Influencing Others with Orla Kelly and Joanna Royle (Episode 65) | Orla and Joanna have some advice to help you get stuff done
For this episode of the Research Adjacent podcast Sarah is talking all about influencing others with Joanna Royle and Orla Kelly. Joanna is a Researcher Development Manager at the University of Glasgow. Orla is Scotland’s Knowledge Exchange and Innovation Collaboration Manager based at the University of the West of Scotland. Orla is a previous guest on the podcast and you can listen to her story back in episiode 9.
This episode is part 4 of our Challenges Series – conversations which take a deep dive into common concerns for research-adjacent professionals including sticky situations and mindset gremlins. Influencing others comes up a lot in my conversations with research-adjacent professionals. Whether it’s getting senior buy-in for a major project or just getting colleagues to submit some paperwork on time, we often find ourselves persuading people to do things, sometimes things they don’t really want to do, or to let us do things.
Orla and Joanna have great insights to share in this topic. Orla spends a lot of her time connecting universities, industry and partner organisations, subtly trying to influence them to innovate or collaborate more. Joanna on the other hand does most of her influencing colleagues within the university perhaps to take up development opportunities or to make processes more efficient.
Sarah, Joanna and Orla talk about
- What the term influence means to them
- How the need to influence others shows up for research-adjacent professionals
- Examples of how they have used their influence at work
- Tips for influencing others, including more senior people
Find out more
- Connect to Orla on LinkedIn
- Connect to Joanna on LinkedIn or via the University of Glasgow website
- Visit the University of Glasgow’s Research Culture and Researcher Development team blog
- Listen to Orla’s first appearance on Research Adjacent
- Orla also mentions another previous guest Hamish McAlpine
- The quote Joanna mentioned is by Mark Twain “I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.”
Theme music by Lemon Music Studios from Pixabay
Episode Transcript
Joanna Royle (she/her) 00:00
I think the way you get influence, or you have influence, probably is to be the kind of person that sees the challenges, wishes to address the challenges, and then works out how to connect the people.
Orla Kelly 00:12
This is how I see it. How do you see it? Right? That should be the start of every conversation if you’re trying to influence people.
Joanna Royle (she/her) 00:17
In fact, it’s sometimes harder, but sometimes easier without the job title, depending on how you position that conversation,
Orla Kelly 00:24
We can be that trusted voice to help them process that and make a more rounded decision.
Sarah McLusky 00:31
Hello there. I’m Sarah McLusky, and this is Research Adjacent. Each episode, I talk to amazing research-adjacent professionals about what they do and why it makes a difference. Keep listening to find out why we think the research-adjacent space is where the real magic happens.
Sarah McLusky 00:52
Hello and welcome to Research Adjacent. I am, as always, your host, Sarah McLusky, and this episode is the fourth part of the Challenges mini series today, we’re talking about influencing others, and I have not one but two fantastic guests, Joanna Royle and Orla Kelly. Joanna is a Researcher Development Manager at the University of Glasgow, while Orla is Scotland’s Knowledge Exchange and Innovation Collaboration Manager based at the University of the West of Scotland. If you recognize Orla’s voice, it might be because you remember her from Episode 9 of Research Adjacent and if you haven’t listened to that episode yet, put it on your listening queue for after this one. So why are we talking about influencing others? Well, the challenges of influencing others comes up a lot in my conversations with research-adjacent professionals, whether it’s getting senior buy-in for a major project or just getting colleagues to submit some paperwork on time, we often find ourselves persuading people to do things, sometimes things they really don’t want to do, or to let them let us do things for ourselves. Orla and Joanna have great insights to share in this topic. Orla spends a lot of her time connecting universities, industry and partner organizations subtly trying to influence them to innovate or collaborate more. Joanna, on the other hand, does most of her influencing within the university, perhaps encouraging colleagues to take up development opportunities or to make processes more efficient. In our conversation, we talk about what the term influence means for them. They share some examples of how they use influence, and have lots of tips for how you can increase your influence at work, whether you’re influencing up, down, sideways or out. Listen on to find out how to get stuff done without using any evil mind control tactics.
Sarah McLusky 02:35
Welcome along to the podcast Orla and Joanna. It’s fantastic to have you here to talk to us a bit today about influencing other people. We’ll come on to what we mean by that in just a moment. But can I begin by inviting you to introduce yourselves? Orla, would you like to go first?
Orla Kelly 02:52
Yeah, thanks, Sarah, really happy to be here. A bit nervous to be here, but happy to be here. So my name is Orla Kelly. I am a Knowledge Exchange and Innovation Collaboration Manager. I am hosted by the University West of Scotland, but I work across all 19 universities in Scotland.
