How To Deliver What Your Organization Needs Most From You

Accomplished leadership and executive coaches Bill Berman and George Bradt have discovered over the past 30 years that:

People lose their ability to influence others and impact the organizations they work at because they are not focused on the most essential, mission-critical business and cultural priorities of the organization.

From CEOs to first-line managers, Berman and Bradt explain that too often individuals are unintentionally misunderstanding critical aspects of their job. And, to often, these individuals do not understand the organization’s top priorities.

These discoveries encouraged Berman and Bradt to write their new book, Influence and Impact, which provides an easy-to-follow, common-sense approach to building influence at any level of an organization.

More specifically, they explain how to:

Evaluate what values, strengths and capabilities you bring to your role.
How you can develop new skills to increase your influence.
Determine if you are in the right place to have the greatest impact.

You will learn how to apply well-tested coaching tools to becoming more influential and achieving impact at work. The book is ideal for executives, managers, leaders, and any professional who hopes to get a clearer picture of what their colleagues, superiors, and followers expect of them.

As you embark on the changes you choose to make to become more impactful and influential in your workplace, the authors recommend you:

Make the changes that you have identified as important to you, your manager, and your organization.
Get other people to notice that you have made a change.
Get others to believe that the changes are real rather than cosmetic.
Sell your value to others without selling yourself by talking about the work, bringing insights instead of information, putting your hand up, and jumping in to fill gaps.

All these steps will help you take on more responsibility, expand your impact, and reap the benefits.

Bill Berman

Today, Berman shared these additional insights for us:

Question: How might someone considering hiring an executive or career coach incorporate your book into the mix?

Berman: Most executive coaches will do many of the things we talk about in the book, including assessments and development plans. The Working Job Description we present in Chapter 4 is a novel and very useful tool for integrating all this information into a clear, one-page message about the person, the job and the organization. For example, not all coaches pay as much attention to the context the person works in, and the person-work fit. Influence and Impact will help people from individual contributors to senior leaders focus attention on what the person’s manager, skip-level manager, peers, and colleagues see as critical for their role. It will also help to focus attention on the organizational culture. The most successful leaders are culturally and organizationally agile – they adapt to the situation and the environment.

Question: What two or three of the best techniques you teach in the book can leaders use to help an employee have more influence and impact in their company/organization?

Berman: The good news is, Chapter 13 is called “A Primer for Managers.” It is a five-page summary of all the takeaways that managers can use to help their employees build their influence and enhance their impact.

If I had to pick the two or three things in that list that would have the impact, it would be the following:

#1, make sure you, and your employee understand what the essential priorities of the job are over the next few months.

#2, make sure you and your employee know what success looks like. Of the six things you would like them to accomplish, what are the two or three really critical elements.

#3 would be to build trust and challenge them to do more than they think they can do. I showed the book proposal to a senior manager, and he told me, “This is great. I used it with an employee. I told him he wasn’t focused on the most important part of the job.” That is what really makes the difference.

Thank you to the book’s publisher for sending me an advance copy of the book.

Comments

The Six Dimensions Of Being A Healthy Leader

In Bob Rosen ’s book, Grounded: How Leaders Stay Rooted In An Uncertain World , he explains that there are six dimensions of being a healthy leader : Physical health : how you live. How you manage your mind and body – managing your energy and living a peak performance lifestyle. Emotional health : how you feel. This is about being self-aware and having positive emotions and the ability to be resilient, catching yourself when you have a counterproductive thought. This also includes seeking feedback from others about how you act and trying to be more reflective. Intellectual health : how you think. This is about asking questions, being deeply curious and seeing changes as an opportunity to grow, learn and reassess the way you see and talk about the world. Social health : how you interact. This is about authenticity. How do you build relationships? Are you being honest about yourself? Are you comfortable being vulnerable? Do you consider other people’s viewpoints? Vocatio...

Be The Leader You Want To Be

“By focusing in specific ways on five key leadership elements— Purpose, Process, People, Presence, and Peace —you can increase your time, capacity, energy, and ultimately your leadership impact,” explains Amy Jen Su , author of the book, The Leader You Want To Be: Five Essential Principles for Bringing Out Your Best Self—Every Day . Su shares both Western management thinking and Eastern philosophy to provide a holistic yet hands-on approach to becoming a more effective leader with less stress and more equanimity. She draws on rich and instructive stories of clients, leaders, artists, and athletes. And, she focuses on three foundational tenets: s elf-care, self-awareness, and personal agency . Most important, Su explores in depth, chapter-by-chapter the Five Ps : Purpose – Staying grounded in your passions and contributions, doing your highest and best work that has meaning and is making a difference. Process – Relying on daily practices and routines that ho...

How To Demonstrate Your Leadership Credibility

Demonstrate your leadership credibility by: Practicing what you preach. Walking the talk. Ensuring your actions are consistent with your words. Putting money where your mouth is. Following through on your promises. Doing what you say you will do. Good, quick tips from the book. The Leadership Challenge . Thank you to the book’s publisher for sending me a copy of the book.

