Spring 2004

Influence Across Cultures and Boundaries

Great WallThe first few months of 2004 have been a time of intense activity for Barnes & Conti and for me personally. Some of the places where we—and our partners—have delivered Barnes & Conti programs (or, in the case of our customers who speak “the Queen’s English,” “programmes”) so far this year include Bangalore (India), Beijing, Brussels, London, Monza (Italy), Nice, Singapore, Sydney, Toronto, and Tokyo. In the U.S. we’ve been from Minneapolis, Minnesota to Dallas, Texas; from Portland, Oregon to Stamford, Connecticut with many places in between—not to mention our own neighborhood, Northern and Southern California! The cultural experiences have been intense and fascinating, perhaps no more so than at close-to-home Seacrest Middle School in Half Moon Bay, California. (See the article “Influence for Everybody,” below.)

In many of these places we have taught our Exercising Influence program. Influence has many cultural components; in today’s globally-connected world, even in our small organization, we find ourselves working with and needing to influence colleagues and customers in many countries and from many backgrounds.

In some cultures, certain behavioral skills are less important or appropriate within the culture. However, if you live in China, Japan, or Thailand and report to a boss or have teammates in San Jose or Hamburg—or vice versa—you will find it helpful to develop a broad repertoire of influence behaviors—or “behaviours.” (Speaking of “behaviours,” we now have a British English version of Exercising Influence that is used by our partners in Europe, Australia, and Asia where the British spelling of words like “enquire” is common). At Barnes & Conti, we have learned to adapt the style and pace of the program to the cultural norms of the place where we are working. We have become more and more aware of how cultures differ in different parts of the same organization, even within the same country. For example, do marketing and engineering speak the same language in your company? Do sales and finance use the same values as decision criteria? My article, “Influence Across Boundaries” (below) addresses these cultural issues.

On another topic, I have come across a remarkable book, Somebodies and Nobodies: Overcoming the Abuse of Rank (New Society Publishers, Gabriola Island, B.C., Canada, 2003), and have gotten to know its author, Robert W. Fuller. Bob has had a fascinating career, ranging from teaching physics at Columbia University and authoring a classic text on mathematics to serving as president of Oberlin College to chairing a nonprofit global corporation for promoting democracy and international understanding. He takes a fresh look at the misuses of power on the individual, societal, and global level.

During a recent consulting assignment, clients expressed concerns to me about “bullying in the workplace” and the low morale and loss of productivity caused by supervisors who used power in petty and demeaning ways. As someone long interested in the practice of skillful influence and appropriate uses of power, I find this book to be an invaluable resource.

I wish you successful influence across boundaries, internal or external.

—Kim

In this Issue:

Influence for Everybody:
Middle Schoolers Learn to Exercise Influence

by Meagan McCrystle

I’ll be honest. Initially, the thought of teaching middle school students a subject that is most commonly taught to corporate executives and managers boggled my mind. After taking the class, Exercising Influence, myself only a few months earlier, I wasn’t exactly sure how the course developer, Kim Barnes, was going to handle this one. But of course she did, and with flying colors.

Kim and I walked into a room full of eager sixth graders, excited for the most part, because they had a day off from their usual routine of classes. Instead they would be spending the day with us, learning how to exercise influence, build relationships and get results.

Day One: Not Homework!

The first day was a bit of a struggle. Teaching the kids the basics of our program, Exercising Influence, getting them to understand the expressive and receptive behaviors, and how to use each one in a situation, was a bit tedious and maybe a little boring for them. I wasn’t sure that they were learning anything! A few of the students were answering all of the questions, while most of the others were busy playing with the cool highlighter pens that we handed out at the beginning of the class. Kim ended the first day by giving the students an assignment. After hearing the unanimous response of “Nooooo..we don’t want homework!” Kim told them that they all had to go home that night and try to influence someone in their lives to get something that they wanted.

As we left that day, we weren’t sure what to expect out of the students for the second day, but we tried to stay positive.

Day Two: Influence can Be Fun!