Sarah McLusky 03:09
Thank you. And Joanna,
Joanna Royle (she/her) 03:11
Hi, echoing that nervousness for sure, Orla. I’m Joanna Royle. I’m the Researcher Development Manager at the University of Glasgow, as part of the research culture and researcher development team.
Sarah McLusky 03:24
Fantastic. Thank you. Joanna and Orla, very big. Welcome to you. And the reason that we’ve got the two of you along today is because both of you are in positions where you have to kind of persuade people, influence people in order to get things done, Orla mainly working with partners outside of your organization, and Joanna mainly working within your organization. And the reason that I want you to do a podcast on this episode is this is something that comes up again and again in the conversations that I have with research adjacent professionals about the sorts of things that they’re struggling with and many, many research adjacent professionals are in these positions where it’s their job to get a certain thing done, whether it’s, you know, to get a project completed or to get a report done, or to compile some statistics for the department, or, you know, bring together a collaboration. So there’s this, and they’re working with other people who are really busy. They’ve got a lot on their plate, and sometimes just actually getting people to do what they need them to do can be a little bit of a challenge. So that’s the reason why I wanted to do a podcast on this particular topic. So beginning maybe just with what we call this sort of work, in terms of getting other people to do things that you want to do, I framed it as influencing others. But how do you feel about that term? I know some people don’t love it, or that maybe you could give us your thoughts first.
Orla Kelly 04:57
Thanks. I. I find it really interesting, because I don’t think of myself as an influencer in that, you know, inverted commas, but I definitely do do it, so I don’t mind the term. And I do talk about, you know, when I’m talking about getting universities to collectively engage with policy makers. I do talk about influencing policy and strategy and funding, so I do use the word, actually, quite a lot, but I don’t consider myself an
Sarah McLusky 05:28
An influencer. Yeah
Orla Kelly 05:30
Yeah. But for me, I think, I think the influencing side of things is mostly about communication more than anything else, and socializing ideas. I really related a lot to one of your other podcast guests, Andrew Millar, talking about navigating change and bringing people along the journey. I think that’s influencing. Yeah, it’s a strange term. It can mean a lot of different things to different people.
Sarah McLusky 05:58
I think so it can be so what do you when you said there about socializing, socializing ideas, was it you said, tell me a bit more what you mean by that.
Orla Kelly 06:06
Well, so, so I work across 19 universities. They’re all different shapes and sizes, geographies, demographics, different approaches to how they could solve a problem or approach a big, you know, strategy thing that’s come out of Scottish Government or elsewhere. And so if these policy makers sitting in government are making this blanket decision that is that is going to impact on 19 institutions, there’s a there’s a challenge there to make sure that it, it suits the University of Glasgow, as well as the Royal Conservatoire in Glasgow, which are two very different sizes. They’re different, even different types of institution. And so socializing ideas and bringing people along with you so they feel like they have some kind of control over what’s happening to them. I think that’s that’s influencing, influencing up and and out, I think is
Sarah McLusky 07:03
Yes yeah, influencing up is definitely something that comes up with research adjacent professionals. Maybe we’ll come to that in a moment. Joanna then tell us, how do you find the term influencing? What does it mean for you?
Joanna Royle (she/her) 07:17
Little bit like Orla, as soon as you said it’s a problematic word. I thought, Oh, it’s a problematic word, but until you said that, it didn’t really think of it as a problematic word for me. For me, it’s about having a voice in the room. It’s about being that kind of person that’s that’s a go to, person that’s considered expert and also, and I guess this is why I don’t think of it as a bad word collegiate. So when I’m thinking about influencing, I’m not trying to make someone else consume the thing that I want them to, or do the well, sometimes I’m trying to make them do the thing I want them to, but not in that kind of direct way. It’s about people wanting to know what I have to say on x, or to say, oh, Joanna will have something to contribute to this. That’s where i i That’s how I use the word. I also don’t have Instagram, though, so maybe, maybe I’m protected from the more problematic uses of the expression.
Sarah McLusky 08:21
I think also some people just find that that influence. It’s almost like a kind of evil thing. It’s like getting people to do stuff they don’t want to do. And, I mean, I guess sometimes maybe it is things people don’t want to do, like, you know, if it’s paperwork or something that needs to be completed, but yeah. But something you said there Joanna, made me think about this idea of when you said people feeling like you’ve got something to say, or that you’ve you’ve got some expertise around a particular topic, and and also that idea you said all that about, about influencing up, is this idea of being an authority on something, rather than necessarily having authority. And I think a lot of research adjacent professionals find themselves in positions where they don’t necessarily have authority that comes with their job title, but without doubt, many of them are authorities on the work that they do. I wonder if either get any thoughts on that.
