IV. THE ROLE OF THE INFLUENCE STYLE QUESTIONNAIRE IN TRAINING

The Influence Style Questionnaire (ISQ) has always been designed to support the
Positive Power and Influence Program as a training event. The following discussion
describes how the ISQ is positioned in the PPIP by program materials and by trainers.

Positive and Personal Influence.

Personal skill determines the quality of achievement and relationships. Sole reliance on
hierarchical positional power and authority is declining. Where hierarchy is still the
rule, it interferes with productivity and damages relationships. Success depends on the
ability to personally and positively influence others—to achieve one's personal
objectives while building, or at least maintaining, relationships with others.

How do we meet our objectives yet maintain positive working relationships? We can
accomplish both these goals by being flexible in how we influence others.

Flexibility is the key to positive influence—there is no one right way.

Different individuals represent different influence situations. This is also true for the
same individuals at different times. As we move from one work situation to another
our influence objectives change, and the way we influence to reach those objectives
changes as well. Influence is behavior—skills we employ at certain times in order to
change the way things are. These behavioral skills are within our control; we are
capable of making strategic decisions about how we wish to behave, and we are capable of altering our behavior through our own judgment, if we have adequate
alternatives—an influence "tool kit."

Sometimes our flexibility becomes blocked. We may not have acknowledged or learned
alternative styles of influencing. We are not as effective at using some styles as others.
Recognizing barriers to influence flexibility may lead us to seek training in influence
skills to ensure our productivity and effectiveness. The Positive Power and Influence
Program helps individuals explore a wider range of influence skills and learn how and
when to use them effectively.

How does the Program motivate participants to pursue this path? Participants
maximize their training through rigorous self-assessment.

Self-assessment requires honesty and objectivity.

The critical questions in skill development are: How do we currently behave as
influencers? Do others see us as we see ourselves, or do our intentions differ from our impact? Do different people see us acting differently (for example, do we act
differently with our supervisors than we do with our subordinates)? If so—how? Is
there anything we do too much or too little, that by changing would increase our effectiveness? Do we use the skills we have effectively?

Answering these questions is necessary to establish a baseline. We want to assess how
we influence particular people; we want to know whether we are effective when we act;
if we decide we are not being effective, we need to know what to change. We are likely
to miss opportunities during training (and at work, too) if we lack focus. And the
answers must be meaningful. This will require (1) honesty, candidness, and objectivity
from oneself and others, (2) a focus on frequency of behavior, not attitude or
personality, and (3) data attributable to specific people.

Objective self-assessment precedes self-development, and it must be self-assessment.
Personal ownership of baseline data is critical to decisions we make during training
about what to work on. Those decisions then motivate us to follow a long-term selfdevelopment plan after formal training has concluded.

How is long-term commitment initiated and maintained after the Program? This selfdevelopment process depends on the availability of person-specific feedback.

Person-specific behavioral feedback is essential.

The person best able to provide us with data about our effectiveness when we influence
is our influence target. The "Influence Style Questionnaire (ISQ)" provides this
information to each Program participant from specific work and other situations. The
ISQ helps bring people's "real life" into the learning laboratory. Once in the Program,
realistic exercises provide additional on-line data and help to fill in the blanks.

Completed as a Pre-Program Assignment by attendees and the associates they choose to help them, the ISQ asks:

• Participants to self-assess how they influence others in both (a) productive
  and (b) less than productive situations;
• Participants to enlist colleagues to complete a similar assessment for them
  —people who need to be influenced, who may be difficult yet necessary to
  influence, and who are likely to respond meaningfully;
• For frequency information only, not effectiveness judgments.
• Colleagues to respond openly and non-anonymously. No one else sees the
  information unless the participant chooses to share it—the participant is always in
  control.

The participant manages the interpretation of the ISQ data, since the participant is the only person who knows the situational context of each set of results: the nature of influence objectives, degree of past effectiveness, and the quality of the relationship, and the meaning of his or her own responses.

