With the workplace changing due to unforeseen circumstances over the past few years, it is even harder to build influence when employees are not face to face as often due to remotely working.  Therefore, it is more of a challenge to build rapport and trust with work colleagues. Conversations happen in the digital platforms or email, reducing the impact and emotional connection and even more harming creating potentially misunderstandings.  The result is your personality becomes masked.

So, here are 5 areas how you can influence others during this new world scenario:

1. Listen first. Listen to understand rather than listen to respond.  This is a great concept and a big part of communication.  I also love this quote by G.Tillett and B.French: “Effective communication means that what is said is meant and what is meant is said. It also means what is said is what is heard and what is heard is understood.”
2. Be consistent and be assertive.  Reliability is key to your brand and consistency is a big part of this.  When you are assertive and have opinions make sure they are heard and communicated and always be open to others perspectives.
3. Be yourself and make sure that is authentic with a healthy dose of vulnerability. This can build connection with you co-workers and helps creates bonds in the workplace with meaningful relationships.
4. Be of service to others, not just yourself. Go out of your way to help others, give your honest perspective, and encourage.  Find ways to connect others to support, resources and even become a mentor if you are not already. Recognise that these acts of serving others won’t be forgotten and builds a trust bank quickly in the workplace.  
5. Finally, and my favourite, find and act on those aggregates of marginal gains. When we start to notice these small nudge areas (positive reinforcement and indirect suggestions), we can begin to make subtle changes to influence the choices marginally in our favour. Marginal gains are a collection of small differences that when aggregated together, have a significant cumulative impact.  By making a whole series of nudge changes, we increase the impact that it is likely to have.

Dreams you can’t control, but targets you can, so work on the things that you can control and don’t sweat the rest.

For more information and an opportunity to explore your influencing skills and mapping these out, message me at James@yellowboxcareers.com.au