Part 1

10 steps to greater influence

Step 1     Relationships – understand your sphere of influence

Step 2     The body of influence – non-verbal impact

Step 3     Maximise your voice

Step 4     Present with power

Step 5     Know yourself

Step 6     Words – the emotional and logical appeal

Step 7     Your audience is all that matters

Step 8     Communicate well

Step 9     Be authentic, be concise

Step 10    Play the long game

Step 1

Relationships – understand your sphere of influence

After reading this step you will be able to:

• Identify your sphere of influence
• Recognise the importance of relationships for influence
• Identify the relationships where your influence could be greater
• Improve your power of influence through relationships.

Simply put, a relationship is the way in which two people connect. And, it is the way in which you are connected to any other person that shapes the influence you have upon them and they have upon you.

You only have to think back to your time at school and bring to mind the teachers who had the greatest impact upon you, to realise that it was the nature of their relationships with you that gave them their powers of influence.

There are probably also a host of teachers you can barely recall, precisely because they had no particular relationship with you.

These relationships can be defined in many different ways and, therefore, carry influence in many different ways. Mr Smith may have had influence because he was empathetic and interested in what motivated you to learn; whereas Ms Jones may have influenced you by setting high academic expectations and providing the in-depth subject knowledge you needed to scrape that top grade at A-level.

Each relationship has its own shape, and carries influence in its own way.

This all sounds rather obvious, doesn’t it? Which is why it is so easy to take your relationships for granted.

The first step to greater influence is to audit your relationships. Here’s how.

How to do it

Do a relationship audit

A relationship audit is a big picture snapshot of your universe of influence, which enables you to quickly map out your key stakeholders. Once you’ve drawn your map you’ll easily be able to spot both the relationships in need of nurture and those which may be suffering undue strain.

You are the centre of your unique universe, and you are surrounded by other celestial bodies (planets, stars, black holes – stakeholders of all kinds!). Some of these celestial bodies are well within your orbit; others barely feel the pull of your fading gravity across the great chasm of space.

Some of the bodies in your universe may exert huge gravitational force upon you while you have little influence over them and vice versa.

The key is that the influence always works on a two-way basis; everything in your universe has some kind of relationship to you.

Luckily this universe doesn’t obey the normal laws of physics as, once you’ve drawn your map, you can then begin the process of increasing your gravitational effect on even the most distant star.

Let’s get to work.

Draw your universe of influence

Grab an A4 piece of paper.

Draw this on it:

1. Name all the people who exist in your immediate atmosphere – those who are profoundly affected by your gravity. These people may be from your personal and your work lives.
2. Move to circle 2 and identify all those people who fall within your orbit, with whom you interact on a regular basis, and with whom you have some interdependency. Again, they can be from any area of your life.
3. In circle 3, identify those people, or organisations, who do not greatly feel your gravity. They may or may not exert a heavy pull upon you in return.
4. Now draw a line connecting each person on your map to you. On one side of the line score the strength of your gravitational pull on that person out of 10. On the other side, give a score out of 10 for the strength of their effect upon you. It’s a good idea to use different-coloured pens for this!
5. After this, scan the relationships on your map and notice where there is greatest disparity between the ratings. This will indicate where you need to focus your attention.

Draw your universe of influence right now with the help of a video:

www.thebusinessgym.net

The areas of greatest imbalance are weak points in your universe of influence. If you wield a huge influence over a stakeholder, yet they feel powerless, this isn’t sustainable; equally, if someone wields great influence over you, yet you have no say, you’ll soon become disengaged.

Take a piggyback ride!

Another useful tactic at this stage is to make further connections between your stakeholders, spotting opportunities to take a piggyback ride. If Stakeholder A exerts a strong influence over more distant Stakeholder B, by developing your alliance with Stakeholder A, you will gradually be able to draw Stakeholder B deeper into your orbit.

This map gives you a big-picture overview of your universe of influence, enabling you to think strategically long term.

Exercise

Once you have completed your universe of influence map, select three stakeholders with whom you have noticed that there is an imbalance in the power of influence ratings between you and them.

It may be useful to take a stakeholder from each circle of your map, as they can present quite different challenges. For example, a close colleague over whom you have little influence needs to be approached in a very different way from an external service provider.

Then, for each of your three selected stakeholders, consider the main barriers that hamper your influence with them and decide on three practical steps that you can take over the next weeks to begin enhancing your influence.

It may be as simple as going via the stakeholder’s desk in the morning, or inviting them to an event. Or it could be more strategic: begin reading up about their area of knowledge and participating in the forums and discussion groups they appear in; or connect on social media.

The key is to take small, but practical, steps forward.

Step 2

The body of influence – non-verbal impact

After reading this step you will be able to:

• Let your body and breathing support your communication
• Interpret and use the non-verbal cues worth worrying about
• Focus on the space between people
• Allow your body to lead your brain.

If you stacked one copy of every book on body language published in the past decade on top of another, your stack would be taller than the Empire State Building. Probably.

Suffice it to say, there is a lot of information out there on non-verbal communication, some of it very useful. With such a proliferation of ‘rules’ to follow, you can soon start to feel that communicating with another human is the most alien and impossible challenge imaginable. Clearly it isn’t, as you’ve been doing it for years.

‘Don’t fold your arms.’
‘Don’t put your hands in your pockets.’
‘Don’t point.’
‘Don’t touch your face.’
‘Don’t lock your hands behind your back.’
‘Don’t lock your hands in front of your waist.’

These are just some of the rules you may have heard. However, for anyone involved in the normal give and take of daily communication, it is impossible to avoid doing some of these actions some of the time. They are totally normal after all!

The more fixated we become on these tiny gestures, the more we begin to lose sight of our instinctive ability to communicate openly.

Allow us to liberate you from these rules immediately. Please go ahead and break them. As long as you don’t break the same one all the time. That’s the key. Don’t fold your arms all the time. Don’t put your hands in your pockets all the time. Don’t touch your face all the time.

As long as a behaviour doesn’t absolutely define you, then there is no need to be hung up on it.

Rather than worrying about every move you make, there are a few simple principles you can follow to ensure you are always communicating as influentially as possible.

Just remember that these principles are designed to guide you to being fully present and communicating authentically with another person. In themselves, they are not an end; they simply prepare the path.

How to do it

Play the space

Elvis Presley was a master of non-verbal communication. Swivelling hips and a snarling lip are clearly non-verbal.

But those physical actions alone don’t mean anything. Imagine your grandma doing them, and it’s a very different effect. It is a mistake to imagine that by performing, or not performing, certain gestures and postures, you are necessarily communicating well.

Great performers, like Elvis or any other charismatic star, use their actions to create an atmosphere, and that atmosphere is created by the energy that the actions carry into the space they inhabit.

The best non-verbal communicators play the space between you and them.

We’ve all experienced people with whom it feels impossible to have a natural, flowing conversation – these people are somehow clogging up the space between you and them.

Obviously, you probably don’t want to have the impact of Elvis Presley in your office, but you do want to learn to play the space well. The trick is to change from focusing on what you are doing, to focusing on what is happening in the space between you and your colleagues.

Clear the path

Lots of things can block the path of successful communication. Picture communication flowing between people like a river; bits of detritus can dam it up if you’re not careful.

This detritus can be physical: a clutter of chairs or an awkward table; permanently folded arms; a clamped jaw or furrowed brow. Or, the clutter can be psychological: emotional baggage, rigid ideas or excessive determination.

Make sure that before any communication you clear the channel to give the river a chance to flow.

