Adaptive Path Blog

Andrew Crow, Adaptive Path

Experienced this? “That’s not the way we do things here.” Poor communication between teams and executives. Hidden political agendas.

Change the rules. If you aren’t in a position of power, this is hard. But over time, you can make small incremental changes that over time will make a significant difference.

Accomplish your goals by navigating the roadblocks.

Understanding People
People have emotions, motivations, and goals. People should be what companies are organized around.

Need to understand our co-workers. if you engage them appropriately, you’ll connect on a deeper level.

Myers-Briggs Personality Types. Not just personality types, but also communication preferences. Match the level of their need to your approach.

Motivations
What excites people. Some people work for different reasons. Learning those motivations and you can affect their actions.

Navigating Politics
Politics aren’t evil. They are just activities associated with managing people. They are a natural consequence of any group. Everyone has constraints on their ability to make decisions.

Managing expectations. Managing up: Make sure the boss knows what you need to be successful. Managing down: set up your team’s environment and mindset for them to be successful.

Moving the Subconscious Cheese
Changing perceptions and understanding through gradual adjustments in knowledge.

Get to know other departments. How can you help them help you? When you understand their constraints, you understand them better.

Build credibility and share knowledge. Increasing others’ awareness and understanding removes barriers and levels in the field. Small ways of aligning yourself: put your professional organizations in your signature file and attend conferences. Make yourself affiliated with something so your boss is aware of what you do.

Using Influence
Who are your influencers in your organization? You need to find out. But don’t be sneaky about it. Always support those who support you.

Tactics of influence: direct requests, flanking your objective (go around the boss to create a group of influencers that allows the boss to commit), indirect alignment (find another influencer to make your case for you).

“You can accomplish anything you want in life provided you don’t mind who gets the credit.” - Harry S. Truman

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 14th, 2007 at 6:01 am and is filed under Conference Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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