Influencing: the skill for Inclusion

Top tips to develop your influencing skills

1. Build trust and credibility

What do colleagues and partners think when your name is mentioned? Do they trust you? Does what you say have credibility – and do people listen when you speak?

If the answer is ‘not yet’, this is a great place to start.

It is tough to influence someone when they don’t know or trust you. Spend some time establishing relationships with the people whose support you need. Create genuine connection, listen hard to what’s important to them and get to know them as they get to know you.

2. Learn to speak different ‘languages’

Inclusion is not ‘one size fits all’… with inclusion, one size fits one.

Influencing is the same. For it to work, you need to have a tailored approach that understands your audience and adapts to them.

The good news is that you’ve just spent time getting to know your stakeholders, so you understand their preferences well. You’ve learnt to speak their language.

People have different reasons for connecting with something, but more often it is as simple as understanding ‘what’s in it for me?’ How does inclusion help me solve a sticky problem? How will it improve my team’s results? How will it change the way I feel at work? Find their ‘why’, their purpose and speak to it.

3. Balance logic and emotion

“We like to think we are rational beings who occasionally have an emotion and flick it away,” but instead “we are emotional, feeling beings; who, on rare occasions, think.” So says Brene Brown, a leading voice on creating connection.

Think about the presentations, the pitches, the meetings you experience at work. So often they are data driven and appeal to our logic. But our brains are influenced by emotion first.

Don’t throw away the data. It’s vital to prove the impact you make. But so are the stories. Use these to create emotional connection with inclusion. Minds are changed with logic and emotion.

4. Share stories

We’re not talking about ‘once upon a time’. We’re talking about those moments when someone encounters and hears from someone with lived experience and finally understands why something is important. If you’re not sure what I’m talking about, watch Miriam Margolyes talk about grammar and pronouns.

Fascinatingly, stories affect the brain differently to statistics. When we present data to someone a small part of their brain responds (their hearing and language centres). When we tell a well-crafted story the brain lights up as it experiences the emotion, the sound, the smell, everything that is described. Equally interesting, the storyteller and the story-hearer’s brains start to mirror each other. It’s called neural coupling. Stories literally create connection. They are powerful influencing tools.

It’s important to remain inclusive in your storytelling. Don’t tell other people’s stories for them – create space for people to share their experiences in a way that helps people connect with why inclusion is important. Impactful stories come from people you know, so encourage employees to get involved. That said, sharing your story is vulnerable. For people who have routinely experienced discrimination and exclusion it is risky. You need to create trust and psychological safety before employees will be willing to share themselves.

How to become a strategic influencer

Strategically influencing the people around you – those with power and interest in your organisation – is the key to achieving sustainable inclusion in your organisation. It’s the difference between trying alone and achieving together. We explore the skills of influencing in our Chartered Management Institute (CMI) Accredited ‘Influencing and Storytelling for Inclusion’ course. If you’d like to find out more about it, get in touch for a chat.

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