How to think, feel and act with influence

Timestamps 

00:00:00: Introduction 
00:03:11: Influence affects everything 
00:06:04: Visual influence vs verbal influence 
00:08:28: Start by watching a recording of yourself 
00:09:31: Third-party feedback 
00:11:26: Use pauses to replace filler words 
00:13:13: Faking confidence, not warmth 
00:16:49: Circle of Concern vs Circle of Influence 
00:19:45: Virtual influence for remote working 
00:22:27: Controlling the outcome or the process 
00:24:04: Being heard amongst other influential people 
00:26:00: Practise influencing with your family and friends 
00:28:16: A short clip from The Uncertainty Experts 
 

Interview Transcription 

Helen Tupper: Hi, everybody, welcome to the Squiggly Careers podcast.  I'm Helen, I'm one of the co-hosts of the podcast, and this week I'm not going to be joined by Sarah; I'm actually going to be joined by a special guest, an expert to help us with our career, but more on that in a minute.  If this is the first time you've listened to this podcast, let me tell you what it is all about. 

So, it is a weekly show.  We have over 200 episodes, and our aim is to help people with the ups and downs, ins and outs, good bits and hard bits of Squiggly Careers.  We want this show to be as practical as possible for you, so we're always trying to put insights into action and give you lots of tools to take away.  So, it is definitely worth checking out the show notes, because as well as some special discounts, which I'm going to tell you about, you'll also get lots of tools, things like PodMail and PodSheets, all to help you take what you're going to hear about in this episode, and apply it to you and your career. 

So, today's episode is part of our fourth Ask the Expert series, which is where we enlist some experts to help us with some topics which we think are really relevant to people's development right now.  And today, you're going to hear me talking to Connson Chou Locke on the topic of Influence.  Influence is a topic that comes up so much in all of our workshops; people want some support and Connson has lots and lots of advice for us.  Connson is a Professorial Lecturer in Management, she's a psychologist and speaker, and she's also the author of a book I really enjoyed, called Making Your Voice Heard; lots of practical tips and insights into that.   

This series of Ask the Expert is supported by The Uncertainty Experts, a three-part interactive documentary and immersive learning experience, which has been scientifically proven to reduce the fear of the unknown.  And when we can do that, so we effectively increase our tolerance to uncertainty, we reduce the risk of burnout.  It's three one-hour-long sessions where you can learn from everyone from gang leaders who've become business leaders, to refugees who've become CEOs.   

The practical programme will teach you how to tackle the negative impacts of uncertainty and reduce your anxiety.  And if you want to get involved, you can sign up for the next series, which starts in November, and we have got a Squiggly Careers discount for anybody that does want to join the programme; all the details in the show notes.  Or, if you can't find anything, just email us; we'll always be there to help on email.  It's just Helen&Sarah@squigglycareers.com.   

At the end of today's episode, you can actually hear from one of the Uncertainty Experts, Dr Vivienne Ming, who talks about the importance of spending time with people who have dramatically different views to you.  As uncomfortable as that might be, it can help you to increase your tolerance to uncertainty.   

So, let's get started with this week's episode, and my conversation with Connson Chou Locke on influence. 

Connson, welcome to the Squiggly Careers podcast. 

Connson Chou Locke: Thank you, great to be here. 

Helen Tupper: So, there are lots of skills that we could choose to invest out time in, in terms of our career development.  Why do you think influence is one of the ones that we should be prioritising? 

Connson Chou Locke: Well, influence affects everything.  If you think of influence broadly, it's essentially when you're trying to convince someone to hire you, that's influence; when you're proposing a new idea and you want people to consider it seriously, that's influence; when you're negotiating, that's influence.  All of these things are influence.  When you're trying to convince your boss that you deserve a promotion, that's influence.  It really affects everything that we do, especially in a work environment. 

Helen Tupper: So, if it affects everything that we do, and therefore we're probably doing it quite a lot, why do we need to get better at it; what's getting in the way of us all just being brilliant at influence right now? 