There is no right answer; each person's situation is unique. The ISQ provides a database for focusing on critical messages. It can then be used to help tailor the training Program to meet each person's individual skill-building needs. The Program instructor helps guide the interpretive process.

How do we maintain an objective and open perspective during self-assessment? We
begin by assuming that influence behaviors themselves are neutral. Then, messages we
receive from others tell us how we have chosen to use influence.

All items are neutral.

In the Program, participants are coached that the ISQ items are all neutral. The research that underlies the questionnaire design indicates that each and every behavior included in the survey can be—and has been—used in organizations in positive ways (that is, to achieve influence objectives while supporting relationships) and in negative ways (that is, to force objectives at the expense of working relationships, to disempower others, or to avoid objectives entirely). Some organizational cultures may not support seeing all influence behaviors neutrally. We ask participants to make their own decision, based on their understanding of their own environment.

The ISQ itself does not emphasize that the behaviors are theoretically neutral. This
point is reserved for discussion in the Program. This lack of emphasis in the
questionnaire poses a risk: some people (either participants or their colleagues) might
decide that some items are value-laden—especially negatively—and thus these people
might skew their scoring accordingly. Or (worse still), the participants' associates might
decide not to complete the questionnaire at all, out of fear of damaging the working
relationship.

When colleagues have skewed their responses or even not responded because of value
conflicts, participants are often able to recognize and interpret such behavior as
messages. They can then make informed decisions about how to modify their influence
behavior with these colleagues.

Occasionally, some participants or their colleagues misinterpret the frequency task of
the ISQ for an evaluation task. The Program handles this risk. Participants learn that
the ISQ is simply data. If participants read their colleagues' messages as biased, that
may be an important additional message about the nature of the working relationship,
the organization, and/or the culture. When instructors encounter this problem, they
help clarify it as either true bias or as the participant's attempt to avoid accurate
interpretation of the message being sent.

How can the organization help to overcome or minimize these risks in using the ISQ?
Organizational support for the training process is the key.

Organizational support for using the ISQ contributes to overcoming risk.

Some organizational cultures work against giving and getting the personal, unbiased,
fearless, and objective feedback necessary for effective skill-based training. In such
organizations, the ISQ can succeed as a relevant training data-base if the the human resource and training functions know the Positive Power and Influence Program, how the ISQ is used in the Program, and support the participants' preparation for both the ISQ and the Program.

Often a memo to attendees from an internal person close to the Program will handle
any misgivings. At other times, more active managerial intervention is required. In
organizations undergoing stressful transitions, that rely heavily on positional hierarchy,
or where people distrust feedback, support by the attendee's manager may be essential. SMS' "Management Briefing Package" is designed to facilitate this type of intervention.

The Positive Power and Influence Program is designed so that the participant's work in the Program, with the assistance of a highly skilled instructor, will clear up concerns and
misunderstandings. Instructor and participants together build a road for interpreting
any biased messages.

Use of the ISQ supports the core values of confidentiality, respect for the individual, and personal empowerment. Participants empower themselves by their willingness to test their behavioral intention against the actual impact on others. They build on their strengths by setting their own personal learning goals based on this data. They review these goals frequently and make any midcourse corrections they feel they need. Participants empower their colleagues by giving them an opportunity to provide nonevaluative feedback on critical skills used daily to make a difference in performance.

Mutual empowerment is the essence of the Positive Power and Influence Program.
Administration of the ISQ begins this process effectively, immediately, and strongly.
The ISQ sets the stage for successfully achieving learning objectives, goals that
participants are motivated to apply back in the workplace.

Summary

• Personal influence skills, used positively, achieve personal objectives while
supporting working relationships.
• Skill flexibility increases personal effectiveness—there is no one "right way" to
influence another individual.
• Self-assessment requires honesty and objectivity.
• Behavioral feedback attributable to specific colleagues from is critical for successful
behavior change.
• Influence behaviors are neutral as such; their positive or negative use in influence
situations is a matter of choice.
• Organizational support guarantees the instrument's effectiveness.