Are You Leveraging Ethical Lobbying at Work to Better Sell Ideas to Key Stakeholders?
When done ethically, lobbying key stakeholders at work raises the odds that your ideas will receive optimal consideration, especially at group decision making meetings. Ethical lobbying at work helps individuals, teams, and organizations to better sell recommendations, proposals, and initiatives to stakeholders who have influence or power over your work or at least a vested interest in the successful or unsuccessful conclusion of your work.
Political Savvy Workshop Enables Influence
Political Savvy positions politics as a necessary part of corporate influence, and invites you to view building a high-integrity power base as an important vehicle for personal and organizational impact. Entering the political arena is the price you pay for selling your ideas, getting the credit you deserve, and receiving optimal consideration for career advancement.
You will learn through the Political Styles Model that left- side Power of Ideas people need to remember that ideas themselves may not be compelling enough on their own to be implemented. They may need to be positioned with powerful people. To ignore this need leaves you with a political blind spot, vulnerable to others who may be more expert at exercising power dynamics within your company.
Any definition of politics must include using both formal and informal avenues for getting things done in organizations, sometimes going around recognized channels to influence key stakeholders and powerful individuals. This does not mean you will become manipulative or unethical, because it’s not necessary to hide the fact that you want to gain approval or support for yourself and your ideas. You can play above board and maintain your integrity by choosing causes that are good for the organization’s interests, not just your own.
Since politically naïve people don’t realize that decisions are often made before the official decision-making meeting is conducted, you will be at a disadvantage unless you embrace the practice of Ethical Lobbying. This fair, common, and effective Political Savvy strategy means not waiting for a group setting to gather support for your ideas and proposals, but instead doing what government lobbyists do: build relationships, use various channels of influence, and exercise proactive organizational savvy. What are the ingredients of Ethical Lobbying?
Manage Your Political Bank Account
Stephen Covey, in his classic book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, describes the importance of being aware of your Emotional Bank Account with everyone you know. Joel DeLuca, in Political Savvy, echoes this idea with the notion of the informal chit system that exists in all work relationships. We commonly hear people say, “I had to cash in a lot of favors on that one.” The obvious conclusion is that we operate in a system of gaining and lending support for one another, partially based upon our history of trust and mutual benefit. A piece of this reality is the Political Bank Account.
Still, we want to be realists by remembering there are side benefits to sharing and exchanging favors. The age-old “Scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” maxim doesn’t have to be done in a smoke-filled backroom, for unethical reasons. Organizational influence does involve collaboration and alliances. The act of giving is always appreciated and raises the odds that a powerful colleague or leader might become an ally. That’s just human nature! In order to reap the most benefits and return on your investment in the Political Bank Account, consider the following common sense suggestions.
Naturally, be careful about whom you support and whom you cross when lending favors or supporting an ally’s ideas. Organizational savvy involves awareness of the impact of all you do. Don’t blindly grant favors without thinking about who you may be alienating. While you may be building a surplus of favors in one person’s Political Bank Account, the same actions may create a deficit in another key power-holder’s account.
Ethical Lobbying means you will think ahead and develop political allies to support your ideas and projects. Political Savvy requires proactive planning, plotting the political scene, and mapping out the influence relationships that will raise the odds for a decision to go in your favor.
OR
B. Under-Political
More exclusively focused upon substance and ideas, to the point of under-estimating the need to influence within the organization; focuses in a myopic or unrealistic way on the right data, results, values, or analysis; may refuse to network, promote a worthy idea, or gain adequate visibility for ideas.
OR
C. Balanced
Blends Organizational Influence with Substance. Avoids the extremes of Over- Political and Under-Political, blending the best of both world views; willingly jumps into the political arena to make organizational impact and create power networks to do so, but does so for company good versus solely for one’s own end gain; practices “ethical politics,” truly balancing producing results with promoting oneself and one’s ideas and functional area.
NOTE: A balanced, savvy person can be slightly more political or less political without being Under-Political or Over- Political.
People do things for their reasons, not yours. The word “benefit” means “good fit,” so you want to package your ideas in a way that fits well with stakeholders’ business needs and appeals to their values, strategies, and objectives. For instance, a Quality Training director in a major corporation repackaged major components of his/her quality training curriculum under the umbrella of “business effectiveness” when he/she determined that the quality program and people associated with this organizational change initiative had fallen out of favor within the enterprise.
That showed organizational savvy and the willingness to reframe his/her agenda to blend better with the agenda of the new leadership.
The comedian George Carlin highlighted the importance of using the right words, and of framing events and situations in new ways. He once quipped, “The environmentalists finally got it right. They figured out that no one wanted to give any money to swamps and jungles… So now they call it ‘wetlands’ and ‘rain forests,’ and the money comes rolling in!”
This “loose cannon” is reminiscent of youthful, immature exuberance. Organizational change takes time. Influencing others to adopt your ideas is less like a speed boat cutting a sharp turn, and more like a cruise ship whose turn is a wider arc. Remember the Serenity Prayer: “ Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
This sage advice also applies to practicing organizational savvy when proposing company changes and selling ideas and recommendations. Politically adept leaders practice flexibility and do not paint themselves into a corner with nonnegotiable, rigid stances. If you’re astute, you’ll recognize the difference between your true underlying needs and any initial win-lose position you might unwisely push. Just because you adapt and give a little in order to gain a lot doesn’t mean you’re selling out. Sometimes you have to give a really big fish plenty of line in order to reel it in.
A Disclaimer
Remember that Ethical Lobbying doesn’t mean crossing the integrity line or saying things you don’t believe, in order to get things done. The principles taught in this course are simply tools. Like a carpenter, you will take responsibility, deciding when and how to use the tools.
To learn more about ethical lobbying at work, download Organizational Savvy – How to Understand Workplace Politics Strategies to Influence Others
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