in some form or other we all imagine
being people of lasting influence so how
many of you have ever picked up the
hairbrush in the morning while getting
ready and into it belted out the song
playing on the radio
come on said the words I’d like to thank
the Academy banked over on your cocktail
table as the gold medal got put on your
neck – you’re streaming down your face
as your flag unfurled of course we’ve
all done these things if you didn’t
raise your hand we know the truth but
why do we do them because we’re a closet
megalomaniacs with delusions of grandeur
no well maybe you are but that’s not
evidence of it no we do these things
because we all come wired with the
capacity to imagine our lives as
something more as organizational
consultants to executives my colleagues
and I at nav illan spends our days in
the throes of wild organizational
transformations years ago I had the
privilege of working with a young leader
who also had dreams of being very
influential everybody saw him as having
enormous potential and at the end of our
project he was offered the opportunity
to take on a position of greater
influence in his organization well
nobody was surprised everybody thought
assumed he’d be very successful about
nine months later I saw his name in my
caller ID and I was excited I assumed he
was calling to tell me about all the
great progress they had made sadly he
was calling to tell me he’d been fired
and that he needed help finding another
job well I barely had time to recover
from that call when two hours later a
CEO called also to tell me they let him
go and that he was angry implying that
some of the responsibility for his
failure was mine for not having better
prepared him I was devastated I asked if
we might come back into the organization
to see him be killed
what went wrong well that short
investigation led us to a ten-year
longitudinal study of more than 2700
people you know we’ve known for decades
that more than 50% of those that take on
positions of greater influence in their
organizations fail in their first 18
months meaning they’re no longer in
those positions and not by their own
choice that leader was just another
statistic well being partially held
responsible for his failure made me
resolve we just had to do better we took
on this comprehensive study and
documented it because the idea of
otherwise promising and influential
talent continuing to be set up to fail
the notion of all the good their
influence could do going to waste so
utterly unacceptable well our research
did reveal some good news the data
uncovered for remarkably consistent
patterns among the exemplary people in
the other 50% of those that actually
succeeded in positions of influence the
problem was no matter how we cut up the
data even after like a hundred
regression analyses the best influences
were set apart by being exemplary and
excellent across all four patterns and
as much as I didn’t want to have to say
that I couldn’t deny the data it did
have partially explain some of the
failure rates even those that did three
of the four well were not successful but
the best news of all was a closer
examination of the exemplar group show
that these were in four mysterious
attributes that they were lucky enough
to have been born with no these were
four capabilities acquired through hard
work and therefore capabilities that
anybody who wants to have greater
influence can learn so the first pattern
recalled context these folks were
remarkably astute at reading the
environment around them as the adage
goes they knew their audience deeply
they were eager to learn about the
people and settings in which they wanted
to have influence so they could adapt
themselves and their ideas
accordingly the unsuccessful leaders
started by assuming they already had an
answer or an idea everybody else needed
but the successful leader it started by
first learning about the world that they
wanted to have impact in context means
understanding that those you want to
have influence with have as much to
change in you as you have to change in
them so how do the best leaders learn to
recontact so well they cultivated
curiosity they put themselves in
unfamiliar environments where they had
to learn they became naturally faceted
like anthropologists think about the
people you want to have influence with
how much do you really know about them
about what frustrates them or what
motivates them what assumptions have you
made about them that may not be true to
be influential with context start by
learning about those who want to
influence the next pattern we called
Brett’s the successful leaders have the
amazing capacity to see how all the
pieces and parts of their organizations
fit together they knew that those they
wanted to influence fit into a bigger
story they also knew that it’s common in
organizations for people to be
fragmented from one another the
unsuccessful leaders ignore that
fragmentation and targeted their
influence so exclusively on one group at
the expense of others
sometimes they made the division worse
but the successful leaders knew they had
to build coalition among those that were
disconnected from each other they knew
that it’s really at the seams of an
organization where people in groups come
together that transformation actually
