How Are You Serving Your Sphere of Influence?

What’s your take on influence?

My position: the ability to influence things and people, in context, is an important skill in personal and professional settings.

What does influence look like in your context?

Influence can be a means to an end, like completing a transactional event. Influence may also generate new opportunities or be used to affect change – both good and bad. The ugly bits of influence is blatant: people persuading others for the wrong reasons. Open to your interpretation, examples run the gamut from as simple as carelessly solving existing problems to “just get it done” all the way to malicious intent.

Influence smooths negotiating and managing something complex like a change that involves or impacts people. It’s also a tool for professionals navigating the ephemeral traps to see the vision and strategy through execution.

Are you a project management professional? Conventional authority is interchangeable with influence, though not very agile. The preoccupation on new ways of working brings some side effects, too. Those practicing, familiar with, or new to agile project management will find that influence is now a distributed responsibility. Accountability and responsibility are mutually attached to influence. More on this later.

Influence is imperative in spaces where people need to authentically and transparently convince and control in every direction to succeed. The general population doesn’t experience influence downward; lateral influence is a repeated pattern portraying influencers as “having your back” or when products let you believe if you use it “anything is possible.” In user groups we often hear of “up and out influence” to activate productivity with the popular frameworks, where change is historically bottom-up. However, we’re occupying this space in-between the desire for greater outcomes and the desire for faster work, eventually constricting people. One factor influencing workflows is unrealistic expectations. So, as facilitators and influencers we end up wearing multiple hats and need a vehicle for change. Let’s welcome our ally the sphere of influence.

The elements of a sphere of influence

I first came across the sphere of influence (SOI) concept as a direct sales technique. In that context, the selling SOI is a network of people who are a feeder, a referrer, and a needer of something – a sale. Qualifying each person based on your influence on them as well as their willingness to push your value, their capacity to supply you leads, and their ability to advise you on the “voice of the customer.”

I later observed SOI applied in real estate. Agents nurture a SOI unique to their geographic area because a core set of feeders from the other side of the country wouldn’t help you sell homes in your local state or city. The caveat with SOI is that producing cascading value depends on your ability to influence others who can influence others. The real estate SOI arranges people into 3 classes: 1’s, 2’s, and everyone else. 1’s are your core people, those closest to you who have high degrees of trust and influence and having aligned values and beliefs. 2’s are colleagues and acquaintances who you have a moderate degree of trust, influence, and may or may not share your values and beliefs. The general rule is that 1’s account for the most referrals, but 2’s bring you considerable reach and have the most churn. 2’s require careful attention instead of situational, one-time influence.

Another take on SOI is nurturing a project community within a business. Project professionals can use SOI to visualize pluses and deltas within their environment, to achieve project success. Consider this a personal mind mapping activity. The project SOI is also arranged into 3 classes: control, influence, and everything else. Adding a modifier to the map where people fit into the classes and their relation to the project is even better. For example, a rationale for why someone is in the sphere, their role in the project effort, and their fit in the larger space (e.g., an enabler or connector of resource champions).

Sphere of influence in team spaces

Others have described a similar peripheral model which has been applied to improve how teams and operators mesh to discover and define new ways of working when “Agile” is the biggest priority. Diana Larsen’s circles and soup is one technique to help people assess their current state and grow awareness of influence within their domain. I like this application of SOI because it is driven not by intentional influence, but environmental awareness. A mindset picturing what is realistic, as in ability and capability, not ambitious influence.

Transactional or interdependent connections with your network

Each of us have our own truths, agenda, focus, commitments and convictions. Relationships can become transactional within the SOI. A lazy approach to others, the transactional SOI can happen as a result of deficient information sharing which shows itself as a push or tell. Touting your value by pushing or telling by any means necessary through formal advertising all the way down to informal 1-to-1 conversations. Naturally, pushing value implies that it’s the only solution to the recipient’s problem and needs. “This is what I have to offer…” it is inherently valuable and a recipient must “…buy-in to realize transactional value.”

Parallel attitudes are “I know what you need” even though the teller never asked and the recipient never told them. Also in-line with “I know how to solve the problem…” when the problem hasn’t been defined.

Interdependence appears in all forms of systems, not just SOI. Instead of forcing your value, try pulling or giving to best serve the recipients. It’s no wonder there are brilliantly simply concepts like design thinking, centered on communicating to understand and learn about the other person’s truth. Human systems are unsustainable if the participants only engage in transactional or terminal events. Integrated teams consisting of FTE, contractors, vendors, and coaches or consultants is one common example. Everyone is working together on the same target and yet the human factors fragment us into pods with individual, unique problems and needs.

So, how do we mend the fragments?

Once we embrace the strength and potential in SOI, we can lean on our interdependent relationships, so that all parties have obligation and duty – “skin in the game.” Absolute engagement, accountability, and responsibility. In reality, this shift to the left sparks great things like trust, safety and many other substantial characteristics of high performance. Quick tip: Try viewing people in your sphere as stakeholders in your brand. Reputation is the is one result of SOI, regardless of the physical or virtual #wfh environment. So, you can try mapping the interest, power and influence of those people in your SOI.

Imagine a symbiotic network for change

SOI exchanges feed the mindsets we need for resiliency by reinforcing the habits and behaviors we need to adapt to change. Shared values of the SOI help influencers spread systems thinking, persuading pragmatically, conscious of influence we have over things and others within the network. Too narrow of a focus to one component of the system (i.e., manager X, department X, or company X) can have a negative effect on the neglected areas within the system. Like the churn of 2’s in the real estate SOI.

Yes, the SOI is traditionally referenced in a selling context – building a referral network – when in reality it’s useful in managing a variety of relationships. We’re all interrelated outside of that space – humans helping humans – persuading, coaching, and developing to control processes. Influence is a universal language.

Should we maybe be motivating others and advocating for a “mutual influence?” A win-win-win. We’re really priming systems for cross-functional activities by developing strong and weak ties. Bridges which help people interface, communicating effectively across the business or community, while evolving the ways of working and living by through diverse perspectives.

Take a gander through your SOI and assess who you’ve been pushing and pulling to include.