Connson Chou Locke: Well, sometimes it's lack of confidence.  So, I remember early in my business career, I would sit in meetings and I'm a pretty introverted person and used to be very, very shy.  And so, I would sit in these meetings, and I'd have something to contribute to the meeting, but my heart would be pounding really, really fast and I would be like, "Oh, no, should I say it now?  When should I say it?  Should I wait for them to stop talking before I say it?" and by the time I had gotten up the courage to say something, it was gone; we'd move onto another topic and there was no point anymore in saying something. 

So, I would sit through these meetings and I would just not say anything, but I'd be so tense and stressed out the whole time.  And so, that was lack of influence, but that was from lack of confidence.  I mean nowadays, when I sit in meetings, I will interrupt and I will jump in when I feel that there's something important to say.  I don't say something just for the sake of saying something, obviously I'll only say it if I think it really contributes to the discussion.  But I wish I could go back to my younger self and tell her to calm down, it's fine, don't overthink it, just say it. 

Helen Tupper: So, one of the pieces of advice that I was given probably, I mean, over ten years ago now, I was on a course and we were doing a roleplay.  There was a group of about six of us and we were in a room and we were given this scenario and roles to play, and it was being videoed.  And then, we were to watch it back afterwards and assess who had influence and why.   

I lost quite a lot of influence points, because I was sat on the lowest chair in the room.  It was a swivel chair with a little pump and for whatever reason, someone had pumped that chair down.  I looked like this little child at the table!  And so, a bit of the advice that I was given was to pump up your chair.  So, I think I was expecting all this really academic insight into how to be more influential, and it was basically sit at the highest chair at the table! 

I would love to get your thoughts on both that piece of advice, but more generally how much of influence is in what people see versus what you might be saying? 

Connson Chou Locke: Yeah.  When I talk about power influence, I always start by talking about the non-verbal signals, because that's actually what I got very interested in when I was studying this.  The non-verbal signals are really important.  What I mean by non-verbal is everything that's not the words.  So, we focus a lot on what words we want to say.  We script our speeches, we spend lots of time wordsmithing and yes, it matters, but the non-verbal part matters possibly a little bit more.  There is research that shows the same speech delivered in different ways can have different impact. 

But when we say what we see and what we say, that's actually a little bit misleading, because it's actually how we say it.  So, the words are one thing; the tone with which I say the words matters a lot as well.  So, if I say to you, "Oh, great job!" that's one way of interpreting those two words, great job; or, I could say, "Huh, great job", and I've just completely changed the meaning of those words that I'm saying.  So, how we say it matters a lot and we don't really pay enough attention to the tone and the pauses and the volume and all of these things that are in our voice that are very powerful. 

In addition to that are the other things, such as how tall we are, how much space we're taking up, what are we wearing, are we using eye contact; all of those are non-verbal signals that matter a lot. 

Helen Tupper: When you unpack it in that way, you realise how complex this is, and also how unaware I probably am of the cues that I'm giving off, which may be positively or negatively affecting perceptions of influence.  Where would you say, if someone was going to start taking control of some of those cues, whether it's tone or the space or eye contact, where would you say someone would start, maybe to understand where they're at today in terms of their influence through cues, and how they could improve? 

Connson Chou Locke: I think the first thing is to watch a recording of yourself!  I hate it, I hate watching recordings of myself, but I force myself to do it, and it really depends on what you're trying to improve.  Are you trying to improve facilitating a meeting; or, are you trying to improve giving a presentation; are you trying to improve giving bad news to somebody?  So, you have to focus on that specific scenario that you're trying to work on, because getting better at giving a presentation isn't necessarily going to make you better at delivering bad news. 

So, you need to narrow down, what is it that I'm actually working on; get the information; how am I doing right now; and then based on that, you can figure out what you need to get better at.  Sometimes it means getting a coach, but sometimes you can just do it yourself.  I mean nowadays, especially with everything on Zoom, just record it and watch the recording.  Get a friend to give you some feedback as well, or a trusted colleague or somebody, and you can just work from that.  