1. Set the space up, move the table, organise the chairs so you can face each other openly.
2. Notice any emotional baggage you are carrying and put it down, or at least loosen your grip a little.
3. Let your arms hang loosely at your sides, breathe easily.

These simple principles will clear the path.

The eyes have it.

Eye contact is a curious phenomenon; trivial and fleeting, yet hugely powerful and influential when playing the space between people.

Flirting begins with eye contact, setting the space between two potential love-birds alight before they’ve said a word. You have to be careful with eye contact to avoid the entire workforce falling in love with you or, even worse, running a mile.

The best eye contact tip going is don’t be extreme, find a middle state. Excessive staring can be perceived as aggressive and intrusive.

Avoiding eye contact can be regarded as weak or evasive. The key is to develop receptive eye contact, which acknowledges the two-way nature of any communication. You look not only to communicate yourself, but also to receive the world and the communication of others.

Begin to regard eye contact as another place of flow between you and the world.

To stare or not to stare

People often wonder whether there is a right amount of eye contact. For how long should you hold another person’s gaze?

There is no exact answer to this, other than to trust your judgement. You know immediately if someone has been making eye contact for too long; and you will have exactly the same uncomfortable feeling if you have been holding your eye contact for too long.

Keep it natural, keep it relaxed. The aim is to ensure you make contact with people; as long as your eye contact has registered and you have had a moment of recognition then that is enough. It’s natural to look away to remember, consider or reflect. When you grow more confident you can play with eye contact, and practise stretching the limits of what is comfortable, but it’s a risky business.

Cast your net

When trying to make eye contact with an audience of more than one, the trick is to be open and available to everyone in the room. Keep your eye contact relaxed but mobile.

• Avoid fixing on one person; avoid scanning everyone superficially.
• Make easy, open contact with everyone.
• Rather than moving from person to person in order, imagine your eye contact being cast like a net over everyone.

Use your breath

Breath balances everything. It flows both in and out, just like the best communication.

Use your breathing to support your communication. Breathe normally, breathe easily, but do breathe!

If your breath is held, then your communication will not be able to flow. If it is forced, then your communication will be forced. (See Step 4 for effective breathing techniques.)

Before you speak, breathe. It’s the most important form of non-verbal communication.

Act confidently

Let your body lead your brain.

Sometimes the mind isn’t helpful. It ties you in knots, floods you with worries and generally clutters up the space between you and other people.

Before you enter an important communication scenario, an interview or a pitch, it’s essential to get out of your head and into your body.

Act like Usain Bolt when he has won gold: legs wide, head held high and arms stretched open like a lightning bolt (do this in private!). Imagine the lightning flowing out of your body and into the space around you and beyond.

Check out these videos from Amy Cuddy on the amazing power of posing:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmR2A9TnIso

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ks-_Mh1QhMc

www.thebusinessgym.net

Your body will tell your brain to feel great!

If Usain Bolt doesn’t float your boat, then choose your own example of great confidence. Choose someone who means something to you; it doesn’t have to be a famous person. In fact it could even be you at your most confident.

Recall a time when you felt on top of the world, when you performed at your best in public. Remember how that felt, remember how you stood, walked, talked and breathed. Then carry that memory with you, like an inspiring mental photograph, and dip into the feelings it engenders whenever you need to.

If it’s all going to pot

Sometimes things spiral out of control. Your nerves get the better of you and you begin to fall apart. It happens to us all. Practise this emergency routine and if you ever need it it’ll be there like a reflex.

• Relax your feet into the floor – feel them soften and spread out.
• Unlock your knees – let them be soft.
• Send your body weight down through the soles of your feet.
• Let your stomach relax.
• Breathe out slowly.

Exercise

Spend a day using your breath to improve the flow of communication between you and other people.

Focus on your breath throughout the day: when you get on the bus, when you’re at the water cooler, when you’re sitting at your desk. Without speaking to anyone, imagine the flow of breath between you and those around you.

You’ll soon start to understand how communication flows, and you’ll notice those people who are already receptive and those who lock you out.

Learn to let your breath lead your communication.

See effective, open body language in action:

www.thebusinessgym.net

Step 3

Maximise your voice

After reading this step you will be able to:

• Control the effect your voice has on others
• Speak with greater clarity
• Master your vocal instrument
• Self-monitor and practise effectively.

How many times have you heard a version of the much-mooted statistic: ‘The words only account for 7 per cent of communication – the rest is the non-verbal’?

This statistic is a little too precise for our liking. After all, we are talking of humans here and they are an unpredictable bunch; don’t you prefer to think of yourself as an individual? The fact is, however, that no matter what the exact figures are for each individual, non-verbal is the power behind the words.

Speaking is non-verbal . . . to an extent.

Within our spoken language is paralanguage. This simply means the quality of our voice and includes pitch, tone, rhythm, pace, stress and intonations.

We can choose to use these aspects of our voice to help create the desired effect but often we do not; we leave it to chance. And this is ok. The key is intention (see Step 6 on activating with the underlying verb) and if you are clear about your intention, suitably relaxed and well-practised then your communication will be clearer. The impact you have upon the listener or listeners will be the desired one.

When attempting to influence, some communications have the potential to be stressful. You may be nervous or agitated. You don’t want this to show, so read on. Control your voice. Be intent and do not let your voice get the better of you!

How to do it

The lips, the teeth, the tip of the tongue

The human voice is an instrument – wind and percussive. Without becoming too technical, the breath supports the notes (the vowels) and the lips, the teeth and the tip of the tongue are the percussion section of your vocal orchestra (generally consonants). This is perhaps oversimplifying what vocal coaches would have you believe is a mystical art, but let’s take the pragmatic approach.

As the receiver of spoken-word communication, the very quality and workings of that vocal orchestra have an effect on us. As the conductor of this orchestra, is it the effect you desire?

Why is it that when we hear a certain voice (perhaps the mellifluous tones of a radio presenter) it makes us want to listen on and, conversely, why do others make us want to turn off and stop listening?

Staccato or legato?

Try this right now: Identify someone whose voice you like to listen to.

What is it about their voice that draws you in?

More than likely it’s the ‘legato’ quality of their voice. As a musical term this means smooth and flowing. For our purposes, think of it like this:

The speaker has the confidence to give full length to the vowels sounded.

The opposite quality to this is ‘staccato’. Spiky, abrupt notes. The voice can come across as emotionally restricted, nervous, anxious and unsure of its right to be heard.

Although full of clarity and consideration, poles apart are the voices of, say, Brian Blessed (at his ‘Gordon’s aliiiiiive’ best) or Her Majesty, the Queen. Sonorous and fluid versus clipped and giving nothing away.

Scared of singing?

Singing is the same as speaking – we just hold the notes for longer. Many people are terrified of singing in public. It is exposing. Great speakers are on the way to singing when they speak.

Record yourself

Try recording yourself on your phone or computer and listen back. Often this is a horrible experience as we hear ourselves very differently every day. When we speak we hear a combination of internal and facial resonance, the acoustics of the environment (reverberation) and a version of our voice. This is not the one that others hear.

Play your voice back and listen for the quality we have just outlined. Which are you? Staccato or legato? Could you play around with more of a confident legato quality, simply by giving full weight to the vowel sounds?

When the nerves kick in, as they may well do in a pressured ‘needing to influence’ situation, be aware that your voice may become more clipped, more abrupt.

End of the line

Make sure that when you speak in public, you give full weight to the end of the line. Often we swallow the end words and are in danger of throwing them away, and indeed the whole message. Exude confidence by having the same energy at the end of a sentence – especially when introducing yourself or your topic in a presentation.

