INCREASE YOUR IMPACT

For functional experts and mangers to enhance their influence in their organizations, their 4T Competencies can make all the difference.

How do you build or wield influence in your organization? More so, if you are a function or domain expert aspiring for the attention of top management and hoping to acquire greater influence on the organization’s decision-making. A study conducted with three sets of risk management chiefs of two UK banks, Saxon Bank and Anglo Bank between 2006 and 2011, brought out differences in how the managers used and shared their expertise. The learning can be extended to other functional experts too – management consultants, auditors, HR specialists, marketing executives – virtually most professionals who want to stay ahead of and outperform their colleagues.

Research identifies four competencies – trailblazing, toolmaking, teamwork, and translation – that act as enablers for managers competing to be spotted, and seeking to enhance their impact and circle of influence in the organization. Unlike Anglo Bank’s personnel, Saxon Bank’s risk managers utilized their competencies to the fullest – scanning the internal and external environment for issues to which they could apply their risk management spin (trailblazing), developing tools such as advanced reports (toolmaking), controlling the tools and processes and appropriating business managers’ insights (teamwork), and ensuring all partakers internalized and made the most of the findings (translation).

Let us analyze and understand what each means.

Trailblazing calls for identifying new opportunities to use expertise. Those that boast of high trailblazing competency cast a net in order to spot and address crucial issues that top management may not be actively exploring or resolving. This gives them a winning edge over others to catch the fancy of the powers that be.

Toolmaking implies developing and deploying tools that establish and spread their expertise. While identifying opportunities is the first critical step in business, developing tools that analyze or build on those is the next logical one.

Teamwork not only calls for convincing people to acknowledge relevance of one’s expertise, but also using personal interaction to gain from that of others. Toolmaking also requires enrolling of users and supporters (teamwork), co-opting people into collaborating on the creation or improvement of the tools or the existing design.

Translation allows exerts to personally help decision makers in understanding complex content, utilizing the tools and interpreting outcomes – thereby enhancing their own influence and credibility.

While those that combine all four competencies are most suited to making their mark, others with lesser competencies may also exert considerable influence if their organization’s structure, strategy, and management permit. They are named by dint of their merit. ‘Compliance Champions’ with their strength in toolmaking do not usually shape their organization’s strategy or actions, but play a critical regulatory role with heir tools reflecting their own expertise. ‘Technical Champions’ boast of both trailblazing and toolmaking. While they make the tools relevant and understandable to the top bosses, ‘Business Partners’ (strengths: trailblazing, teamwork, translation) harness their analysis and interpretation skills to connect with the organization’s decision-makers. It is the ‘Engaged Toolmakers’ who combine all the traits and strengths to develop and deploy tools, ensuring they remain relevant and indispensable for interpreting, communicating, and acting on their information or design.

At the end of the day, building or wielding influence remains unattainable and elusive without the support from the leadership team. Any amount of expertise or influence-building measure may prove deficient if they aren’t aligned with the organization’s strategy and goals. In some organizations or situations, functional experts can enhance their profile even by cultivating two competencies. For instance, experts working with spreadsheets, reports, and databases, may succeed with their prowess of toolmaking and translation. Managers, who combine a fair measure of all four competencies, tapping into or drawing from each of these as appropriate, stand a greater chance to outmatch their peers with their visibility and impact.

December 2016

Based on Harvard Business Review July – August 2013, ‘How Experts Gain Influence’ by Anette Mikes, assistant professor in accounting and management unit at Harvard Business School, Matthew Hall, reader in accounting at the London School of Economics, and Yuval Millo, professor of social studies of finance and management accounting at the University of Leicester, UK

By Aidias Conuslting Group