Have you ever been told that you’re not a cultural fit?
Have you ever heard of somebody being told, or have you ever heard of a hiring manager or a recruiter saying, “I don’t think that they’re a cultural fit” or, “I don’t think they’re a fit for our culture”?
I’ve got a big problem with that. Are they not a fit for your shit culture? Is that what you’re saying? They are different, and they’re not a fit because your culture is shit and you want to keep it that way?
The fact is because they are different is a reason why you want to bring them into the team!
Diversity creates innovation.
Diversity creates adaptability.
Diversity is bloody good for everybody!
So you actually want to go out and bring people in who are different. You want to build your teams full of people who are different. And it’s not just about skin colour, or religion, or country of origin. It’s also diversity in thinking, in diversity in their opinions, diversity in their life experience, diversity in their qualifications, diversity in parts of the world that they’ve grown up in. There is diversity in the schools they’ve gone to, diversity in the in their education.
There are so many, so many things that involve diversity, or that are included that brings such great value to your team.
So just because you see someone is not a cultural fit, that is not an excuse to say no. If they are the right person for the job, for all other reasons, actually that not being a cultural fit is a strength for them, because they are going to bring diversity to your team.
Something new.
Something good.
And it is going to make your team better.
Have you ever heard of, somebody not getting a job, or somebody being ruled out of a job because they were different? They did not fit the culture of our team? I know I definitely have, and I will never say that when I’m hiring.
Please, if you like this message, please click on the link to the video at the top of this post and ‘like’ it, leave some comments below of your experiences.
How to influence without authority
Here are five influencing skills that use the psychology of persuasion to earn authority over other people and guide them to where you need them to be.
Before we start talking about our five influencing skills, let’s first start by discussing two different types of authority. If you google it, you’ll find many more, but essentially, they’ll fall into two categories.
The first one is granted authority. This is the type of authority the judges have, or police have, or the CEO of your business as if you are an employee. This is a commanding type of authority. It is an external force. We call it extrinsic motivation. It’s an external force and you really you only do things because you have to.
The second type of authority is what we call ‘earned authority’. Now, this typically comes through relationships. It comes through intrinsic motivation, by tapping into the hearts and minds of people and having them willingly come along with you on a journey towards success.
And it’s earned authority that we’re going to talk about in this article because it’s this type of authority that intrinsically motivates people. It’s this influencing skill that motivates people to do what they need to because they want to. So even if you’re a manager and you have the first level of authority, which is the granted authority, it is the earned authority that is going to get you the most remarkable results. It is the earned authority which takes work. It takes practice. But the rewards are far more significant.
Influencing Skill No. 1: Relationship Building
Okay. Let’s go with skill number one; building relationships. Relationship building is incredibly important because once you have built trusted relationships, people are more likely to like you and trust you and be more willing to come along with you. But to build relationships, you first need to see the world through the eyes of the person that you’re trying to influence. You need to take the time to learn about them, listen to them, try and understand what the world looks like from their perspective. You need to serve them. You need to be absolutely authentic. If you’re not authentic and you’re pretending to be someone that you’re not, people will not trust you. The honest, candid truth is far better for people to hear than bullshit.
Influencing Skill No. 2: The Law of Reciprocity – Know Their Currency
Each of us has a different currency. We all value other things. We’re all willing to trade something to get something else in return. The law of reciprocity says that when you give somebody something of value, something that they appreciate, they will provide you with something of similar value in return. If you bought somebody a coffee, they would feel obliged to give you a coffee in return. Have you ever had someone shout you dinner and then you felt obliged to buy them dinner in return? “I owe you a dinner, don’t forget” or, “don’t forget I owe you a coffee”. It happens over and over and over again—also, things like helping with university assignments and work assignments. You help somebody else, and they feel obliged to help you out. Well, the same goes for influencing people.
