You are the “Boss”. People either respect you or are afraid of you. You determine who gets a raise or a promotion, even who gets to keep one’s job. Here when you want something to get done, you ask for it and your subordinates will bend over backwards to get your wishes fulfilled. When you are present, everyone agrees with you and wants to have the best relationship with you. This is the scenario when you are the “Boss”.

Now consider the other scenario. You are not the boss and you want something get done. You enjoy no such powers as the boss, still you want the same response from people who are not reporting to you. You are not in the position to give them the raise they desire. If they don’t help you, they are still going to keep their jobs. Is there any way you can get the same people to work for you as they would do it for “Mr. Boss”?

The intent of this article is to enable you to be the boss, when you are not. The idea of leading people without formal authority is explored at length. The amazing art of influencing people and building relationship is not an easy feat to achieve without understanding the other person. Human beings are not machines or software algorithms. There is no single formula that fits all. How will you get them to work for you? If you must have a different setting for each person, then this will become the most difficult of jobs in the world. But it is not difficult. The formula may be different but the method to achieve the formula is somewhat similar. There are a few key elements which will help you understand the person you are trying to deal with. Only after that you can proceed further.

I was working on this project’s implementation providing fiber optic connectivity over several hundreds of KMs, including the ISP part. My team was complaining about a particular region not sending timely updates (these updates were essential for management reporting as this was a mega project of strategic nature). The issue was highlighted, and I decided to intervene. I called the regional manager who was in a different city. I simply started chatting about current weather, law, and order situation etc. after our formal introductions. Before saying goodbye i just reminded him about the report which was due. We got the report one day before the deadline. Over the course of the project i had several calls, MS Teams Meetings with the person. Also, i got to know about his interests and family. Never once did we get another complain from that region in other projects.

In the example above, the key was communication. I understood the person more and more by communicating regularly. I build a relationship with him. Sometimes that’s enough to get the person to work for you.

Still there are instances where you do not have enough time and must act quickly to solve the issue. I will share another incident with you.

Once I was asked to cover for a colleague. I attended a customer meeting which belonged to her. When I reached the meeting venue, I sensed tension in the room. Only two other people were sitting there. They didn’t ask me, if I wanted anything to drink like tea and coffee (something customary in Pakistan). I recall even the air conditioning and lighting were giving an uninviting vibe. We waited for 5 minutes and then their boss entered the room. Without any greeting or hello, he just started sharing his disappointment. He started with poor workmanship, late delivery, not getting regular updates and many other things. Before sitting down, he said that he wants an update now. I got my regional manager on the phone and gave him the update and it wasn’t as bad as the customer was anticipating. I understood the issue was that they were not getting regular updates from the account manager. This had led to poor visibility of the project status and caused panic at customer end. After the updates session the environment changed, and we had a great chat on telecom industry’s future and where is this leading. We had tea together and discussed future projects. When I went back, I asked my colleague why she wasn’t updating the customer. She said that she is providing them monthly updates, but they are asking about updates every other week. I tried to make her realize that the project may be small for us, but for the customer, it will be bringing in a new revenue stream, so he needs better visibility. She agreed on providing fortnightly updates to the customer. The issue was settled for good.

It is evident from this example that when you do not give clarity to your customer, they will panic. The key to solving the problem here was empathy. My colleague did not prioritize the customer requirements as she was only looking at the monetary value of the project for us. The customer was panicking and blaming us for all sort of things. So just by making my friend empathize with the customer we resolved this issue.

First and foremost, you need to understand the person. It will not be possible to get all the information on the individual. Still by looking at the way the person communicates, you can get most of your required information. You should consider these elements:

· Body language

· Communication style

· Tone

· Attentiveness to you

· Comfort level while communicating

We will explore each of these in the next chapter.

Now that you have the information, analyze it. Every organization has a personality. You need to understand the personality if you must deal with the people there. Culture plays a great role and if you observe keenly, you will understand how things work around that place. And if you understand the culture, half of your job is done. Now you need to dig further. Understand the subculture of the department that you are dealing with. At this stage you would have gained enough clarity to understand the person you are trying to influence.

Another aspect that you need to consider is the background of the person. This is difficult as people are from diverse places and you cannot have all the information about their origin. At times that can be misleading as you will meet people who had exposure and moved around a lot. So simply depending upon stereotypes will not be helpful. You must get things done so your understanding should be better than that. The key is more contact, more communication and listening.