Orla Kelly 09:19
In prep for this, I wrote down the word advocacy, and I think that’s that’s what we’re talking about here. Because advocacy work is really important. We work in really higher education. Is a really complex environment. Lots of really opinionated people, and decisions are made in a complex environment based on not necessarily bad data, but limited data, and it doesn’t necessarily tell the whole picture of what’s going on. And so I think that’s then us in our research adjacent roles being that kind of that sensible voice. Mm. To to help those people who maybe don’t have the time or capacity to really get to the the the you know, understand every single facet of of this complex higher education environment, but needs to make a decision quickly about something we can be that trusted voice to help them process that and make a more rounded decision. Yeah,
Sarah McLusky 10:21
yeah, that’s a good way to think about it. Yeah, Joanna, do you have any thoughts on that?
Joanna Royle (she/her) 10:25
I do think that bridging piece is so valuable, I noted down the phrase it takes a village. The research ecosystem, very much like Orla says, is unbelievably complex, and we each have our own kind of areas of expertise and responsibility. I think the way you get influence, or you have influence, probably is to be the kind of person that sees the challenges, wishes to address the challenges, and then works out how to connect the people. And that, I think, is a lot of influence. It is something you can do without the job title. In fact, it’s sometimes sometimes harder, but sometimes easier without the job title, depending on how you position that conversation. So there definitely is a piece about how you position that conversation and make sure that your that your expertise is surfaced, and people know who you are, and they know that you’re the kind of person that bring people together.
Joanna Royle (she/her) 10:30
I think Joanna, what you’re saying, there is a really nice point to lead into, maybe talking about some concrete examples of situations where you’ve had to use your influence to get something done within your organization or with partner organizations. So Joanna, could you tell us about a particular example?
Joanna Royle (she/her) 11:48
Yes, I can. It’s quite a big example, I suppose. In terms of it might not sound it when I tell it, who knows? But in terms of a piece of work I’ve been doing over a really long period of time, but I would say a lot of the things we’re going to pull out of that are very much applicable to much smaller things that you’re trying to do. It’s also, and we’re going to have to forewarn your listeners, a bit of a boring example. I’m about an IT system.
Sarah McLusky 12:17
So I think that so much though, I think that that’s just keeping it real. That is the reality of what most research adjacent professionals are working on. It’s stuff like that. So yeah, tell us about it.
Joanna Royle (she/her) 12:30
It totally is. So we were really struggling as a team researcher developers, provide development opportunities for researchers. I say says it on the tin. So lots of training, lots of events, lots of mentoring partnerships, those kinds of things. And we were really, really struggling with the absolute basics of booking and tracking. And when you do hundreds of events in a year, that is administratively very, very difficult. And we also knew that the approaches we were taking were causing a great deal of dissatisfaction amongst our researchers, and finding a route out of that that both addressed the needs of my team and the needs of our researchers that we were serving because people didn’t want to come to our stuff because the booking system was so horrendous, was probably, I mean, I’m still in the middle of it, but probably a sort of year and a half long project, two year project, to get to the point of convincing the university to invest in a new booking and management system for events. And I’m sure you hear in your circles of people saying, Oh, do we? Do we Eventbrite? Do we Ticket Tailor, what do we do? And having something in house that does that. So the journey was definitely about finding other people that were having similar problems. I knew everybody was, because it was the kind of thing you had people chuntering about at conferences and events, finding the people that were having the same kinds of problems, and then working out what the steps were to solving that problem. And I suppose a lot of what it was was about thinking about what the end goal was, and not being committed to what the answer would be to get to the end goal, but to approach it. For me, it was almost like a research problem. I went and which is, you know, we are research adjacent professionals, and we do a lot of research as such, a lot of scholarship. So I did a lot of, you know, benchmarking and setting the consultation and reviewing possible platforms, as I say, none of that sort of super exciting. But it was doing the work and then being able so getting people on side, understanding what their problems were, doing the work for them that would get them to the solution. We all knew kind of what the end goal was, and then being able to present options. So it was working out, and then also working out what else would be impacted, because there’s all sorts of ripple effects of a project like that, where you’re trying to get the university to invest and if they do this, then they don’t do that, or if they do this, you need to change that. So it was a very long term. It took quite a lot of patience to go on this journey of getting an IT system. And there was a lot of the influencing piece about working out, what would work working out, what would get people on side, having conversations. I think a lot of influence is about good, positive working relationships. It doesn’t necessarily mean that someone likes you, although that, to be honest, that’s the approach I tend to use, because that’s who I naturally am. I’m quite loud. I was going to use a nicer word, like bubbly, but, you know, quite social, but, but making sure that you’ve got that positive sense that they think, Well, what Joanna is trying to do here is going to help me, and she’s going to bring me along for the ride. She’s going to keep listening to what I need. So you’ve kind of got the the