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The Peculiar Mathematics of Real Influence

From the way her colleagues talk about her, you might think Lisa Wolf, PhD, wears a cape, has X-ray vision, and can fly. And the best answer to most questions that arise in the emergency room where she works is simply: “Because Lisa says so.” The best question: “What does Lisa think?”

Who is Lisa?

Lisa is a very experienced emergency room nurse, leader, scholar, and professor of nursing, with an array of degrees including a doctorate in nursing. She is also the director of research at the Emergency Nurses Organization. She’s most definitely a technical expert, but lots of nurse leaders are technical experts. She is mission focused—her passion for patient care drives her work—but so are many other people in health care. She is very hardworking. Again, so are many others.

What’s so special about Lisa?

Lisa is the ultimate go-to person. She’s special because, for one thing, unlike many professionals in the perpetually understaffed, high-stakes, complex world of emergency medicine, Lisa never runs around trying to do everything for everybody. Instead, she’s deliberate and methodical about every interaction, every decision, and every action along the way.

Go-to people like Lisa are not mythic characters. Everywhere I go, I find them in the real world doing real jobs. They may be waiters, cooks, and managers in restaurants; farmers, truckers, and retail clerks; landscapers and ditchdiggers; engineers and factory workers; miners and heavy machine operators; bankers, doctors, lawyers, architects, and accountants; soldiers, intelligence analysts, firefighters, and law enforcement officers; journalists, graphic artists, printers, and programmers; statisticians, salespeople, and scientists; teachers, janitors, and administrators; and on and on.

Go-to people are those who are most trusted by their colleagues to help them get their needs met on time, on spec, and in ways that improve their working relationships, or at least do not damage them. All of this adds up to what I call “real influence.”

Real Influence Is the Holy Grail of the True Go-to Person

Lisa has real influence, the holy grail of the true go-to person, as a direct function of the way her colleagues think and feel about her. “What would Lisa do?” is a shorthand for solving many questions precisely because they trust her judgment. They want to work with Lisa and do things for her and make good use of her time because she is great at her job and working with her is a great experience. They want to help her gain even more power, because Lisa’s power helps them get their needs met.

Real influence is not a zero-sum game:

• Its value resides in the minds of others, but it works to your benefit.
• It is completely intangible but can have enormous real-world consequences.
• It can accrue quickly and grow quickly, but it is a long-term asset.
• It’s incredibly valuable, but you cannot buy it.
• People will do things for you based on it, but there is no quid pro quo involved.
• Spending it, lending it, and giving it away just makes its value grow.
• It builds and builds whenever you add value for others.

That’s why I say the math is peculiar. By relentlessly adding value in service of others, you systematically build value in the thoughts and feelings of others, thereby enriching yourself and everyone you deal with, which allows you to add even more value for others. And the upward spiral of benefit is without limit.

The Long Game Is Played Moment by Moment

There is a crucial lesson that Lisa emphasizes to all of her nursing students: “Before you do anything else, check: Does the patient have an airway? Is there adequate circulation? If those things aren’t there, none of the other issues are going to matter.”

That is not just good emergency medical practice. It’s also a great metaphor for one of the most important rules of go-to-ism: play the long game with people to build real influence, but remember that the long game is played moment by moment by doing the right thing in one short-term interaction after another.

When it comes to winning the trust and confidence of colleagues, Lisa says, “You have to play the long game. Over time, you get a reputation for making good decisions and not just getting things done, but getting the right things done and getting them done right. When you say no,” she adds, “people know it’s not because you don’t feel like doing it, or because you are overwhelmed, but because there are good reasons. Likewise, when you say yes, people know they can count on you to follow through.”

Here’s the formula for the long game:

(Do the right thing moment by moment) × Over time = Real influence

The long game of real influence is a generous, other-centered focus based on adding value in every single interaction. And, in turn, the value you add:

• Makes the other person more valuable, including to you, instantly and over time
• Contributes to more successful and fruitful interactions as well as better short- and long-term outcomes
• Builds up your reputation as a true servant to others

If you understand the mathematics of real influence—and believe in it—you can make yourself incredibly rich in a very potent source of power by dedicating yourself to serving others, moment by moment, in every interaction.

What does that look like in real life?

Be More Like Lisa

Lisa knows the rules, often better than the bosses. She is relentless about ethics, procedures, and doing the right thing, but she also cuts through unnecessary bureaucracy. She is a workhorse who always has a very long to-do list and yet isn’t drowning in it because she executes on one concrete deliverable after another.