A smile is worth a thousand words

We can hear when someone is smiling on the phone. Smiling positively affects the resonances at our disposal and brings a brightness of tone. Record yourself again smiling and then with a face of misery – you can’t help but brighten up with the smiling version and this will help create a genuine sense of calm, non-threatening influence upon the listener.

Put the brakes on

Our voices are wonderful indicators of our emotional state. Sometimes this is not a good thing! Take control. Another effect of our nerves is to speed us up, making us come across as though we want to escape, that we just want to get this conversation over and done with. Slow down. Very purposefully slow your speech down. The key to this is breath. (See Step 4 for some useful breathing exercises to help you with this.)

Pause for effect

‘My dear Mozart, it is too exquisite for our ears; there are far too many notes in it.’

Emperor Joseph II about The Marriage of Figaro

The rests are as important as the notes. Give the listener a moment to absorb. Use these pauses to maintain a calm and controlled regime of breath and thought.

And relax

Tension is exhausting; plain and simple. It can also have a negative effect on our voice. Tension affecting our posture and breathing changes our ability to support the notes and give full resonant quality. It can also be tiring and lead to serious vocal problems (just think of trainee teachers in their first term – very stressed with lots of talking). Tension in the mouth can very specifically change the effectiveness of our vocal orchestra mentioned earlier. For example, a tight and tense tongue can create an overly sibilant sound (esses) and pushing the words out causes problem plosives (Ps and Bs), which are particularly accentuated when using any kind of amplification. Record yourself again and listen out for these sounds.

So, in the same way that a piece of music can have a relaxing or invigorating effect upon us (such as Sinatra’s singing style) or create tension (think Mission Impossible), our voices bring about an emotional response in the listener.

Rehearse, really rehearse.

If you have a key message you want to get across in an encounter, or if you are preparing for a communication to a larger audience, then rehearse.

Think of it this way. Rehearsal is never about getting it right; it’s about getting it wrong, experiencing the mistakes and rectifying them before you play for real.

Speak out loud, not just vaguely running ideas in your head. Experience the language and subsequent feelings of using this language. Allow the non-verbal expression to occur congruently. Don’t just think it through or plan it out on paper. Stand up and speak out loud.

Simplicity overlooked

Another effect of nerves is to limit our choice of notes, to make us sound monotonous especially when reading from a script. Is the receiver in receipt of the desired communication?

Say the following sentence out loud:

I like your red shoes.

Now emphasise each word in turn starting with ‘I’ on the first reading and then repeat by emphasising ‘like’, etc. It is so simple but we must allow our natural sense of tonality to help with meaning. The meaning of this sentence changes with every change in emphasis.

Think about this exercise when you really want to be clear on meaning – don’t leave it to chance or misinterpretation.

Finally, you’re excited about this new idea, this new approach or change you want to implement. Are you? Are you really? Then show it. Be excited or concerned or adamant. Connect to your emotions and appeal in real time.

Become the skilled conductor of your voice today using the exercises in this step.

Hear the impact of different vocal styles for yourself:

www.thebusinessgym.net

Exercise

Identify someone in the public eye whose voice you enjoy. With the knowledge above, identify and understand what qualities they have that you can aspire to.

Step 4

Present with power

After reading this step you will be able to:

• Appear confident
• Sound assured
• Connect with your audience
• Control your nerves and make the right impact.

Increasingly, presenting is a standard element in any job description. Whether you are a recent graduate, a middle manager or a senior leader, being able to communicate your ideas effectively and with personality to a group is an essential – and hugely influential – skill.

The trouble is, for many people there is nothing worse than having to stand up in front of a crowd and talk out loud. The fact is that presenting is one of the final tasks in the modern workplace that can leave you feeling genuinely vulnerable and exposed; where you can feel like there is no place to hide.

This step will help you stand in front of your audience with confidence, control and charisma!

With risk comes opportunity.

When making a presentation there is a risk that you will somehow ‘give yourself away’ or undermine your credibility by being overcome with nerves, losing your train of thought or saying something silly.

The flip side of this risk, however, is opportunity.

Making a presentation is a rare chance to show staff, colleagues or clients what you are really made of; to let the more expressive and interesting parts of your personality run a little freer, and impress with your confidence, wit and dexterity.

The key is knowing how to do it.

Fight or flight.

For most of us, the majority of our working life is spent sitting at a desk interacting remotely via email or the telephone, with a few face-to-face meetings or conversations thrown in for good measure. We operate well within our personal comfort zones. Presenting is very much the opposite of this standard and habitual mode of being, so when you’re suddenly confronted with a live audience it can, literally, give you a fright.

The natural response to this fright is fight or flight. Or, as happens to so many, freeze up, feel awkward, say nothing and go red.

All these symptoms are a perfectly normal reaction to finding yourself in a threatening situation. The trick is being able to catch them before they dominate and to apply a few simple techniques to ensure you continue on a positive, confident-looking path.

After all, it is never truer than when presenting that ‘you are your message’. If you appear terrified, the message you convey can be one of great uncertainty. However, if you appear confident, whether you are or not, the message you convey will make others confident too.

Read on to find out how to do it!

How to do it

All the best presenters (think Obama or Ant and Dec) are relaxed and easy before a crowd. This ease enables their natural personalities to flow through. For Obama, he is sincere, sensitive and empathetic, while Ant and Dec are playful, cheeky and fun.

An ounce of excess tension in any of them and all these bright, engaging qualities will dim.

First and foremost, it is the presenter and the presenter’s personality that engages an audience. The content of the presentation comes second.

Any content can be made fascinating by a lively presenter and, of course, made dull by a rigid presenter.

Given that all humans are inherently interesting, and have personalities of one kind or another, there really is no excuse for boring presentations. It is simply up to the presenter to recognise and set free their own personality and allow the audience to enjoy it.

You can be Obama, Ant and Dec or anyone in between. Just don’t be dull.

Begin with the body

Relaxation begins with the body; Obama and Ant and Dec are all physically relaxed. It’s not the floppy, slack relaxation of sleep, but alive relaxation – think Roger Federer in the Wimbledon final.

All the unhelpful symptoms that inhibit your presenting personality also occur in the body:

• rapid heartbeat;
• sweating;
• trembling;
• tight shoulders, chest and neck;
• short, shallow breaths;
• inability to make relaxed eye contact;
• jittery, rapid movements;
• jittery, rapid voice.

These symptoms are normal . . . but very unhelpful. They are also habits. The good thing about habits is that they can be broken, but it requires regular practice. This is how you do it.

When you’re in the shower, at the bus stop, making a coffee, practise every day.

Finding balance

1. Stand evenly on both feet as opposed to leaning to one side.
2. Relax your feet into the floor; imagine them spreading out as if on a warm, sandy beach.
3. Send all of your body weight down through your legs and away into the floor. Let the floor support you.
4. Allow the shoulders to drop, let the top of the head float up and look straight ahead.
5. Get used to this feeling of balance, and then begin all of your presentations this way.
6. Make this a new, and better, habit!

Breathe to your centre

The breath is the key to remaining composed. It supports all communication. If the breath is held, then tension abounds and communication will not flow.

1. Place your thumb on your belly button and allow the palm of your hand to rest on your lower belly below it.
2. Imagine there is a balloon in your belly beneath your hand.
3. Now blow all the air out of that balloon, totally deflating it.
4. Once it is empty, simply release the pressure to allow the balloon to refill as you effortlessly breathe in.
5. Do not suck the air in, just let the balloon refill. All the effort is on the out breath.

If this is hard, imagine that when you breathe in the air is flowing from the ground up through your legs and into your belly balloon. It’s odd but it works!

