Investigate, Inform and Influence without Instructing or Intimidating (I³ – I²)

Success Formula

There are certain roles in organization’s that have as their primary purpose the improvement of that business’ performance. We call these ‘support roles’. To be in a support role is to be in a position where one’s #1 deliverable and measurable output is: ‘advice’! And it is our view that people in these sorts of roles are most effective when they:

  1. Investigate – get out there and research your knowledge field; stay at the cutting edge of your subject matter
  2. Inform – keep your internal customers fully appraised of what it is that they need to know and
  3. Influence – use your people skills to gently persuade and shape change in the business. If you are in this sort of a role chances are that you might only spend 10 – 20% of your time doing ‘people’ work but it is critical that you do it well.

These same roles are sadly sometimes populated with over-zealous individuals who seem hell-bent on:

  • Instructing and
  • Intimidating

And to be blunt, finger-waggers in strategic and advisory/ improvement roles are never as effective as the gently competent, knowledgeable and informative persuaders.