She is well regarded, but she does not seek to be “most liked” by her peers, subordinates, and bosses. Rather, she is focused on continuously improving the working relationships between and among the many people—up, down, sideways, and diagonal—who must work together on patients in emergency situations.

When “Lisa says so” that means she has vetted the available information and applied it consciously to the current situation. Lisa does not pull answers out of the air. She pulls them out of evidence-based rules, procedures, marching orders, good logic, and proven best practices.

Lisa is eager to please, but not more than she is committed to making the right decisions and taking the right actions—and helping others do the same. No matter how many things there are to do at any given moment, she always keeps three things foremost in her mind: priorities, sequence, and execution. She focuses on what’s most important, in what order, and how to get it done.

People want Lisa to be more powerful because she uses the power she has, every step of the way, to help others avoid unnecessary problems down the road or around the corner, get more of the right things done right early and often, and build up their working relationships through more positive collaboration experiences and improved outcomes.

That doesn’t mean that Lisa and the other go-to people I’ve studied are perfectly selfless saints. Rather, they have learned that true servant leadership—adding value to others in every interaction up, down, sideways, and diagonally—works. They know, to the core of their being, that their servant leadership makes things go better for everyone, including themselves. That doesn’t always mean doing whatever their colleagues may need or want in the moment but, rather, being enough of a true servant leader to try to always do in the moment what they believe will ultimately make everything go better for everybody.

True go-to people, those who stand the test of time, truly believe in the peculiar mathematics of real influence: the best way to enrich themselves is by serving others. (See the sidebar “Four Tactics of Real Influence.”)

Four Tactics of Real Influence

1. Build and draw on interpersonal influence. Always conduct yourself in a businesslike professional manner. Be the person other people do not want to disappoint.
2. Use the influence of specific commitments. Establish clear ownership and timelines for concrete deliverables with checkpoints along the way.
3. Seek to influence through rational persuasion. Use good reasons and clear arguments, not assertions or emotions, to convince other people. That means relying on verifiable facts and solid logic.
4. Influence by facilitating success. Do everything possible to support and assist other people in the fulfillment of their part. What are all the things you can do to make it easier for other people to deliver?

Beware False Influence

False influence comes in many stripes, ranging from the subtle to the not so subtle.

The Outright Bribe

“I cannot count the number of times I’ve been offered a bribe,” says Officer H of the state highway patrol, speaking during an ethics seminar with fellow officers. “And it’s not just the bad guys who try it, if you know what I mean.” The offers come not just from thugs but also from people who are supposed to be on his team—his fellow officers.

A surprising number of people give in to the false influence of the bribe. Cynthia, a longtime pharmaceutical sales rep, reported: “You’d be amazed at how many people are willing to look the other way. So many people will take the short-term gain, and allow others to do the same, at the expense of doing the right thing.”

So, what’s the correct response to a bribe? The best way to respond to any attempt at false influence is to use real-influence thinking as your guide: serve others by doing what’s right in the moment, which ultimately makes everything go better for everybody.

Officer H’s response is: “Reject the bribe—but don’t stop there. Do not let it go. Don’t just look the other way. The first time I encountered bribery, early in my career, I tried to save my fellow officer by talking him out of this ethical lapse. He seemed embarrassed and backed off immediately. But it really wasn’t enough. I should have reported him. This is someone who left our department but has remained in law enforcement elsewhere. I always regretted not going to the authorities in that case. I have never made that mistake again. You want people to know that high ethical standards are part of your MO.”

Would Officer H be worried about retaliation, maybe even dangerous retaliation? “I can take care of myself, of course,” he says. “But in any case, you have to do your duty and enforce the law, come what may.” That’s because the cost of taking a bribe, or even rejecting it but looking the other way, goes far beyond one incident. As Cynthia puts it: “How can you ever trust that person? Reputation follows you wherever you go.”

I learned a very simple rule from the famous US Army general, Norman Schwarzkopf: “When in doubt, do what’s right.” That’s real influence: Never compromise on ethics, even if nobody is looking. Act as if your reputation depends upon it (it does). Make it clear that you would never do business that way. You might do the other person a huge favor by urging them to reconsider their behavior. Regardless, you should probably alert the authorities. It might not be pleasant in the moment to stand up for ethics. But remember General Schwarzkopf and do it anyway.

But What If It’s Just Brownies?

Let’s hope that outright bribery is rare or nonexistent in your workplace. And if it ever happens, you know what to do. Usually, though, workplace bribery comes in forms so subtle, you might even wonder if it counts as a bribe.