Check out this short video for further tips on deep breathing:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WMt_1jw47Q

Practise this and you will soon have a permanently centred breath.

Think tall!

Allow your head to float into the space above it.

Be aware of the space just above the top of your head, and imagine your head gently floating up into this space. Don’t do anything, don’t force your head up. Just imagine it floating up a little and your neck remaining free and relaxed.

Now you are creating two directions in your body: downward grounding, and a gentle upward lifting, with a centred breath in the middle.

This ensures you are open and fully occupying your personal space.

Now reach your arms out to the sides at shoulder height and feel the stretch across your chest and back. Maintain this position for a couple of full breaths before letting the arms fall.

Retain and enjoy the sense of openness and space across your upper body.

Eye contact

Look at people!

You’ve probably been told to ‘scan the room’ before? In principle, this makes sense, but only if you are actually looking at people!

Simply scanning like a robot leaves an audience cold. Get into the habit of looking at people, places and objects in a curious and engaged manner.

Look around your office – notice the floor, the ceiling, the dark corners of the room – take it all in. Notice the people in the office, their body positions, their habits, their behaviour. Engage.

Then, when in front of an audience, make sure you really engage and talk to them, not at them.

Exercise

The best way to practise these skills is to apply them in front of an audience. Once you have been working on them for a few days, get a few colleagues together in one room.

Allocate one person as the timer, and then take it in turns to stand in silence in front of the audience for 30 seconds.

Notice all the nervous reactions automatically occurring, and try to put your new habits into place.

If 30 seconds is easy, push it to a minute. Or 5 minutes!

Say nothing, stay silent.

Once you have mastered this complete silence with ease, then you can begin to think about what you’re going to say.

This is hard, but worth it.

Step 5

Know yourself

After reading this step you will be able to:

• Define your unique positive purpose
• Identify your skills and qualities
• Stand your ground with confidence
• Let your principles guide your actions.

How many times have you heard people say:

‘I’m not sure what he stands for.’

Or

‘I don’t know where she’s heading with this.’

Or, even worse,

‘There’s something about him I don’t trust.’

In order to have influence, you have to stand for something.

No one will follow you if they can’t feel or picture what you represent; or they sense that you are confused about your core principles.

People like clarity, and are influenced by those who offer a clear sense of purpose or meaning. This purpose doesn’t have to be forceful, you don’t want to be bossy or boorish; it can simply be present, resting comfortably at the heart of everything you do.

Of course, strongly held principles can be off-putting! If your guiding purpose is to win at all costs, you’re soon going to wind up without many friends. It’s essential that your principles and purpose are positive and can be perceived as such by others. In short, people pick up on what you stand for.

In their book Made to Stick (Random House, 2007), Chip and Dan Heath argue that every business has a core that guides the company’s direction, and the behaviour of the staff. If the core isn’t clear, or is negative, the company can lose its way. A simple example of this is Google’s informal motto, ‘Don’t be evil!’.

Whether Google has managed to stick to this motto or not is up for debate, but this three-word statement serves as a core principle for all Google employees from graduate to board level, while clearly separating Google from images of corporate greed in the mind of the public.

The credibility of Google as a brand rests on its ability to stick to this self-proclaimed principle. And, similarly, your credibility and ability to influence rests on your ability to embody and adhere to your principles.

How to do it

Credibility

The word ‘credibility’ is derived from the Latin root credo. ‘Credo’ means ‘I believe’; ‘credibility’ means the power to elicit belief in others. Hence, there is a clear connection between what you believe and the potential you have to be believed in by others.

What you believe acts as a magnetic pole on a compass, guiding both you and your stakeholders, gently pulling everyone in the same direction. The strength of the magnetic pull is entirely commensurate with the strength of your belief.

We all know the feeling of the ground giving way beneath our feet when suddenly we realise that we don’t quite believe in what we are saying; and we all know that, in that instant, we have lost our audience too. People are no longer following.

The only reason this happens is that you are not, at that moment, communicating from your deepest-held beliefs, you’ve lost touch with your compass and been drawn into uncertain terrain. The key to regaining your footing is to have previously identified your guiding belief and, therefore, to be able to return to it to get your bearings again. This is how you do it.

Identify your positive purpose

Just as Google has ‘Don’t be evil’ as its core slogan, you need to distil your core to its clearest essence.

You need to define your positive purpose in the world. It is vital that your purpose is positive, that it somehow contributes to the lives of others. An entirely self-serving purpose will eventually diminish your influence and cause stakeholders to turn away.

Your purpose must also be broadly applicable. There’s little point in a purpose as narrow as: ‘to field customer queries within an hour’. This is a good aim, but it doesn’t inform all of your communications with all stakeholders.

However, from this aim you can begin to work towards your positive purpose, which may be: ‘to deepen customer understanding’.

Your positive purpose should also feel inspiring; the world of work is awash with mundane thinking, so it’s essential that your purpose is magical and motivating. If it doesn’t excite you, then it certainly won’t excite anyone else!

Of course, your positive purpose will depend on the nature of your work. If you’re a lecturer, for example, it may be: ‘to transform the minds of undergraduates’. If you work in telecommunications, it may be: ‘to keep people talking’.

It can be anything, as long as it’s true for you and is powerful enough to guide you home.

The power to perform

Once you’ve identified your positive purpose in the world, the next step is to consider what gives you the power to make it happen. The ability to convert what you stand for into action is highly impressive and influential, setting apart the dreamers from the doers.

Stephen Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (Simon & Schuster, 2004), defines a person’s credibility as a mixture of their character traits and their competencies; in other words, their personal qualities and their skills. This is a great starting point, and with the addition of your positive purpose gives you a complete picture of your ability to influence.

Your power to perform your positive purpose consists of a combination of your skills and your personal qualities. All three of these facets interact to give you credibility.

Credibility = Positive purpose + Skills + Qualities

Divide a piece of paper in two. On one side list all the personal qualities that you possess that help you to function successfully; and on the other side list the hard, practical skills you have and that your colleagues rely upon you to deploy.

With your positive purpose underscoring all of these attributes, you have identified that which gives you both the right and power to influence.

Watch out for self-limiting beliefs!

Be careful not to limit your power to influence before it’s even left the confines of your own brain!

So often we hear people say things like,

‘I’m not really a people person.’

Or

‘I’m not confident enough.’

Or

‘No one will care what I think.’

While there is nothing wrong with some self-doubt – it prevents you from becoming arrogant – it is essential that you catch your mind’s attempts to stymie your ability to put your positive purpose into action.

A big part of you is geared towards security, and your mind will tell you all kinds of things to make you stay still and safe. These voices are not useful when you’re gathering your resources to be influential.

Pay attention when you hear your inner voices crushing your positive purpose.

Make a list of any self-limiting beliefs.

Exercise

If you’re having trouble unearthing your positive purpose, a great place to start is with a personal biography and timeline.

First, draw a timeline of your life from birth until a point 10 years ahead of now.

Then mark down the key decisions you have made and events that have occurred during your life, and those you hope to happen in the next decade.

Examine what motivated your choices and notice the connections that have formed. Look for the underlying drivers at every turn, and see if you can describe each one in a sentence. Once you’ve recognised what has motivated you, the next step is to decide if you want to keep it or change it!

Listen to Stephen Covey defining personal credibility:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACukmJ_5HSo

Step 6

Words – the emotional and logical appeal

After reading this step you will be able to:

• Plan to affect change
• Balance your appeal between the heart and mind
• Bridge the gap between your vision and the current reality.

