Learning the “Art of Influence”

Those who earn the moniker of “change agents” are clearly known for their great leadership and management abilities, and quite often their ability to think outside the box as well.   Nonetheless, a change agent cannot succeed without the direct support of and personal investment in those they lead.  In other words, one of a change agent’s most critical attributes is their power to express “influence” over their staff.  Even during the past week at Sapient, I saw many examples of how pivotal staff and stakeholder buy-in can be when aiming to complete projects and make decisions.

I came across a good article this week that highlights the power of influence by following case studies of four CIO’s: Scott Heintzeman, CIO of Carlson Marketing, Peter Walton, CIO with the global energy company Hess, Partners HealthCare System CIO John Glaser, and Sue Powers, CIO for Worldspan. What is particularly interesting about these cases is that CIOs often have, as the article says, “little formal power”, and so often a “CIO’s impact comes down to how good [he or she] is at convincing business leaders and end users—who don’t have to listen to [him or her]—to follow a strategy that the CIO deems important.” Any true change agent will have harnessed the power of influence in some way, shape or form, and these CIO’s exemplify how that can happen.

Here are some interesting excerpts from the article:

“To have influence, it’s not enough to be able to explain IT in an easy-to-understand way. To sway opinions and convince others to act, CIOs need expert knowledge of their subject and its relationship to the business, the ability to adapt their message to how their audiences like to learn, access to allies who will support their goal and the ability to vet ideas in a nonthreatening way.”

[In reference to convincing his company to go about outsourcing carefully] “You need outside materials that have a wow factor that can hit [your audience] right between the eyes,” Walton says. “When you’re [looking at] a way of operating that is just like a case study that ended in failure, that’s powerful.”

“Sue Powers, CIO for Worldspan, relies on a methodology called ’socializing an idea’ to nudge, cajole and encourage her colleagues to consider a new IT system or business process…The approach is an active one. It requires more than simply running an idea up the proverbial flagpole. Socializing means active engagement and interaction outside formal meetings, where people are less guarded. During casual conversations (in the hallway, in their offices, over lunch), people are more at ease and more willing to discuss change. They also are more likely to discuss their objections to an idea, making it possible to come up with solutions. ‘In a formal setting, people can feel pushed into an idea’, Powers says. ‘This way they feel they can be more honest.’”