Managing Up: Effectively Influencing Your Boss and Colleagues to Get More Done
Last week, I presented at the Grant Professional Association Annual GrantSummit in Kansas City on one of my favorite topics: managing up or how to work more effectively with people.
Grant professionals—as well as fund development professionals and many others in the nonprofit world—have the unenviable task of relying on people over whom they have no authority to get their jobs done. Rather than using threats, promises or positional power, meaning that you have a formal supervisory relationship with them, you have to rely on other types of power to get things done. Collectively, we call this using influence which comes from three other bases of power that we can all use to get things done in our organization.
Expert power exists to the extent that someone views you as knowledgeable or at least more knowledgeable than them. We traditionally accept expert power from people like health care providers, engineers, and salespeople, anyone on whom you rely to provide information that you do not have.
To develop and exert expert power, you need to:
Remain current in your field. You must have expertise to share it. Knowledge constantly evolves so make sure you use your professional development dollars and time to continue learning.
Share your views and expertise. Having knowledge is not enough if you never share it as no one will know what you know. Don’t be afraid to speak up and share your experience and suggestions—without hitting them over the head with it!
Tell people what you do and how you do it. After working at an organization for 14 years, I learned that most of the people with whom I worked had no idea what it took to write grants. I guess I never shared that part of my job with them. Don’t make that mistake.
Share your successes. Here in Iowa, we suffer from “Midwest Nice” where we don’t like to brag about ourselves. Get over it. Don’t rub their faces in it, but don’t be afraid to share with people that you have recently had success implementing your suggested approach or that you got that big grant or gift.
Secure and share public displays of expertise like certifications and credentials.
Persuasive power comes from your ability to convince others to listen to you and probably serves as the most important tool for collaborative work. We all know someone who we naturally follow, doing whatever they suggest. That person has persuasive power over you or the ability to influence you to act.
To develop and exert persuasive power, you need to:
Hone your communication skills. Influence only exists when you can clearly and persuasively convey your message and rationale to the other person. Part of that comes in understanding their needs and perspective and communicating in a way that meets that need.
Develop expertise. Often people who we consider experts have an easier time persuading us than people we do not believe, so developing expertise will help with persuasive power. It also gives you the knowledge to make logical arguments.
Develop trusting relationships. We more readily accept the views of people we know and trust; developing relationships—more than superficially—with the people with whom you need to work and collaborate will go a long way in developing your persuasive power. It also helps you understand what makes them tick so you can adapt your arguments accordingly.
Finally, referent power comes from the power of your relationships. If Person B will vouch for you, then I will more likely trust and believe you to the extent that I trust and believe Person B. The use of celebrities to sell everything from insurance to beauty products shows the power of referent power.
To develop and exert referent power, you need to:
Strategically develop relationships. Who—within your organization or community—do you need to know or needs to know you so you can get what you need done? Before you need to work with them, reach out and start to develop a relationship. Or, better yet, find someone who knows them and ask for an introduction. Afterall, that’s the foundation for good development work! By the same token, whose reputation do you not want associated with yours?
Share within your networks. When someone asks, introduce them to people within your network. It will expand your network and theirs and grow your social capital.
Create social capital. That’s another whole blog post that you can read here. Social capital grows from the active connections you make with people. The more social capital you have, the easier you can get done what you need, even if you do not have authority over the person. They will help you because they want to, not because they have to.
Think about the last time that you successfully completed a collaborative project. Why did it work so well? What bases of power did you use?
Likewise, think about the last time you tried to get something done or tried to convince your boss of something and failed. Why did it fail? What would you do next time—or should you start doing now—to have more success in the future?
