The Proverbial "Seat at The Table"
How to Influence Stakeholders to Win at Work
Hello! If you’re new here, drop me a line to say hello. This week’s newsletter is all about unlocking the knowledge and potential of employees.
Three Things For This Week:
Human Sustainability
Holiday Gifts
The Seat At the Table
1.How Human Sustainability Can Build a Better World of Work
This week, I had the privilege of hosting
on The Edge of Work LinkedIn Live. I know Jen from my work at Deloitte, - she co-authored a book with a mentor and former colleague of mine. Jen is a podcast host, newsletter writer of author, and now TedX speaker, and has been the Chief Well-Being Officer at Deloitte over the past few years, helping their clients think about how well-being can improve business performance.In her newest role, she’s been playing around with this concept of human sustainability, and thinking about people in the ways which we think about other forms of sustainability (ex: the environment.)
What I most appreciate about this concept is that for a long time, organizations have been saying that people are an important asset, and you as a leader believe that then human sustainability (investing in their well-being, being intentional about growth, thinking both in the long and short term) are components of that. I also appreciate the complexity and connectedness that human sustainability brings together. When I talk to business leaders, its hard to have a conversation today about a strategy or a challenge that doesn’t involve people
Finally, Jen’s story (you can watch some of it here) is also inspiring and motivating. I won’t give away the details, so just watch her TEDx talk, but her journey and work epitomizes why I built The Edge of Work podcast, for those people who are trying to move the needle into improving the way that we work. Check out our LinkedIn Live, or listen to the podcast.
2.Gifts For the Holiday Season
This year, I've had the privilege of interviewing some great authors who have written books that I think are adding to the dialogue around expanding our worldviews on the future of work and careers.
In the spirit of the holiday season, I am giving 10 copies of the following two books of authors who I have had the chance to get to know and who’s work I’d like to support.
The Portfolio Life by Christina Wallace (my interview here) - Christina’s work is pushing us to think more expansively about how to help people grow their career but in the context of their life. I think this book is great because it acknowledges that people are multi-dimensional human beings, and allows them to integrate elements of themselves they want to bring to bear and to put them to work.
- (my interview here) - Paul is a great writer, and has also served as guide on my own journey to soloprenuership. After leaving the corporate world, Paul went on his own “pathless path” to discover what he calls “work that is worth doing.” This is a great book for anyone who is interested contemplating bigger questions about work and career, and is interested in doing the deep work and soul searching to find some answers. As an aside, Paul’s journey is inspiring. He has sold over 40K copies of the book, and its clear his message is resonating.
Action: If you are interested in a copy of either book, reply to this email and I'll do a drawing on December 10th for those who submit. My goal is to support authors whose work I enjoy and support others on their own work and career journey
3.The Proverbial “Seat at The Table”
Over the past week, I’ve had 4-5 conversations with leaders at different organizations that went something like this:
I need to figure out how to get a seat at the table
I need to better demonstrate how my team/org demonstrates impact
I need to better understand how to relate to my stakeholders
I need to figure out how to stakeholder X to care about my project
While most of these were leaders in the People/Talent function, they also included a number of other functions and roles. What it underscores to me is that the work that most people do today is incredibly interconnected - this is especially true if you work in a large organizations. If you want to be successful, making sure others understand what you are doing and how it makes an impact (and making sure they are aligned with it) is almost as important as the thing that you are actually doing.
As someone who has now worked and served three different functions, (IT, Marketing, and HR) I have heard this story before. One of my favorite sayings is that an organization is just a bunch of people working toward shared goals. If you want others to care about what you are doing, you have to make sure that what you are doing actually matters to them on their own terms and language. This is why, being able to influence others, manage stakeholder relationships, and connect with your peers and colleagues is so critical and important.
To be sure, being an “order taker” especially in an enabling or support role, is not the goal, so having a point of view and speaking with conviction is really important. I think honestly what happens is that so many people are so focused on doing things well, executing projects and checking off tasks on the to-do list that between that, constant meetings and the hyperactive hive mind of communication, meetings, and calendar invites, we put blinders on instead of thinking about how the tasks and projects we work on actually impacts the business, outside of just, doing that task or initiative.
The goal of the business is to serve a customer and keep it. (Drucker, not my words) Aligning back of how the thing we are doing at the moment actually serves that often gets lost amongst all the other things that we have going on. It’s easy sometimes, to focus on the to do list of tasks, versus actually thinking about “what am I doing that actually moves the needle, for my stakeholders and the business?”
Drucker also said something else that I find myself saying - There is nothing as useless as doing something efficiently that shouldn’t be done at all - Making sure that you are not only getting buy in and support from people on the work you are doing, but also, that it actually is something that you should be doing is just as critical and important. If you want some help building relationships with stakeholders, check out my guide here.
PS - On that note, I believe in these things so strongly that I’m hosting two virtual workshops on them. These are workshops I normally run with clients, but I’m testing out new material and would love feedback. I’d also love to see you crush your next project. Feel free to sign up via the links if you’re interested in joining.
Thursday December 14th: Cultivating Influence
Friday December 15th: Leading Distributed Teams
That’s all I got. have a great week!
Al