The second day began with a bang! Kim started by asking them if they did their homework, and almost all of the students were raising their hands to tell the rest of the class what had happened with their particular influence situation. They were incredibly clever, and many of them were able to influence their parents to get them things such as a cell phone, an increase in their allowance, and even to increase the amount of time per day that they were allowed to play video games. They were extremely sharp with their approaches to exercising influence...

To read the entire article, click here.

Exercising Influence Across Boundaries

B. Kim Barnes

Within a team or a function, it’s often possible to use either power or influence— whichever is appropriate to the situation. The power can be based on role or status, but just as often is based on knowledge, skill, or personal relationship. Inside the boundaries, we know who to listen to about what, whose support we need, whose opinions we value, who “owes us one,” and what the current politics require. In most of today’s organizations, however, we don’t have the luxury of getting everything we need handled within that comfort zone. Across boundaries of team, function, or organization we often don’t have the option to use power—we must depend on influence.

Matrixed organizations that operate primarily within functions or in short-term teams can be particularly difficult in this respect, because the reward and recognition systems generally reside within the functions and there may be little long-term contact among functions. Competing interests can become more important than common interests. Not knowing or appreciating the others’ contributions and not being recognized or rewarded for cross-functional work can lead to organizational conflict that seriously impairs productivity...

To read the entire article, click here

What Divides Americans (excerpted)
Robert W. Fuller

...Rankism occurs when rank-holders use the power of their position to secure unwarranted advantages or benefits for themselves. It typically takes the form of self-aggrandizement and exploitation of subordinates. It is the opposite of service. Good leaders eschew rankism; bad ones indulge in it. It can be found in government, business, families, the workplace, schools and universities, and religious, nonprofit, and healthcare organizations. It distorts personal relationships, erodes the will to learn, fosters disease, taxes productivity, undermines public trust, stokes ethnic hatred, and incites revenge. Recent front-page examples of rankism include corporate and philanthropic corruption, sexual abuse by clergy, school hazing, and abuse of elders...

To read the complete article, click here.

Editor’s Note: The article referenced below is an excellent introduction to “rankism,” a social disorder on which the author has written extensively. To read more about rankism, we recommend Robert Fuller’s website, as well as his book, Somebodies and Nobodies: Overcoming the Abuse of Rank.

What’s New at Barnes & Conti?

Building Working RelationshipsNew Program: Building Working Relationships

Building Working Relationships: Constructive Engagement, Negotiation, and Conflict Resolution is a new program combining our popular Constructive Negotiation model and our conflict resolution tools and skills training with a view towards building stronger working relationships that foster innovation and collaboration. The program offers participants a rich variety of tools and processes to prevent, manage, and resolve conflict and to build strong and lasting agreements.

To read more about Building Working Relationships, click here.

Constructive DebateNew Program: Constructive Debate

Constructive Debate: Express, Engage, Explore, and Challenge is a two-day seminar that teaches participants by using challenging and controversial issues from their own organizations to develop skills for constructive discussion and debate. Participants will also learn how to establish the conditions that encourage constructive debate and to eliminate those conditions that prevent potentially useful ideas from getting a hearing or allow poorly thought-through ideas to be implemented.

For more information on Constructive Debate, click here.

Yukiko YamasakiNew Partner in Japan: Yukiko Yamasaki

We’re delighted to welcome Yukiko Yamasaki as our global partner in Japan. Yukiko has over fourteen years experience in the training of leadership, communication, management, coaching, counseling, and creativity skills. Yukiko’s primary area of focus is in human resource development. She will be training Exercising Influence: Building Relationships and Getting Results for Barnes & Conti, and has done a translation of the program into Japanese.

Exercising Influence Now Available in Japanese

As mentioned above, our new partner in Japan, Yukiko Yamasaki, has translated Exercising Influence: Building Relationships and Getting Results into Japanese. In addition to Japanese, Exercising Influence is also available in Spanish, Thai, Chinese (simplified), Polish, and U.K. English.

