SuperInfluence WrapUp

In This Episode

SuperInfluencers are wildly impactful. In this special episode of the LeaderLab, we invite our guests back into the lab to share more about the pivotal skills SuperInflueners use to catalyze outcomes in their organizations.

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Transcript

Vanessa Tanicien, narrating: Hello, and welcome to The LeaderLab, the podcast powered by LifeLabs Learning. I'm your host and LifeLabs leadership trainer, Vanessa Tanicien. In each episode, my Labmates and I distill our findings into powerful tipping point skills, the smallest changes that tip over to make the biggest impact in the shortest time.

Vanessa Tanicien: Hey LeaderLab listeners, you are in for a rare treat. That rare treat, as you know, is called our wrap up where we have a culminating conversation around the theme that we just went over the last few episodes. This wrap up is all about influence, not any kind of influence, but SuperInfluence. I have some of the most influential Labmates here with me today. I have Robleh Kirce, Ashley Schwedt, and Grace Pfisterer to talk all about what it's like to be one of those folks who can impact the behavior of others, without relying on authority. We're going to be diving into this conversation and really walking away with a little bit more nuance, a little bit more color, and a lot more fun. Welcome back to the lab, everyone.

Robleh Kirce: Hey, Hey, happy to be here. Thanks Vanessa.

Ashley Schwedt: Thanks for having us.

Grace Pfisterer: Good to be here. Thanks Vanessa.

Vanessa Tanicien: I am so thrilled and I wasn't lying to have some of the most influential folks that I have worked with in a long time here with me to talk all things influence. I want to just dive right in here with my first question. What makes this topic of SuperInfluence important to you. Grace, the baton is yours.

Grace Pfisterer: Thanks for passing that along, Vanessa, really excited to run with that baton. When it comes to SuperInfluence, part of why it's so important to me is it really opens the space of possibility. What I mean by that, is as a SuperInfluencer, you can have an impact on how folks think, on how they feel, and also ultimately on what their actions are. That's important to me, because it means that you can link that up to your personal passion, to your personal goal, and really shift the way that folks see things and the way that they behave in not only their work, but in the world.

Vanessa Tanicien: Yeah. I'm already loving that we're bridging this out into the whole wide world here, maybe the whole universe. Ashley, I see a little bit of a smile on your face. What's on your mind?

Ashley Schwedt: I totally agree with that, Grace. I think that the ability to have an impact is, no surprise to folks who know me, something that drives me in the work that I do. It's something that I think about both at work and outside. If I can be a SuperInfluencer, that means that I can create the environment around me that I want to exist in. That's truly one of the most exciting things for me about this idea of SuperInfluence.

Vanessa Tanicien: So powerful, this idea of creation all around. Roble, bringing you into the fold here.

Robleh Kirce: Hey Vanessa, can I go next?

Vanessa Tanicien: Yes, you can. I did mention making the ask is one of the first things SuperInfluencers do. Go ahead, Robleh. What's up?

Robleh Kirce: For me, if I expand this topic for a moment, what really makes SuperInfluence important to me, is this concept of dependent origination. This is really a Buddhist philosophy term, just acknowledging how interconnected things are. I think what we see with SuperInfluencers is, they're aware that their actions impact others and when we ask others to do something, that also has an impact on us. It's this diverting of maybe like a natural ego and sort of self-serving behaviors, to seeing we are all in this together, which is really what influence is about.

Vanessa Tanicien: Right there with you. I'm already loving the interconnectedness from self, all the way up to the universe and each other. Well, I want to kind of shift gears a little bit and talk about what we're all dealing with, this new hybrid working environment. I'm wondering, do you think that the move to remote/hybrid is going to change what it means to be considered influential? Ash, I see that you are ready to go on this one.

Ashley Schwedt: This is actually something I've been thinking a lot about and how not being co-located or being co-located with some people and not with other people, is actually going to impact our ability to be influential and to be you SuperInfluencers. Influence is so dependent on our relationships. That's what separates it from persuasion, right? To effectively be influential, that means that we have to really have strategic relationships with the people around us. Of course, as we're in and entering this hybrid environment, those relationships are shifting. I think a lot of us have noticed this over the last year. One of the things that I've actually been thinking about, if I can tell a quick example here, LifeLabs is a hundred people now, which is very different from where it was when I started. When I started, I only had to be influential with like 12 people, right? It was a whole lot different.

Vanessa Tanicien: Very different situation.