How To Lead With Purpose

“Purpose is the why behind everything within an organization,” says author John Baldoni, of the book, Lead With Purpose . Baldoni also believes that it is up to leaders to make certain that organizational purpose is understood and acted upon. And, to harness the talents of their employees, leaders must recognize their responsibility to instill purpose in the workplace. Other recommendations include: Make purpose a central focus Instill purpose in others Make employees comfortable with ambiguity Turn good intentions into great results Make it safe to fail (as well as prevail) Develop the next generation According to Baldoni, purpose forms the backbone of what an organization exists to do; upon which you can build vision and mission. To define an organization’s purpose, you must ask three questions: 1. What is our vision — that is, what do we want to become? 2. What is our mission — that is, what do we do now? 3...

Wisdom From The Book, The Art Of Being Unreasonable

Early on in Eli Broad's book, The Art of Being Unresaonable , he reminds us of the power of a child's instinctive asking, " Why not? " Unfortunately, most adults lose that habit and Broad goes on to explain that it was his continuing to ask "Why not?" throughout his career that brought him success. " The questions you're willing to ask when others think they have all the answers are doors to discovery ," says Broad. Other words of wisdom from the book, and my favorite takeaways, include : Most successful businesses have to begin by bucking conventional wisdom . Invention and innovation don't happen without it. Do your homework no matter how much time it takes. Big ideas don't happen in a moment . You can't do it all yourself, so ask questions and delegate . The trick to delegating is to make sure your employees share your priorities . Find the best people to whom you can delegate, and know their strengths an...

12 Golden Rules Of Effective Communication

Here are the 12 golden rules of effective communication from Paul Falcone , as highlighted in his book, 2600 Phrases for Setting Effective Performance Goals . Always remember to: Recognize achievements and accomplishments often. Celebrate success. Deliver bad news quickly, constructively, and in a spirit of professional development. Praise in public, censure in private. Assume responsibility for problems when things go wrong, and provide immediate praise and recognition to others when things go right. Create a work environment based on inclusiveness, welcoming others' suggestions and points of view. Listen actively, making sure that your people feel heard and understood and have a voice in terms of offering positive suggestions in the office or on the shop floor. Share information openly (to the extent possible) so that staff members understand the Why behind your reasoning and can ask appropriate questions as they continue along in their own path of caree...

The Ordinary Skills Of Exceptional Leaders

New York Times - bestselling author, chartered psychologist and Professor of Leadership at the University of Exeter Business School, John Amaechi , has released It’s Not Magic: The Ordinary Skills Of Exceptional Leaders . It’s an important read for particularly managers, executives, board members, and other business leaders, and anyone else expected to motivate and inspire others to achieve great things. The book walks you through the seemingly obvious but difficult-to-nail mindsets and intentions you’ll need to adopt to influence and motivate others. You’ll learn strategies and techniques you can apply immediately, including: Easy-to-follow explanations of the straightforward behaviors you can model to improve your ability to lead others. Habits you can adopt immediately to motivate others in any setting, from the boardroom to the classroom or the battlefield. Data-driven insights into the tiny, little things that great leaders do every day and how to incorporate t...

Leading With GRIT

Feelings of being stuck, overwhelmed and frustrated plague too many of our workplaces says Laurie Sudbrink , author of the new book, Leading With GRIT . So, drawing on her over 20 years of coaching a wide range of organizations, colleges and Fortune 500 companies, Sudbrink provides in her book a road map to improve individual and organizational health . That road map includes teaching readers the principles of GRIT : Generosity Respect Integrity Truth Laurie Sudbrink "It is not only the concepts of GRIT, but how they are combined, that make them so effective," shares Sudbrink. Divided into three parts, Part I of the book is geared toward the individual, and is foundational to your success as a leader. Part II focuses on communicating with GRIT -- making communication easier, more enjoyable and more productive. Part III is how, in our role as leaders, we apply and sustain GRIT in the workplace, creating systems that help keep everyone on track....

Acknowledge Employee Milestones

Your employee will appreciate your acknowledging their birthday, advanced degree graduation achievement, wedding engagement, wedding, or other personal milestone event. If he or she shares with you information about any important event in their life, take the opportunity to congratulate them, honor them and acknowledge them. You can give them a card. Or, take them to lunch. Or, even a simple handshake can go a long way. Taking an interest in your employee goes a long way and it's one of the easiest, meaningful actions you can take. If you manage a large team, you'll likely want to create a way to help you remember upcoming milestone events for each of your employees.

How To Enable Your Employees

" Frustration in the workplace is a silent killer," claim authors Mark Royal and Tom Agnew in their terrific book, The Enemy of Engagement . Further, "in an organizational context, frustration is not as simple as failing to get something you want. Rather, it involves the inability to succeed in your role due to organizational barriers or the inability to bring the bulk of your individual talents, skills, and abilities to your job." Royal and Agnew further explain that a staggering number of highly motivated, engaged, and loyal employees quit trying--or quit, period---because they feel frustrated . And what's causing all that frustration? It's lack of enablement . According to Royal and Agnew, as employees grow in experience in their roles, they begin to focus less on learning the ropes and more on achieving desired results. In the process, they are increasingly confronted with enablement constraints that...

Eric Jacobson On Management And Leadership

Search This Blog