Barnes & Conti at ASTD

At this year’s national conference of the American Society of Training and Development (ASTD) in Washington, D.C., Kim Barnes, along with Ellie Schindelman of the University of California and our Senior Associate, Dannie O’Flaherty, will be speaking on “Linking Management Development and Organizational Improvement.” Kim’s session is on Wednesday, May 26 from 4:00 - 5:30 pm. Kim will also be signing her book, Exercising Influence: Building Relationships and Getting Results, on May 26th, from 5:45-6:15 pm at the ASTD Store author signing table.

We will also be at booth 1626 at the Expo. Please stop by and say hello! We'll be giving a way a Mini iPod each day!

Other Trade Shows and Events

If you are planning to attend any of the following, please stop by our booth and say hello.

Society of Pharmaceutical and Biotech Trainers (SPBT)
May 17-20, Orlando, FL

New on Our Web Site

Ask Kim: Advice on Influence, Leadership, Coaching and More

Last month, we began sharing some of the many suggestions that Kim Barnes has given to our clients in recent months. We will be updating this page every 4-6 weeks. We will also have an archive of past questions and answers, and are about to include a link so our readers can send their questions to Kim.

Latest News and Current Projects

Barnes & Conti folks have been so busy lately that we can’t include all of the news in our newsletter. With that in mind, we are running only the news highlights and adding more of the articles that our readers find so valuable and informative. If you would like the most up-to-date news, please visit the pages above. We will have updated them up to two or three times by the time you get our next newsletter!

Upcoming Public Programs

Exercising Influence
June 22-23, Milpitas, CA
July 21-22, San Francisco, CA
August 10-11, Milpitas, CA
August 16-17, New York, NY

Stone Soup Leadership
June 24-25, Berkeley, CA

Intelligent Risk-Taking
June 2-3, Berkeley, CA

C.O.A.C.H. for Peak Performance
July 7, 2004, Berkeley, CA

To register for one of our public programs, click here
or go to: www.barnesconti.com/ppsched.php

Recipes: Chicken Broccoli Stir Fry

To emphasize the global view of this newsletter, we're offering a very traditional Cantonese-style stir-fry made with familiar American ingredients. A traditional stir fry has two main ingredients, one complimenting the other. In this case, tender, juicy chicken compliments the slightly crunchy broccoli. The mushrooms are a garnish which adds further contrast to the dish. The seasoning is also traditionally simple: garlic, soy, ginger, and a touch of sesame.

This recipe should serve 4 if it is the main dish, and will server 6-8 as part of a full Chinese meal with soup, appetizer, and at least one other main dish.

broccoliIngredients:

Prepare the broccoli as follows: trim 1 inch off the bottom of the stalk, and peel the rest of the stalk. Cut the stalk into 1 inch lengths, and slice lengthwise. Separate the florets into bite-sized pieces. Blanch or steam the broccoli for 2-3 minutes, until it turns a brilliant bright green (if you're not going to use the broccoli within a few minutes, plunge it into ice water to stop it from cooking further).

Heat up the oil in a wok or deep skillet. When the oil is hot, add the chicken and stir fry until the chicken looses its raw color. Remove and set aside.

Add the broccoli and the mushrooms and stir in the hot oil for a minute. Add the ginger and garlic and stir fry for another minute or so. Add the water or broth, soy sauce and cornstarch mixture and stir fry until the broccoli is almost crisp tender. Add the chicken and continue to stir fry until the chicken is heated and cooked through.

Remove the wok from heat, stir in the sesame oil and toss with the sesame seeds. Serve with steamed rice.

De-Constructive NegotiationJust for Fun:

Influence? Negotiation?

Reaching the end of a job interview, the Human Resources Person asked a young engineer fresh out of MIT, “And what starting salary were you looking for?”

The engineer said, “In the neighborhood of $125,000 a year, depending on the benefits package.”

The interviewer said, “Well, what would you say to a package of 5-weeks vacation, 14 paid holidays, full medical and dental, company matching retirement fund to 50% of salary and a company car leased every 2 years, perhaps a red Corvette?”

The engineer sat up straight and said, “Wow! Are you kidding?”

And the interviewer replied, “Yeah, but you started it.”

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