How to Measure Your Influence
How much influence do you really have? Have you ever tried to calculate it?
Writing for Harvard Business Review, Maxim Sytch created an assessment called The Power Audit, which you can use to assess the depth and breadth of your influence as well as identifying potential risks.
There are three stages to doing your ‘Power Audit’:
List your top 10 contacts that enable you to get things done.
For each contact, assign a score of 1-10 indicating how much you depend on them.
Do the same in reverse. Assign a score to yourself from others’ perspectives based on how much value you offer them. Be honest.
The next step is to look through the list for any potential red flags. What do you notice about the list? What risks and opportunities can you identify? Things to consider might be:
Do you rely too much on some contacts? Do any of your contacts rely too much on you?
Are all of your contacts located in one place, one company, one industry?
Are your scores low throughout? This could mean that your relationships are transactional, rather than meaningful.
Having assessed your influence and taken time to identify potential risks in your network, now is the time to begin expanding your network.
When it comes to expanding your network and increasing your impact, the best place to start is with yourself: how do you come across in meetings, interviews or presentations?
In our next free webinar, Impact: Making it Personal, we’ll cover some of the common obstacles to having an impact and introduce some simple solutions that you can begin implementing straight away.
Sign up here to join us on Wednesday 20th July at 10:00 to find out how you can have a positive impact.
If you want to learn even more about how to motivate your employees, resolve conflict and improve productivity, you might be interested in finding out more about our Influencing Skills Training.