Ashley Schwedt: Exactly. Now we're a hundred, and we're located all around the country. One of the things that I did recently was create this training about microaggressions and micro interventions. If it were just 12 people, then it would be a little bit easier to get those people on board, to influence them to want to intervene when something happens. But with a hundred people, I don't know everyone's motivations. They don't even know who I am, right? One of the things that I did was I made sure to share personal examples, to be vulnerable and open up with people. When I can create that intimacy, it becomes a whole lot easier for me to be influential and for other people to want to follow along with what I'm sharing and what I'm talking about.

Vanessa Tanicien: Yeah. This idea of vulnerability and intimacy at a distance, is probably going to be really important for creating influence moving forward. Grace, it seemed like you had something to share as well.

Grace Pfisterer: Yeah. Thanks Vanessa. I love that, Ashley. That's something that I was thinking about as well, is the importance of creating these relationships and of building this sense of trust, right? That is so hard to do, not only in a hybrid and remote environment, but also when you're growing and scaling a team and we haven't been in the same physical room as folks at all. One thing that comes up for me, is this concept that we talk about at LifeLabs, called the mirror exposure effect. What the research shows around this concept, is that there's actually a fear based response when we are exposed to a stimulus one time. When we have a repeated exposure, there is more of a familiar quality. All that to say, when we are making deliberate touch points to connect with folks, to build those relationships, to demonstrate curiosity and ask questions, that really goes a long way in linking up to creating those relationships that will help with getting that impact that we're desiring as a SuperInfluencer.

Robleh Kirce: I want to add a little controversy here. I mean, I think I do agree with a lot of what Ashley and Grace shared. I also want to maybe add a point of distinction. When I think of SuperInfluencers, I think of people that I can drop into any organization, any room, maybe even any Zoom call, and there's still going to be an influence. I think it comes from a place of demonstrating care for other people around us. It takes a variety of different forms. My suspicion is that people we identify as being SuperInfluencers, within five minutes and 30 minutes they can show you that they're thinking about you as well as thinking about themselves. I think that translates to the virtual environment, just as well as it does to in person.

Vanessa Tanicien: I'm hearing a couple of things in the room right now, and I want to drill down on both of these. There's the idea of vulnerability, empathy, exposure to others, and the idea of demonstrating care. I'm curious, what has each of you selecting those components that you did? Robleh, I'm going to toss it back to you about this idea of just showing up and demonstrating care. How does the person begin to do that?

Robleh Kirce: Well, building off of what Ashley was saying of how it's about the relationship that you build with people, but break that down even a little bit further, it's how we relate to each other and how I'm showing up for you and how you show up for me in the moment that we're in. For sure, I can do things like we talk about in our workshop in leading change, listening tours, right? It's a way of both garnering that me exposure effect that Grace is talking about, it's an opportunity to understand what's going on more for the other people. When you look at the research on this, Morgan McCall looked at this back in the eighties. He identified that leading without authority is one of those great developmental experiences. It's there, where you've learned that people don't just act because they fear you, right? They act because they appreciate you as well.

Ashley Schwedt: Robleh, one thing that you're mentioning, I think that we're all mentioning, is kind of the feelings side of this, right?

Vanessa Tanicien: Exactly.

Ashley Schwedt: We're talking about care and empathy and connection. I also just want to add another layer onto that. Getting people to trust me is different than getting people to want to follow along with me, want to agree with me, right? The other piece of this, I think that's so important, still falls into relationships, but it's about how can I show people what they need to see? How can I give people the information they need, to not just follow along with me because they like me, but to follow along with me because they believe that my ideas are stellar. To me, that's kind of the intersection of where SuperInfluence comes into play. It's part about me, but it's also part about the work that I'm putting forward.

Vanessa Tanicien: I'm hearing lots of different subtexts here. This idea that psychological safety, generally has to exist between you and the folks that you're hoping to influence, and that we really have to speak to the whole human as much as we can and as much as people are willing to show up in that way, for us to be influential in this new style of work that we're moving into, which is super exciting, which leads me to my next question here. What are some of the biggest obstacles that you think will come up for some SuperInfluencers right now? How might we overcome them?

Grace Pfisterer: I can jump in, Vanessa. One thing that I am seeing everywhere these days, not only with clients, but also internally on the team, is burnout, right? That means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. I bring it up because for SuperInfluencers, it poses a real challenge to be deliberate about what the impact that they want to have is, right? They've got limited time. They have limited bandwidth and competing priorities to be able to achieve what it is that they want to achieve. It means they need to be really focused and identify what their goal is, before moving into these communications, and also creating that space for empathy and for care. That's one that definitely comes up for me.

