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Gain insights on how you can become more influential in 9 different ways as revealed by the second issue of Point Magazine. In this cover story, we reveal 9 women leaders in Asia who embody 9 influencing styles that are changing the face of leadership today.

 

Among these enlightening women are:

• - Tan Lee Chew (Vice President of Hewlett Packard),
• - Dr Jannie Chan Siew Lee (Executive Director of The Hour Glass Limited),

• - Randy Lai (Managing Director of Mcdonald's Singapore),
• - Ang Fung Fung (Partner at KPMG) and
• - Aliza Knox (Managing Director of Online Sales, Google Asia).

 

Click on the magazine cover on the left to read online or download the full article in PDF format below.

 

Article-Women of Influence-Point Magazine

As published in The Straits Times, Singapore

In today’s competitive corporate environment, you need to take your career in your own hands if you want to fast-track your career to the peak of success. It is a myth that you can delegate the responsibility of planning your career to the HR department. Here are 7 strategies to help you connect powerfully and build a successful career in your company.

1. Schedule lunch

Make it a point to schedule lunch at least once a week with people who can help you in your company. These will consist of potential mentors and people from other departments. Build an ally within the company each month. Diversify your network. This allows you to tap into opportunities available within the company, and build up resources to get things done more effectively.

 

I placed lunch on the top of the list, because it is one of the most valuable ways to build relationships in the company. Everyone needs to have lunch, and most people (including senior executives) are grateful for lunch companions, and will usually accept your invitation.

 

2. Take the initiative

 

Volunteer in committees and projects which allow you to showcase your skills and interest. Most companies have recreational clubs, charity and other project committees which are a great platform for you to connect with colleagues from various departments. Performing in your company’s jam band, being the master of ceremony at functions, or being a champion of the corporate social responsibility project boosts your visibility in the company and strengthens your personal brand as a person with initiative.

Take one step further and organize “meet the people” session with the highest ranking person you can get to tour your department. In the background, support the top guy by furnishing him with some personal achievement or contribution each person in your team has made, so that he can specifically thank them. This helps him to connect with each person positively and powerfully, and builds the momentum for natural feedback from the ground to flow to him. Your level of influence in the company is proportional to the number of connections, and hence goodwill you help create.

 

3. Know your boss and his boss well

Learn about your boss’s priorities, strengths, weaknesses and idiosyncrasies. In this way, you can be an effective ally to him in helping him look good and achieving results. Don’t stop there. Take the effort to know your boss’s boss as well. This helps you to best position yourself, and is the key to your promotability.

 

4. Align yourself with the “inner circle”

 

Understand the dynamics of your company’s “inner circle”, made up of people who hold the reigns of true power in the company. Some call it the “boy’s club”, and membership is by invitation only. Typically, this is built up around the CEO and his key executives. What are typical profiles of the members of the “inner circle”? You can reference the career paths of individuals who make it into the “inner circle”. For example, in some companies, the CEO traditionally has a finance or engineering background, whereas in other companies, it’s the people in sales and marketing who call the shots. This will give you an idea of the various corporate roles best for you to take on to ascend to the reigns of power in your company.

 

 

We are not asking you to be a schmoozer, whereby your priority is on being “seen” with people of power. Focus on building real connections. Identify a key member of the “inner circle” which you have most access to, or whom you best want to model your career after. Schedule lunch. A simple way to connect is by expressing interest in what they do.

 

5. Seek positions in profit centres

To ascend the corporate ladder, you should be working in a profit-centre, as opposed to a cost-centre. Profit-centres bring in the money or have direct relationship with profit and loss of your company. These positions include the sales person, the marketing director, the general manager, the product manager. Cost-centres are support departments which keep the operations of the company going. Typical cost centre departments are administration, human resources, marketing communications and finance.

 

If you are currently in a cost-centre, seek out opportunities to move to a profit-centre. Your experience as a financial analyst can lend a valuable perspective to a product manager position. Engineer your move for a transfer by building relationships with key people in profit-centres.