A few years back, I had to get information on Karachi’s market for the launch of fiber to the home service to provide smart TV and internet services to consumers. I flew to Karachi from Islamabad and asked a colleague to set up some in-depth interviews with experts of the field. I interviewed a few people and got a lot of information which was actionable, but I did not get real insight from these people. I shared my concern with my colleague as I already knew this much from my secondary research and although the data will be helpful for designing my business case, it will not be very insightful. He set up a lunch meeting with his friend who had been working in the Karachi market for the past 20 years. I did the interview before lunch and the result was fairly like my previous interviews. Somewhat disappointed, i started having lunch with these guys. Suddenly the expert looks at me and start talking about how people think that no one here will pay more than PKR 2,500 for an internet connection. But in reality, there is a market potential of people who are sick of unreliable service and will pay much more for quality service. This was something very interesting and we got to talking and I had great insights from that lunch discussion which went over 2 hours and we also had a tea session. For the next two days that I was there, I only did either lunch discussions or on tea. I understood that people open up when you are having a candid discussion. They often give reserved responses when you have a set of questions on a paper and you are asking them and taking notes. We understood the people there. We launched a pricy service with a promise of best customer service in the city and it was a huge success. Earlier we were looking for ways to subsidize the upfront cost but those lunch discussions proved fruitful and we did not make the mistake of getting into price wars with competition, rather we offered a reliable service and customers happily paid for it. This would not have been possible for us to get people to sign up for our services if we hadn’t understood the market first and we would have lost a lot of money by not getting the price right for our premium service.

Does this ever happen to you that when you listen to an organization’s name, an image comes into your mind. Think about this. If I say google, what comes to your mind. I see a person with casual wear sitting on a beanbag working on a laptop. His desk is filled with clutter and he has many graphs and charts and algos around. A person who will text more than talk. A person who talks in sophisticated computer science lingo and is very much into comic books and superhero merchandize. All his wall decoration will speak volumes of these interests. I also see the person wearing glasses. I don’t consider him much of a people person. Now tell me how would you handle someone belonging to this organization. This is the preliminary picture, but these impressions hold some wisdom. All the aspects that I shared earlier would require much communication but in your first meeting what you need is to understand the impression. This image in your mind is based on a lot of information that goes around and you may have picked up and this could have been stored at the back of your mind or in your subconscious. Just thinking about the persona of the organization will help you a lot if you need to get something done. Here again they key is communication. The more you do it, the better image will come into your mind.

Now consider a writer on the series “The big bang theory”. I picture a female who is quick witted. I know she reads a lot of books and loves to write. Someone who creates jokes and likes to share with them. She also is equipped with technical and scientific knowledge. She researches a lot about science. She likes to talk to people and is outspoken as well as have a large social circle. Now consider asking her to do you a favor. It will seem very easy as the she will be more inviting and helpful than the google persona. You may even hear a few jokes and even have a lovely time with this person. So think about the persona of the organization from available knowledge and then meet people. Your task will become easier.

Now consider an auto dealership of Mercedes Benz. My mind gives an image of a well-dressed individual. He has a nicely trimmed sort beard. Very outspoken. Confident. Likes to talk to people. Can engage people and judge their interests. Someone full of energy and very persistent. Also understands cars very well. I can say that he is a family guy with kids and loves to spend some time with family. Also, I see a sophisticated watch on him. He is very approachable and has an inviting personality. I also sense that this person understands who a real customer is and who is window shopping. So, he may choose to give his time accordingly to each and very person coming to buy a car. So there is a little tendency to get rude at times and be less helpful to some people. He likes to eat at expensive dining areas and likes to spend time with friends. He is also a go getter and can handle rejection well. Read this description and tell me, don’t you think you may get something more if you think about the persona of the organization that you are about to deal with. Culture has little or more effect on everyone.

You also need to appreciate that while you personify, keep you mind open as this is different from stereotyping. Stereotyping is primarily a mental block where you believe a specific set of a person will always act in a certain way. That is something negative and always keep an open mind. Persona is more about the first image that comes to your mind with a huge room to change as you communicate and understand more. You also need to understand that the image that comes to your mind can be different what other people may perceive someone.

In a nationwide cell site connectivity project, I received an email from a very disgruntled customer. He was the main point of contact for our company from the customer side. He was also the person whose input could have an influence over future business opportunities. Let’s go back to the email. In order to explain the issue here, I have to touch upon how Telecom towers were supposed to be connected in this project (in as simple terms as possible). They were to be connected with fiber optic in a ring. So every tower is connected from two different ends. In case cable is cut at one end, the tower will stay up and work as total connectivity will not be lost. Every city had 15 to 25 different rings.