Consider for a moment a situation in which you were influenced by a colleague or manager. Now, of course, you’ll not remember the exact words used, but you will remember the effect they had on you. So, what effect did they have on you and was this just by chance?

All ‘needs to influence’ should begin with ‘intention’. Clarity of intention. All else will follow.

If we are clear on the effect we want to effect then this will help us to decide upon the words we’ll use. For over 2,000 years, since the time of Aristotle and his exploration of rhetoric, we have understood that these words must balance emotion and logic (pathos and logos).

Intention is key.

How to do it

There are many factors that can confuse the message – noise that distorts your signal. These factors include lack of common ground, assumptions of knowledge, timing and, of course, your own emotional state, which can and will affect your delivery. Get to the very heart of your appeal and know and understand the core of your persuasion need.

Jot down a few notes right now for a potential situation in which you will need to be influential. If it helps, think of a situation that has already occurred and begin to think about how you could replay that conversation.

Think, feel, do

Whether it is to one person or an audience of 100, what do you want the audience to think, to feel and to do?

If you had only one minute, how would you get to the core? Don’t think too hard – write down the words that come to mind straight away. Create a very simple script addressing what you want your audience to:

Let’s look at an example:

You have pressure from the powers above to get your team to adopt a new IT system. You understand the arguments for and against. You may not even be a full-on fan of the new system, but it’s going ahead whether you like it or not and your job is to encourage its use by the team.

Using the model above, we could draft a script to encourage the team to:

Think that the department will be more efficient as a result of everyone using the new system correctly.

Feel confident that there will be support for implementation and that ‘we are all in this together’.

Do take the initial steps needed to incorporate this new system into your everyday working practice.

Do comes as a result of how we think and feel.

Here is an example of think, feel, do in action:

You have a client who is considering purchasing your services. Begin by deciding what you want them to do:

Do – make a guaranteed initial booking and financial commitment; to consider working longer term with you.

To arrive at the point where the client is ready to take these actions you need to be clear on what you want them to think and feel.

Think – your service will improve their business efficiency; your service provides good value for money; you understand their specific needs.

Feel – reassured that you will deliver on all your promises; excited about the improved business efficiency.

What’s in your fridge?

You’ll need a partner for this exercise.

1. Sit opposite each other and first simply describe the contents of your fridge.
2. Ask them what they noticed.

Usually the partner will have noticed the contents of your fridge, the specific details of how much milk and whether you’re getting your five a day!

Now repeat the exercise but decide upon an intention. Use one of the following verbs to inform how you will describe your fridge to your partner:

• impress
• disgust
• educate.

Don’t tell them which intention you are choosing. You certainly need to engage your imagination with this exercise; don’t be afraid to be playful!

Example using impress:

‘My fridge is made from solid platinum and the handle is diamond-encrusted. When I open the door it welcomes me with a polite salutation. Each shelf is organised into food types and starting with the bottom shelf we have a 28 Day Dry Aged Steak from our local farm. . . . ’

Allow the intention to bring about the words used.

Ask your partner to note the effect your description had upon them.

Try it a number of times and perhaps give your partner a chance to try it too. Experiment with different intentions and see how this not only changes the effect upon the listener but also informs the words and the way in which you use them.

You can use your voice (see Step 3) to further enhance the effect.

Now think about how you could use this in a real-life situation. Clarify the intention and apply an underlying active verb to your influencing. Make a list of verbs that you could use, for example:

• praise
• encourage
• reassure.

If it helps to write a script, do try some vocal techniques (see Step 3) to bring the text to life and avoid sounding like you are just reading it.

Kirk vs Spock

Even if you’ve never seen an episode of Star Trek, you are probably aware of the difference between the characters. Kirk is all heart and emotionally connected, while the pointy-eared Spock is ruled by his Vulcan logic.

Earlier we referred to Aristotle’s modes of persuasion. In a nutshell:

• ethos – authority/credibility – that which qualifies you to be the expert ready to appeal;
• pathos – the appeal to the listener’s emotions;
• logos – the logical appeal, the facts and figures that support this.

So, assuming that you have the required ethos, let’s consider the use of pathos and logos. Much as Spock’s logical appeal is nearly always balanced by Kirk’s passion and enthusiasm, we can approach our influencing needs in the same way.

Spoken communication relies on the emotional connection. Without it why not just email? Missing the obvious non-verbal language and effect of voice, emails and other written communication can lose a great deal of their meaning or be misconstrued entirely.

So, when speaking, balance facts and figures with emotional appeal. Consider again what you want your audience to think and to feel. Then, as a result of this, what you want them to do.

As an exercise, construct an appeal as Kirk – using only pathos. So using only feelings and emotions.

Repeat as Spock, using only logos – just list the facts and figures that you’ll need to persuade. Will these ever be enough?

Watch a short video for an example of the use of logos and pathos in a sales context:

www.thebusinessgym.net

Less certainly is more

Speak for a reason. Simple. All else is just noise.

First of all, are you asking a question or making a statement? Be clear. Really ask or really state. By doing this we avoid potential nonsense/ambiguity.

Reduce the language.

Then refine your use of language and reduce your appeal to three sentences.

Now reduce it to three words – always considering what you want your audience to think, to feel, to do? This will help you define your core/your purpose.

Concentrate the effect with less words – more words only serve to dilute the impact.

Give time to absorb and process.

Exercise

Identify the Spocks and Kirks in your working environment. What is it that defines them and the way they communicate? How successful are they and what stands in the way of their power to persuade? Now think about someone you can model your approach on, someone who balances the two characters and is close to the ‘perfect communicator’ you aspire to be.

Learn more about ethos, logos and pathos in this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FB-ZsEaM8I

Step 7

Your audience is all that matters

After reading this step you will be able to:

• Make choices to improve perception both personally and professionally
• Motivate through conversation
• Improve awareness of your audience’s position and attitudes
• Shake up existing relationships and give the desired impression.

‘I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.’

Abraham Maslow, American psychologist

Any audience, or set of stakeholders, will consist of a wide range of individuals, all of whom will respond to you in subtly different ways. There’s no point in approaching each one with the same hammer, you’ll only end up bending some out of shape. In this step we will help you present your best possible self to those stakeholders in order to positively influence their perception of you, and we’ll consider the different ways in which your powers of influence may be having an effect.

How to do it

Perception

It is worth considering at this point just how often you have had this or a similar thought:

So what do they think of you? More importantly, what control do you have over this?

Simply put, you have no control over people’s thoughts, but you can influence their thoughts about you.

First we’ll look at improving ‘you’ and removing the barriers to understanding ‘them’.

Give the real impression.

Instead of worrying about what people think of you, spend the energy and thought on what you can do to improve your image; aim always to give a clear sense of the ‘true you’ in any encounter.

Because the core of much of our training comes from ‘theatre practice’, we have worked through every exercise and idea to make certain that at no point does a trainee or a coaching client feel like they are being made to ‘pretend’. We were once asked on a public course, ‘Are you suggesting that we should all be actors?’. Not at all. What we suggest, and what underpins much of this book, is the set of skills a professional actor uses in both rehearsal and performance. Those skills of empathy, of listening, of performing, in a business scenario build foundations for success and real flexibility in communication.

Bring yourself to your role

Identify differences between you in your personal life and you at work.

Simply score yourself 1–10 when answering these questions. For example, if you are very flexible in your personal life then you could score high (an 8 or 9?).

Notice any disparity – identify where you could score higher in the work environment.

Why do these differences occur? Is there a way of letting a little more of you out at work to give that ‘real’ impression – can you let your guard down a little?

