Chris revisits the key points made by Amanda Russell, adds his own insights and gives listeners some suggestions for practical actions they can take immediately to help them get where they want to go.
Welcome to every one of our Perspectives from the Top community of listeners around the world to “Reflections on the Top”. And through your support and sharing with friends it is around the world as Perspectives from the Top now has listeners in 46 countries. “Reflections” is to help you get the best from the series by me reviewing the key insights from our latest guest.
Amanda Russell, whose career started in sport as a runner where she achieved olympic level performance, developing her own brand then working to found one of the first global digital fitness subscription channels, subsequently helping other businesses build their brands via a digital production company. The expertise she developed doing that and becoming an expert in “influence” as well as having been an “influencer” enabled her to help others seeking insight into this critical area. She is now Professor of Marketing at both Northwestern and Texas, a Harvard Case Study author, on Advisory board of Lamborghini, a women's leadership activist, and author of the best selling book “The Influencer Code".
The really interesting thing about Amanda's interview is that she comes with such broad insight and experience, as an athlete, an entrepreneur, an advisor corporates and as an academic leader in her field. But despite all of that there is a common thread that runs through which relates to influence, influence that you have on yourself and influence that you have with others.
Early experiences of the hard work that it takes to achieve sporting excellence provided a foundation for her success over the rest of her career. Just the simple principle that you need to have a clear goal, you need to have what it takes in terms of capability or the ability to develop the capability, and the determination to make it happen. And within the tough world of competitive athletics that determination has to take the form of total focus which sets aside almost everything else. For example, as Amanda said, effectively having little or no social life compared to her friends who were out enjoying themselves.
But interestingly Amanda also said that whilst this can help you successfully achieve your goal there is a price and the total focus required does have potentially a negative impact on other things, including the effect that you are demanding anybody you interact with also signs up to your goal to some degree.
This high level of athletic achievement then proved to be a money maker when Amanda was studying her MBA. She set up tough fitness classes for people in Central Park in New York which, because of their focused nature, attracted a loyal following. Then as a marketing MBA a chance meeting with a friend who introduced her to YouTube, at that time very new, she realised there was an opportunity to create something that would add value via creating a YouTube fitness channel, one of the very first. The channel built its own momentum, adding lifestyle as well as fitness elements. Amanda had become an influencer but for her this wasn’t about influence about providing social media content. The influence is not a job it's an action to deliver an outcome.
Amanda success then led onto a partnership with a media company which became one of the top suppliers for creating fitness content for major platforms during the growth of fitness as key part of their offering for readers or viewers. The success of this presented Amanda with the same fundamental question which she had at critical points in her athletic career which was - you need to make a decision whether you are going to go all in on this or not, and if you are going to go all in you need to realise the downsides as well as the upsides. Amanda took the decision that what interested her and where she was happy was not in front of the camera but in developing her understanding and impact in relation to influence, which then became her focus moving into academia and becoming a professor of marketing.
But this is a decision that all of us regularly make, when we are considering a course of action, be that within the work environment or more broadly in our personal lives or a combination of the two where, for example, we are undergoing something at work that will have significant impact on our personal lives, and therefore those around us. It goes back to the earlier point of what we are seeking to achieve, what is the level of focus that is required to be successful, what that level requires from us and how does that impact on others around us. This aligns exactly with what Marshall Goldsmith said when we talked about leaders getting lost in ambition. So for you listeners it's really understanding that the assumption that ambition is great and that it gets you to where you want to be isn’t the end of the story, in the real world that’s a simplification of the work involved in getting there, the potential ripple effects on being totally focused on your goal, and also the two little questions about when you get there will you be happy and what next?
So Amanda's passion became understanding how influence works and how to be good at it, in that all her previous experience came together to ask the fundamental question - how do you get people on board to help you to achieve your next step. The simple recognition that you cannot do everything yourself, you don't know everything so it's essential that once you have identified your goal you also need to identify the people you need to help you get there.
But that's only the first step getting to the second step is answering the simple question why should they help you? Now this isn't just a question about careers, goals, creating strategic business ventures, it underpins what's happening with everyone of you out there as a leader, the question why should your people do what you want and give their best, what's in it for them? Equally everybody listening should think about this in relation to everything you do where you potentially need another person to do something for you. I am reminded even about a recent conversation with a friend about how they could get their young children to behave well. And their comment was that even at such a young age their children asked the what's in it for me question!
This leads into Amanda's underpinning principle around influence that it's about partnership, it's about both parties achieving their purpose together, you get to where you want to be, they get to where they want to be. So the influence you utilise is the action to create this relationship given who you are trying to influence. This could be any channel from an article to a video, tweet, a conversation or anything else that connects you with the other person or organisation.
But before you do the influencing you need to identify who you need to help you achieve your goal. You need to observe them so that you can understand in depth what they would want by working in partnership with you. Once you are clear on that to influence in a way that resonates with them so that they connect positively to build your partnership.
Maybe it's just the simple steps of what's your goal, who can help you get there, observe them to discover how you can help them to achieve what they want to achieve, create your optimum channel to influence and then do so in a way that resonates with them to get the positive response that you want.
Organisations, leaders, all of us, would have easier lives if we were more effective at influencing, hence the value of what Amanda is saying.