The key to this is knowing what they value. So when we’re building our strong relationships a secret to understanding what people value is to just shut up and listen—deep listening. Take notice of everything that they say, especially anything that starts with ‘I’ or ‘we’. When a person says ‘I’ it will typically follow with some insight into how they feel. If they say ‘we’, they’re talking about the collective; the group, and “we feel this way” or “we want this”, “we are going in this direction”. These cues; ‘I’ and ‘we’ are cues for you to understand that a little pearl of wisdom is about to follow. This little pearl of wisdom is their currency.
Influencing Skill No. 3: Position Yourself as an Authority
We need to know our value. We know what they value, but what have we got of value that they could use? What problems do they have that we can solve? And what has worked in the past that could work now? And we could also show social proof. Social proof also positions us as a trusted authority. Social proof is sharing with our subject what other people think about us. This could be testimonials. It could be comments that people have said on social media, or in emails. It could be anything that you’ve done before that is similar to what you’re trying to get your subject to do. If we’re trying to influence our subject to go down a particular path and we’ve done this before, and we’ve achieved success with this before, we can then draw on what those people are saying about that. You want to say good things. Social proof is incredibly valuable because once people feel that others are doing it, people think that maybe they should go along too.
Influencing Skill No. 4: Patience
Be patient! Play the long game! Winning hearts and minds takes time. We should always pursue long-term goals over short-term wins. You absolutely must be patient! Sometimes that can be hard, especially when you get somebody a bit slow to come along. But we can’t lose hope. Every single person is a potential ally. Every single person is somebody we can potentially bring along with us, and get them to where it is that we need them to be. Some people will be early adopters; then you will get our early majority and late majority. The bulk of people will come along with you, but there will always be those laggards. These people are stubborn tough to budge. Don’t give up. Keep going. As soon as you give up, you’ve lost. So keep chipping away, chipping away, chipping away. Play the long game.
You could use little nudges along the way. Instead of trying to go for one significant change or one big move, “I want you to go from here to here”, “I think you should do this”, and it’s a big step, maybe look at little steps; baby steps; one per cent increments in change. You are just nudging them towards the direction that you need them to go in. They might not even notice that they’re heading there. So perhaps instead of giving significant long-term changes or long-term objectives, maybe we focus on short-term workarounds which lead to a longer-term solution. Maybe it’s our Boss that we are trying to influence and we say, “Boss, I’ve got this great idea. We have a problem. The big long-term solution is this XYZ. I’ve got this short-term workaround. What do you think?” Getting your Boss to commit to a long-term solution that requires time and effort might not be appealing, but a short-term workaround might get them moving in the right direction.
Influencing Skill No 5: Seek Win-Win Solutions – Always
When both parties win, it builds trust. It builds respect. It creates lasting relationships. It also increases social proof, and social proof might be the only win we get out of this transaction, but social proof is an incredibly powerful way to influence people. So even if that’s all we get out of this, it is a great result and something that should be celebrated. It’s something that should be sought after. Also, getting little wins yourself along the way it makes sure that you don’t burn out, because if you’re giving, giving, giving, giving, giving, giving. You’re never getting anything that falls in your favour; there’s a fair chance you could end up giving up, and that would be a disaster.
Finally, we need to focus on making the success be seen as being the other person’s success, and we take the blame for any failures or mistakes. While it might not be our fault, this is that win-win thing again, and this builds social proof. We give them the win even though it was a loss. When we provide them with the win, the other person will typically know that you have taken the fall for them. That builds social proof. That creates social credits. Those credits go back into the law of reciprocity. One day you’re going to need a favour from that person, and what do you think they’re going to do? They are going to give back equal or similar value to what you’ve given them. So by taking a fall for somebody and admitting that it was your mistake and not their mistake, or you provide them with credit while you take the failure; you give them the success, then they will probably return that favour to you one day, and help you along your journey towards success. You can always reach out and make a personal plea for support. Maybe even remind them of the time you took a fall for them or gave them credit for something you probably should have received. The law of reciprocity says that they are very likely to do the right thing by you.
