From the course: Executive Influence

Five additions to regular influence

From the course: Executive Influence

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Five additions to regular influence

- I coached the CEO of a prominent professional services firm. As he transitioned into the role, the outgoing retiring CEO who had done a terrific job for many years told the new CEO, "Even if you don't want it, "I'm giving you one piece of advice." He said, "Set aside two hours, "two times per week, just to think." "Write down your own thoughts about what you're doing, "what you're going to do and why." It's phenomenal advice when you think about it. All those demands on a CEO's time, all those stakeholders, every day, around the world, urgency after urgency. There are always reasons to cancel your think time and jump to the next task. It makes sense if the challenges you face could be met with regular influence. But executive leadership done right is done with executive influence. An executive influence requires more deliberate thought and more disciplined action. That's exactly what the outgoing CEO was talking about. That's why so many great leaders do their version of weekly think time too. And no one else can do executive influence for you but you can do it, if you know what to do differently. Executive influencers consistently add onto regular influence methods in five different ways. Why they influence, who they influence, how they influence, what they do before they influence and how they extend their influence. Those are the five additions that take regular influence to executive influence. We'll cover each of them in more detail step-by-step. But at this point, here's the takeaway. I want you to take some think time every week, even just an hour, to focus on your executive influence priorities. During your think time, you'll write about how to take action on each of the five influence additions. And it is important to write as the outgoing CEO put it, "Your head is messy, but paper is clean." Well, the paper it's messy too, but it pushes you to clarify your thinking. And it doesn't have to be paper, electronic documents, whiteboards, diagrams, words whatever works best for you to launch thoughts out of your head, so you can see them and build on them. Do your think time every week and design your five additions.

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