Influencing the Senior Team

During a follow up day for one of our programs an executive who was responsible for delivering on the people promise in the technology side of the business described the following story:

For nine months my job has been to influence all levels of management to implement the concepts our company introduced in order to increase employee engagement. The company strongly believes that increasing engagement will directly link to an increase in customer loyalty. I was excited about the opportunity as I have great passion and energy for helping people succeed. The problem I was facing came in the form of a senior technology team that logically supported the initiative but struggled to change behavior or to respond to what I asked of them. For nine months I have wondered why I took on this project and have felt like the senior team has not been responsive or helpful. I have blamed a lot of my lack of success on them.

After attending the course I was left with a number of impressions. The first was that everybody told me my strengths were related to working with people and helping them succeed. I knew this but the Reflected Best Self experience drove it home to a deeper emotional and intellectual level which allowed me to emotionally accept the feedback. Up until that point I felt the need to apologize to people that my strengths were around the softer skills necessary for the business to succeed. I realized that I had a lot to contribute and what I could add would more likely help our business create employee engagement. My psychological state had changed and felt more confident in my abilities to be successful.

During the next meeting of the senior technology team I was to present on the project, where things stood, and on what was needed moving forward. I could feel the expectation in the room was to just share data, have people try to pick apart what was wrong with what I was doing and walk away feeling worse about myself. I actually watched a few others go through that exact experience right before it was my turn to present. As I started to communicate with the senior team I jumped out of my chair and got all excited about the ideas I'd come up with. I stopped worrying about what the senior team would think of me or my ideas and focused on what would actually help the business create more engaged employees. I asked questions and brought the board into the discussion by having them expand on my ideas. People responded to me very differently than in the past. During the break people were telling me 'great job' and giving me the thumbs up. They have responded differently to me since that time and are being more supportive of the initiative. For nine months I kept saying the senior team just isn't ready for this kind of project. However, once I changed my psychological state, got clear on the value I could bring, on what needed to be accomplished for the business to benefit the most and decided to behave in a way true to my values they became ready for the project. The LIFT concept has been helpful because it makes me stop and ask myself questions that help me to clarify whether I'm really mentally and emotionally in a space that will allow me to have impact on other people in the business.

Questions to Consider:

Why did changing this executive's psychological state lead to other people responding more positively toward her?

In what ways did she model for the senior team the change she was asking of them?

Do you believe in what you're doing, your capability to deliver, and that everyone is winning from the work being done?