ground swell behind you, and then it was about working out who I needed to influence up the way. So actually it’s getting your groundswell behind you, who’s your team, who’s your village. But then how do I make that change? And again, a lot of that’s about personal conversations. Of like you do need to get it to this committee. You do need to understand that that sort of paper would need to be put in. This is what the process looks like for procurement. Some of it was about volunteering to do things for people upwards, or committees upwards that made you useful to them, that you were working towards a solution. You’d brought a problem, you’d seen the gap, but you were also the person that was really going to do the work towards the solution. And you were really, I was trying to be really, really clear about what I then needed for that from them, and keep that quite minimal, keeping them informed. So, yeah, it’s an awful lot that story has an awful lot of building relationship in it, despite the fact that the actual product was an IT system. I would also say, I when you when you set us this challenge you said is, is there anything you could tell us about when you’re influencing really went wrong? And I would also say this story embeds that, because there was definitely moments along the way where the University of Glasgow is very big, and what we were trying to do towards actually probably the same goal as other teams who were also seeing the same problem came into tension and at times navigating that tension and actually knowing when you needed to bring in the big guns, knowing when you needed to say, actually this much as I feel very empowered to have that influence, and I do think to have that influence, it helps if the team around you and your direct line management is encouraging of it, but also knowing when to say, I need someone to step in here and help. So that was, that was less a story, I’ve tried to keep it quite vague story, but more about some of the things that helped. I do have an IT system that’s quite key.
Sarah McLusky 18:15
We got there, yes
Joanna Royle (she/her) 18:16
I can book my events much more quickly, it’s been a mob. We’ve cut it down, cut our admin time down from sort of by three quarters, which has been fantastic, wild and amazing, bit dull, but very important in terms of, okay, we’ve got much happier researchers. So the outcome was good, but it was, it was a long journey of relationship building and doing the work?
Sarah McLusky 18:41
Yeah I think that’s, it’s a really nice example of just what it takes. People often say, and it’s so so often it comes up in the conversations I have in this podcast about how hard it can be to change things in a big organization. And that is just, you know, you’ve said, just to do one thing that seems quite small, like change an IT system has all these different moving parts and all these different things going on and, but also the fact that it’s really just about people. So yes, on the surface, it’s about IT systems, you know, it’s about a piece of technology, but ultimately, it’s about people and, and, yeah, really nice examples of all the different strategies and things you use. Think we’ll maybe come back to some of those. I’ve written a bit of a list, but for now, maybe we’ll see what Orla has to add to that list. So Orla tell us about an example of something you’ve done to which involved influencing others.
Orla Kelly 19:36
There’s one piece of work that happened a couple of years ago when Scottish Funding Council were going through a review of their knowledge exchange and innovation funding, and so going through all the all the usual consultation and and a lot of uncertainty at the time, people are a bit worried about what, what does this mean? What’s going to happen in 12 months time? 18 months time. And so we brought in, or I brought in Hamish McAlpine, who you’ve had as a guest on the podcast before, to lead a session on, on measuring knowledge exchange through a Scottish lens is how I kind of branded it. So there’s lots of influence in that, in in encouraging the people in our in the different institutions, to say this conversation is a good idea. You’re going to leave this this workshop with more confidence in what lies ahead, and influencing the Funding Council that that this is also going to potentially be valuable to help you shape the decisions that you’re going to make. Yes, you’re, you’re doing this very formal consultation, but there’s, but there’s more that you can do beyond that, and so trying to influence that. But the reason I wanted to bring that, that particular example up, is because during this time, I had a conversation with a principal in a university in Scotland who is no longer a principal there, who was quite rude and really quite difficult with me and challenging me to say, basically, who are you to to enable this conversation to happen? Why do you think the professional services staff should have any kind of say over this? And it was, it was really quite difficult, but that was a really good lesson for me, because you can’t please everybody all of the time, no, and, and just because this one person doesn’t like it doesn’t matter that that where they sit in the hierarchy, right? The fact that we had most universities in Scotland come to this, this whole day workshop to contribute, says to me that it was important. So, yeah, you can’t be bogged down by this one person’s, you know, challenging opinion. But I’ll, I’ll, I’ll throw in another example that’s more relevant to Joanna, actually, because Joanna and I occasionally cross paths through the ScotHERD, Scottish Higher Education Researcher Developers, yeah, and it’s a, it’s a great peer network in Scotland that that meets regularly, shares best practice. You know, really, really brilliant example of collaborative, collaborative working. I’m particularly interested in, in where researcher developers and research culture collides with knowledge exchange and innovation. And I don’t see the two things as separate, but we quite often treat them as as these separate things. Lots of reasons for that. But a couple of years ago, in the summer, beautiful sunny day in Stirling, Joanna, if you remember, and we had
Orla Kelly 20:21
It was a really lovely day still in my memories of one of my favorite work days, actually.