Helen Tupper: I thought that was interestingly actually, the get a friend thing, because I was thinking if I watched myself back, I am bound to be quite critical: you weren't sitting up tall; your posture wasn't great; or you ummed and erred.  My business partner actually, Sarah, gives amazingly blunt feedback; sometimes brutal, very effective.  But she often will tell me that I'll start a sentence and either because I lose energy for what I'm saying, or I lose my way, I'll tail it off at the end, and she's very good at giving me that feedback.   

I just wondered how important you thought it was to get those two sides of that feedback, both your own perception of your influence performance, and somebody else's perspective on it as well? 

Connson Chou Locke: I think it depends where you are on the journey.  When I first started out as a training manager, I needed the third-party feedback.  I was so nervous and I really didn't know what I was doing well and I didn't know what good looked like; and so, I needed that third-party feedback.  But now, I don't need someone else to tell me.  I can watch a recording of myself and I can go, "Yeah, that didn't work so well". 

So, it really depends on where you are in the journey in terms of how much you need someone else's feedback.  But also, I think the important thing to pay attention to is, what is your goal and have you achieved the goal?  So, one of the reasons I don't need someone else to give me feedback these days is, I know from my students if I've delivered the point that I was trying to deliver or not.  So, I know from the way they answer my questions or from the way they perform on the exam, or all of these things; did I successfully teach what I wanted to teach them? 

If I didn't, if I can see there was a lot of confusion, okay, clearly I've got to fix that.  So, there are lots of different ways of getting feedback, and one of those is to really focus on what are you trying to achieve and did you achieve it. 

Helen Tupper: And, what about practical tips?  I think, one of the things that I love about your book is how practical it is.  There are just so many tips in there.  I feel like I could have a month-long project on improving my influence going through all of the tips.  I know that you mention things like using pauses and tones, and so if someone does spot that they've got an area for improvement, what could they do, for example, to use pauses to increase their influence; how is that something that could help somebody? 

Connson Chou Locke: Pauses are one of those things we don't use enough, because when we're the one speaking, when we're giving the presentation, we've got the adrenaline going.  A two-second pause feels like two hours.  It's like, "Quick, what am I going to say next?"  So, it's one of those things where, one of the things that I did for myself to improve my ability to communicate was I got rid of the filler words.  So, I used to say "Like, you know"; I still say, "So" quite a lot and sometimes I say, "Um".  But I used to really throw in, "Like, you know, like, yeah, like, yeah" and it was just really annoying!  And, those filler words are very distracting. 

It's much better, instead of saying a filler word, if you can feel one of them coming on and you're about to say it, you just replace it with a little bit of silence.  And a little bit of silence is so much better.  And nowadays, when I've lost my stream of thought and I want to say the next thing, instead of going, "Um…", I go, "[Pause] okay, and next…" and you can see how that little bit of silence, it catches your attention and people go, "Oh, what's coming next?"  So, you can use those silences strategically. 

Helen Tupper: How much of this can you fake versus this being something that you really feel, you know, I feel confidence in my influence; or, could I just do a series of pauses and putting my feet on the floor and I effectively just fake it? 

Connson Chou Locke: When it comes to confidence, oftentimes you do have to fake it to a certain extent; I mean, even for me nowadays, if I'm giving a lecture to outside of LSE.  Within LSE, I feel quite comfortable, but outside of LSE, I get a bit nervous, but I can't show that I'm nervous.  And so, I still have to do these things where I take a few deep breaths, I calm myself down and I'm pretending I'm confident and comfortable.  Then after a while, I get caught up in what I'm trying to say and I forget about being nervous, and then I'm fine.   

So, I think there's always a certain element of faking it a little bit, even if it's the first two minutes or five minutes.  I think one of the things we should not fake, because there are two things: there's confidence and there's warmth.  Confidence, we can certainly fake it; we kind of have to, as I was saying, until we become more comfortable.  Warmth is this, let's say you're having a one-to-one conversation and you're showing the other person that you really care about them, don't fake that.  If you really despise this person, don't go up to them and say, "Oh, so how are you?  Did you have a nice weekend?" because they'll just see through it. 