A colleague was going through the breakdown of a major personal relationship. People at work knew there was something amiss and in this difficult time she let them in a little. Previously she had ‘played’ the role of an impervious, strict, hard taskmaster – really trying to maintain the impression of ‘boss’. After this period she said that actually her work relationships dramatically improved because they saw her as human and fallible, and she in turn was able to drop her guard and became far more approachable as a result.

Now, you don’t need to go through a personal trauma for this to work but, as in the example above, think about dropping your guard and allowing others to see more of the real you.

In the next step (Communicate well) we’ll work through some ways to make your communication more meaningful and suggest methods to create and develop that all-important rapport.

Water-cooler moments: getting to know you

Create opportunities for conversation. Be the person that makes time for people, no matter how busy you are. As influencing is ‘long term’, invest in relationships.

We should remember not to overlook the value of small talk. In Britain we are obsessed with the weather! When we talk about the weather to someone we don’t know very well we are checking their ‘agreeability’. Much like in the animal kingdom (think dogs sniffing each other or monkeys grooming), we start with simple small talk and gradually build trust.

After all, small talk can help lay the path to big talk. Once an improved sense of understanding, of agreeability and of position is settled upon you can move on to the ‘influencing need’.

Also, we mentioned how smiling can affect the voice in such a positive way in Step 3:

‘Wear a smile and have friends; wear a scowl and have wrinkles.’

George Eliot, author

Do this now. Write a list of your important relationships at work (you could use the examples you identified in Step 1). Plan for conversational opportunities – not falsely setting them up but preparing yourself to be ready to have a chat when the next opportunity arises.

You may have got off on the wrong foot with someone. You may have experienced difficult encounters with others. Gradually reshape these relationships. Drip-feed the changes in you and your approach to avoid any ‘Who is this person?’ – type thoughts from others.

If you are starting off in a new role or even better in a new place of work, you could take this opportunity to re-invent yourself. But stick with the genuine; allow a little more of the real you to surface.

Going forward, jargon free

Do this now. Avoid ‘fad’ language. Superfluous language choices such as ‘going forward’ are just that – superfluous! Be wary of the overuse of organisation- or industry-specific phrases and acronyms as your wider circle of stakeholders may be clueless. They may not tell you that they don’t understand, leaving you clueless as you undermine your message.

Although, of course, acronyms can be useful, surely the point is to help with language and not add to confusion. If you are using acronyms at work, can you be certain that everyone knows what you are talking about? They are useful for written language but when spoken, be careful.

Acronym checker

Which acronym is three times longer than the original words when spoken? The answer is one that we all know and use: ‘www’ becomes ‘double u double u double u’ – yes, this really takes three times as long to say as ‘world wide web’. This is now a universal standard, but in a business context see if you can spot others that you and your colleagues use!

Assumptions

Before approaching with your ‘influencing need’ – what do you think you know about your audience? Assumptions can be a barrier to understanding.

Along with the assumption of understanding of acronyms or industry-specific language, can you think of any other assumptions you make when communicating?

We can often make assumptions:

• of knowledge;
• of understanding;
• of interest.

Maybe you have been warned about the personality of the person you are aiming to influence? Maybe you have had a difficult past encounter?

Be brave and throw assumptions out. Challenge yourself to start each chapter of communication afresh. As you make assumptions, so does the other person.

Use each communication to build a picture of the individual that will help you in tailoring your approach in a useful way. Refer to the model in Step 6 and sense if your target is more Spock than Kirk. Listen, evaluate and adapt your approach; at all times make it a conversation, allowing more of your true self to come through, and validate the other person through powerful listening.

Finally, speak logically and with emotion.

Watch a short animation to find out how your assumptions may be holding you back:

www.thebusinessgym.net

Exercise

Reflect upon a difficult working relationship. Try to list a few ways that you could have improved this relationship. No matter how difficult they were, in your opinion, identify a change in approach. Could the relationship have benefited simply from throwing out some of the assumptions you had made? Now think about what steps you could take to reshape and improve, not just this but all of your work encounters.

Step 8

Communicate well

After reading this step you will be able to:

• Listen with depth
• Balance your internal and external experiences
• Be fully present
• Improvise and communicate flexibly.

Successful relationships depend on meaningful communication; but how do we know we are communicating meaningfully?

We certainly know when someone is communicating with us in a meaningless way. We’ve all been trapped listening as someone talks relentlessly, without pause for breath. From their point of view, they’re in full meaningful flow, every word they say is awash with value and insight. But you have lost interest, their monologue is nothing but a stream of noise. You begin to feel bored, agitated and even angry. In effect, what they are saying has become meaningless.

We all construct our own meaning; however, successful communication requires that our personal meanings are shared with and changed by others in order to create something new.

Communication, at its best, is a creative act between two or more people.

It is a grave mistake to assume that presenting your personal meaning is enough to engender this shared meaning.

The previous step focused on honing your impact and ensuring that the signals you send are the signals you wish others to receive. This step requires you to turn your broadcast speakers off and switch your receptive microphones on.

Creating meaning with others begins by allowing them space to flourish, and then tuning in to find the places where you connect.

How to do it

Make space

Communication happens in the space between two people; the way you affect that space determines how well the communication is likely to go. The key is to keep the space between you uncluttered, flexible and alive.

The first step to creating an open space is to be aware of yourself: of the emotional baggage you carry into a conversation, of how rigidly you are projecting your ideas, of the attitudes you hold towards others. With this awareness, you automatically begin to create space around these ideas, emotions and attitudes; this space, in turn, makes you available to others.

On this foundation of self-awareness it is possible, with a few guiding ideas, to build sensitive and meaningful communication with almost anyone.

Shut up and listen!

‘Active listening’ have become buzz words in recent years, with many people trained to believe that by performing certain ‘listening skills’, such as smiling, nodding, making constant eye contact, saying ‘Mmm’ and physically mirroring their partner, they are listening successfully. The trouble is, amid this flurry of ‘listening behaviours’, people often forget to listen.

The key to good listening is to listen. Stop speaking, stop offering opinion, stop making suggestions, stop offering solutions, stop judging, stop everything and listen.

Listen with a desire to understand your partner.

As the author Steven Covey said, ‘Seek first to understand.’ Only once you have acquired some degree of understanding can your communication be meaningful.

The ‘active listening’ behaviours are useful in that they direct you towards your partner, as opposed to towards yourself, but all that really matters is that you listen with an absolute desire to hear and understand.

Try this with a partner:

1. Ask them to tell you about a favourite holiday.
2. Give them 100 per cent of your listening focus.
3. After a while reduce your focus to 50 per cent, and finally cut it to 5 per cent.
4. Then swap roles and let your partner get revenge.

The power of real listening will soon become abundantly clear!

Check out the impact of genuine listening:

www.thebusinessgym.net

Balance the internal and external and be present

Presence is a constant interplay between your external experience and your internal world, and the Dalai Lama embodies this gentle, subtle skill. He observes his inner realm, and the responses it produces to his environment, and interacts with others by observing them, listening to them and allowing his inner world to blend with theirs.

The Dalai Lama is aware of both the external and the internal at all times, making him as available to the present moment as it is possible to be, and enabling him to fully be with others.

Clearly, he’s had a lot of practice!

See the beautiful, easy presence of the Dalai Lama:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXS-PIKLoSU

But if you cut off from either your own inner sensations, feelings or thoughts, or from the external reality of others, you snap out of full presence. The primary technique of great communicators is their ability to tread the fine line between their inner world and external experience.

Listen to acclaimed voice teacher Patsy Rodenburg talk about the power of presence:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ub27yeXKUTY

Try a little meditation to help you tune into your subtle presence.