happens brett’s means learning to see
our communities and our organizations as
a whole not just the sum of their parts
so how did the exemplary leaders learn
Brett’s they cultivated the ability to
build bridges between people one guy in
our study who’d risen to the position of
school district superintendent inherited
great tensions among parents and
teachers at administrators but he helped
them find their common ground they first
found out where there was fragmentation
among them and then they brought those
fragments together
to be influential with breath start by
stitching the seams among those you want
to influence the next pattern we called
choice
the successful 50% had the courage to
make hard choices even though they knew
that sometimes that might mean
disappointing people they knew that
sometimes you have to focus people on
just a few things in order to help them
have lasting impact the unsuccessful
leaders focus more on pleasing people so
they said yes too often and ended up
confusing people with their choices but
the best influencers knew when and how
to include people in their decision
making choice means narrowing your focus
on just a few things in order to be able
to do them with excellence so how do the
best leaders learn to make great choices
they cultivated courage they knew that
sometimes it meant having to focus
people on just a number of things in
order to help them do it with excellence
even if it meant disappointing them so
what hard choices do you need to lean
into do you say yes too often to avoid
disappointing people to be influential
with choice start by getting comfortable
saying no so that your yes can actually
mean something the final pattern recalls
connection the leaders who ultimately
thrived were the ones everybody wanted
to be around they were respected
incredible they had deep trusting
relationships and they were genuinely
seen as wanting to help others succeed
the unsuccessful leaders focused more on
connections with those from whom they
wanted something in essence their
relationships were more political than
they were genuine but the successful
leaders focused on deepening their
connections with people who relied on
them one of the leaders in our study
told us about three questions he asked
everybody he works with first he asks
what can I do to improve in order to be
a better colleague to you what are you
working on these days that’s really
important to you and what can I do to
help you with that really important
thing
connection means deepening trust with
those you can help succeed so how do the
best leaders learn to form these deep
connections they cultivated empathy they
went out of their way to find other
people they could help succeed not
because they wanted something in return
but because they genuinely enjoyed
watching others soar they asked for
feedback on how they can improve in
those relationships did the people you
want to influence feel your deep
commitment to their success to be
influential with connection start by
finding great joy in helping those
around you thrive so after seeing how
the best influencers succeeded with
these four capabilities I realized I’d
actually seen these before this is Toby
and she’s been my mentor and my friend
for almost 30 years she showed them to
me long before I had names for them when
we met I was in my 20s fairly uncertain
and fairly clueless about how to be
influential in a consulting career
predicated on being influential with
leaders facing hard challenges I was
making all of the mistakes we found in
our research decades later I was headed
for being one of the failed 50% but she
taught me context by asking me hard
questions about my clients teaching me
to focus on what was important to them
instead of on how to get them to like me
or how to get them get them to want to
use my expertise I wanted to learn how
to write so she took on the task of car
writing my first book with me showing me
breaths by helping me see the bigger
story in which my ideas would live she
taught me about choice by teaching me
about life’s hard trade-offs between
things like being a dad and being a
traveling consultant she helped me say
no so that my yes was a commitment I
could keep and for almost 30 years
she’s made a deep
personal investment in my success with
every new thing I learned to this day
she lights up with delight as my biggest
advocate I’ve been on the receiving end
of her amazing influence and I’ve seen
firsthand the power of these four
capabilities in action today my greatest
joy is helping other people discover
them so they can have the impact on the
world daydream of having my journey to
discover these began with a promising
young leaders stumble from a visit from
a position he could have been more
successful in had he been better
prepared but that doesn’t have to be you
if you want to have more influence or
your organization expects you to have
more influence seize the opportunity
there’s a hungry world out there
desperate for the impact only you can
make so next time you pick up that
hairbrush or imagine that big award
remember you too can learn to do these
four things exceptionally well and when
you do watch watch your influence grow
and leave an indelible mark on the world
around you thank you
[Applause]
you