My regional team had given a plan to the customer which had timelines of when we will be able to connect the whole cities but they could not provide them with ring-wise timelines even after several reminders. I responded to the customer, assuring him that I will personally intervene and sort out the issue here. I called a meeting with my regional teams in Karachi, Lahore, Gujranwala and Hyderabad. After a little discussion, I learned that they were of the view that they already communicated timelines and a huge workload was involved in figuring out these timelines. The level of details they were mentioning was too much and I did not expect any customer to demand so much information on such a short notice. I realized that my regional teams and the customer have only exchanged emails and have not discussed the requirement in detail. During that meeting I called the customer and asked him if it will be possible to join the conversation (this was an online meeting on MS teams). The customer declined and told me he was busy and will call me later. On this my regional teams started complaining about the customer’s arrogance and non-cooperativeness. They were of the view that the data is too much and it will require at least two weeks to compile. They also thought that this was a futile exercise and the customer does not need this much data.

An hour later I got a call from the customer. As soon as I picked up the phone, he started complaining about my regional teams and their lack of professionalism. I listened calmly and when he finished, I asked him what he needs. He only needed timelines of ring completions. Something which could easily have been provided within an hour’s working. He wasn’t asking for complete project implementation plan where we track each activity, resources costs etc. So, all this was due to communication gap. My regional teams thought he needed a detailed plan while the requirement was very little. I added my colleagues to the call and when they understood what was required, it was provided by next day.

In the example above, it is evident that we need to understand the problem first. A person may seem arrogant (as the customer was being perceived) and people seem unprofessional by not responding to reminders. So we need to understand why a person in behaving in such a manner. Judging a person when he/she is angry should be avoided at all cost. This misunderstanding could have easily been avoided by just communicating and not relying on email as the only medium of information exchange.

I got an email from a customer who wanted me to visit their office with project updates tomorrow. I responded that we could do an online meeting as I was busy at that time. I told him to do it on MS teams and next week I will visit their office. After that I got involved in my work. An hour later I got a call from the same customer. He was very rude and was complaining a lot about my company’s previous project delays. He asked me to join him on MS Teams for online meeting immediately after our call ends. I agreed as the issue seemed urgent and needed my attention. When our meeting started, he showed me the project updates he got from my regional teams. There was no standard format and in one of the updates, it was not clear what work has been performed. He told me that he has to present this to his Chief Technology and Information officer tomorrow. He shared the information that he wanted. I added my regional teams to the conversation, and they promised to share the data before close of business that day. The attitude and tone of the customer suddenly changed. We all had a very good discussion afterwards. When I met the customer the next week in his office, he had arranged tea with doughnuts/pastries as his CTIO was very happy with the progress. This is also the case due to non-standard format of data. He could not understand the progress (which was good) and was under pressure as he had to present the data to his big boss. With little discussion where the issue was understood first, we also understood the person better and served better.

The conversation is not complete and we will continue from here. Take care.

You are the “Boss”. People either respect you or are afraid of you. You determine who gets a raise or a promotion, even who gets to keep one’s job. Here when you want something to get done, you ask for it and your subordinates will bend over backwards to get your wishes fulfilled. When you are present, everyone agrees with you and wants to have the best relationship with you. This is the scenario when you are the “Boss”.

Now consider the other scenario. You are not the boss and you want something get done. You enjoy no such powers as the boss, still you want the same response from people who are not reporting to you. You are not in the position to give them the raise they desire. If they don’t help you, they are still going to keep their jobs. Is there any way you can get the same people to work for you as they would do it for “Mr. Boss”?

The intent of this article is to enable you to be the boss, when you are not. The idea of leading people without formal authority is explored at length. The amazing art of influencing people and building relationship is not an easy feat to achieve without understanding the other person. Human beings are not machines or software algorithms. There is no single formula that fits all. How will you get them to work for you? If you must have a different setting for each person, then this will become the most difficult of jobs in the world. But it is not difficult. The formula may be different but the method to achieve the formula is somewhat similar. There are a few key elements which will help you understand the person you are trying to deal with. Only after that you can proceed further.