 

6. Attract a mentor

 

Is there someone in the organization you respect and look up to? Successful mentoring relationships are 2-way relationships whereby both mentor and mentee gain value and satisfaction. Understand that mentors gain satisfaction from the appreciation and acknowledgement from a motivated mentee. They can also benefit from an exchange of ideas and intellectual stimulation you provide from your perspective. For example, many Generation Y’s have greater expertise than their more experienced colleagues in the areas of the internet and social media applications. As a mentee, you can get valuable career guidance and coaching.

 

Don’t ask someone to be your mentor from get-go. Develop some personal chemistry with him first. Invite your mentor-to-be for lunch, or approach him for a chat at a company function, or volunteer to work on one of his company-wide projects.

 

7. Share your expertise

 

If there is an opportunity to share your expertise, make full use of it. There are many conferences which offer great platforms for you to represent your company as a speaker. Internally, you can also conduct in-company training, or contribute to management conferences or even orientation training programs. When you speak, train or present well, you are establishing your reputation as a company-wide expert for your job function.

 

You will be seen as playing an integral role in your company, not only by your colleagues but also others in your industry.

 

Start by putting any one of the 7 winning strategies in motion today. You will be on your way to fast-tracking your career. See you at the top.

As published in The Straits Times, Singapore

SUCCESSFUL individuals are masters of influence, and they achieve success through people and with people.

 

Influential connecting is about being able to establish a real connection with people where a win-win trusting relationship can be built to achieve mutual goals.

Society has become more sophisticated, and people are now more sensitive to subtle nuances in verbal and non-verbal communication. If you appear self-serving in the way you connect with people, they will attempt to resist in direct or overt ways.

 

In a study of Emphatic Accuracy, researchers Mark Davis and Linda Kraus discovered that people who are manipulative and self-serving are the poorest at empathy and least highly attuned to the feelings of others. They will not be able to sustain a real trusting connection and will eventually be discovered.

Here are three elements of influential connecting that will expand your influence and help open doors for your career:

 

1. Put people first — discover their inner motivations

 

Many people segregate work relationships from family or social relationships. As a result, they interact with their colleagues, superiors and clients within formal roles, and they lose the opportunity to discover personal priorities, motivations and challenges.

 

Deals are more often struck on the golf course than in the office, or over a meal or a drink, where people  are less inhibited.

 

The two most important questions to ask when building influential connections are:

• - What motivates this person? When you help him articulate his inspirations, you get clued in to what’s most important to him.
• - What obstacles does he face in achieving what he wants? When you discover his fears or obstacles, you add value to the relationship by helping him to find solutions. This can be in the form of giving advice, sharing resources or connecting the person with others who can help him.

If you can uncover what keeps your boss awake at night, you will discover how to be his greatest ally in solving that problem, and in turn, he will be yours in your career progression.

 

2. Have a host mentality, not a guest mentality

 

Influential connectors are adept at networking at business functions, conferences and client events. When you enter a room full of strangers, do you put on a host or a guest mentality? 

 

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Upon arriving, some guests immediately look for the host and rely on him to help make them comfortable. If there is no such host, the guests then focus on not looking as lonely and lost as they really feel. A guest mentality is limiting and reactive

 

Influential connectors have a host mentality, even if it’s not their event. They focus on helping other guests around them feel comfortable, such as striking up a conversation with a person who is standing by himself, and introducing new friends to other guests. When you shift the focus away from your insecurities to helping other people, you become naturally more influential and confident.

As a host, you will be more memorable and appreciated. Your attitude will open doors for greater opportunities and collaboration.

 

3. Connect with the top

 

Author Keith Ferazzi, who wrote Never Eat Alone, talks about “aspirational contacts”. These are people whom you are inspired by and would like to get to know, or whom you have met briefly and would like to establish a better relationship with. If you want to get to the top fast, one of your aspirational contacts may be your company chief executive officer.

 

One CEO shared with me how impressed he was with a young woman who took the initiative to introduce herself at a corporate event. He hired her soon after. Take the initiative to reach out to your aspirational contact. Scheduling a coffee or lunch to learn more about the organisation and how you can contribute shows leadership qualities that CEOs value.

 

Furthermore, the exchange of information and insights goes both ways. Senior executives are eager to get feedback from the ground and can learn from the younger generation in the areas of new technology and social media. 

