Influencing Within A Matrix

Carol Bonett and Elizabeth Rayer from Vantage Partners recently published a short paper looking at the issue of being effective within matrixed organisations, where individuals must rely more heavily on their ability to influence others to achieve their own business

We have all heard it — the structure of today’s organisations drives the need for influence to be developed as a core competency across all levels and roles. Enterprise-wide initiatives and matrixed reporting lines means more of us are increasingly dependent on the cooperation of others, over whom we have no formal authority, to complete tasks and achieve our goals. However, knowing that the ability to influence others is the way through the sticky web of a complex business environment is one thing, being successful at it is quite another. Common influence strategies and tactics often prove inadequate:

• Approaching influence as something that is done to others, and not a collaborative activity to be engaged in with others 
• Creating conversations that allow for only two responses — agree or disagree 
• Focusing only on attractive ways of presenting our own ideas without doing enough to understand resistance of others 
• Using organisational hierarchy to determine who is the decision maker

So this is our challenge — when important  outcomes are at risk, when we are

confronted with a complex landscape of stakeholders with conflicting interests, and when we need to influence others with whom we will have ongoing interactions, and thus need to build strong working relationships, how do we avoid 4 common influence traps?

1. Spending too much time trying to get others to understand your point of view
2. Spending too much time trying to get people to say “yes” and not enough trying to understand why they are saying “no” (and “selling”)  
3. Spending too much time trying to influence the wrong people  
4. Assuming efficiency and inclusion are mutually exclusive in decision making

In parallel to the support we offer to enable effective external client relationships, FranklinCovey's work on internal client and colleague relationships works on two basic (and for many 'groundbreaking') premises 

• The first is that, before we consider the skills and techniques around influencing, the starting point is to connect with the 'intent' we bring to the relationship in question, as this will determine the dynamic of everything that follows in that relationship 
• The second is that, when it comes to ensuring the success of internal clients and colleagues (and by extension, our own success) it is not actually about influencing, convincing, inducing, compelling or urging them to do something. Rather it is about recognising that, in any given situation, they will be looking to make a decision, and the reputation we build for ourselves within the matrix will be based on our ability to enable that decision in a way that benefits all parties involved.