Colin Gautrey

From Political Naivety to Mastery

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Many years ago I did a silly thing. At the time, I was working in a large financial services firm, in their international division. It was a wild place to be honest, out of the mainstream. But, a place where we could innovate, move fast, open up new markets, and make lots of profit – often to the embarrassment of the larger UK based divisions. The politics were fast, at times a little brutal, but we always made up afterwards and celebrated our collective successes. The silly thing I did? Well, I thought Read More

Top Ten Irritating Political Situations at Work

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Over the last month I’ve been talking to a lot of people about the political problems they face at work. This research was initiated to accompany a new online course I am developing, Mastering the Politics. What I wanted to do is to make sure it is relevant and solves as many of the current problems people are facing as possible. What the research threw up was as fascinating as it was depressing. So, without further ado, in reverse order, the most irritating political situations people are having to cope with at work are: Read More

Implementing the Six Pillars of Political Mastery

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The Six Pillars of Political Mastery are intended to get results. Especially useful where is it difficult to work out what is really going on. Here are two simple examples of how it helped two of my coaching clients recently. In the first example, Susan had been having difficulty with a senior level stakeholder. This stakeholder had been loud in her criticism of what Susan was doing, demanding reports at short notice and generally creating grief all round, not just for Susan. However, given her position it was difficult to ignore what she was doing. Susan’s initial inclination was to take steps to Read More

Six Pillars of Political Mastery

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Like it or not, politics is a key part of your work, especially at middle to high levels in large or complex organisations. There is simply no way of avoiding it. Why? Because your work was created by political ambition. At some point, someone thought it would serve their purpose if they created your role. What that purpose was, and how pure it was might be difficult to see. In all probability, that person also had to overcome opposition to create your role, to win the budget, the approval and also, to maintain it. All of these things require influence, or politics. The words are really the same, as are the actions. The main difference between them is the intent fuelling the action – and the harmful consequences tolerated. So, you are slap bang in the middle of a political world, like it or not. Read More

Influencing Style Resources

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Developing your influencing style flexibility is a key priority if you wish to make the most of your relationships. This resource centre brings together the most effective articles, exercises and videos on this topic, and is freely available to subscribers of the influence blog. Read More

Demonstrating Determination: The Key to Success?

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To succeed you need to be determined, and you need to show that determination to your colleagues. Hiding your drive behind a mast of sociability or tact simply doesn’t cut it. On at least nine out of every ten workshops I run, the most senior people present have the highest scores for determination on their Influence Profile. Although nobody wants to admit that they lack determination, the scores clearly show they would sooner be the nice guy, or favour harmonious relationships. The degree of raw determination seems to count for little when it comes to success, if you neglect to let people know that you are determined to succeed. As you may imagine I have a few theories about why this is the case, and I’ll save them for another day. The important thing I want to drive home here Read More

Turning Optimism into Hard Results

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Second call with Alan today. He’s a senior strategy guy in a large financial services firm. Last month he became one of my Private Clients. Things are starting to happen, and you need to pay attention because we can all learn from this, me included. “Alan, what are the three biggest changes for you since our first call?” Firstly, he and his stakeholders are all crystal clear on what he wants to achieve – his next position. When we first spoke, it was all a little vague, it could be this, it could be that. After a tough challenge from yours truly, and a short period of reflection, he landed the vision. And then he went straight to work selling the idea.

Lessons Read More

Project Managers Are Too Soft. Are You?

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Incredible it may be, but the data is beginning to emerge that this could indeed be the case. The usual caveat about generalisations aside, this is what my recent research is starting to reveal. And, you don’t have to be a project manager to learn from these results. Based on a group of 195 project managers[1] I have discovered, somewhat to my surprise, that they are more likely to be high in Tact and Diplomacy and low in Determination, than the general (professional) working population. To be honest, I had expected the opposite. These people all completed my Influence Profile that measures preferred behaviours when working with others. This is not looking at their actual behaviour, but rather the way they would most like to behave (which is reality is the default behaviour they use most of the time). Within this psychometric, four dimensions of behaviour are analysed and Read More

Are You Too Evasive?

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“If you are asked a direct question a second time, give a direct answer no matter how much it may hurt.” This is a rule I'd like to encourage you to strive towards because it will, in the long run, help you to achieve greater success and fulfilment. Although this may appear naïve, especially if a frank and honest answer may work against you, the long term benefits can be great. Surprisingly, the short term outlook Read More

Using Social Capital to Build Political Muscle

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Traditional approaches to developing influencing skills focus on the individual. However, there is an opportunity to adopt a different mindset — instead of working out how you can be more influential, think of how you can make your team more influential. As leader, the more influential the team becomes, the more influential you can become too! Referring to countries, The World Bank has noted that, “Increasing evidence shows that social cohesion is critical for societies to prosper economically and for development to be sustainable”. If social cohesion can be good for countries, it can also be good for teams and organisations. Read More

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