1. Sit comfortably in a chair, feet flat on the floor, back straight, hands resting in your lap.
2. Close your eyes and slowly breathe in and out. Listen to your breath. Take 10 long, slow breaths. Allow the out-breath to lengthen.
3. Then, breathing softly, allow your attention to drift to the sounds you can hear in the room, and the outside world beyond. Spend five long breaths listening to the sounds.
4. Next, open your eyes and allow the visual experience of the room back in, again taking five long breaths to do this.
5. Finally, relax, breathe normally and stay present with all the sensations you have just experienced, allowing them to sit in your awareness without effort.

Practise this and you’ll begin to carry greater presence and awareness into all your communication.

In his influential book, Flow, Mihály Csíkszentmihályi described good communication as an ‘autotelic’ activity. An autotelic activity is an activity that is performed only for the satisfaction it gives; it is not a route to a predetermined goal – it is an end in itself. When you’re communicating in this way, time flies and people enjoy themselves.

True presence brings people into pleasure.

Empathy

Empathy builds bridges between people, and frequently follows good listening and full presence. Without empathy there can be no collaboration.

As a listener, it is important to empathise with both your partner’s thoughts and with their feelings.

A very simple technique for ensuring that there is empathic understanding is to listen, summarise and check.

Try this:

1. Let your partner explain their point of view. Listen.
2. Then summarise it in your own words as best you can.
3. Next, crucially, ask them: is that about right? Are there any changes you’d like me to make?
4. Then, listen again. By doing this you allow your partner to guide your understanding of them.

Check out this video of the amazing Daniel Goleman on the power of presence and empathy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTfYv3IEOqM

Improvise

By now you’ll be in full connection with your partner, so it’s time to start building ideas. The best improvisers build ideas together easily – think of great sports teams or musicians playing together, all following each other’s lead, all picking up on each other’s signals, all working to create something new and immediate.

This can be carried into communication by following one simple principle: accept and build.

Accept any idea from anyone and build upon it. Say ‘yes’ to them, and offer something of your own in return.

If, in a meeting, you realise you’ve said no to everything anyone has offered, try a change of tack and say yes! This doesn’t mean you’ve agreed to it, it simply means you’ve heard it and are willing to run with it and see where it leads.

Be careful, it’s very easy to overuse the phrase ‘Yes, but . . . ’, which is a way of gently closing down someone’s idea. It’s possibly a habit to break. The phrase ‘Yes, and . . . ’ is very useful. Begin your response to an idea with ‘Yes, and. . . ’. You’ll soon start opening doors you never knew existed.

Here’s Karen Tilstra at TED on the power of saying ‘Yes, and . . . ’:

http://youtu.be/l1SK_qNLx5U

Take your aim

Of course, in a business setting all parties usually have an agenda; rarely is communication aimless.

Make sure you know your aim before you begin communicating. Set your target: for example, ‘to secure a new client’.

Your aim will guide you through the conversation, giving you something to head towards at all times. Of course, you must be flexible here. Your aim is only a part of the conversation, it isn’t the dominating feature.

You may not achieve your aim at the first attempt, but over time you will gradually ease closer to it.

Consider carefully how you to communicate your aim. On some occasions it may be advantageous to state your desire loud and clear up front: for example, ‘I’d like to see us working together for many years to come.’

Some people love the bold approach. However, in other circumstances you may decide to keep your aim as something underlying a softer set of tactics. An aim can be stated midway into a meeting or even tacitly understood without needing to be declared.

The key is to consider a tailored approach for every stakeholder. Always ask yourself: ‘What will work best for them?’.

Exercise

Hone your improvisational skills by playing ‘Yes, and . . . ’ with a partner.

1. Together you’re planning a trip abroad. To every suggestion your partner makes you must say ‘Yes, and . . . ’ and then make a suggestion of your own.
2. Your partner then, in turn, responds with ‘Yes, and . . . ’ and a suggestion of their own.

Try to pick up on your partner’s offer and make a suggestion that naturally follows, rather than coming up with a totally new idea.

The better you get at playing ‘Yes, and . . . ’, the better you’ll be at building collaborative ideas.

Here’s an explanation of how to play the ‘Yes, and . . . ’ game:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSzCfsGvwj0

Step 9

Be authentic, be concise

After reading this step you will be able to:

• Tell your story
• Deliver a meaningful personal pitch
• Communicate authentically
• Get to the point when you need to.

The ability to communicate authentically and quickly is an essential influencing tool – sometimes you simply need to get to the point by the shortest possible route.

Your ability to be concise and direct is tightly intertwined with your level of authenticity. The moment someone starts to waffle is often the moment they have lost contact with their authentic message.

As an influential communicator, you need to have both a personally meaningful message and the skill to deliver it with aplomb. One without the other is virtually useless.

Being concise in itself is irrelevant unless what you say retains a direct connection to your deeper story and purpose. It is easy, when under pressure, to respond with a sharp, but ill-considered remark that, ultimately, may come back to haunt you.

In order to create authentic, concise communication you need to hone your message: like a sculptor with a shapeless lump of marble, you chisel and chip away until all that remains is the essential form within.

Let’s get to work with your lump of marble and start giving it some shape.

How to do it

What is authenticity?

Imagine there are two cowboys, both in the same cowboy garb, both astride a horse. Only one is a real cowboy, the other is an actor in a cowboy costume.

How would you know the difference between the real and the fake?

From looking at them, assuming they both had rugged features and weather-beaten complexions, there would be no way of telling them apart. They’d both look like cowboys.

And, in business, most people look like real business people. They present themselves in the appropriate costume. They appear authentic.

Next, you could ask the cowboys to tell you about themselves. At this stage, if he hasn’t constructed a passable cowboy biography, the fake may be revealed. However, he may still be as convincing as the real cowboy. If this is the case, further interrogation would be required.

Eventually, the identity of the fictional cowboy would become apparent when, perhaps, he failed to answer more nuanced or subtle questions about life in the Wild West as easily as the real cowboy. You’d also, probably, notice signs of greater physical stress as the pressure increased on his fabrication.

However, the real cowboy would retain an effortless connection to his own biography and life experience. He’d be speaking from his authentic self as there’d be no need for him to do otherwise, and this authentic self would emanate from every pore of his being.

Your story, your lived experience, your life is the source of your authenticity. Authenticity is personal; you can only be yourself.

Only by communicating from this source can you remain relaxed and genuine in all circumstances.

Write the story of your skills

• Complete the personal biography exercise at the end of Step 5.
• Identify five key strengths, they can be skills or qualities, which you believe define you in the workplace. For example, you may be a deep thinker, or an expert at managing complex systems, or perhaps you have a flair for design.
• For each strength, locate the point in your biography where that skill or quality began to develop or was first demonstrated.
• Expand your biography at that point, detailing how the particular strength was discovered and explored. Fill in as much specific detail as possible; really paint the picture.
• Trace the journey of that strength through your biography. Note any key events that have developed or informed the progress of that strength.
• Make sure you articulate how the strength has changed and grown over time, until you arrive at your present position.
• Repeat this for all of the strengths you identified.

Through this exercise you begin to recognise your core skills as an embedded and authentic part of your life story. They are not a superficial add-on.

This unification of your biography and your skill set provides the perfect pallet for authentic, confident communication.

Build your personal brand

Along with the positive purpose you identified in Step 5, this bigger-picture story of your unique personal skill set and qualities gives you a constant resource to remain anchored in. It provides you with a piece of unshifting solid ground to stand upon.