Connecting with the top makes you visible to the leadership level of your organisation, helping you attract career development opportunities.

 

Being an influential connector is about being proactive and reaching out to people first. If you focus on helping people to achieve their goals, they will help you achieve yours. Your sphere of influence will expand naturally and powerfully.

As published in The Straits Times, Singapore
Networking is now acknowledged as a powerful way of opening doors to business and job opportunities.

How do you nurture a quality network? Keeping in touch is the key to cultivating real relationships instead of superficial ones.

How many of you have attended networking events where you collect hundreds of name cards butend up not keeping in contact with any of them? Networking is not just aboutexchanging business cards, but about keeping in touch and building long-term relationships.

In today's competitive environment, we are constantly being sold to, prospected,and marketed to. If your keeping in touch process is uninspired and self-serving, you will be relegated to the level of spam. One way to be truly memorable is to focus on embedding value in your keeping in touch process. It shows that you have taken the time to understand the other person's needs and interests, and will motivate him to reciprocate in the relationship. 

Here are 7 ways to keep in touch by providing value:

1. Remember Birthdays

Everyone values their birthday, and will remember the people who send them birthday wishes (and often those who forgot). Birthday wishes are the poorer cousin of Christmas and New Year Greetings because many people focus on keeping in touch with their entire network with mass greetings on 2 days of the year. Keeping in touch is about being personal, not efficient. There is now no reason to forget someone's birthday with the availability of social networking tools such as FaceBook or websites such as birthdayalarm.com.

2. Celebrate Special Achievements

A businessman contact of yours may have been awarded the Entrepreneur of the Year Award. Don't forget to send him a congratulatory note! People are proud of their special achievements as this represents recognition of the results of their passion and dedication. You can keep abreast of special achievements of your contacts in the media, especially trade or club magazines. A hole-in-one, a promotion, a special appointment to a board of committee, even marriage is a special achievement. Acknowledging these achievements shows that you care about what matters most to them. Celebrating the anniversary of these special achievements, allows you to keep in touch in a special way every year.

 

3. Be a Connector

People are continually looking for contacts to help them in their job search, secure financing for their business, engage a quality accountant, lawyer, find the best specialist for their ailments or even a potential mate! A powerful way to build up your quality network is to be a connector. If you come across contacts that will be useful to your network, offer to link them up. However it is important that you treat your current network with respect and only link people up when there are obvious synergies.

 

4. Be an Information broker

of the corporate executives who attend my networking training programs ask me "If I am networking with the affluent, how do I add value to them, especially when they are already in a stronger financial position than me?" One of the mostpowerful commodities today is information. Many affluent people are starved for time, and your ability to provide relevant information to them would beappreciated. I discovered that people are most grateful for information that can help in their wealth, health and children. A timely stock market analysis report, an article listing proven solutions to alleviate Irritable Bowel Syndrome or information to help a child secure a place in school of choice can earn you grateful brownie points.

5. Email humour

There is nothing like a funny email joke or interesting video clip to perk up a workday afternoon. Please don’t take short-cuts and mass forward every remotely funny email you receive. It’s about taste and personalization. If you come across a hilarious video clip of Russell Peters, one of the world’s leading stand-up comedians, your contacts who you know appreciate his humour would be impressed that you remembered to send some comic relief their way.

6. Handwritten Cards

People rarely receive mail today that is not the form of a bill or official letter. A handwritten card with a personalized greeting instantly adds value as we all love pleasant surprises in the mail. The message can be a simple “Thank you” or “It’s wonderful meeting you, let’s stay in touch” The receiver will remember that you have taken the effort to make them feel special.

7. Create experiences

In today's recessionary economy, consumer confidence is at an all time low. However, the feel-good industry continues to do well as people indulge in uplifting experiences to escape from the pervasive negative reporting on television and the newspapers. Be a catalyst. Provide a unique experience to your network. Take the initiative of organising a themed party, a movie night, a wine-and cheese gathering, a dinner experience at a good restaurant. Be creative and you will be amazed at how grateful people are to a proactive host.

Keeping in touch is about taking action. I like the simple concept of following up with at least one person everyday. Choose a variety of ways that work for you. Have fun adding value to your network and it will do the same for you.