Annie Croner [00:00:01]:
Welcome back to the whole assistant podcast. Today I am coming to you from my parents house in Twin Falls, Idaho. If you're viewing this on YouTube, the video, that's why my background is different and hopefully I can squeeze this podcast episode in before everyone gets back from swimming. So here we go. Today I'm gonna be sharing three ways to turbocharge your influence. And I have really been considering influence and what I'm going to discuss on this podcast today because I have been actively writing my book. I am currently, as of the time of this recording, on the last chapter of the book. So I'm very excited about that.
Annie Croner [00:00:40]:
Stay tuned for more info. That's going to be coming out early this fall. I'm very excited about it, but in the meantime, influence has been on my mind and so I'm going to share three ways that we can all level up and really maximize our influence in our office environments. Okay, so the first way, and I know I may sound like a broken record, if you've been listening to this podcast for any amount of time, this is not a new concept to you, is to show up with integrity and build trust. It's going to be very hard to be influential if we don't have trust. Trust from our executives and even trust from our colleagues and coworkers. We want to do the right thing when nobody's looking. That's one way to develop trust.
Annie Croner [00:01:23]:
And I think that often we think that our executives aren't paying attention. But I now on the other side of running my own business and now I've got people who support me as well. I am very aware when people are disconnected from the work or they aren't showing up on the way they said they would. I am extremely aware of that. So we definitely want to do the right thing and show up with integrity regardless. And I know many of us do this anyway, but oftentimes how this kind of erodes is by thinking that someone won't notice. Right? So we just want to bring some mindfulness to that. Even if you think your executive doesn't notice and even if they don't, is that really how we want to be showing up? We definitely want to make sure that we are constantly showing up and doing what we say we're going to do when we say we're going to do it.
Annie Croner [00:02:10]:
We also need to communicate around being fully transparent around what is feasible for us to manage and what is not. Oftentimes we feel this need to say yes to everything in order to make everyone around us feel comfortable or in Order to just feel like we're doing a good job, when in fact, if your role is really heavy and you're doing the job of two or three people respectively, then we need to have transparent conversations around timelines and around what is actually feasible for you to accomplish and what should be on your plate in terms of the scope of your role and what shouldn't be on your plate. And I know that it can often feel like a failure when we have those conversations because we tend to be hardest on ourselves and we tend to think that we should be able to handle everything that is not in fact factual. There is a limit to everybody's human capability. There's a limit to everybody's capacity, essentially. So we just need to be really transparent about those things. And there again, the consistency piece is going to be paramount to your success. I had this college professor once who gave the keynote during graduation for our department graduation and he said that most of success is just showing up and showing up on time.
Annie Croner [00:03:23]:
And at the root of that is consistency. Right. That has always stuck in my head. And I think the reason why is because of that consistency piece. We definitely need to be consistent. That's not to say that we won't have off days or bad days or down days. We're all human and our productivity will fluctuate. That's just life.
Annie Croner [00:03:44]:
But we definitely want to follow through on what we say we're going to do when we say we're going to do it. And if we can't, we want to have good communication around that. The second strategy to Turbocharger influence is to improve your visibility. And there are a few barriers to success when it comes to improving visibility, but the first one is being seen as self promoting or arrogant. We think that if we put ourselves out there, that if we bring the full breadth of ourselves to our roles, that that will be seen in a negative light. And I understand this to a certain extent and I feel like this concern is valid. If we think that we're going to be overstepping or arrogant in some way because everyone has a different idea of what it is we do. So even if you have the full support of your executive, there's always one person who thinks that you should stay small, that you should only be getting coffee, that you should be doing X, Y and Z, just tactical things, when in fact the breadth and depth of most support professionals roles have broadened over the years.
Annie Croner [00:04:47]:
And especially if you've been doing this role for a long time, if you're a truly strategic business partner, Visibility is paramount to your success. So not letting those voices hinder your effectiveness, hinder your ability to actually show up and be more visible. Visibility is going to be key for several reasons. First of all, how can you be the bridge between your executive and the rest of the organization if you are not visible to both? And then also culture keeping is a big one. We are the keepers of our company culture. Admin teams in particular, across the board are. I'm now convinced of this after having worked with several administrative teams and having been a part of developing teams at several companies. Really, that culture piece is key.
Annie Croner [00:05:32]:
And we cannot have that culture keeping piece unless we're actually visible. Unless we're actually speaking up and stepping out and using our voice. And also being visible will help you make game time decisions that nobody else is willing to make. You see what's coming, you see what actually needs to happen. Something went awry and you need to fix it. You make that game time call and, and it often requires higher levels of visibility. I will also say that a barrier to success when it comes to visibility is not wanting to bother our executives. We don't want to bother them.
Annie Croner [00:06:06]:
So then we shrink, we hold back, we don't actually communicate that we the way we know we should. We aren't as visible as we need to be in order to be effective in our roles. And I get this idea of not wanting to add more to your executives plate. You are managing their calendars, you see how busy they are. But this is a really big thought error that I would have us all consider overcoming and realizing that you are not an inconvenience to anybody, especially your executive. If you need something and it will propel the business forward, it will drive the business forward, you actually need to have that conversation with your executive. If you notice something is off with a member of the elt, if you notice something is off with one of their team members, you just need to speak up because otherwise how else are they going to know? So visibility is a requirement if you want to become truly strategic in your role. We need to get comfortable with the discomfort of being visible.
Annie Croner [00:07:02]:
And a lot of us have viewed ourselves for so long as a behind the scenes person, which there is some truth to that. We do handle all the logistics, we do manage a lot of the behind the scenes work. But that doesn't mean that our roles do not require a certain level of visibility in order to be effective in them and in order to be influential. And the last and final thing that you can do to turbocharge your influence is to step fully into your role as a bridge. So I've already mentioned this a little bit, but we are the bridge between our executives and the rest of the organization. This is because people will come and bring things to you where they don't feel comfortable bringing them to your executive. So we just need to really embrace that and we need to recognize that for many of us, we are that bridge piece. Also, when somebody wants to bring something to your executive, you're also the bridge piece there.
Annie Croner [00:07:50]:
You can also guide the team members around that. Oh, hey, can I take a look at that presentation first? This is gonna land with my executive. This is gonna land. This other thing over here we need to rework and reword because I know it probably won't land. Or if they want to approach your executive and you know your executive is having a pretty crummy day, you can guide the team member to wait until a better time to actually meet with your executive, because our executives are human. They have bad days just like the rest of us. So those are three surefire ways to develop and turbocharge your influence is to show up with integrity and build trust, improve your visibility and step fully into your role as the bridge. For many of you, this will just be a friendly reminder.
Annie Croner [00:08:30]:
Because I talk about these things all the time on the podcast and for others who are new to me, this may be revolutionary. Either way, I hope this episode has encouraged you, and I will see you next week. That is all for now.
