Originally published in the February 2005 Issue of Link & Learn. 

As a manager, you face the challenge of getting work done through others. Managers can no longer rely on the power of their position to "tell" others what to do; most organizations have become so lean that their staff is stretched on a continual basis. Asking people to do something differently, or to do even more, requires real skill and a compelling business case. Effective management today depends on the ability to influence senior management, cross-functional peers, and front-line employees. In other words, an effective manager must be adept at influencing in 3D.

Influencing Up: Shape a Robust Business Case

In order to get work done through others, you need to be able to influence your own manager and his or her peers. Influencing up in this sense requires that you confirm and clarify the level of commitment of your own manager to the initiatives you are undertaking, and that you fully understand his or her business case for the work you are being asked to carry out.

Consider the following scenario: You are launching a project, with your own staff or a cross-functional team, some of whom don't even report to you. As you pause between sentences, questions come from the group and you realize that you don't have all the answers to their questions. Does this sound familiar?

Time spent gathering plenty of cogent and compelling information on the business case for the initiative before you try to roll it out is essential to your credibility with your peers and your own staff. This requires that you ask critical questions, in a timely fashion, of the right people, who have access to the information you need.

It can be challenging to get time with those who have decision-making authority to provide real backing for projects you have on your plate. When you do get that time, you must use it wisely - a focused "strategic interview" can make all the difference to providing you with the data you need for successful implementation.

This data-gathering process is an opportunity to make a truly robust business case. Adding the compelling details which make a real story - both for those who are being asked to support it, as well as those who will be doing the actual work - will set you up for successful implementation. Additionally, the conversation with your own boss and/or other decision makers enables you to clarify the degree and nature of support you can count on as you roll out the project.

As you prepare to gather your data, consider what you need to know to frame it for each of the different audiences you will need to persuade. The background, the current state, and the desired future state of any project can be described and highlighted in such a way as to convince the different constituencies you must enlist. This requires that you think outside of your own mental model.

Before you start, ask yourself, "Who will I be persuading, and why would they care?" Experienced managers recognize that if there's no difficulty with the status quo, no burning platform, no reason to ask people to do things differently, then people will do nothing. They know as well that what may convince one person may leave another cold.

Influencing Across: Build a Strong Network

Successfully accomplishing work through others also requires an ability to influence across departmental boundaries. Gaining buy-in, and operating with persuasive data beyond your own sphere, comes from solid working relationships with peers across the company. Breakthrough solutions to client needs are not devised in isolation, but rather spring from familiarity with crosscutting issues and perspectives that other departments bring to bear. This requires the ability to network effectively.

Networking, in the managerial context, consists of building contacts and relationships with a wide variety of individuals and groups, both inside and outside the organization, who provide ideas, information, and support for business decisions and actions.

Among the important reasons to network are the following:

1) Managers need to know what's going on and what people are thinking.
There is a complex and always-changing tapestry of opinions, alliances, developments, and problems to be sorted through in any organization. You need constant input from a wide variety of sources.

2) Managers get things done through people who don't necessarily report to them.
In today's flattened organizations, you need to be able to influence and call upon a wide variety of people in order to be successful. Many of these people will not be under your direct control - in fact, you will often find yourself enlisting someone who has one or more other managers - so you must build relationships and alliances that you can count on to roll out important projects and initiatives.

3) Managers need to tap into the informal network.
The informal network, or grapevine, serves an important function for employees, who use it to share and test their perceptions about important organizational matters. Contrary to popular belief, studies show that this informal network is accurate 75% of the time. You can use this source of data to clarify key issues, shape your business case, and communicate more effectively.

Influencing Down: Tap into Motivating Factors

Finally, if you hope to enlist the full and active participation of the people who report to you, you must know how to tap into what motivates them. This is possible only if you have built up a body of knowledge about what inspires them, and what barriers prevent them from doing their best. To do this work well, you must have two-way conversations in which you balance advocacy (making statements) with inquiry (asking questions). Conversations that are balanced enable the sharing of helpful data and help to build trust.

There are two fairly separate sets of things that impact people's willingness to do what you would like them to do - motivators and so-called "hygiene factors." Motivators are such things as the feeling that your work is valued and that others care about you as a person. "Hygiene factors" are those necessary things that, when they are present, provide the bottom line for people, such as pay and working conditions. Hygiene factors need to be at some reasonable level to prevent people from feeling insecure or unsafe. But it's the motivating factors that really get people energized around their jobs and can enable you to enlist your staff to put their hearts into their work.

In fact, motivators are sometimes so powerful that people are willing to sacrifice some hygiene to get them. People will work for little or no pay in a job or a cause that they love. People will put up with lousy working conditions in order to experience real personal and professional growth. As a manager, you have to pay attention to both the motivators and the hygiene factors. You probably don't have much control over hygiene factors, like base pay, benefits, and the location of your workplace. But focusing on the motivators, which you probably have much more ability to influence anyway, will have an enormous impact on the people you manage.

First, be the best manager you can be. Managers can have a tremendously motivational impact when they are respected and seen as offering real value. People will stay at a job that has lost some of its allure just because they have such a good manager. It can also be a source of real de-motivation when it is done poorly - people will leave a job just because their manager is so lousy, even when they like everything else about a job.

Second, try to structure each job so that the employee gets the maximum motivation from it. The exact source of motivation may differ from one employee to another, so get to know your individual employees and get to know what motivates them.

To successfully implement initiatives, remember to manage in 3-D:
1) Gather solid information and commitments to build a robust business case from those with decision making power
2) Spend time building strong working relationships with peers and others outside your own sphere of influence
3) Make a point of learning what really motivates your own staff

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