Wrapping it up
Influencing others is about building strong relationships that are built on trust and respect. You need to see the world from the other person’s eyes and try and feel what they feel. It’s all about them, and you are doing whatever you can to serve them. It’s challenging, but mastering these five skills will increase your chances of success.
We’re reading incident reports the wrong way around!
Start with the solution, and work our way towards the front.
Incident report hits your desk. First thing you do is check to see who it was who was injured, when, where, and how it happened. Then you look at the investigation notes (if there actually are any) and look to see if the root cause was identified. It probably wasn’t. Then you go to the corrective action to see what is being put in place to prevent continuation or recurrence of the incident. It probably says something like, ‘take more care’, or ‘training’. Sure. Makes sense. Maybe.
But what if we started at the back and read the incident report in reverse?
How about we first go to the corrective action; the solution? From that, we should be able to get a pretty good idea of what problem is being solved. And by understanding the problem that is being solved, we should be able to predict what the incident was. If we can’t, then the corrective action doesn’t solve the problem, or we haven’t actually identified the problem that was the root cause of the incident.
A corrective action of ‘training’ tells us nothing. Training in what, for who?
But a corrective action of ‘training in dealing with violent and aggressive customers’, along with ‘source and implement the use of body cameras’, and ‘working two-up’ makes me think that there might have been an occupational violence incident. As I read through the incident and investigation reports I should be seeing what caused the occupational violence incident.
Similar would apply for a manual handling incident. Corrective action might read something like, ‘purchase height adjustable electric trolley for Records’, and ‘only fill archive boxes to max 10kg’, might make me think that there was an incident that involved lifting of an archive box that was perhaps too heavy for the staff member.
And ‘take more care’. That old chestnut. When I see that as a solution, I know straight away that the leader responsible hasn’t engaged their staff in identifying the solution, and/or they’ve been very laissez faire in their management of the incident. I’d be very surprised if a staff member recommended taking more care as a solution to a safety problem. A good leader would ask employees questions as to why they were distracted, rushing, fatigued or complacent. Then the solution would address that issue.
Give it a try. Read the proposed solution first, then see if it matches the identified problem. If it doesn’t, then either it’s a poor solution, or the problem hasn’t been properly identified. But best of all, it means that we are focusing on the solution first and foremost. We are future focused. Solutions minded.
Direct supervisors have a very important role in achieving high performing workplaces
I talk a lot about having strong management commitment to organisational performance at the very top of the organisation. Having top level management committed to people and performance makes it a priority for everyone in the organisation. It ensures the organisation has a strategic vision, objectives are set and adequate resources are available.
But whether or not an organisation has highly committed top management, the direct supervisor can have a dramatic impact on the people they lead. When a direct supervisor is in tune with the organisation’s vision, mission, values and business plans, and involve the team in managing how they will achieve them, performance improves dramatically.
Here are 10 things HR, risk and safety professionals can do to help improve organisational leadership:
- Provide supervisors with management and leadership training, and ongoing coaching.
- Review operational plans and procedures with supervisors. Let them help shape how the organisation will achieve its objectives.
- Keep operational plans and procedures simple, and pitched at supervisors. They don’t need volumes of jargon.
- Have supervisors consult with their team on operational issues. This is their job. They have established relationships with their staff. Their staff are their responsibility.
- Have all performance messages delivered by direct supervisors.
What is important for the direct supervisor is important for the subordinate. The message is received much better when delivered by the direct supervisor instead of the HR, risk or safety team. - When employees come to you with questions, refer them back to their supervisor, then support the supervisor in preparing a response. Ask employees things like, “have you raised this with your supervisor?”, “What did your supervisor say?”
- Set them up to succeed. Remind them when things are due.
- Let them know when opportunities to be a great supervisor present themselves.
- Don’t do their work for them.
- Don’t do their work for them. This is worth repeating. Help them do their work, but it is their work.