Vanessa Tanicien: That reminds me of a few episodes ago, we did a whole series on energy management and how this was so necessary for us to be effective moving forward, is truly trying to figure out how we can show up as our best self. Ash, I noticed you had a thought here. What do you have to share?

Ashley Schwedt: I think Grace is absolutely right. This idea of burnout is so important and is definitely a threat. I also think though, one of the other threats to me, not to me personally, to the ability to be a SuperInfluencer in this work context that we're in, is that when people are in times of stress and in times of crisis, we resist change even harder than we would at before. Our brain thinks of that change as a grief and as a loss. We're losing a whole lot already, right? Adding something else to that, can be really challenging. I experienced this recently. My soccer team started practices back up again, and they're at a different location, not far, but a different location than where they used to be. I had this reaction of like, "Oh my gosh, I can't, I don't even know where that is."

Vanessa Tanicien: Why would I want to walk farther to my soccer practice where I run all time?

Ashley Schwedt: Exactly. It's so silly, but because it's just one more change on top of a whole stack of changes, it got me. When I think about influence, it's this idea of having an impact of creating change. When people are in those times of stress and crisis, we become even more entrenched into our current way of doing things. It takes even more effort to have that impact.

Vanessa Tanicien: The lift, whether it be smaller or large, still seems heavier when we're under the burden of stress and or burnout. Totally hear that.

Robleh Kirce: Plus one to what you heard from Grace and Ashley, I think stress and burnout can be really strong derailers, just to having energy to do anything, right? If you're working with a group that doesn't have that energy preexisting, it presents an additional hurdle. I'll come at it from the side of influencers and people just in leadership positions, there's a variety of ways to earn power inside of an organization. My suspicion is most of our listeners are familiar with them. Pay setting, for example, is one that you often see in engineering. Knowledge is something you often see in legal departments. The list kind of goes on. Those often become crutches for trying to leverage sort of that power, instead of leveraging influence.

Robleh Kirce: I think that can also present a challenge for folks that are working on building influence. They can get frustrated sometimes like, "Hey, listen, I've already got the most knowledge on this team. Don't you think you should listen to me," right? "I'm already moving faster than everybody else, don't you think you should listen to this idea?" That only gets you so far. People will listen, but they may not want to act on it. That's where I think you keep hearing us talk about demonstrating care and empathy and psychological safety. Those can become crutches that get used to try to influence people, but really it's actually something different, right? It's exerting power over other people.

Vanessa Tanicien: We've covered some of the obstacles, this idea of cognitive burden, burnout, ego. Ashley, I want to pass it your way, soccer metaphor, what are you thinking might be some of the fixes here.

Ashley Schwedt: Thanks for that perfect assist, Vanessa. Honestly, you heard me talk about this before and I am still going to go back to it, doing a gap analysis means that you're putting data to what you want to get done. For me, when I'm thinking about folks who might not want to change, who might not be interested in my impact in the influence that I can have, I need to also show up with numbers. That's one way that I think we can really start to overcome some of the psychological barriers that exist, is actually backing up what we want with the data, with the numbers. For me, that's one of the biggest ways that I've been working on this, is not just relying on people's emotional connection, but also making it impossible for them to say that this is a bad idea because I'm showing both the emotional reason and the logical reason.

Vanessa Tanicien: The one-two punch — well, not the one, two punch, that's not so influential. The one-two…

Robleh Kirce: Handshake, handshake.

Vanessa Tanicien: The one-two handshake.

Robleh Kirce: The one-two handshake. Yeah, let's go with that.

Vanessa Tanicien: Maybe let's agree on that, but Robleh, what's your thought?

Robleh Kirce: I was going in a similar direction. I think we've talked about vision statements in a previous podcast. Is that true, Vanessa? Do you recall?

Vanessa Tanicien: No, I don't think so, but let's roll with it.

Robleh Kirce: Okay. Well, vision statements is by far one of my favorite tools that we teach. They talk about what Ashley's saying here, including a logical appeal and an emotional appeal when you're sharing ideas with other people. Now in the vision statement, we actually suggest before sharing the logic and data appeal, go back and start by sharing with an acknowledgement statement. Now, an acknowledgement statement is where I think about what your objection might be to my idea before I even shared my idea with you, right?

