Internal change is happening more frequently now, so as a leader it’s more important than ever that you use your personal agency to build and leverage your influence to advocate for your team. In her March 1 “Your Best Next Move” video, Bobbie LaPorte shares a real-world example of one manager who took action to demonstrate how his team’s strengths aligned with the company’s new direction.
TRANSCRIPT OF “YOUR BEST NEXT MOVE: USE YOUR PERSONAL AGENCY”
Hi everyone, Bobbie LaPorte here again with my weekly tip for your Best Next Move – where I help you have more agency in your work, acknowledge your capacity to act and see what you can do right now.
This week I want to share another example of how to respond to internal change..which we all know is happening more frequently than ever (although we still are never quite ready for it).
One of my clients learned of a major, department-wide organizational change that affected his team. In short, the function of his team would be absorbed into another part of the company, but it wasn’t clear whether his team would actually move or not, or what their future would be.
There was little direction from his direct manager who seemed to lack the ability to manage the organizational dynamics around this change – to take proactively direct this transition. His manager was taking a “we’ll wait and see what happens” stance…..which was very unsettling to my client. He pressed for answers but wasn’t getting them.
He has very strong feelings about the value of the team he had built and how they could be positioned to contribute to the new org. That value was based on his understanding that the skills, strengths and experience his team offered could be used – even amplified – by the organization in new ways….how the talents of his team members lined up with the emerging needs of the organization, where they would best be deployed.
He decided to reach out to his manager’s boss to share his thoughts. While he wasn’t sure he had the influence and political capital in upper levels of the organization, and he knew this might be a risky political move, he wanted to be part of the conversation on creating their path in the new organization.
The result: his manager’s boss met with him, listened to his concerns and ideas, and invited him to meet again to help shape his team’s transition, as well as the broader departmental operating structure.
Here’s what’s important: he took that important first step to building and leveraging his influence on his foundational belief that he could optimize his team’s abilities against the organization’s needs and chart a path forward that would build more possibilities for everyone. He put in a more deterministic position for himself and his team, not waiting for others to decide his team’s fate.
So, here’s my tip:
when internal change hits you and your team and the future is uncertain – don’t necessarily wait for others to determine your fate. Take the enterprise view, consider the value contribution of your team and how it is aligned with the emerging needs of your company.
In an uncertain world, no one has all the answers or knows the road ahead. Use your personal agency to share your ideas with others in the organization who could benefit – professionally and personally – from your perspective. You might be surprised at the outcome.
I want 2021 to be a year of momentum for you, one of possibility thinking where you take advantage of the agency we sometimes forget we have.
That’s my tip for this week. I’ll see you next Monday; take care of yourselves!
14 thoughts on “Use Your Personal Agency”