Orla Kelly 21:32
And we’re up in the beautiful Stirling campus and looking out over the loch and, you know, we’re gorgeous, we had Skillfluence come in to do a piece of work around the researcher developers role in feeding that early pipeline towards knowledge exchange and innovation, right? And so brilliant room full of research developers talking through some really enthusiastic discussion, like wonderful and then Skillfluence came and gave me the report at the end of it, and I just looked at it like, I don’t know what to do with this. This is almost too big, yeah. And so we’re nearly two years on from that meeting Joanna, and I haven’t dropped that, but I just haven’t necessarily done anything more with it. But it’s still that thing, of of of quietly influencing people, planting seeds, right? This is, this is an important topic. I don’t know the solution. I don’t know the route to get there, necessarily. It you Joanna, you’ve already said the phrase, it takes a village, you know? How can we? How can we address this as a collective, not just, you know, me sitting at my desk saying this is a problem, and Joanna, you need to fix it, because Joanna’s going to shrug her shoulders and put it, you know, bullet point number 39 on her of her list of things to do. So that’s another example of where I’ve tried to influence and not conquered it, yeah, but it’s rumbling on, let’s say
Sarah McLusky 24:04
Yeah.
Joanna Royle (she/her) 24:04
But I think what’s nice about that story is you’re talking about how you become the voice in the room, the go to person and that event, although I I’m going to be quite frank, I suspect, like a lot of researcher developers, certainly me, was slightly glad that some more work didn’t emerge out of that. We’d had this lovely, lovely conversation, and then we were quite happy to bat it down the road. But what it meant was right the way across my community in Scotland, and ScotHERD was one of the examples I was going to use, actually, but I won’t now, because you have, your name is known. Orla Kelly have have, oh, that thing. But have you asked Orla and and it’s socializing your expertise. As someone that people can go to should go to for challenges where maybe they, they actually, my story was like, I knew what the end goal was, but they think a lot of stories, you don’t know what the end goal is you just know what the challenge is and and knowing who those voices are that you can get in a room is is part of and being one of those voices is part of that influencing piece.
Sarah McLusky 25:14
Yeah, and I think it’s lovely. It’s a lovely example of this the things I’ve written down my on my notebook here planting seeds and being a quiet influence. So not always, and I think that applies to loads of people in our community, that you’re not necessarily the one standing at the front of the room telling everybody what to do, but by just the things that you do behind the scenes. Actually, it makes a huge difference. And it’s how things start to move and change, and it’s how people so often, when I talk to people who feel like they don’t have a lot of influence, but it’s sometimes, it’s recognizing, well, what are the things that you do have influence over, and what are the things that you can do, or maybe that more of those quiet and subtle things that that help to shift and change, even if it’s a very slow process, even if you don’t know what the end goal is going to be, but you’re just nudging it in a particular direction, and over time, those things start to end up where they end up. I mean, that’s it, yeah, you don’t always know, but certainly taking them off into change things happening down the road, whatever that might be. So, yeah, so loving the two well through the kind of three really, but really nice, contrasting examples of different, different ways of approaching it. And that’s the thing, isn’t it? Is? It’s not this sense of influencing other people. It’s not like there’s only one way to do it. It’s not like, and it’s not like, it’s something that’s only for certain personality types, or, you know that it’s something that everybody can do in some way and in some way that feels authentic to them. And I think both nice examples that help to illustrate that. That said, I think, well, maybe because I think both of you will have different examples of these, the things that you’ve seen that really help to make a difference. Both of you have talked a lot about relationships and communication, but I think would you say that’s the kind of fundamental thing? I don’t know if, either if he wants to jump in on that.