One point Amanda made that was really interesting who is the comment that good brands and good leaders make people feel good, but great brands and leaders make people feel good about themselves. Now that is an interesting difference and if I reflect on when I ask leaders about what the best boss they have ever had in their career and what made them so special it's interesting that the replies always seem to focus in on actions which made the individual feel good about themselves. That the investment that they have put into doing what you have asked them to do has been reciprocated by your positive influence on them.
So it's really about thinking more carefully about what your goals are as a leader or as an organisation, what is this going to take to achieve them and who you need to help you get there. As an organisation it's your key stakeholders; your employees, your investors, your suppliers, your customers and how can you influence them to join you in that common purpose where both of you benefit. To be successful in that its changing how you think and communicate with others: Amandas simple point about the importance of asking quality questions of your audience, whoever it is you are seeking to influence to understand them better, in so doing you show that you are genuinely interested in them. It's about consistent engagement and constant dialogue, but not just at a surface level, it's seeking to build genuine understanding, ensuring a constant intersection between what you want to do and what they want to do.
Amanda's point was very interesting that to be truly successful brands don't need us to buy from them they need us to buy into them. Now that's just as much an emotional as a rational action, perhaps more emotional than rational. And Amanda and I agree that a good proportion of what we do is done for emotional reasons perhaps more than rational ones. We sya its rational but we are very good as human beings at rationalising what we did post and emotionally driven event to justify it. That interestingly is exactly the argument that Marshall made about why even chief executives do stupid things but then are able to rationalise them. Also the point that I've mentioned before that emotional responses are not unpredictable and inconsistent, neuroscience allows us to understand that given a set of actions by somebody else either positive or negative we can predict what are responses are likely to be, even though they are defined as emotional.
We also discussed the interesting debate that many listeners will know that we often have with guests which is this is there a difference between the entrepreneur and the corporate leader. Can entrepreneurs become good leaders ? On this my view and Amanda's concur with many other guests who had either been entrepreneurs or people who invested in entrepreneurs or both. Going back to Amanda's athletics mindset that entrepreneurs have a singular goal, a drive to succeed, and determination to do so often irrespective what other people say. Now at start up those are the qualities which will get things moving, but as the organisation starts to grow the entrepreneur has to start to change into being a leader because in that new environment determination only to do things your way because you know best can become a risk to the organisations ability to scale. As Amanda said the fundamental question is are you aware you need to change.
To be honest that is the fundamental question from my perspective not just for entrepreneurs but for leaders in any dynamic environment. Things are constantly changing around you and whilst what you may have been doing in the past might have been perfect for that environment is it right for the current environment? If I was to be asked what is one of the critical elements that I think makes a difference between people who are successful and those who aren't it is quite simply being self aware so that you can pick up when you to change.
In terms of moving from entrepreneur to leader Amanda made the comment that leadership can be learned, that's my view as well, it's supported by the evidence, and if it wasn't true why do people get better when they attend leadership development programmes? Just in case some of you out there might still be hearing the idea that leaders are born and not made it's not true. In fact one of the first people to say that leaders could be developed was way back in 1948, General Montgomery, one of the top British generals of World War Two. So quite why we still have people talking of born leaders at the exclusion of developed leaders escapes me.
Amanda's insights based on her career are really interesting, to be successful leaders need the athletes mindset of a clear goal, and the determination to succeed come what may, but the reality is that to achieve the goal we need to work in partnership using influence to help others help us. Now that's an interesting balancing act from my perspective because the more you focus on achieving the goal and ignore other people then you're not going to have the support you need, but equally if you're always listening to what other people are telling you then you can get distracted from your goal. Where I've seen people being most successful is to be determined to achieve your goal but to do so in a way that allows you to positively influence the critical people you need to help you get there. For those of you who are regular listeners you will identify straight away that we are back to my “we not me” culture and why that works almost everywhere.
Now Amanda has pulled all of this together in her book the “Influencer Code” which I think that most people will assume is perhaps only for marketing people, but I think it has relevance for anybody to understand better how they can be successful through influence in partnership with others.
So what are the key points from what Amanda said ? First - knowing your weaknesses and identifying where you need help. Second - as a leader you need to give others the freedom to do what they do well, Third - above all understand your people, ask questions to help you understand how you can help them be better. Build that positive working relationship and, as Amanda said, the idea of compliment when due, console when support is needed, and congratulate on success.
And I would add perhaps a final one linked to what Amanda said – build self awareness. But remembering to do so you need input from others, it's not just about your view of yourself, back to Amanda's idea of building resonance with other people. So just think about asking those simple questions about - how am I doing ? how could I be better ? how could I help you be better ? what should I be doing more of ? what should I be doing less of ? Just simple questions that give you the opportunity to be better whether you're a first line manager, a team member or someone in the C suite.
As with the previous guests and now Amanda hopefully you are seeing a pattern of simple actions you can take to be more successful. Share these interviews colleagues who would benefit so they can grow and develop with you. Certainly I will be using these powerful points in my speaking and Masterclasses in the future.
If you have any thoughts or questions contact me on LinkedIn or via email as detailed on the Perspectives website. don't forget to sign up to Perspectives from the Top. It's free, so you don't miss any of the more than 25 great episodes in the future.
That’s it for now, so from me its onwards and upwards until our next episode.