Jo Miller Session - Becoming a person of influence

Woah! What an exciting first day at the Grace Hopper Conference 2009...

With a series of events lined up from the very morning, I was desperately looking forward to the session by Jo Miller on Becoming a person of influence, having heard a LOT about her from all the last year attendees... and the praise did stand... Jo makes you think about nothing else for the time she is speaking. :)

With the topic of discourse being one with the most standing weightage in today's world, of becoming a person of influence... I could'nt help agreeing with each and every thing Jo spoke. Frankly, I was able to relate myself with almost all the instances she spoke of.

Starting with the description of the emerging leaders' quandary which includes the conflict between the need of a higher level job and the needed leadership skills, something that haunts almost every individual willing to get to a higher position, the best way undoubtedly is to show that we have more capabilities than those needed by our present job, by taking up more projects and building a network of influence around us. When I see around myself, almost all the students being hired right now, are not just done on the technical basis but primarily on their networking skills, thier ability to connect with others, their ability to influence, and that's exactly what Jo spoke about. A typical example demonstrating the importance of our influence is one where two persons give the same idea, but for one, when it is not even heard porperly, for the other, it is taken as a sign of sheer genius-- just shows how important influence is... How important it is to make our presence felt... to display our area of expertise and not just wait standing with a bent back for someone to grant us permission to speak.

One of the best part of today's session was this quote, "Our behaviour teaches people how to treat us", a very simple one but with a great impact. Quoting an example of the dog psychology centre, Jo convinced me about this one, convinced me to the fullest. It's only our influence that tells others what we are, and the best way to do that is through conversation.

Going forward to talk about the sources of influence, Jo talked about the 6 main ones... namely relationships, the base one for all other types of influence... because if you have great relationships with people, you have an image of credibility, .. next , direct influence, one which requires the implementer to be fair, firm and professional. The most important thing to remember when doing so is to focus on a bright vision for the future... something that many people dont realize the value of. Next in the queue is the influence that we impart on others by being an informational powerhouse, by knowing the latest developments in our area of expertise, in our organization. Being an undergrad in an engineering institue, I believe this is one of the most important ones for me, considering that everyone one around you wants to learn from you... having a finger on the pulse of everything that is happening surely helps. Next one is the resources influence, Many a times women in an organization donot ask for the resources they would need to accomplish a particular task, thereby refraining from proving themselves to be a fair custodian of resources. According to me, asking for and efficiently utilizing the resources also helps us to make a special position for ourselves and gain visiblity. But nevertheless this is something that women harldy use along with the next one, expertise influence. Derived from our resume, this one works more on how well we display and let others know of what qualifications we have, rather than underestimating ourselves and taking a back seat for our achievements. It is matter of extreme importance to speak up, rather than waiting for an invitation. In industry, this is the primary one for all those willing to get themselves recruited, beacuse until and unless we prove ourselves worthy enough of a particular task by making our qualifications visible, why on earth should someone hire us in front of a hundred others. And the last one in the line is the positional influence, the ability to educate others about who you are, what you do and why should someone come to you. And this one works for sure, with a few examples of such 30 second commercials to introduce oneself, it became quite significant that their proper usage can make one go to places, after all, the first impression is the last impression.

According to me, all these stand of equal value and are worthy enough of being implemented in our day to day meeting with people and situations, to become a person of influence, but for me the most important one which needs work is the the first one, the relationships influence, the base for all, cause I believe I need to be more social with everyone around me. Am starting it from today, my first step towards becoming a person of influence... :) What about you? Which field do you need to improve? What field are you the most strong at?.. Feel free to leave a comment, so that I may know your perspective on this session as well... :)