I had a boss who was like that, who would come up to me every Monday and be, "So, Connson, how was your weekend?" and I could just see in his eyes that he didn't care at all what my weekend was like.  And, I'd start to answer and he'd be looking away and trying to see who else was in the office; and after a while, when he said that to me, I'd be, "Oh, fine".  It was a completely meaningless interaction.  In fact, it was worse than meaningless because it annoyed me that he was doing it.  So, don't fake warmth, but confidence we often have to fake. 

Helen Tupper: And, how important is warmth for influence?  Do I need to have that between me and somebody I'm trying to influence; or, could I have a tactical relationship with somebody and still influence them without some of that warmth? 

Connson Chou Locke: You can.  You can influence without warmth, but you do have to have, instead of warmth, you don't have to like them, but you have to listen.  You have to actually care what they have to say.  This is one of the mistakes we make when it comes to influence, is we think influence is a one-way street.  We think influence is all about me telling you why you should do what I want you to do.   

Actually, it's a two-way street.  It's me asking you, "What is your perspective on this issue?  What do you think we should do, and why?" and only once I understand that can I then be sure that you're going to hear me.  Because, if I barrel in and just say, "Well, this is why you should do this", you're not even going to hear me, because you're going to go, "What is wrong with her; why is she being so pushy?"  But if I start by saying, "What's your perspective on this issue and what do you think we should do?" and then I really listen and I play back what you said to me, and then I add my own perspective and I say, "Well, what if we think about it this way?" you're much more willing to listen to me. 

Helen Tupper: So, one of the tools that you mention in the book is about the Circle of Concern versus the Circle of Influence, and it's in the part of the book where people are reflecting on themselves and building their inner confidence so they can have, I guess, outer influence.  I wonder if you could talk through that tool, so that people who are listening might be able to take it away and try it out for themselves? 

Connson Chou Locke: Sure.  The Circle of Concern is one of those concepts that I think are very relevant these days, because there's so much that we can't control.  So, the Circle of Concern is basically everything that we are worried about, the things that are really bugging us, the things that we're really concerned about; probably the coronavirus, or the way the government is doing things.  But these are things that we don't have direct control over. 

The Circle of Influence represents that much smaller circle of things that we can actually control.  So, for example, I can't do anything about what the government policy is regarding the coronavirus, but what I can control is my own, "Where do I go?  Do I wear a mask?" my own behaviour and the behaviour of my family and the people around me.  And by differentiating those two, I think it helps us live our lives in a more intentional way, but also maybe not be so depressed and so upset about things.   

Because, if we only focus on our Circle of Concern, if we're only reading the newspaper headlines and going, "Oh, I can't believe this; this is just ridiculous", all we do is complain.  If instead we say, "Okay, that bothers me, yes, but can I do anything about it?  No.  Great, I'm going to focus on what I can do something about".  It gives us a sense of we actually have agency, we actually have control over our lives.   

So, what I encourage people to do is to take a piece of paper and you put down two columns.  One column is essentially the Circle of Concern.  Those are the things you're worried about, the major things.  Then the other column is the Circle of Influence, meaning the actions you can take.  So, for example, one of those things might be, "I'm worried about how my daughters spend too much time on their phones".  Okay, well what is the action I can take?  The action I can take, maybe I could spend more time with them; maybe I could sit down with them and talk about what else we could be doing; I mean, maybe it's not such a bad thing, maybe I let it go a little bit.   

So, there are a lot of things that we can do in terms of our own actions, our own behaviours and our own attitude, but we often don't think about that.  We often focus very much on the other thing like, "What is this other person doing that's bugging me?" or, "What is the government doing that's upsetting me?"  So, I think bringing it back to what can we as individuals do can really help give us a feeling of control. 

Helen Tupper: I'm also really interested about influence in a virtual context.  Obviously for many of us, if not the vast majority, our working styles and the way that we now work has completely changed in the last 12 to 18 months, and I wonder how that has changed how influence shows up at work as well.  Are there any things you have noticed and any recommendations that you've got for people on how to influence, when they might primarily be working remotely? 

