Colin Gautrey

Understanding the Politics

by

Assuming you are working in a complex leadership arena, you will also be working in a highly political one. The politics may be negative or positive, and this is largely dependent on the amount of damage that is being done and the degree to which people are driving personal agendas. Regardless, it’s a political system you are working in and need to succeed in. Your attitude towards politics will be based on your prior experience. If you have been harmed by the politicking that others do, the chances are high that you will have a negative attitude, and also, little tolerance of game playing. On the other hand, you Read More

Are You Sitting Comfortably?

by

For a number of reasons I do not accept public comments on my blog. It is not because I don’t want to hear from you — I definitely want to engage with you as you are growing in influence. Here is one example which I am sharing with you exactly as it happened (no editing). Apart from a good example of engagement, it is also a fascinating real-life tale of organisational life. This email arrived from someone I have engaged with over a number of years, hence the rather embarrassing (to me) opener! The exchange tells a tale Read More

Identifying Powerful Stakeholders

by

In The Structure of Your Leadership Arena, you will have begun to lay out the groups within your organisational environment, with a natural emphasis on those which are more closely connected with your purpose. Understanding the Bigger Picture, will have helped you to analyse individual groups. A progression on this is to consider now the key individuals, and to do this as widely as possible. It is vitally important to go beyond the obvious when thinking of these people because often there are unseen influences at play within the wider network of connections — or certainly unseen by those who are not looking. Now is the time to look hard. Begin by putting aside the previous two exercises and think about your organisation as a whole. What you need to do is Read More

Adapting Your Style of Influence

by

As you grow up and experience the world you begin to learn what works and what does not work. When you find something that works, you will tend to repeat it until such time as it is proven conclusively that it no longer works for you. This is how personality evolves and behaviours become habitual. Yet, what works for you, may or may not work for someone else. Indeed, it may work for you in some situations better than in others. So things begin to get rather complicated, and interesting. Since all of my work involves helping people to become more influential, I have approached these personality differences in terms of how Read More

Assessing Your Network: Nine Factor Analysis

by

To begin with, it’s a race for the numbers. If you have no network, how can you have any friends? This is true on Social Media and offline. Unless you have people to talk to you are not going to be able to develop quality relationships. Unfortunately, the rise of social networks makes the numbers a little more tempting. Their visibility and apparent social-proof has a noticeable effect on behaviour. For a while at least, it becomes a number chasing exercise. This is great to begin with, but at some stage it is vital to return the focus to building quality relationships, either on or offline. So, what does quality mean in network relationships? In workshops when I ask this question I usually get a rather subjective response. Only with persistence do people start to break it down and find clarity. If you can make an objective assessment of your current relationships you can make decisions about where you need to focus on building more quality. It also gives you some simple ideas on how to develop them too. For example, you might objectify the quality by Read More

Preparing to Persist

by

A few articles ago I pointed out that one of the most common influencing mistakes is Failing to Attempt to Influence. Allied to that is another mistake ― giving up too easily. Many people can think through situations, develop great strategies and even begin to put them into practice. However, one of the features of influence is the scale of the unknown. Fact and figures are easy to pin down and understand ― opinions, emotions and human nature provide an entirely different challenge. My guess is that in over 95% of Read More

Alternative Influencing Tactics

by

Most people bowl into influencing with their tried and tested techniques, without thinking about how suitable they may be to the individual about to be influenced and the situation they are in. In the last article, I alluded to making a definite choice about which of nine tactics to use (you may use more than one, and you may decide to alter the order). These were originally defined by Dr. Cecilia Falbe and her colleagues who were studying the relative effectiveness of each in gaining influence. The nine influencing tactics are: Read More

Safeguarding Your Reputation Building

by

As you begin to create a disturbance with your reputation building, others may become uncomfortable with the change in the way you are operating. The status quo has gone, and they may be more, or less, happy with the new challenge you are presenting. In the last article I shared some ideas on how to prepare for these changes and the potential consequences (Ruffling Feathers and Due Diligence). That done, I’d now like to suggest that you turn your attention to a more positive thread of activity and adopt a clear set of principles to guide all of your behaviour going forward. These principles are naturally Read More

Ruffling Feathers and Due Diligence

by

In the last article (A Healthy Dose of Obsession) I alluded to the idea that you need to step into your new reputation as soon as possible, and begin to live it. This means you will begin to do things differently and start to appear as a slightly different person. Consequently, others will begin to notice — which is just what you want but, be careful. As soon as you stick your head out and appear different from what you were before, all manner of things will start to happen, and not all of them are positive. For instance: Read More

A Healthy Dose of Obsession

by

Obsession is frequently defined along the lines of:

“The domination of one’s thoughts or feelings by a persistent idea, image or desire.”

If you want to build a reputation, becoming a little obsessive about it is a good thing. The trouble with most great ideas (such as your new idea about how to become distinctive) is that given a few weeks, they start to fade into the background. Little by little, they get forgotten. Don’t let this happen to your ambition to build a strong reputation in your organisation. If you’ve put the investment of time and thinking into crafting your desired reputation, now is the time to capitalise on that clarity and make sure you continue to build it in your mind, and in your behaviour. Here are five ways Read More

Terms and Conditions

ALL CONTENT PROVIDED ON THIS SITE IS FOR GENERAL INFORMATION ONLY. YOU REMAIN FULLY RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY ACTION YOU TAKE.

View Terms and Conditions

Footprint

We help professionals in organisations such as:

Accenture | AXA | Bank of America | Barclays | Citigroup | Clifford Chance | Credit Suisse | EDF | Ernst & Young | Fiat Chrysler | Fujitsu | GE | Goldman Sachs | GSK | IBM | Lloyds Bank | NHS | O2 | Orange | Pfizer | SAP | Shell | Tesco | UBS | Unilever | Zurich