ladder, or find gratification in your current job, having influence and impact on others will boost your happiness and gratitude.

We provide a set of steps that will help you understand yourself and your role, and use that understanding to influence your organization: How to know what is needed, deliver that consistently, communicate about all of this effectively. The method is straightforward and draws on our decades of experience as coaches, consultants to executives, and executives ourselves.

Part Iexplains what you are doing that interferes with your influence and impact, why that is hurting your job satisfaction, and how to resolve it. We help you identify what distracts you, and why. Once you understand the disconnect between what you are doing and what the organization needs, you can commit to making the changes that will allow you to succeed, flourish and be recognized for doing important work—maybe even get a promotion!

This is a significant mindset shift, as well as a behavior change. To be successful, you must acknowledge that your job may not be what you were told it was. It may not be what you thought it would be, or what you want it to be. At the same time, you have to figure out what matters to you about your job. This knowledge will help you focus on what is really critical to success in your job. In addition, you have to learn how to interact, communicate, and work with others in ways that work in your current context.

Part IIis designed to help you sort out what your boss, your team, and your organization reallyneed from you, both from a business and a cultural perspective. This is not a solo exercise. You will need to enlist a range of stakeholders, including your manager, your colleagues, and your team, to help you solve this. The methods we recommend are derived from common parts of our executive coaching work, but are focused as much on the broader context than they are on the individual.