Discovery Learning, Inc. announces the introduction of a new assessment tool, the Influence Style Indicator™. Designed by Chris Musselwhite, president and CEO of Discovery Learning, Inc. and Tammie Plouffe, managing partner of Innovative Pathways, the Influence Style Indicator measures an individual’s dominant, secondary and underutilized influence styles.
Get certified now to use this new innovative assessment by attending the April 21st online certification workshop.
*Certification or qualification is required for product use. Benefits of certification include: listing on DLI website, access to experienced survey user group, receiving DLI referrals.
Perry Buffet’s very interesting article “Using Influence to Get Things Done” in the February 22, 2011 issue of strategy + business highlights a dilemma often faced by senior management: the need to advocate tough-sell positions in typically collegial small groups such as councils, boards, or committees, where critical decisions are often made informally. Decisions made at this level, even when they have to be passed up the line for approval, can be critical to an organization’s success. “Thus,” concludes Buffet, “an executive’s ability to influence peers and superiors as they undertake a broad range of crucial decisions involving such issues as strategy, budgets, brand positioning and pricing, and capital investments is a valuable skill — a skill that could be called influential competence.”
Recognizing the critical value of influence competence to the ability of their executive clients to achieve maximum effectiveness, AvoLead professionals trained recently at Discovery Learning, Inc. in Greensboro, NC, to become Influence Style Indicator™ Assessment Consultants by learning to administer and analyze the exciting new Influence Style Indicator™ assessment tool.
The assessment tool helps the client understand the three primary influence orientations and the five main influencing styles, and it identifies his or her own predominant style. Even more important, it offers specific and implementable techniques and suggestions for interacting effectively with others whose predominant influence styles might be different.
Could you benefit from learning how to engage more effectively with your peers to get things done and add more value to your group or organization? Besides individual assessment, the Influence Style Indicator tool can be administered within a group or team to help members understand themselves and how they can work more strategically with their co-workers to accomplish established goals. Call AvoLead for more information.
When has influence competence been important to your career? Leave comments below.
BOOK REVIEW: Boundary Spanning Leadership:Six Practices for Solving Problems, Driving Innovation, and Transforming Organizations by Chris Ernst and Donna Chrobot-Mason
How refreshing and empowering to find a book on contemporary leadership that not only frames relevant issues that organization leaders face by identifying boundaries they are likely to encounter, but it also offers practical solutions to spanning these boundaries based on a decade of real-world research by leadership professionals at the Center for Creative Leadership. I’ll wager that readers of this book will: 1) either already be dealing with many of the issues presented and find the discussions a veritable lifeline or 2) they will instantly recognize situations they have encountered in the past and understand for the first time why they were so intractable and challenging.
The rapidly shifting landscape of corporate and nonprofit leadership creates unique pitfalls as well as opportunities. Research surveys of over 125 senior level executives revealed an appallingly low number who felt they were very effective at knowing how to collaborate effectively across boundaries in their current leadership roles. Five primary boundary types were identified for discussion purposes, though the authors recognized that often they are closely linked:
Vertical boundaries between hierarchical levels of the organization
Horizontal boundaries between functions
Stakeholder boundaries with customers and vendors
Demographic boundaries in working with people from diverse groups
Geographic boundaries of distance and region
Concluding that boundary spanning practices can turn boundaries into frontiers ripe with untapped potential, the authors explore what these practices might be, providing compelling actual stories/examples to illustrate them, and offering exercises and strategies to implement them in your own situation.
The authors first discuss the boundary management practices of Buffering (Creating Safety) and Reflecting (Fostering Respect). Then they move into practices that forge common ground: Connection (Building Trust) and Mobilizing (Developing Community). Next in the evolution of boundary-spanning are the practices that develop new frontiers: Weaving (Advancing interdependence) and Transforming (Enabling Reinvention).
“Together, these practices combine to create what authors Chris Ernst and Donna Chrobot-Mason call the Nexus Effect. The Nexus Effect allows groups to be more agile in response to changing markets; be more flexible in devising and deploying cross-functional learning and problem-solving capabilities; work with partners in deeper, more open relationships; empower virtual teams; and create a welcoming, diverse, and inclusive organization that brings out everybody’s best.” (From the Editorial Review in Amazon)
While the challenges described here will be familiar to those who follow leadership trends and practices, I believe the authors have developed and presented what many will find to be an original, useful and implementable approach to thinking about and managing them.
What boundary-spanning practices has YOUR organization used? Please let us know in the comment section below.
Many of AvoLead’s clients and professional associates are leaders in various nonprofit organizations (serving as consultants, officers, board members or evangelists). My own nonprofit passion is our area’s local community foundation, so I’m always interested in articles that teach ways to leverage the time and talent of hard-working volunteers or overworked staff.
One of the blogs for nonprofits that I follow is called the Wild Apricot Blog, “dedicated to small associations, member-based organizations and non-profits.” They have had several recent articles about ways that nonprofits can use LinkedIn effectively to increase their online visibility among an important demographic of professional LinkedIn members. In hopes of saving you some research time so you can quickly understand the pros and cons of using LinkedIn for your nonprofit, I’ve listed clickable links for these and some of other relevant articles below with a short summary of each:
“Is Your Organization LinkedIn Yet?” This article discusses using LinkedIn’s relatively new company profile function for nonprofits. Information can be found in LinkedIn’s Learning Centre. The article suggests that creating a LinkedIn organization profile and getting your staff and board members to include links to it on their own personal LinkedIn profiles, can increase Search Engine Optimization and enhance name recognition and credibility.
“How Can Nonprofits Use LinkedIn?” Podcast from The Chronicle of Philanthropy. This article explores the burgeoning use and benefit of LinkedIn for nonprofit organizations. It especially goes into the significant difference between nonprofit presence on LinkedIn compared to Facebook.
“Are Nonprofits Warming Up to LinkedIn?” by Joanne Fritz. This article discusses the important differences between LinkedIn and other common social media outlets (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) and shows that the use of various social media tools for nonprofits is an evolving picture.
Beth’s Blog by Beth Kanter – “How Networked Nonprofits Are Using Social Media to Power Change.” Beth Kanter is known for her sensible approach to using social media in the nonprofit world.
Bobby’s Blog by Bobby Thalhimer offers “Trends and Issues in Local Philanthropy.” Bobby is senior vice president of advancement for The Community Foundation in Richmond and has been a generous mentor to many young and growing charitable organizations.
Social Media for Nonprofits is a reputable LinkedIn Group where those interested in nonprofit management can learn and share.
Thought leader Guy Kawasaki has recently written an excellent review of Scott Eblin’s new book, The Next Level: What Insiders Know about Executive Successin his blog on OpenForum. He feels Eblin’s message is an important one: Executive leaders can’t just keep picking up new ideas, strategies, and action plans without letting go of those things that no longer work or are holding them back. Failing to let the right things go can lead to sluggishness or paralysis in action-taking or decision-making. Elbin maintains this is because jettisoning long-held assumptions usually involves throwing out pieces of our self-image too. These are not new concepts, certainly, but they get a fresh perspective from Eblin’s work with hundreds of executives.
Read the review yourself, but among the things that Eblin suggests we should let go are: Self-Doubt, Running Flat-Out, One Size Fits All Communication, Self Reliance, Micro Management, Sole Responsibility, and Myopia. Some of these will undoubtedly resonate with you or with some of your coaching clients.