Joanna Royle (she/her) 27:26
I think it’s one of the fundamental thing. I think it’s about relationships, but it’s also about understanding your pathways. So it’s the relationships are absolutely the groundwork, and having influence is partly about putting that groundwork in before you, before you know how you want to have influence, being in the spaces, being encouraging, being positive about what other people are doing. But it’s also you’re not going to get anything done if you don’t know what kinds of who’s going to make that decision? Where are those? Where are those points of power and decision making, and what is the journey to them? What kinds of evidence do the people that can make decisions need? What do they value? How does this fit into bigger strategic alignment? So I think you need your people absolutely baseline, but you also need to understand your pathways and understand your route into those pathways. I certainly speak to, as you said, a lot of people, perhaps don’t feel like they have influence. And when I speak to researchers on your leadership programs, and we do, we do a Covey circle or something like that, and and you have quite complex and difficult conversations about their sense that they don’t have that influence themselves, because perhaps they’re thinking, Well, I am going to be the one that addresses precarity in the sector. Well, I can’t do that. No, you can’t, personally, on your own. No one. But what are your pathways to influence? Who are your people that can go to the committees, and what do they need? Yeah, so I think it’s about people. I also think it’s about pathways.
Sarah McLusky 29:11
Yeah, I think knowing those places with the you know, how it fits into the bigger picture, and certainly that’s something that’s really important for the work that you do, or isn’t it, is knowing what’s the vision, what’s the the goal?
Orla Kelly 29:22
Yeah, I spinning on some of the things you’ve already said. Joanna, I think it’s really important to put, put yourself in that person’s shoes, and understand where their pressures are and where the opportunities are and and take it from from their perspective. Because you should not assume that people know why you’re doing this thing, or know your background, or know, know the context, and so putting yourself in other people’s shoes, it just come to mind. I work at I work a lot with someone called Ross Tuffee, Sarah, and you know Ross, or know of Ross, when Entrepreneurial Campus Blueprint was published by Scottish Government a few years ago, and it was quite naive in its thinking, certainly in terms of, you know, we need to transform the curriculum, and we need to embed enterprise in the curriculum. Sounds great on paper, right? Wonderful. This is going to be brilliant for our students, brilliant for society, brilliant for our economy, but the reality of of getting your program director in, in the the School of History, or whatever, to recognize the need to embed enterprise in the curriculum, I mean, it’s just it, you know that so, so you’re so right, Joanna, about the the pathways, and making sure that that you’re communicating in the language that people understand, and that that you recognize the the challenging environment that we’re all working in, and we all have different pressures. So, yeah, put yourself in other people’s shoes, I think is, is, and don’t make assumptions.
Sarah McLusky 31:00
Yeah.
Orla Kelly 31:00
Do you know problem 101? Right? This is, this is, this is how I see it. How do you see it? Right? That should be the start of every conversation. If you’re trying to influence people.
Sarah McLusky 31:10
Yeah, I’m and I think it’s that as well that you, you said earlier, Joanna, it’s that kind of, what’s in it, for me is helping people to understand, you know, this change, this report, this project, you know, whatever it is, why is that going to be important to me? Why is this something that I have to do? And that’s where all that relationship building, identifying the pathways, the routes and things like that, comes in, also that that what’s in it for me as well, is really important when it comes to influencing up, isn’t it? Joanna, influencing people who are maybe in more senior positions, or who are in the position to actually make some of the decisions about things. And I liked the some of the things you said about, you know, making it easy for them. You know, being clear, but then also making it easy. Any other thoughts about what can help if you’re influencing, trying to influence, somebody who is in a more senior position, in whatever way that might find itself.
Joanna Royle (she/her) 32:17
I think adjusting your comms style so learning to write a really well, tight, well constructed email that prefaces the things they need to do. I certainly have some slightly embarrassing examples from the start of my career as a researcher developer, where I presented Deans with all the things, all the information, absolutely everything. And they really weren’t getting through it. I was having to send too long, didn’t read follows ups, so learning how to really get to the heart of what they need to know, not the things that are worrying you, not, oh my goodness, my administrators spending forever on this. Or I need to work out the catering for that at what or I can’t work out how it’s going to work like such and such. Those details are not important to them, because that’s not their agenda. What they need to know so understanding how to communicate what they need to know things around. How is this strategically aligned? What does it cost? How is it going to have a ripple effect on other teams? How is it going to accomplish goals that they have? And so not only in emails, also in reports that you can send so people can pre read, also in conversations that you have, those kinds of conversations take a lot more well for me, take a lot more planning. You know that classic quote, is it? I can’t remember who it is. I didn’t, I didn’t have time to write a short article, so I wrote a long one. Yeah, who was that?
