Read Time: 2 minutes.
It’s been a sad week for me and it’s going to be uncertain months for my ex-colleagues at Credit Suisse.
Credit Suisse provided me with many opportunities whilst providing me with the necessary training and support I needed to succeed.
One of the courses I was selected for was called strategic IT training and it was sponsored by the CIO who sat on the executive board.
It was a two-week intensive course at the IMD business school in Lausanne Switzerland where global experts from around the world taught us the strategies, we needed to be successful in our roles as global technology executives.
One of the exercises we did was a gamified version of influence.
We landed at a client’s site as a set of consultants to get buy-in from the top 6 executives for 6 Sigma.
All we were given was an organisation chart and a set of actions we could take.
Each action we took deducted a different number of points. And if we run out of the points we had been allocated, we failed.
So, we had to select our actions carefully.
And during the game we also learnt that doing an action at the wrong time also cost us points i.e., we sent out an email without permission and were penalised for it.
What it taught me was how to connect with someone high up in the organisation whilst also using others to influence their decision.
I learnt how to connect with people across the organisation by observing who was connected to who socially and professionally.
- Who went to coffee, lunch, drinks, or the gym with people I wanted to connect to?
- Who worked on what project with whom?
- Who used to work with whom?
- Who could they connect me to?
- Who could they influence?
- What could they help me with?
- What internal events do they attend?
- Etc.
And, what actions I could take to raise my visibility,
- Write a post for the intranet.
- Utilise other communication channels.
- Attend internal events.
- Host an internal speaking event.
- etc
I forgot to say there was also a time limit for each action and the game itself, which added stress and tension to the team I was leading.
Coaching Challenge
Last week, we discussed the promotion stakeholders you may have missed. This week’s coaching challenge is to build on this using the influencing game.
Please print out your organisation chart and highlight your promotion stakeholders.
Then:
- Map out the social and professional connections that you know and draw them on the organisation chart.
- Interview the people you know to help you map these connections and update the organisation chart.
You should now have a stakeholder map of who can help you connect and influence your promotion stakeholders.
Now define a set of actions you need to take to connect and influence your promotion stakeholders.
And let’s keep it interesting, put a time limit on each action to keep you focussed.
Next week there will not be a newsletter as I’ll be away on holiday.
But I am looking forward to speaking again the week after.
Your Virtual Coach
Nick