Hannah Busing via Unsplash

In this post we are going to finish the discussion about how to build influence in a work setting by unpacking the last of three tactics. To get caught up on our discussion thus far, please see the previous posts: Building Influence Part 1, Building Influence Part 2, and Building Influence Part 3.

Tactic #3 – How We Resolve Differences

Disagreements are inevitable and when they show up, we can lean on the relational foundation laid in the first two principles to work through them:

• developing and maintaining relationships through humanizing our co-workers and getting to know them (see Building Influence - Part 2)
• earning respect of others through knowledge and preparation (see Building Influence - Part 3)

We can also continue to build our influence in how we choose to resolve disagreements.

As a backdrop, we know as a team lead, we need to have a sense of where our team needs to head, the values we should embody and the constraints surrounding us (time/people/workload/lack of expertise). So how should we resolve disagreements when they come along?

Let’s walk through a work-life example to help illustrate how to work through disagreements in a way that allows us to continue to build our influence with those around us. I’m aware that the company is prioritizing dramatic reduction in hardware bugs and I happen to own a historically high-bug count area of the design, so I’d like my team to spend time on quality improvement efforts (e.g. reviews, increase in validation tasks). Along comes a leader, who is senior to me, who actually wants my team to redo part of our design because it isn’t using the hardware resources efficiently. There could be some merit here, but my initial reaction was that I’d rather my team focus on reducing bugs. So we have a misalignment in opinion on what my team should work on.

• I first want to seek to understand the opposing viewpoint and actively listen when I engage. Some tips on active listening would be to parrot what you think you heard, make eye contact (use video if you can), and nod your head.
  • In our example, I would say something along the lines of: “What are your concerns exactly?” and after I hear the response, I might parrot what I thought I heard: “Ok, you’re concerned about timing, too much hardware being used, and more efficient use of the hardware.”
• Then I want to ask questions to gain a deeper understanding.
  • In our example, I would say something along the lines of : “Do we have meaningful feedback from our hardware team? Do we know if we’re actually broken with timing?” and after I hear the response, I might parrot what I thought I heard: “It sounds like our timing is fine, but you’re actually concerned about the risk that timing paths could show up in the future. It also sounds like we don’t have accurate information yet from our hardware team yet to make a call using just that reason.”
• I also want to be open to their viewpoint and affirm common ground.
• Spend time wrapping my head around their proposal. They could be right or you could learn something new. In my example, we could do a more hardware efficient design and maybe we can do it without sacrificing the quality improvement efforts that I’d like us to work on.
• Ultimately, as the team lead, I need to present my findings (e.g. with a high-level picture of their proposal or part of it merged with your own), including concerns that came up in my analysis and a summary of the direction I’ve decided to take the team. In this example, while I agreed with the overall vision of a hardware-efficient design the amount of work to get there wasn’t worth the time taken away from our quality tasks.

By the end of working through the disagreement in this way, we’ve stayed open to hearing and understanding the opposing viewpoint, asked questions to deepen that understanding and ultimately we thoughtfully summarized where we will lead the team, while making the other person feel heard and valued. Working through disagreements in this manner will help build and maintain your influence as a team lead.

So we talked about three ways to build our influence as a team lead:

• Building our influence through developing and maintaining relationships by humanizing our coworkers and getting to know them.
• Building our influence through knowledge and preparation as a way to earn respect from others.
• Leveraging those to help resolve disagreements and also continue to build our influence through how we choose to resolve those disagreements.

I hope you’ve been able to add several practical skills to your toolbox and that this has helped you become an even better coworker and leader.