Influencing tip: Help others see what you see

When your expertise applies to the qualitative aspects of a product or service, it can be a challenge to articulate the importance of issues. Here's how I approach this.

Photo by Zachary Keimig on Unsplash

When I coach individuals and teams a common challenge is in trying to secure the appropriate level of support to solve issues. This could support be from leaders or other teams. Almost always they feel that these are very obvious issues and the lack of immediate support or agreement is confusing.

“It’s so obvious, why can’t they see it?”

It’s common to hear this phrase and the reality is, this can be revealing of just what is required to reach an agreement. What is needed is to help others see what you see.

Before we continue let me establish my following expectation for leaders.

Leaders are responsible for:

• Understanding the detail and specifics of their business

• Communicating the context that they have the privilege to hold

• Being available to discuss issues and open to learning what is needed to support the best decisions

The advice I will share in this post starts with the individual, whether they are an individual contributor or a leader at any level. Note: I do first put the onus on the individual and what can they do but please don’t see this as letting leaders off the hook for what they need to do.

How I approach coaching someone on the challenge of influencing others:

1. I start with the following advice: Before looking beyond yourself for why support is not yet forthcoming, let’s ensure you have exhausted the options available to you. It’s a natural human trait to assume that everyone has a similar set of information they are operating from. Of course in pointing this out and talking it through it often quickly becomes apparent that is not the case - thus presenting an opportunity.
   
   It will be natural for anyone trying to get something done to feel they maybe too busy to do other activities such as focusing on communication and increasing understanding. If these are an impediment to achieving the goal and not doing them is leading to lack of agreement or cooperation that is no doubt wasting more time - suggesting the value of effort invested here maybe worthwhile.
   
   I cover the false trade-off often made here:
   

   Long term average pace > short term pace

2. The first question I ask, as part of validating that all options were explored and exhausted, is “what have you done to help them [who you are trying to persuade] see what you see?”

   1. What I mean by this is do they have enough of the same context, the context that helped you observe the issue and any proposed solution, as you do? Especially in roles where you are an expert or in a unique vantage point there is a responsibility to identify what relevant information can support a decision.

   2. If we start with the assumption that everyone is a rational actor who given a similar context may come to a similar conclusion when then need to ask ourselves if we have afforded that opportunity.

3. I then look to understand more deeply the steps that have been taken: “How have we approached trying to communicate our perspective?” I am keen to know :

   1. was it in a reactive way, for instance when the topic comes up in a meeting, or;

   2. Are we doing this in a proactive way e.g. booking meetings to provide the background or to focus on the issue itself, investing the appropriate effort to bridge the gap in context?
      
      Why is this important? It’s a weak position to make a case for something when the topic in the moment when a topic comes up. The focus is likely to be elsewhere and when no one has had the opportunity to prepare for it. Yet it’s very common to find that is been almost entirely in reactive contexts when a case has been tried to be made. So if that’s been what was tried to date, let’s adjust to a proactive approach.

4. If we have established that there may be a gap and the opportunity to communicate to address this gap in a proactive way, we go deeper “what will the person need to need to know to see what you see and be in a position to have arrived at the same conclusion?”. As we dig in it often turns out there may be quite a significant gap. For instance:

   1. What is the background that may be needed to understand the issue?

   2. What is the impact of the issue on the organisation? How is it impeding achieving its purpose?

   3. What technical or domain-specific knowledge might be needed to understand the issue?

   4. What is the logic between the issue and the effect it’s having?

   5. This is not an exhaustive list. Add your own example questions in the comments.

5. Sometimes it’s clear certain classes of issues have less success with being understood in terms of their ramifications. It may be necessary to consider building up the necessary context over time. Again, proactive communication over a period of time establishes the base knowledge required amongst those you are trying to influence.
   
   I share an approach to proactive communication here:
   

   How to improve understanding and empathy with an organisation communication plan

This is a necessarily oversimplified summary of an approach to coaching this specific challenge that I have had some success with over the years. As with many things, coaching is context-dependent and you adapt as the situation comes to you. Hopefully, this provides a perspective on what is, in my experience, a very common issue people face. How have you approached similar challenges? What has worked for you?