being people of lasting influence so how
many of you have ever picked up the
hairbrush in the morning while getting
ready and into it belted out the song
playing on the radio
come on said the words I’d like to thank
the Academy banked over on your cocktail
table as the gold medal got put on your
neck – you’re streaming down your face
as your flag unfurled of course we’ve
all done these things if you didn’t
raise your hand we know the truth but
why do we do them because we’re a closet
megalomaniacs with delusions of grandeur
no well maybe you are but that’s not
evidence of it no we do these things
because we all come wired with the
capacity to imagine our lives as
something more as organizational
consultants to executives my colleagues
and I at nav illan spends our days in
the throes of wild organizational
transformations years ago I had the
privilege of working with a young leader
who also had dreams of being very
influential everybody saw him as having
enormous potential and at the end of our
project he was offered the opportunity
to take on a position of greater
influence in his organization well
nobody was surprised everybody thought
assumed he’d be very successful about
nine months later I saw his name in my
caller ID and I was excited I assumed he
was calling to tell me about all the
great progress they had made sadly he
was calling to tell me he’d been fired
and that he needed help finding another
job well I barely had time to recover
from that call when two hours later a
CEO called also to tell me they let him
go and that he was angry implying that
some of the responsibility for his
failure was mine for not having better
prepared him I was devastated I asked if
we might come back into the organization
to see him be killed
what went wrong well that short
investigation led us to a ten-year
longitudinal study of more than 2700
people you know we’ve known for decades
that more than 50% of those that take on
positions of greater influence in their
organizations fail in their first 18
months meaning they’re no longer in
those positions and not by their own
choice that leader was just another
statistic well being partially held
responsible for his failure made me
resolve we just had to do better we took
on this comprehensive study and
documented it because the idea of
otherwise promising and influential
talent continuing to be set up to fail
the notion of all the good their
influence could do going to waste so
utterly unacceptable well our research
did reveal some good news the data
uncovered for remarkably consistent
patterns among the exemplary people in
the other 50% of those that actually
succeeded in positions of influence the
problem was no matter how we cut up the
data even after like a hundred
regression analyses the best influences
were set apart by being exemplary and
excellent across all four patterns and
as much as I didn’t want to have to say
that I couldn’t deny the data it did
have partially explain some of the
failure rates even those that did three
of the four well were not successful but
the best news of all was a closer
examination of the exemplar group show
that these were in four mysterious
attributes that they were lucky enough
to have been born with no these were
four capabilities acquired through hard
work and therefore capabilities that
anybody who wants to have greater
influence can learn so the first pattern
recalled context these folks were
remarkably astute at reading the
environment around them as the adage
goes they knew their audience deeply
they were eager to learn about the
people and settings in which they wanted
to have influence so they could adapt
themselves and their ideas
accordingly the unsuccessful leaders
started by assuming they already had an
answer or an idea everybody else needed
but the successful leader it started by
first learning about the world that they
wanted to have impact in context means
understanding that those you want to
have influence with have as much to
change in you as you have to change in
them so how do the best leaders learn to
recontact so well they cultivated
curiosity they put themselves in
unfamiliar environments where they had
to learn they became naturally faceted
like anthropologists think about the
people you want to have influence with
how much do you really know about them
about what frustrates them or what
motivates them what assumptions have you
made about them that may not be true to
be influential with context start by
learning about those who want to
influence the next pattern we called
Brett’s the successful leaders have the
amazing capacity to see how all the
pieces and parts of their organizations
fit together they knew that those they
wanted to influence fit into a bigger
story they also knew that it’s common in
organizations for people to be
fragmented from one another the
unsuccessful leaders ignore that
fragmentation and targeted their
influence so exclusively on one group at
the expense of others
sometimes they made the division worse
but the successful leaders knew they had
to build coalition among those that were
disconnected from each other they knew
that it’s really at the seams of an
organization where people in groups come
together that transformation actually
happens brett’s means learning to see