I was working on this project’s implementation providing fiber optic connectivity over several hundreds of KMs, including the ISP part. My team was complaining about a particular region not sending timely updates (these updates were essential for management reporting as this was a mega project of strategic nature). The issue was highlighted, and I decided to intervene. I called the regional manager who was in a different city. I simply started chatting about current weather, law, and order situation etc. after our formal introductions. Before saying goodbye i just reminded him about the report which was due. We got the report one day before the deadline. Over the course of the project i had several calls, MS Teams Meetings with the person. Also, i got to know about his interests and family. Never once did we get another complain from that region in other projects.

In the example above, the key was communication. I understood the person more and more by communicating regularly. I build a relationship with him. Sometimes that’s enough to get the person to work for you.

Still there are instances where you do not have enough time and must act quickly to solve the issue. I will share another incident with you.

Once I was asked to cover for a colleague. I attended a customer meeting which belonged to her. When I reached the meeting venue, I sensed tension in the room. Only two other people were sitting there. They didn’t ask me, if I wanted anything to drink like tea and coffee (something customary in Pakistan). I recall even the air conditioning and lighting were giving an uninviting vibe. We waited for 5 minutes and then their boss entered the room. Without any greeting or hello, he just started sharing his disappointment. He started with poor workmanship, late delivery, not getting regular updates and many other things. Before sitting down, he said that he wants an update now. I got my regional manager on the phone and gave him the update and it wasn’t as bad as the customer was anticipating. I understood the issue was that they were not getting regular updates from the account manager. This had led to poor visibility of the project status and caused panic at customer end. After the updates session the environment changed, and we had a great chat on telecom industry’s future and where is this leading. We had tea together and discussed future projects. When I went back, I asked my colleague why she wasn’t updating the customer. She said that she is providing them monthly updates, but they are asking about updates every other week. I tried to make her realize that the project may be small for us, but for the customer, it will be bringing in a new revenue stream, so he needs better visibility. She agreed on providing fortnightly updates to the customer. The issue was settled for good.

It is evident from this example that when you do not give clarity to your customer, they will panic. The key to solving the problem here was empathy. My colleague did not prioritize the customer requirements as she was only looking at the monetary value of the project for us. The customer was panicking and blaming us for all sort of things. So just by making my friend empathize with the customer we resolved this issue.

First and foremost, you need to understand the person. It will not be possible to get all the information on the individual. Still by looking at the way the person communicates, you can get most of your required information. You should consider these elements:

· Body language

· Communication style

· Tone

· Attentiveness to you

· Comfort level while communicating

We will explore each of these in the next chapter.

Now that you have the information, analyze it. Every organization has a personality. You need to understand the personality if you must deal with the people there. Culture plays a great role and if you observe keenly, you will understand how things work around that place. And if you understand the culture, half of your job is done. Now you need to dig further. Understand the subculture of the department that you are dealing with. At this stage you would have gained enough clarity to understand the person you are trying to influence.

Another aspect that you need to consider is the background of the person. This is difficult as people are from diverse places and you cannot have all the information about their origin. At times that can be misleading as you will meet people who had exposure and moved around a lot. So simply depending upon stereotypes will not be helpful. You must get things done so your understanding should be better than that. The key is more contact, more communication and listening.

A few years back, I had to get information on Karachi’s market for the launch of fiber to the home service to provide smart TV and internet services to consumers. I flew to Karachi from Islamabad and asked a colleague to set up some in-depth interviews with experts of the field. I interviewed a few people and got a lot of information which was actionable, but I did not get real insight from these people. I shared my concern with my colleague as I already knew this much from my secondary research and although the data will be helpful for designing my business case, it will not be very insightful. He set up a lunch meeting with his friend who had been working in the Karachi market for the past 20 years. I did the interview before lunch and the result was fairly like my previous interviews. Somewhat disappointed, i started having lunch with these guys. Suddenly the expert looks at me and start talking about how people think that no one here will pay more than PKR 2,500 for an internet connection. But in reality, there is a market potential of people who are sick of unreliable service and will pay much more for quality service. This was something very interesting and we got to talking and I had great insights from that lunch discussion which went over 2 hours and we also had a tea session. For the next two days that I was there, I only did either lunch discussions or on tea. I understood that people open up when you are having a candid discussion. They often give reserved responses when you have a set of questions on a paper and you are asking them and taking notes. We understood the people there. We launched a pricy service with a promise of best customer service in the city and it was a huge success. Earlier we were looking for ways to subsidize the upfront cost but those lunch discussions proved fruitful and we did not make the mistake of getting into price wars with competition, rather we offered a reliable service and customers happily paid for it. This would not have been possible for us to get people to sign up for our services if we hadn’t understood the market first and we would have lost a lot of money by not getting the price right for our premium service.

