conflicting agendas

Handling Conflicting Agendas

December 22, 2016 by Colin Gautrey

When you are clear about what you want to achieve, it is often frustrating to find that others do not share your enthusiasm. A great deal of time and effort is expended building the case, considering the risks and planning the execution. Everything seems to make sense and you are keen to get going – you want to implement swiftly. Then the problems start. Reaching out to your stakeholders, you begin to find out that some are not interested. They fail to buy-in to your project or, worse, don’t even give you the time to explain your plans. When you do get to see them, they start to share insights with you about other things going on elsewhere in the organisation, which seem to be in direct conflict with what you are working on. Trouble is, you can see that they may have a valid point. Doubts begin to Read More

Exploring Personal Agendas

March 25, 2014 by Colin Gautrey

Do you really know what the target of your influence is hoping to achieve? Most of the time, the professional agenda is known, at least in theory. However, the agenda that has the most impact on the individual you are influencing is usually their hidden or personal agenda. Personal agendas are carefully guarded. There may be tell-tale signs of what is really driving someone, but usually it is only their closest friends and colleagues who know what is going on. Not knowing this, can put you Read More

The Risks and Rewards of Exposing Your Agenda

July 24, 2013 by Colin Gautrey

When influencing, it really helps if you can be open about your personal agenda. Initially, this may strike you as being naïve, and in some cases, it can be. Yet, overall, if you can do this, you will benefit. To my way of thinking, the key to exposing your agenda (or sharing if you prefer) is to do an appropriate risk/reward assessment based on its importance to you. The more important, the more thorough your analysis needs to be. In reality, you are already doing this at a subconscious level; however, if you want to avoid unfortunate accidents, use the following ideas about risks and rewards to inform your decision making.

Personal Agenda Sharing Risks

The opposition may Read More

Understanding Conflicting Agendas

March 24, 2013 by Colin Gautrey

Unless you understand someone else’s position, ambitions and problems, your influence attempts could be much more difficult. When others don’t want to cooperate or are working against you, “conflicting agendas” are often cited as the cause. This seems to signal a barrier to success, an explanation of why you can’t get the things done – or is it just an excuse? A more helpful attitude is that it is simply a question of different priorities. This opens up the possibility that the difference could be negotiated to achieve a win-win situation, while also removing Read More

How to Manage When Agendas Conflict

March 7, 2013 by Colin Gautrey

When you are clear about what you want to achieve, it is often frustrating to find that others do not share your enthusiasm. A great deal of time and effort is expended building the case, considering the risks and planning the execution. Everything seems to make sense, and you are keen to get going — you want to implement swiftly. Then the problems start. Reaching out to your stakeholders, you begin to find out that some are not interested. They fail to buy into your project, or, worse, don’t even give you the time to explain your plans. When you do get to see them, they start to share insights with you about other things going on elsewhere in the organisation which seem to be in direct conflict with what you are working on. Trouble is, you can see that they may have a valid point. Doubts begin to set in as you realise that what you have been tasked to achieve is not necessarily going to be as straightforward as you originally thought. Indeed, you probably start to wonder why the people above you can’t agree on what should be done — must be the politics!

Understanding This Challenge

As an organisational strategy swings Read More

Exercise: How to Define Agendas Influencing Your Work

January 26, 2013 by Colin Gautrey

As you begin to identify the people who are most influential around your project, a vital consideration is their agenda. Figuring out what this is might at first sight appear easy; however, going beyond the professional agenda and into the realms of the personal can be a little tricky. Once you have had a go with this exercise yourself, make sure and Read More

Challenging Formidable Characters

December 9, 2011 by Colin Gautrey

Some senior people have a reputation for demolishing people in big meetings. Not only do they have strong opinions about the task in hand, they also exercise considerable skill in destroying any challenges to their opinions. Or so it seems. This approach is often accompanied by a brusque style, blunt to the point of rudeness, and they have very high levels of determination. If you operate at middle to senior levels in any large organisation, you know who I’m talking about! Challenging these people can be Read More

Diagnosing Your Opposition

December 1, 2011 by Colin Gautrey

One of my favourite phrases relating to Stakeholder Management is, “if you don’t have any opposition, you aren't trying hard enough” (refer to Chapter 7 of Influential Leadership). While I am not suggesting that you should go looking for opposition, if you are ambitious, it is important that your plans and ideas are strong enough to provoke disagreement, or at least vigorous debate. When disagreement arrives, it is often veiled in a cloak of assumptions and faulty communications. So, it is important when deciding how to respond to pause for a moment to check out what could be going on. Even if you cannot figure out the root cause, going through the process will highlight the gaps in your information. If someone is opposing you, it could be due to one or more of the following Read More

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