Eight tips to being better at influencing others

Influencing others to act is vital in organisations, but many senior people struggle to get others engaged and motivated to follow their ideas – even if they are the smartest person in the room. In my coaching work I specialise in helping people with great technical expertise to become more influential and develop their careers faster, reduce frustration, and find new ways to get buy-in.

Here are 8 tips I have seen work well to help you influence at a higher level:

1. Clarity: How clear is your message? People are often confused and unsure what is being asked of them. Decide what level of detail this audience really needs right now, and what you want them to do as a result of your communication. In particular, consider this before preparing any slide presentation or your contribution to the monthly meeting.
2. Conviction: How you get your point across with power and impact is often about the energy you display when it is your turn to speak – a mixture of positive body language, eye contact, and vocal power to emphasise the really important parts of your message. How often have we seen someone begin a presentation with ‘I am really excited to be here today’ when their voice and general demeanour suggests the exact opposite? Conviction is about congruence between your words, your voice and your body language.
3. Connection: You need to make the connection between you and the content, and the content and the audience. Tell people why this matters to you personally, and if possible tell a story from your own experience to bring it to life. Then tell them why it should matter to them too, thinking about what their goals and motivations are. Grab their attention twice by doing both of these things and you are boosting your influence.
4. Listening: You can boost your influence in any room by listening at a high level, creating an energy that makes the person who is speaking come out with higher quality thoughts and ideas. Nancy Kline writes about this phenomenon in her great book ‘Time to Think’. Beware of getting distracted by your own life situation when someone else is speaking, or listening to respond, where you are hoping the other person will stop so that you can share your own magnificent thought! Put your attention fully on the other person when they are speaking and they will feel your influence on their contribution.
5. Questions: Show that you know by the quality of questions you ask, rather than demonstrating your expertise by broadcasting and showing off. Paradoxically, the one who asks the great question controls the conversation, not the one who speaks. Senior people know this and have the ability to remain silent for long periods in any group interaction. Ask questions to bring a new perspective into the room: E.g. Where has this been done before? What risks and impacts do you see if we take this approach?
6. Answers: Consider answering questions using 3 different styles that match how the other person might respond best: Analytical, pragmatic, relational. Analytical answers are about facts, detail evidence, numbers, concepts and procedures. Pragmatic answers are about real world action – what we are going to do. Relational answers are weaving in metaphors and stories which highlight the issues in a novel and memorable way. The key to influence here is not to assume the other person’s style is the same as yours. Be flexible and if possible answer twice, using elements from different styles to increase your potential influence and impact.
7. Link your ideas to a higher authority: To sound more strategic and less subjective – thus having more influence – do this: Rather than say ‘What I think about this is…’ in a meeting, link your idea to the organisation’s mission, vision, values, customer needs, KPI’s, or how to win in the market. E.g. ‘Well, if we just reflect for a moment on what customers want, I recommend that we do X’.
8. Summaries: Be a great summariser, acknowledging others’ thoughts in the room, before you make your recommendation. You will have a great deal more influence in a room if people feel that their contribution has been heard. You need to listen really well and make notes to provide such a succinct summary. So, seek first to understand, then be understood. E.g. ‘The sense I’m getting from the room is that X, Y and Z are very much top of mind, but I haven’t heard anyone mention the customer for the past 2 hours, and I was just wondering if that was important…’

Written by: Ian McKechnie, Associate Executive Coach

Ian is an ICF accredited Executive Coach who specialises in helping individuals find better ways to engage with and really lead others, creating a clear vision others can follow, inspiring team performance, and generating more impact with the SLT.

Ian is an Associate Executive Coach of The Coaching Solution.

If you are interested in working with Ian, please contact info@thecoachingsolution.co.uk or call on 07789 007591.