The Critical Skill of Influencing

The Critical Skill of Influencing - Why Is It Important?

As an HR professional, a People leader, or an aspiring c-level HR officer, one of the most important skills you can cultivate is influence.  To understand why, I’m going to ask you to put your CEO hat on for a moment. 

The first goal of any business is to generate revenue, i.e. make money.  An organization may have many other stated goals, but survival and therefore revenue, is the first.  Even if this is unstated, all of the other explicit goals stand in support of making money.  Whatever admirable intentions the CEO and Leadership state about building an incredible culture, investing in employees, changing an industry, and giving back to their community, they will prioritize activities that contribute revenue. 

This means that the Marketing team, the Sales team, the Operations team, the Technology team, the Customer Success team, and the Finance team will likely all be prioritized over the HR team.  And, this is completely rational, since the first goal of a company is survival, and HR is typically viewed as a cost center.  HR is responsible for determining salaries, managing benefits, creating engagement programs, and providing other resources to employees, all of which cost the organization money. However, when a CEO or other leader shoulders HR responsibilities alone, they are not properly tended to, and the People strategy suffers greatly, ultimately putting the business at risk.  Anyone who’s been in an organization without proper HR knows that to be true.  You and I both know that HR supports the people that make all the other functions run smoothly.  Without HR to drive the human capital strategy and support the people of an organization, it would be very ineffective.

All this is to say, HR typically falls low on the corporate priority list, but advocating for your own resources is far from the only time you will need to influence those around you. You as the People Leader have the duty and responsibility to surface the importance of investment in the people of the entire organization.  You will sometimes be fighting an uphill battle.  Maybe not right away, and maybe not always, but there will be times when your Leadership is not willing to invest resources, be it time, money, or headcount, in the way you know is right.  Your job is to advocate for the people in the business decision.  Whether it is in the form of shaping a difficult message, advocating for a particular program, or promoting collaboration where there is discord, throughout your HR career, you will notice that your objectives do not always exactly align with those of others in the organization.

So then, how do you get your voice heard when there are so many competing priorities?  How do you convince your teammates to allocate resources? How do you earn the trust of the CEO, so they will turn to you when they have a tough call to make?  In order to get started, there is a set of critical and related skills you need to master: influence, persuasion, and up-management.  And if you’re not sitting in the c-suite, now is the perfect time to hone these skills, as they will serve you throughout your career.  Come back for our next article on practical strategies to develop your ability to influence.