Influence

How Saying No Elevates Your Integrity

April 3, 2012

When you are asked to do something, does your “yes” really, truly mean “yes”, no matter what? If it means anything other than “Yes!” then you’re not living in integrity. To author Chris McGoff, the definition of integrity is a simple one: “I say what I am going to do, and I do what I [...]

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9 Questions to Help Your Team Create Vision

March 9, 2012

Think back to the last project you led. How did you begin? Were you successful getting people on board, or was it more like herding cats challenging than you’d planned? No matter what you’re leading, getting people to line up behind a vision is the first order of business when you take on a new [...]

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Command and Control Just Won’t Die

January 25, 2012

For nearly two decades, management gurus have been heralding the death of the “command and control” mentality in Corporate America. Personally, I think it’s very much alive. Over a year ago, I wrote that the so-called “death” of command and control management is nothing but an urban legend. Now, a recent article on the Forbes.com [...]

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Influencing Across Organizational Boundaries

January 11, 2012

Earlier this week I presented a session on Influencing Across Organizational Boundaries to the Western Michigan chapter of the Project Management Institute. The session was so well-received that many people asked for copies of the Power Point presentation. Well, you know how that goes—a Power Point without the corresponding speaker commentary is a bit flat. [...]

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5 Ways to Stay Current at Work

June 21, 2011

This is a follow up to a blog post I wrote about being an opinion leader. According to the authors of the book Influencer, being able to influence people to make large-scale change requires that an “influencer” be:  knowledgeable, trustworthy and accessible.  In many cases, being influential is less about the title that you hold [...]

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Are You an Opinion Leader?

May 25, 2011

Imagine for a moment that top management at your workplace surveyed all members of leadership asking, “Who are the most respected and influential individuals regardless of job title in our organization?” Would your name appear at least 10 times in the survey results? If so, then you might be an opinion leader, as defined by authors [...]

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