our communities and our organizations as
a whole not just the sum of their parts
so how did the exemplary leaders learn
Brett’s they cultivated the ability to
build bridges between people one guy in
our study who’d risen to the position of
school district superintendent inherited
great tensions among parents and
teachers at administrators but he helped
them find their common ground they first
found out where there was fragmentation
among them and then they brought those
fragments together
to be influential with breath start by
stitching the seams among those you want
to influence the next pattern we called
choice
the successful 50% had the courage to
make hard choices even though they knew
that sometimes that might mean
disappointing people they knew that
sometimes you have to focus people on
just a few things in order to help them
have lasting impact the unsuccessful
leaders focus more on pleasing people so
they said yes too often and ended up
confusing people with their choices but
the best influencers knew when and how
to include people in their decision
making choice means narrowing your focus
on just a few things in order to be able
to do them with excellence so how do the
best leaders learn to make great choices
they cultivated courage they knew that
sometimes it meant having to focus
people on just a number of things in
order to help them do it with excellence
even if it meant disappointing them so
what hard choices do you need to lean
into do you say yes too often to avoid
disappointing people to be influential
with choice start by getting comfortable
saying no so that your yes can actually
mean something the final pattern recalls
connection the leaders who ultimately
thrived were the ones everybody wanted
to be around they were respected
incredible they had deep trusting
relationships and they were genuinely
seen as wanting to help others succeed
the unsuccessful leaders focused more on
connections with those from whom they
wanted something in essence their
relationships were more political than
they were genuine but the successful
leaders focused on deepening their
connections with people who relied on
them one of the leaders in our study
told us about three questions he asked
everybody he works with first he asks
what can I do to improve in order to be
a better colleague to you what are you
working on these days that’s really
important to you and what can I do to
help you with that really important
thing
connection means deepening trust with
those you can help succeed so how do the
best leaders learn to form these deep
connections they cultivated empathy they
went out of their way to find other
people they could help succeed not
because they wanted something in return
but because they genuinely enjoyed
watching others soar they asked for
feedback on how they can improve in
those relationships did the people you
want to influence feel your deep
commitment to their success to be
influential with connection start by
finding great joy in helping those
around you thrive so after seeing how
the best influencers succeeded with
these four capabilities I realized I’d
actually seen these before this is Toby
and she’s been my mentor and my friend
for almost 30 years she showed them to
me long before I had names for them when
we met I was in my 20s fairly uncertain
and fairly clueless about how to be
influential in a consulting career
predicated on being influential with
leaders facing hard challenges I was
making all of the mistakes we found in
our research decades later I was headed
for being one of the failed 50% but she
taught me context by asking me hard
questions about my clients teaching me
to focus on what was important to them
instead of on how to get them to like me
or how to get them get them to want to
use my expertise I wanted to learn how
to write so she took on the task of car
writing my first book with me showing me
breaths by helping me see the bigger
story in which my ideas would live she
taught me about choice by teaching me
about life’s hard trade-offs between
things like being a dad and being a
traveling consultant she helped me say
no so that my yes was a commitment I
could keep and for almost 30 years
she’s made a deep
personal investment in my success with
every new thing I learned to this day
she lights up with delight as my biggest
advocate I’ve been on the receiving end
of her amazing influence and I’ve seen
firsthand the power of these four
capabilities in action today my greatest
joy is helping other people discover
them so they can have the impact on the
world daydream of having my journey to
discover these began with a promising
young leaders stumble from a visit from
a position he could have been more
successful in had he been better
prepared but that doesn’t have to be you
if you want to have more influence or
your organization expects you to have
more influence seize the opportunity
there’s a hungry world out there
desperate for the impact only you can
make so next time you pick up that
hairbrush or imagine that big award
remember you too can learn to do these
four things exceptionally well and when
you do watch watch your influence grow
and leave an indelible mark on the world
around you thank you
[Applause]
you
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