Sarah McLusky 33:53
I’ll see if I can find it. I’ll put it in the in the show notes, yeah,
Joanna Royle (she/her) 34:00
influencing up. It’s really a part of it, for me, is about communicating in a way that they’re going to have capacity to hear.
Sarah McLusky 34:10
Yeah, yeah. And it’s still part of that, as you said, or putting yourself in other people’s shoes, isn’t it?
Orla Kelly 34:16
Yeah, I 100% agree with what Joanna just said, I’ve engaged with a few university wide committees before, you know, Pan Scotland committees. And you see, every so often there’ll be someone that comes and says, Oh, this is, this is a thing, asks the question, Can you respond to me with feedback in within two weeks? And then they get three responses, you know? And so, and actually what you need to go in is actually be more solution focused, yeah, and go in and say, this is, this is what I’m going to do, unless you tell me not to. And you’re, you’re not, you’re not causing, you’re not causing problems. Rooms are giving people work. You are. You are being strategic with how you’re going to to make this thing happen for the benefit of whoever’s in the room. And this is the process to do it if you feel differently and want to contribute, come, come join the party. Otherwise it’s going to happen. And having that kind of more proactive approach to but, but you need to, you need to make sure that it’s the right room that you can go in and be as bold as that right so reading the room and understanding who your audience is is really important. And you can’t be a newbie and talked about those building relationships. You can’t be very fresh faced and go in very bold without people having that faith that you can deliver what you say you’re going to deliver. So but really complex reading the room is really important.
Sarah McLusky 35:49
Yeah, I can definitely resonate with that. And once going into situation where I didn’t know the backstory, and going in, yeah, very confidently with all the things I was going to do, and then it totally backfired, and it took months to sort out. So yes, I’ve been there. We’ve all had our influencing failures along the way.
Joanna Royle (she/her) 36:07
And I think there’s also in that isn’t there, is sometimes you’re influencing, is finding the person who does already have the voice in the room, that you trust, that you that you can get on board. So you’re influencing the person that’s going to do the influencing, who can be that bold, and also strategically making sure you’re in the room next to the person so you’re recognizable. And of course, they are necessarily then going to say, Joanna’s done this work, or Orla’s done this work. So they are, you said advocacy earlier, they are advocating for your work. So there is also journey pieces around. And I think that’s where the the people in the pathways kind of intersect a little bit, and then gradually you become the recognized face, the go to expert, the collegiate person, the voice in the room that I was talking about at the start, and then, and then, ultimately, you can rock up to those spaces with that boldness. I think a lot of what we’re talking about here with influencing, though it’s, it’s starting to sound like a very long journey.
Sarah McLusky 37:15
I think, Well, I think it can be or or not. I think it depends on the situation, doesn’t it, and and the scale of the change that you’re trying to bring about. But yeah, I think, well, that’s making it sound like a very long journey. I don’t know. Do either of you have examples of where just a tiny little thing has made a big difference that’s putting you on the spot a little bit, so don’t worry. If not,
Orla Kelly 37:39
I’m not sure. I’ll think about that, but I will say that that we’ve already kind of touched on it. We are all influencers, whether we identify as one or not, and so and so, recognizing those levers that we do pull, that we are we’re doing all the time.
Sarah McLusky 37:54
Yeah, yeah.