“Connie would bake brownies for my crew,” says Andrew, a shipping and receiving quality specialist, who is a true go-to person in a large product-distribution center. “That was our cue that she had a big shipment coming in. Was that a signal that she was hoping to get her shipments through our inspections without any problems? Maybe. Nobody on my team is going to let quality issues slide for any reason. But for brownies? Obviously not. She said she was just ‘expressing gratitude for our work, in advance,’ but still, it was just awkward.”

If you are playing the long game in every short-term interaction, what do you do? The brownies feel like sort of a bribe, but you don’t want to be a jerk. For Andrew, the response came easily. “Instead of rolling my eyes, I chose to look at those brownies as a cry for help,” Andrew says. “Connie shouldn’t have to be worried that the incoming shipment is going to run into inspection problems. So, I went out of my way to work with her on all the things she could do—aside from baking brownies—to help all of us meet our shared goals of getting her big shipments through our incoming quality inspections. I made her a checklist corresponding to our checklist. Then I would walk her through the steps in advance every time she had a big shipment coming in. Pretty soon she had a rock-solid predelivery process, and her shipments had the highest incoming quality yields ever after.”

Did Connie keep making brownies? “She did, but it was clear the brownies were authentic thanks for all the shared effort,” Andrew says. “We would put the brownies in the cafeteria and write a big card in red magic marker, ‘Thanks to Connie!’ Give credit where credit is due for the brownies.”

That’s what real influence looks like. By truly serving Connie, Andrew was making everything better for everybody, including making Connie a much more effective customer of the quality inspection services and ultimately serving the mission by helping get Connie’s shipments through with less delay and trouble.

Meanwhile, Andrew was building real influence with anybody who was paying attention by behaving like the kind of person whom others want to succeed and in whom others want to invest.

The Quid Pro Quo

Perhaps the most common form of false influence you will encounter in the workplace is neither so noxious as a bribe nor (mostly) innocuous as brownies, but simply reciprocal cooperation (or not) used as leverage. The counterpoint to “That’s not my job” and “You are not my boss” is often “You wash my back, and I’ll wash yours. Let’s make a deal.” After all, you want to be able to go to your colleagues when you need something from them, and they want to be able to go to you. So, maybe, when you seek help from each other, there is an implicit—or even explicit—exchange of cooperation.

At first glance, what’s the problem? Indeed, a spirit of mutual cooperation is certainly an aspect of real influence. But it becomes false influence as soon as you treat your cooperation (or not) with colleagues as a quid pro quo: “You do this for me, if you want me to do that for you.”

The true go-to person does not keep a tally sheet—real or imagined—of equivalent favors to be traded for inducing colleagues to take specific decisions or actions. If you believe in real influence, you serve others because that’s what’s right and that’s what creates the most value for everybody, in the short term and the long term.

Gayle, an actuary who is a go-to person in a major actuarial firm, puts it very well: “I already get paid by my employer to serve you. What you are asking for, that’s my job, not a favor I’m doing for you. What I’m asking of you, that’s your job, not a favor you are doing for me.” Gayle’s response reflects the path of real influence: “People can depend on me, regardless of whether I need something from them or because I owe them. Whether I’m going to do that for you is a business decision: What’s in the best interests of the business and all the various constituents here, taking everything into account, as best I can figure?”

The Freeze-Out

Then there’s the flip side of quid pro quo: the freeze-out. “There are people who will hold a grudge if you make a decision or do something they don’t like,” says Gayle. “They might bad-mouth you behind your back or be difficult to work with the next time the occasion arises. They’ll make it clear they are not happy with you. They might be nasty or cold. They might be a lot less cooperative. They really want to make you pay for disagreeing with them or not doing what they wanted.”

How does Gayle handle the freeze-out? With real-influence thinking. “You have to meet their meanness with service,” says Gayle. “If someone is trying to coerce me or punish me, I’m just going to show them that I’m here to do my job for them and everyone else, as best as I possibly can. It has nothing to do with their willingness to help me. I’m still going to do my job.”

She continues, “If someone is really holding out on me, then I’m going to go to somebody else, of course. But I’ll still be right there for the holdouts when they need me, if and only if what they need from me is the right business decision at that time. In which case, I might even try harder to deliver for them, just to show them what professionalism looks like.”

Charm, Flattery, Politicking, and Appeals to Personal Rapport

At the other end of the spectrum are colleagues who seek to charm or flatter you, or otherwise ingratiate themselves—all forms of false influence. Although certainly more pleasant than being nasty or revengeful, you still need to beware. Don’t slip into the traps of politicking and appeals to personal rapport.