Connson Chou Locke: Yes, so there are a couple of things.  First of all, when you're on a video call, there are two things you need to pay attention to, which we don't normally have to pay attention to when we're in person: one is lightning; and the other is sound quality.  So, making sure that the lighting is showing you up in a way that you're not in shadow, and investing in a good headset so that your sound quality is good; because, there's nothing worse than your voice drifting in and out, or people not being able to hear you.  There's no way you're going to be able to influence that way. 

In addition to that, I was running a meeting earlier where I was doing a Q&A session with some students, and the student who had organised the meeting said, "Well, we've only got about 20 people here, so I don't know if you wanted to use the 'raise hand' function, or if you just want to shout out?" and I was, "No, let's use the 'raise hand' function".  So, don't hesitate to use those tools to organise things, because if you try to be a bit too relaxed and, "Well, just speak up when you have a question", you're going to have someone going, "Um, but…", they're going to talk over each other, they're going to get interrupted.   

You've got the technology there, use it, and it becomes very fair.  You can see who raised their hand first, you can call on them and then they put their hand down.  So, don't hesitate to use that technology to help you manage.  And, people appreciate it when you manage things in a way that feels fair and everyone is getting their turn to say something. 

Helen Tupper: It also makes me think that there are different influential roles that you can play in a meeting and a virtual meeting in this context.  So, yes, you could be the person who is presenting.  You've got a point of view to share and you are trying to share that to influence the way people are thinking; that's probably the more obvious way.   

But actually, if you are confident about using technology and instructing how that could work, where you've got the agenda, you can use the raise hands function, "I'm going to pause halfway through and ask for any questions", then I'm actually not the person who's presenting that really interesting, thought-provoking thing, but I am the person that's got quite a lot of influence over everybody in that virtual meeting, because I'm the one that's created the order. 

So sometimes, I think you can play different influential roles, and it might be worth people thinking about what is the role that they want to play, because it doesn't always have to be the person at the front, which I think is maybe a bit of an assumption. 

Connson Chou Locke: Yes.  So, when we think about control, especially in a meeting, there are two different things you can control: one is you can control the outcome; the other is you can control the process.  So, it's up to you to decide what is the purpose of this meeting.  Is the purpose of this meeting for me to convince everyone that this is the direction we should take?  Well, that's you controlling the outcome.  Or, is the purpose of this meeting for me to get everyone's input, so that we come to the best consensus or group decision?  Well, that's you controlling the process. 

One of the things we don't think about often enough, we have lots of presentation skills training to help us control the outcome to help us convince everybody this is the best thing to do.  We don't have a lot of facilitation skills training.  That's one of the skills I think is really important, because controlling the process, there's a lot more work to it than just saying, "Raise your hand when you have a question".  It's really thinking, what are the guidelines, what are the criteria by which we're going to make this decision, what is the information input?   

You could even control the process to the point where maybe it's not an open decision; maybe you only have two options that you think are acceptable.  Well then, you're controlling the process by saying, "Here, we've got two options, which one is better?"  But really, controlling the process is an important part of influencing and you have to put a lot of work and thought into it. 

Helen Tupper: What if you're in a work situation and you really want to be influential, whether that's the outcome or the process, if that's your intention, but someone else is sort of out-influencing you, and maybe you're intimidated by then and you just find yourself getting smaller and smaller in that meeting because they're so dominant in the discussion?  Are there any things that you can do in that situation, because I imagine that's the reality for quite a lot of people? 

Connson Chou Locke: I would say, shift your attention, because the way you've described the scenario, your attention is all on this other person and you're seeing them as maybe a competitor, or some negative impact on your life.  But the reason you're in the meeting is to achieve a particular objective.  So, I would shift your attention to the objective of the meeting, the business objective, the goal, and really focus on, how can I help the organisation achieve this goal? 

Maybe if the other person is dominating the meeting and they're giving some really good advice, great, let them run with it.  But if they're dominating the meeting and you feel like, "Wait, that's completely off.  That's not where we should be going", then you interrupt and you say, "Actually, I thought that this was the goal and I don't think that's going to get us to the goal", and that will make people go, "Oh, you're right". 