Joanna Royle (she/her) 37:55
It’s not really an answer to your question, Sarah, but I think there are ways of fast tracking that visibility and make sure, making sure that your expertise is surfaced with pieces of work that you you already hold. But actually, you don’t have to do any influencing with at all, really. They’re your job. But how do you then get them into the spaces I’m thinking right now, in my case of the University of Glasgow’s Talent Lab, for example, that’s a very big piece of work that sits in my purview. It’s all our leadership programs across our full research ecosystem, and it’s just literally my job to make it happen. But the influencing has been making sure that reports are going to key committees, that key people have their or maybe not committees, but, you know, groups of deans or whoever we’re just saying, Oh, by the way, this is the, this lovely thing that we’re doing for you, and we’ve evaluated, and it’s really, it’s really cool. And so you are socializing the expectation that you’re someone that does useful, good, impactful things. So then when you rock up and say, I want to do this, you’ve also, you’ve done that pre trust building, yeah, and, and it can have knock on effects. So I didn’t, I did all of that, making sure my expertise is surface. And maybe at that point we’re starting to be a bit showy, offy, maybe it sounds a little bit Instagram now in a work context, but then actually, at the moment, we are going through a review of our strategic environment and having those numbers to hand and me able to talk about them is something that I’m now seeing. Oh, those numbers have rocked up in that report or this report, or they’re being kind of socialized in other spaces. Does that actually? Is that about me having influence to solve a problem? No, absolutely not. I’m not well, I am, but only my own problem. It’s my, literally, my job, but that recognizable face of having done a thing means that I’m much more confident when I then go in and say, I want this other tiny thing. And in fact, I quite literally just did that. Another boring IT one recently, I went to a senior committee and said, Can we move this information from this, it system to that, it system excruciatingly dull. These are my four reasons. Is that all right? And I just got a complete green light. And being, having done that kind of groundwork that my expertise would be x, I would be expected to come with a sensible suggestion. And I loved what Orla said, actually, about not learning to goodness me, this is taken me time learning to not invite contributions and but instead, be like, here’s the problem, here’s three solutions. Here’s the first solution that I think’s the best one. Here’s what I’m going to do, unless you tell me otherwise. Here are the other options. Like, you’re you can look at them. I’m not excluding you from you are the decision makers. I’m not excluding you from the information. But actually, if really you just want someone to do the thing, here’s the thing, I’ll pop off and do it shall I? Yeah. So that’s, I suppose, that’s where I’m talking about the long journey. Is the, is the trust building, because then you can do little things quite quick,
Joanna Royle (she/her) 37:56
Yeah. And that’s and, I mean, it’s a hugely powerful technique that I’ve used myself, and I’ve seen work really well when you just you come with the solution, not the problem, but also what you’re talking about there. Brings us right back to the beginning of our conversation. It’s probably a nice place to kind of wrap things up is when we talked about the sense of being an authority on something, even if you are not in a position of authority, and you’re talking there about how you can demonstrate over your kind of track record and your visibility in an organization, and the things that you do and how you show up for work every day, is building that sense of authority that you are the authority in this thing, so that when you need something, you’re You’re in a prime position to get it . Orla any final thoughts from you
Orla Kelly 42:06
I see, I see this conversation relating really strongly with your other episodes in this series Sarah I know
Sarah McLusky 42:15
It’s like I planned it,
Orla Kelly 42:19
but, but the whole because we’re working in the in these quite everyone talks about universities moving slow, but, but there is quite a dynamic environment, right? Things are changing all the time, and so you have a you have an episode on navigating change. You have an an episode on networking. This is so important. We’re talking about identifying those people if you’re if you’re not, the person that holds the keys, who does hold the keys, right? And how? How do we build up those personal and professional networks to our advantage? And and imposter syndrome, Joanna and I both entered this, and we are, we are not authorities on influencing people, but we do do it all the time. So, yeah, I think I, I think having more confidence in the role that we do play, no matter what size of cog we are in the machine that we we are making things move and recognizing where, where we we’re doing that, I think, is really important.
Sarah McLusky 43:18
Yeah, we definitely are making things move without question. I think that the whole wheels of the Higher Education train would fall off if it wasn’t for all the research adjacent professionals out there. Well, just to wrap up our conversation, if people want to get in touch with you, connect with you is there a social media place or somewhere that you hang out that’s a good place to find you? Orla?
Orla Kelly 43:43
Yeah, I’m on I’m on LinkedIn. I like LinkedIn. LinkedIn is really good.
Sarah McLusky 43:48
Yeah, you’re go to your place. Joanna, do you hang out anywhere online?
Joanna Royle (she/her) 43:55
Dabble in LinkedIn. I’m not. Perhaps there very reliably and and absolutely do just reach out by email. I’m very findable on the University of Glasgow website.
Orla Kelly 44:06
Fantastic I’ll put links to those in the show notes. And so yeah, thank you so much, both of you for coming along and just sharing what you do and the difference that you make. And I think that’s the important thing. Thank you.
Orla Kelly 44:19
Thank you
Joanna Royle (she/her) 44:20
Thank you very much for having us. Sarah, it’s been really fun.
Sarah McLusky 44:27
Thanks for listening to Research Adjacent. If you’re listening in a podcast app, please check your subscribed and then use the links in the episode description to find full show notes and follow the podcast on LinkedIn or Instagram. You can also find all the links and other episodes at www.researchadjacent.com. Research Adjacent is presented and produced by Sarah McLusky, and the theme music is by Lemon Music Studios on Pixabay. And you, yes you, get a big gold star for listening right to the end. See you next time.