Vanessa Tanicien: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Robleh Kirce: Then, I say that objection out loud, before I share with you my data that supports my idea and the emotional appeal that supports my idea. The reason we do that is, guess what? It's a way of demonstrating understanding and empathy and care and all these other things that we've been talking about. This is kind of like a behavioral unit of influence, so to speak. "Hey, I get it. You're concerned about this thing. You know what? I'm concerned about that thing too. Also, here's some data that suggests we should still go in this direction." Is that a tool you can use standalone? Yes. Are SuperInfluencers doing these types of behaviors? Yes. The SuperInfluencer is doing it because they already care. They kind of do it naturally, right? The rest of us, we have to kind of learn from them, what are the best ways to demonstrate care?

Vanessa Tanicien: I totally hear that. I think the last component of a vision statement, so we have an acknowledgement statement, a heart statement, which we talk about appeals to the emotion, head statement, which appeals to that analytical side of the brain. The last portion that I definitely want our listeners to know about, is the urgency statement. Why now? Why are we choosing to make the choices that we're making, moving in the direction that we're going, in this moment in time? One of the things that I know SuperInfluencers do incredibly well, is demonstrate that urgency so that way people can hear them, get behind it, and get on board, which is so, so important to do. Grace, in your world of consulting, this is something that you have to deal with all the time. Can you speak a little bit about urgency and why that might really be helpful for SuperInfluencers in general, to get good at communicating?

Grace Pfisterer: I love that you were naming the piece around both loss aversion and urgency language, because those are things that we see in a lot of organizations. Those are very common tactics. Ultimately, what we want to be doing is creating that sense of momentum. That's something that SuperInfluencers do really well, is continue to carry the conversation forward. I would say that what SuperInfluencers do differently, is they're moving more towards that needs forward. You probably remember from our last chat, it is a way for folks to move from a space of stuckness, to a space of possibility and success by identifying what they want and moving away from what they don't want. The reason this is important is because again, we want to get folks out of that negative headspace, out of scare tactics, a space where there's not a lot of psychological safety, to a positive environment where we're focusing on what's possible.

Ashley Schwedt: One thing that I actually want to add to this, when I see the most influential people using these urgency statements well, it's because they're talking about what's the risk of not doing the thing that I'm talking about.

Vanessa Tanicien: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Ashley Schwedt: Not just about why we should do it now, but what happens if we don't? So many people are motivated by that risk of what can happen if I don't do this. By sharing that, that actually helps people both logically and emotionally get on the same page because they understand why it's so important to do now, but also what happens the longer we wait not doing this thing.

Vanessa Tanicien: Yeah, absolutely. Loss aversion was first identified by Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, one of the premier behavioral economists out there. Loss aversion implies that one person who loses a hundred dollars, will lose more satisfaction than the same person who gains the satisfaction from a hundred dollars windfall. We just feel the pain of loss way deeper. Circling back on this, we're unearthing so many different things that are important to being an influencer. This idea of communicating both heart and statements, which is LifeLabs vernacular that translates to feelings and metrics, as well as acknowledging what a person's dealing with and the urgency of why now. I want to bring this to another place in thinking about this organizationally, what can organizations do to support and cultivate SuperInfluencers? It seems like right now, we're thinking about SuperInfluencers as an individual, which we absolutely are, but as a person who is helping run companies, I want to see more SuperInfluencers at my company. What do I do?

Ashley Schwedt: I can share a couple of quick tips.

Vanessa Tanicien: Sure, please.

Ashley Schwedt: One is just to create opportunities for people to share ideas and solutions, even if they don't have authority or title, right? How are we getting people's input? Robleh mentioned earlier, this idea of listening tours, how are we connecting with people and giving them the opportunity to share a voice? I think one way that we actually do this really well at LifeLabs, is we have a proposal template where if someone on the team has an idea, they can use this template to create a proposal to make it happen. They don't have to be anyone special. I mean, everyone at LifeLabs is special, but they don't have to be in any specific role.

Robleh Kirce: Nice save.

Ashley Schwedt: Anyone can do this and it can be something small like, "I think we should change something about one of our meetings," or it can be something large like, "Hey, I'm Ashley, and I want to create a brand new job for myself that hasn't existed before." Anyone can do this.

Robleh Kirce: Plus one to what Ashley said. Yeah, creating systems around this goes a long way. I'll shift gears and talk about what individuals can do as well. We don't have to wait around for companies to make these changes. If you're a leader listening today, often what it looks like, is just being quiet, right? Not being the first one to speak and let other folks share their thoughts first inside of a meeting. It also means tapping someone and saying like, "Hey, we've got a problem here. Are you interested in solving it," right? Not being shy about who you ask to step in to do things. Again, going back to that research I was referencing earlier by Morgan McCall, these early experiences of leading without authority, is what teaches us how to navigate these situations in the future. It's something that we all have to go through. It's almost always going to experience some level of difficulty and pain trying to get something done with no authority, but it's also something that really teaches us how we do work together and how we want to lead in the future.

