Advance Inclusion in your workplace
Lead the way to create inclusive workplaces with expert support, tailored resources, and a vibrant member community. Inclusive Employers membership gives you the tools and insights to advance inclusion and make a lasting impact.
Have you considered the importance of your influencing skills when it comes to progressing your inclusion work? In this blog our expert on management and leadership highlights how becoming a confident influencer and storyteller can improve the reach as well as the impact of your work and offers a preview to our Chartered Management Institute (CMI) Accredited ‘Influencing and Storytelling for Inclusion’ course.
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How can influencing help you achieve your inclusion goals
What do you want to achieve in 2024? What is the vision for inclusion and diversity you are motivated for? And can you achieve it alone?
So often, we have big dreams for our organisations. Or perhaps a series of small but powerful ones that will transform our cultures. Equally often, they can’t be realised by one person, or even one team, alone.
Real, lasting inclusion work is everyone’s business.
But how do you convince everyone to get involved? Such as the executive who is energised by commercial performance not people? Or the employee who is disillusioned by performative inclusion efforts? Or the introvert who doesn’t enjoy company events? Or the people manager who won’t tackle non-inclusive behaviour? Or the colleague who says, ‘I&D isn’t for me, it’s for other people’?
If inclusion involves everyone, it can mean influencing a lot of people. And sometimes a lot of people who want or need different things. Like anything else, influencing is a skill. It is one that is transformative for inclusion work. Read on to learn some top tips from our Professional Development team to get you thinking.
Become an inclusion influencer“Create genuine connection, listen hard to what’s important to them and get to know them as they get to know you.”
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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Advance Inclusion in your workplace
Lead the way to create inclusive workplaces with expert support, tailored resources, and a vibrant member community. Inclusive Employers membership gives you the tools and insights to advance inclusion and make a lasting impact.