Last week, Coach Terry, PhD, PCC shared 3 steps on how to use political savvy to expand your influence in a positive way. Well, Coach Terry is back to share the final steps to developing your political strategy.
Take it away, Terry!
Now that we have recognized the key players, identified their interests, and mapped out their power and authority, let’s focus on getting our political strategy defined.
Step 4: Conflicts and Alliances
In every situation there are likely to be natural conflicts. While you may have had a strong alliance with a key leader yesterday, a new topic may emerge where you now find yourselves at odds. You can better predict likely conflicts by understanding the interests of key players. Frequent contact with the key players is crucial for political savvy.
Best Practice: Mapping out the alliances and the conflicts in any given political situation helps you better understand how decisions may be influenced within an organization.
Step 5: Political Strategy
In this final step, you will synthesize steps 1 through 4 to develop your political strategy.
Consider the following key questions:
- Who are my allies that are likely to support me?
- Who are my detractors, and how much power do they have?
- Do I have enough support to overcome objections?
- Who do I need to talk to further to better understand their positions, concerns, and interests?
- Do I have enough relationship capital to influence those in authority to get what I want?
- Is the timing right, or should I wait until there is more support for my position?
- If I move forward, what will be the likely outcome in terms of future support or resistance from stakeholders?
The ultimate goal here is to continually build alliances and to avoid making enemies over the long haul.
As a reminder, political savvy can be used in an ethical way in an organization to increase your influence and build relationships. By understanding political savvy as a process, anyone can develop the skills to be successful in maneuvering organizational politics to achieve greater influence and business results.
So, try it out! Opportunities come up all the time to expand your influence, wherever you are in your organization.
Let us know how it goes!