Now it’s time to reduce and shape your language even further by creating your personal brand.

1. Write your name in the middle of a piece of paper.
2. Below it write your positive purpose: e.g. ‘David – to help people communicate.’
3. Below this write three questions: Why? What? How?
4. Underneath why, in one sentence, write why you hold your positive purpose: e.g. ‘In order to reduce the amount of confusion and frustration in the world.’
5. Underneath what, write down what you do that makes your positive purpose occur: e.g. ‘I work with staff in businesses and similar organisations, either as a trainer or a coach, to deepen their understanding of communication.’
6. Underneath how, write down the methods you use to fulfil your positive purpose or the beliefs that inform them: e.g. ‘I use empathy to understand my clients, and am then able to provide them with the techniques they need to develop.’
7. Now practise speaking these aloud in turn, as if you’re introducing yourself to somebody new: e.g. ‘Hello, I’m David, and I help people communicate more effectively in order to make work less frustrating.’

Or:

‘Hello, I’m David and I help people communicate by providing training in influencing skills.’

Define your personal brand right now with the help of a video:

www.thebusinessgym.net

Check out this video for a great example of a similar exercise with a well-known brand:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phyU2BThK4Q

The one-word challenge

Once you’ve streamlined your personal brand to three key sentences, the next and toughest challenge is to reduce it to one indestructible, atomic word. A word that encapsulates your ultimate quality, skill or purpose in the world.

For example: ‘David – Communication.’

On the back of your sheet of paper, write as many words as you can in one minute that sum up your personal brand.

Then spend another minute crossing out all the words that are even slightly peripheral, until you are left with only a handful.

Be as brutal as you can, until there is only one word left. This word is your touchstone. This word rests at the heart of everything you do.

Check out author Daniel Pink on pitching:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvxtC60V6kc

Be as meaningful as possible

Those who make what they say most meaningful are those who have the greatest impact.

The way to stay meaningful is both to remain continually connected to the bigger picture and to ensure your audience remains connected to the same big picture.

When presenting or pitching any idea, always begin with the bigger picture.

• Make sure you tell your audience the context – the ice caps are melting as a result of global warming, which is caused by the burning of fossil fuels. This is creating devastating flooding across Europe.
• Then go on to describe your idea – if everyone pledges to walk to work on a Friday and leave their car at home. . . .
• Then tell them the result of that idea – then the UK’s carbon emissions would be cut by a quarter.
• Finally, and vitally, reconnect this to the bigger picture: tell them what it means – this would slow the rate of global warming by 2 per cent, ensuring the ice caps thaw more gradually, which in turn would reduce flooding in Northern Europe, saving millions of people from misery.

Always begin with the context and end with the meaning.

Exercise

A great way to prepare for a presentation, once you’ve written it, is to reduce it.

Just as with your personal brand – first, write the complete biography of the presentation. When did the idea of it first emerge? Why was it exciting? What journey has it been through?

Then, define the unique positive purpose of the presentation.

Then use Why? What? How? to create three definitive sentences that encapsulate the presentation’s message.

And, finally, reduce your presentation to a single word.

Once you’ve completely stripped your presentation to its essentials, you’ll be in full command of its meaning and you’ll feel confident fielding questions.

Step 10

Play the long game

After reading this step you will be able to:

• Identify your allies
• Build trust
• Set your long-term goals
• Plan your influencing strategy over the next five years.

The circle is complete: we’re back with relationships.

All the best relationships develop and change over time; in fact, unless a relationship develops and changes it usually breaks down and, as we know, if the relationship breaks down, you lose your power to influence.

Maintaining meaningful relationships is essential to ensure you retain the ability to influence; the longer you stay in a relationship with someone, the greater your influence becomes.

This is true whether the person is a client, colleague, service provider, employee or friend. The more both parties feel they know and trust each other the more they are able to sway each other’s thinking. Relationships without trust tend to lead to negative influence, with neither party willing to follow the other’s lead or listen to their ideas.

The key is to build trusting, long-lasting relationships. This is where everything we have discussed in the previous nine steps comes into play: the sole purpose of every tip, technique and exercise in this book is to enable you to build mutually beneficial, meaningful relationships with a diverse range of stakeholders.

It’s important not to be too tactical and calculating, as overly engineering relationships rarely works; it’s enough to have one eye on the long term and to know that every honest interaction you have with someone, no matter how fleeting, builds the connection between you.

How to do it

Be interested and flexible

Take an interest in your stakeholder’s world. This sounds so obvious, but it is very easy to lose sight of the broader picture of a person and reduce them to a business transaction, especially if they’re not, in that particular moment, giving you what you need.

All relationships ebb and flow, they are an ongoing process, so when things feel stuck between you, it’s your wider interest in them and your ability to empathise with them that will get the wheels in motion again. A little bit of deeper interest in your stakeholder soon oils the cogs.

In order to allow the relationship to flow again you also need to be flexible; to remember that what you need from that client or colleague in that particular moment isn’t the full picture. It’s amazing what can happen if you let your focus broaden a little, and allow your stakeholder to find their own way towards meeting your needs. By showing flexibility you give your stakeholder the room they need to manoeuvre, which in turn helps them to trust you.

Show willing

Be willing to listen, communicate and share your knowledge and expertise whenever you can. Be generous; don’t hold back.

Frequently, we withhold information or fail to use our skills because we feel uncertain, nervous or protective. Be brave, speak up. If you don’t, people may never know you can.

Through being prepared to make an offer, you enable others to feel comfortable in making an offer too and, once again, you build trust with those around you.

Communicate honestly

Share as much of the information you have as and when you can. Again, it’s honesty that counts here. There’s nothing more off-putting than someone evading the question, or deliberately skirting the edges of an issue.

Be honest. Even if this honesty demands that you say ‘I’m sorry I can’t share that with you right now, but I will as soon as I can.’ Or, ‘I can’t give you a clear answer yet, because we haven’t decided.’

Honesty doesn’t have to know the answer, it can embrace uncertainty too. If you communicate your full position authentically, with delicate sensitivity to the impact your position may have on others, then, over time, you gain the trust of colleagues and clients alike.

Be meaningful

Unless someone understands your reasons for behaving in a certain way then, to them, your actions can appear meaningless.

Put people in the picture; never assume that, just because something makes sense to you, it makes sense to them.

We’ve all been told to do something at work with no explanation as to why, resulting in a half-hearted engagement with the task. Humans thrive on meaning; if something makes sense we give it all we’ve got.

It pays to take a little extra time to put things in a meaningful framework.

Take responsibility

When the going gets tough, the tough get going. Or at least they take responsibility for what needs to be done.

When communication is at its most fraught, when bad news needs to be delivered or when someone’s feelings are at stake, it’s essential to engage fully.

At moments like that, email or text is not the way. By meeting face to face or, failing that, on the telephone, you are able to communicate more fully, delivering difficult messages with all the compassion and sensitivity you can.

Part of being influential long term is learning to recognise the moments when you need to step into the fire, feel the heat of a situation and dowse it by being fully physically present. It’s tough, but fills people with respect for you.

Exercise

Start building alliances early.

Take a moment or two to think back over all the people you have met through work over the past six months, some of whom you may not have spoken to since, others you may interact with occasionally and some, perhaps, you speak to often.

Focus on those people whom you found interesting in some way – whether it was their job, their demeanour or what they had to say – but haven’t seen much of since you first met them.

These relationships are like seeds lying in untended ground. They won’t grow.

Start tending to them today.

You’ve already made a start by bringing them into focus. Now seek opportunities to connect, find out what they’re up to and stay in touch.