“It’s inevitable that you are going to make friends at work,” says Ana, an analyst in a US intelligence agency, “but it sometimes makes the working relationship harder to manage, not easier. Sometimes you make judgment calls that your ‘friends’ at work don’t appreciate. I’ve had people say, ‘Gee, I thought we were friends.’ I’ve had to say, ‘Sorry, but this has nothing to do with our friendship.’ And then the friendship suffers. Maybe it would have been better if we weren’t friends in the first place.”

Charles, a business process consultant, says, “This one engineering manager, from the moment I arrived, started telling me how impressed he was with my work and insisting that I was becoming his ‘favorite consultant of all time.’ It didn’t take long for me to realize that he was just trying to manipulate me, trying to make it personally more difficult for me to recommend cuts to his budget. It was so transparent.”

He continues, “But the reason people trust me to make those decisions is exactly because I don’t need you to like me and it doesn’t matter if I like you. I’m going to recommend cuts to your budget, if that’s the right thing to do, even if you are my best friend. If it’s not the right thing to do, then I’m not going to recommend those cuts, even if I hate your guts.”

As Ana puts it, “If you are known, or even suspected, to make judgment calls based on personal bias, your judgment calls are worthless.”

Workplace politicking and personal rapport are not good business reasons for making decisions or taking actions in the workplace. They are complications at best and, at worst, can lead you to make the wrong decisions or take the wrong actions. In the real world, the best politics in the workplace—and the best way to protect personal relationships with coworkers—is to stay focused on the work.

Going over Your Head

“If you go over my head to my boss, that’s just fine with me,” says Alfredo, a material-planning manager in a mining company. “You will find that I am pretty much in lockstep with my boss. If I’ve got it wrong, then my boss probably has it wrong too. If not, if I am not in lockstep, then you are doing me a favor. And if my boss and I both have it wrong, then you are doing us both a favor by escalating the matter and getting it cleared up at that higher level. But most of the time, you are going to find that I am marching to the company line, exactly in lockstep with my boss. So, you can usually come directly to me and you’ll get the same answer you would get from my boss.” When somebody tries to go over your head, think like Alfredo. Don’t get angry, apply real influence thinking and seize the opportunity to seek greater alignment with your boss and the chain of command. Revisit whatever you are doing (or not doing) in your work with this colleague who is going to your boss. Ask your boss for clear feedback and direction about exactly how to proceed in that working relationship with that colleague: what, why, how, when, and where. Maybe your boss will need to seek greater alignment with the top boss. In any case, think of your colleague going over your head as an opportunity to serve the colleague, your boss, and yourself by confirming your alignment with the boss or else realizing the need to recalibrate. The more people find you are in lockstep with your boss, the less likely they will be to go over your head.

Badgering

“I have to admit, my default strategy was badgering,” recalls Henry, a scientist in a nuclear weapons research facility. “I’d call, email, text, call, email, text. Then go to their desk. Call, email, text. I learned, growing up with a lot of siblings, that the squeaky wheel gets the grease. And then I found out that was pretty irritating and wasn’t having the desired effect. People were avoiding me, so I got even more squeaky for a while. Finally, someone took me aside and she said, ‘You must be worried that your project is not going to get the attention from me that it deserves. What can I do to reassure you?’ Then we sat down and went over the whole timeline of the project and scheduled a weekly check-in meeting to monitor each other’s progress.”

Whoever took Henry aside was demonstrating real-influence thinking, by responding to his badgering with a gigantic favor: instead of being so irritated by Henry that, like some of his other colleagues, she started avoiding him altogether, she read Henry’s badgering as an indication he feared his project wasn’t getting enough attention. This colleague took Henry’s needs seriously, offered reassurance, and worked out a communication plan to give him confidence that his needs would be met in this instance. Perhaps most valuable, this colleague demonstrated for Henry a far more professional and effective way to communicate with others and get his needs met going forward.

Henry took the cue: “Ever since then, I have tried to do something similar anytime I’m working with anybody on anything. Timelines and regular check-ins work a lot better than badgering. I’ve always appreciated her taking me aside like that. What a valuable lesson.”

Imagine how Henry will root for that colleague’s success ever after. That’s how real influence works.

Finger-Pointing: Complaining, Blaming, and Undermining

Kamal, a true go-to person in a chain-restaurant company, admits, “I have definitely been that person who is blaming and complaining and pointing the finger at my colleagues. I would get so frustrated and I would call people out in meetings.”