So, it's not about competing with the other person, it's about staying focussed on, "What are we trying to achieve here?" and the more you're seen as trying to help us achieve that goal, the better you will look. 

Helen Tupper: Thank you so much for talking about those things today.  I guess I know we talked about some quick ideas for action, people maybe recording themselves.  Are there any other tips that you think could help people listening to get started with improving their influence? 

Connson Chou Locke: You know what helped me a lot?  My husband might laugh to hear me say this, but being married to a guy who is pretty impatient has helped me a lot.  When I want to tell him a story, when I want to tell him what happened to me, he's not going to sit through a ten-minute retelling of it from beginning to end.  I've got to get to that summary, the punchline, grab his attention, and I can tell from his reaction whether or not I've grabbed his attention and kept his attention. 

So, I actually think that was a really good training ground for me.  And of course, working in management consulting, management consultants are the same way; and especially the senior consultants, they're exactly the same way.  They don't have time, they don't have the attention.  So, I would say your family, your friends, whoever it is that is maybe a little bit impatient, practise; tell them stories, tell them about what happened to you, tell them about something interesting that you read about and see if you're grabbing their attention and you're keeping it, because that is a really good training ground. 

Helen Tupper: Thank you so, so much.  Could you tell us the book, where should people go to find out more about your book, Connson? 

Connson Chou Locke: Yes, so the book, Making Your Voice Heard, if you go to my website actually, connsonlocke.com, and I have a page that's dedicated to the book and there are all the retailers where you can pick up the book.  And there's also, if you're not sure if you want to get the book, also on my website, I have a lot of articles and videos so you can see my style and some of the other stuff that I talk about. 

Helen Tupper: Thank you so much for listening to my conversation with Connson.  If you would like to get some of those insights into a downloadable tool that you can reflect on and really use some of the ideas in your own career, then download the PodSheet.  As I said, it's in the show notes; you'll find that there, and all the details for the discount for The Uncertainty Experts.   

We did want to leave you with one last bit of inspiration, though, and so now you're going to hear Dr Vivienne Ming talk about why it's so important to spend time with people who have dramatically different views to you.  We'll be back with you next week for another episode of Ask the Expert. 

Katherine Templar Lewis: Hello, I'm Katherine Templar Lewis and I'm the lead scientist on The Uncertainty Experts.  Dr Vivienne Ming experienced near suicidal depression and homelessness, but like all The Uncertainty Experts, used the strategies they learnt in the shadows to become leading lights.  Dr Ming went through gender transition, began a family, and is now a world-leading computational neuroscientist, a CEO, a founder and author.  Here is Dr Ming on the need to violate stereotypes to counter biases. 

Dr Vivienne Ming: The single best, most effective anti-bias intervention goes by the very wonky title of Counter-stereotypical Exemplars.  Spend time, extended time, with people that violate your stereotypes; that's what it boils down to.  So, same thing here.  You need to spend time with people that actually exhibit courage.  You need to spend time with people that engage in not cruel truth telling, but honest, creative work, and reap benefits to train your brain that that is the outcome to expect, and it needs to be someone close to you. 

Katherine Templar Lewis: Dr Ming is talking about the importance of challenging our ingrained thinking and the importance of influence.  Our brains are riddled with cognitive biases, shortcuts to try and keep us safe, which become enhanced in times of stress, including uncertainty. 

In uncertainty, when the world around us becomes unpredictable, our brains, which are in many ways a prediction machine, desperately seek comfort in what we already know.  Presented with new ideas or people who have different perspectives to our own, we get a sick feeling known as Cognitive Dissonance.  Our default reaction is to shut off from these new ideas, play safe and double down on our own views, disregarding our own bias or limited experience.  This limits our ability to innovate. 

By embracing Cognitive Dissonance and surrounding ourselves with ideas, people and experiences that challenge our world view, our brains are forced into a more open-minded mindset.  It increases our ability for divergent, creative thinking, and we make better decisions.  We discovered it was part of the toolkit of schools The Uncertainty Experts all had, and one that we could all learn how to do.