Influence

At the leadership conference I attended last week, I heard of a book to read. "Influencer" by the same authors of "Crucial Conversations." I bought the book on Sunday and spent the rest of the day reading it.

Before I continue, let me say that I have a lot of self-help books dealing with weight loss; improving relationships at home and work; and those proverbial what-do-I-want-to-do-with-the-rest-of-my-life? books! So many of them I have started reading and never finished. I either get through half of it and I understand the concept, therefore I can do it or I decide it's too complicated and time consuming. Then I stop reading and the book sits on my bookcase shelf collecting dust. This book, I kept reading. I wanted to make sure that I did not miss a step in the process. The book "Influencer" addresses CHANGE. How can we influence change in our own lives or in the lives of others (personal or work)?

There are two key questions that have to be answered by the person making the change.
1. Is it (the change, process, procedure) worth it to me?
2. Can I do it (the change, process, procedure)?
The first question address our motivation and the second question addresses our ability.

Take for example that our employees at our company are required to give every customer a smile. Every customer, every interaction, every time, every, every, every! Now that's easy for me. However, I may have a member of my team that may answer these questions by saying her ability to smile is hard. She has braces and when she moves her mouth to smile, it creates friction on the inside of her mouth and it hurts and causes irritation. Is she motivated to smile? She may know that others will often smile back at her and she's a friendly person. But, her mouth hurts a lot by the end of the day and right now, it may not be worth it. She may also feel embarrassed by her braces as the customers may point out her braces. It may not be worth it and she may not be able to do it (smile).

My job as her manager is to help her find ways to be able to "smile." It may involve finding out if there is something to put on the braces to lessen the irritation. I may have to help her find a opening script to tell the customer apologizing for not smiling widely. I may help her find a way to put in "smile" in her voice, if not on her face. My job may be to help her keep her irritated mouth from becoming an irritated personality. My job as her manager is to help her find ways to understand and grasp the worth of the smile and make that worth her own.

I have had a busy work week, implementing changes within myself and my management style. It's exciting that you really can teach an old dog new tricks! Yes, I have to find out for myself what the worth is to make changes in my job. Yes, this job is worth four more years of salary to pay off car and build up retirement funds. But more importantly the job is worth it when our department is "show-cased" as the department to watch as we're "going to the top." It's important to help team see their worth. It's important for me to smooth the path for them, give them the tools and training so they are able to do the job. I can do it and it's worth it!