Kamal recalls speaking in a meeting and being way too harsh about a colleague. “And there she was just taking notes and asking questions the whole time,” Kamal says. “She didn’t get defensive or angry. She said she regarded everything I was saying as ‘customer complaint data’ and insisted she was determined to use that data to improve. You could just see the nods of approval and appreciation as she won everyone over around the table. Then she came to talk with me one-on-one, later. She took corrective action based on my feedback too.”

He continues, “I was so impressed. We worked together for years after that and she became a role model for me. She totally changed my approach to providing critical feedback. If you think of critical feedback as a valuable service, it changes how you present it. Instead of being a relationship killer, it can really improve the working relationship.”

For Kamal, that colleague’s example also reshaped how he responds to criticism: “I’ve learned that when you genuinely take criticism seriously and with gratitude, authentically take it as a valuable service that can help you get better, you turn a potential negative into a true positive. Plus, it makes such a favorable impression on people when you respond favorably to their criticism.” (See the sidebar “Mind Your Attitude.”)

Mind Your Attitude

Attitude may be intangible, but it really matters. You may not be able to control your feelings, but you can certainly manage your words, tone, volume, gestures, and expressions.

Bad Attitudes

Everybody has bad days or bad moments. What kind of bad attitude are you most likely to display? If you don’t know, you can bet that someone else can tell you.

The porcupine says or conveys with looks or body language, “Get away from me!”

The entangler wants everybody else to be involved in their issues. They want others to notice, listen to, and engage them around their issues, even if those issues are really not the other person’s concern.

The complainer points out the negative symptoms of a situation without offering a solution based on the root cause.

The blamer points out negative symptoms, like the complainer, but points the finger at a specific individual.

The stink bomb thrower makes sarcastic (or worse) remarks, curses under their breath (or aloud), or even makes loud gestures such as slamming doors or yelling.

Once you recognize yourself at your worst, you’ll be better prepared to avoid that behavior and take corrective action more swiftly when it does happen. Replace the negative behavior with one of the following good-attitude behaviors.

Good Attitudes

Even if you have bad moments or bad days, of course you have plenty of good attitude in you. Again, it’s important to know what that looks like. When you are at your best, what kinds of behaviors do you often display?

You’re professional. You are approachable and welcoming, and you communicate in a highly purposeful manner—brief, straightforward, and efficient.

You’re persuasive. You choose your arguments carefully, and make your arguments based on clear evidence, rather than assertions of opinion.

You’re a troubleshooter. You focus on what steps you can take yourself to make things better.

You’re optimistic. You project hopeful confidence about successful outcomes or positive aspects of not fully successful outcomes.

You’re generous. You offer your respect, commitment, hard work, creativity, sacrifice, or gratitude—rather than always focusing on what you need or want.

Armed with information about yourself at your best, you can try to leverage those strengths with more purpose and consistency. You might even become aware of other good-attitude behaviors you could add to your repertoire.

Reject False Influence and Foster Real-Influence Thinking as Your Guide

When you reject false influence and instead let yourself be guided by real-influence thinking—always doing what’s right, in the right order, and putting service to others first—you conduct yourself in such a way that things get better, right away. And you make other people really want to rely on you and want to do things for you.

You might say, “That sounds like a very idealistic view.” You might worry that somebody will try to take advantage of your service mindset and your generous value adding and, rather than thinking more highly of you, they will think you are a sucker.

And it’s true. There will always be mean-spirited, selfish, self-aggrandizing, or otherwise insensitive clods. Don’t worry. Most people don’t respond that way, and the ones who do usually self-destruct. Until they do, you still need to work with them. So, make sure you are aligned, make good decisions, plan the work, work the plans, get it done, bank the successes, and try to get better at working together.

It’s not personal. It’s business.

CHAPTER SUMMARY

•   Real influence is the holy grail of the go-to person.

–   Others want to work with them, do things for them, make good use of their time, and help them gain even more power.

•   What makes the mathematics of real influence so peculiar is that it is not a zero-sum game:

–   Its value resides in the minds of others, but it works to your benefit.

–   It is completely intangible but can have enormous real-world consequences.

–   It can accrue quickly and grow quickly, but it is a long-term asset.

–   It’s incredibly valuable, but you cannot buy it.

–   People will do things for you based on it, but there is no quid pro quo involved.

–   Spending it, lending it, and giving it away just makes its value grow.

–   It builds and builds whenever you add value for others.

•   By relentlessly adding value in service to others, you systematically build value in the thoughts and feelings of others, thereby enriching yourself and everyone you deal with, which allows you to add even more value for others.