Ashley Schwedt: I really love this idea of being quiet and inviting people into the space. Our identities bring power dynamics into the workplace. It can be harder for certain people to present ideas, to have a voice, than it is for others. What Robleh said of being silent, of inviting people in, matters so much to actually create equity in an organization.

Grace Pfisterer: Cool. I'll jump in. I have an additional thought that's a little bit of a separate bucket here. Reinforcement and recognition of skills that we want to see folks doing, of skills that SuperInfluencers are doing really well. To go back to that listening tour example, let's say as a SuperInfluencer, you notice that somebody has done a listening tour or ask them to share a learning extraction in the next team meeting or in something like Slack. We want to be helping to reinforce those specific actions and skills that link up to being SuperInfluencers.

Robleh Kirce: Oh, can I build on that? I would love to build on that. Thanks, Grace. Often what I see with, in particular, early career leaders, is they have this sort of leadership development philosophy of, "I'm going to become great at everything," and power to you. If that motivates you, keep doing it for sure. Also, it's not the only school of thought, right? We are going to have gaps in our own leadership ability all of the time. That's my perspective. Why not create some opportunities for other people around you, notice where people are better than you at certain leadership behaviors and invite them in to do more of that. That creates that space for them to step into these positions where they're going to have to lead without authority.

Vanessa Tanicien: In jazz, they call that comping, where one person influences and compliments somebody's shortcomings. I want to bring us to extract the learning. When we extract the learning, we really think about what it is that we want to take away and really build into our lives. My question for all of you is, what is the learning extraction that you hope that listeners take away on their SuperInfluencing journey? Ash, why don't you take this one first?

Ashley Schwedt: Awesome. Thanks Vanessa. Honestly, I want people to know that you can be influential no matter what position you sit in, who you are. If you see something and you want to make it happen, put in a little bit of effort to building those relationships, to collecting your data, and make it happen. I think that so much of influence is believing in yourself. I'm just going to drop into one last story here. A couple episodes ago, Vanessa told me that I was one of the most influential people that she knew. It actually changed a lot for me because I started believing it even more, right?

Vanessa Tanicien: Aw, Ash.

Ashley Schwedt: That mindset of, "I can have influence and I can make an impact," even though I know it's true, just hearing it from someone, made me become even more influential because I really trusted in and believed in myself.

Robleh Kirce: Oh my gosh. How can anyone say anything?

Vanessa Tanicien: I know, I feel real awesome.

Grace Pfisterer: For real.

Ashley Schwedt: And that's influence, folks. There you go.

Grace Pfisterer: I can share small learning extractions. For me, it really comes down to the small things with great love, which is a spiritual thing that comes up for me. It is really about focusing on those one to two most impactful things that you can do as a SuperInfluencer, and starting there. I think narrowing scope is something that's really helpful. Really focusing on one to two things that you want to make happen, believing in yourself, as Ashley said, and taking an action, doing the thing and going from there.

Vanessa Tanicien: Doing the thing. That's something definitely that could be on a SuperInfluencer tattoo I'm sure. Robleh, take us home.

Robleh Kirce: SuperInfluencers are up to big, big things, right? They've got a vision for the future that they want to see come to fruition. They recognize that while it starts with the vision, the very next thing is often the involvement of other people, right? If your idea is so small, you don't need to involve other people. You need to dream bigger, right? Influence is at the core of creating these visions that we see for the future. As soon as you've got the vision, then we want to start thinking about the other people around us, what's in it for them and what's the cost going to be for them as well. Make sure that it's worth it, not just for ourselves, but for everyone that's involved. If you can share that message effectively, it's only a matter of time until that vision becomes a reality.

Vanessa Tanicien: Fantastic. Robleh, Ashley, Grace, thanks so much for your time.

Robleh Kirce: Hey, thanks.

Ashley Schwedt: Thank you, Vanessa.

Grace Pfisterer: Thank you all so much.

Vanessa Tanicien: That's a wrap on another episode of The LeaderLab. Make sure to subscribe and share this with at least one other person, so we can all be SuperInfluencers. It's pretty awesome. The LeaderLab is executive produced and hosted by me, Vanessa Tanicien. NeEddra James is our senior producer and Alana Burman is our director and editor. If you'd like to hang out with us on social, go ahead and find us on LinkedIn at LifeLabs Learning, and on Twitter at LifeLabs Learn. To bring training to your team, head on over to Lifelabslearning.com. See you in the lab soon.