Does this ever happen to you that when you listen to an organization’s name, an image comes into your mind. Think about this. If I say google, what comes to your mind. I see a person with casual wear sitting on a beanbag working on a laptop. His desk is filled with clutter and he has many graphs and charts and algos around. A person who will text more than talk. A person who talks in sophisticated computer science lingo and is very much into comic books and superhero merchandize. All his wall decoration will speak volumes of these interests. I also see the person wearing glasses. I don’t consider him much of a people person. Now tell me how would you handle someone belonging to this organization. This is the preliminary picture, but these impressions hold some wisdom. All the aspects that I shared earlier would require much communication but in your first meeting what you need is to understand the impression. This image in your mind is based on a lot of information that goes around and you may have picked up and this could have been stored at the back of your mind or in your subconscious. Just thinking about the persona of the organization will help you a lot if you need to get something done. Here again they key is communication. The more you do it, the better image will come into your mind.

Now consider a writer on the series “The big bang theory”. I picture a female who is quick witted. I know she reads a lot of books and loves to write. Someone who creates jokes and likes to share with them. She also is equipped with technical and scientific knowledge. She researches a lot about science. She likes to talk to people and is outspoken as well as have a large social circle. Now consider asking her to do you a favor. It will seem very easy as the she will be more inviting and helpful than the google persona. You may even hear a few jokes and even have a lovely time with this person. So think about the persona of the organization from available knowledge and then meet people. Your task will become easier.

Now consider an auto dealership of Mercedes Benz. My mind gives an image of a well-dressed individual. He has a nicely trimmed sort beard. Very outspoken. Confident. Likes to talk to people. Can engage people and judge their interests. Someone full of energy and very persistent. Also understands cars very well. I can say that he is a family guy with kids and loves to spend some time with family. Also, I see a sophisticated watch on him. He is very approachable and has an inviting personality. I also sense that this person understands who a real customer is and who is window shopping. So, he may choose to give his time accordingly to each and very person coming to buy a car. So there is a little tendency to get rude at times and be less helpful to some people. He likes to eat at expensive dining areas and likes to spend time with friends. He is also a go getter and can handle rejection well. Read this description and tell me, don’t you think you may get something more if you think about the persona of the organization that you are about to deal with. Culture has little or more effect on everyone.

You also need to appreciate that while you personify, keep you mind open as this is different from stereotyping. Stereotyping is primarily a mental block where you believe a specific set of a person will always act in a certain way. That is something negative and always keep an open mind. Persona is more about the first image that comes to your mind with a huge room to change as you communicate and understand more. You also need to understand that the image that comes to your mind can be different what other people may perceive someone.

In a nationwide cell site connectivity project, I received an email from a very disgruntled customer. He was the main point of contact for our company from the customer side. He was also the person whose input could have an influence over future business opportunities. Let’s go back to the email. In order to explain the issue here, I have to touch upon how Telecom towers were supposed to be connected in this project (in as simple terms as possible). They were to be connected with fiber optic in a ring. So every tower is connected from two different ends. In case cable is cut at one end, the tower will stay up and work as total connectivity will not be lost. Every city had 15 to 25 different rings.

My regional team had given a plan to the customer which had timelines of when we will be able to connect the whole cities but they could not provide them with ring-wise timelines even after several reminders. I responded to the customer, assuring him that I will personally intervene and sort out the issue here. I called a meeting with my regional teams in Karachi, Lahore, Gujranwala and Hyderabad. After a little discussion, I learned that they were of the view that they already communicated timelines and a huge workload was involved in figuring out these timelines. The level of details they were mentioning was too much and I did not expect any customer to demand so much information on such a short notice. I realized that my regional teams and the customer have only exchanged emails and have not discussed the requirement in detail. During that meeting I called the customer and asked him if it will be possible to join the conversation (this was an online meeting on MS teams). The customer declined and told me he was busy and will call me later. On this my regional teams started complaining about the customer’s arrogance and non-cooperativeness. They were of the view that the data is too much and it will require at least two weeks to compile. They also thought that this was a futile exercise and the customer does not need this much data.

An hour later I got a call from the customer. As soon as I picked up the phone, he started complaining about my regional teams and their lack of professionalism. I listened calmly and when he finished, I asked him what he needs. He only needed timelines of ring completions. Something which could easily have been provided within an hour’s working. He wasn’t asking for complete project implementation plan where we track each activity, resources costs etc. So, all this was due to communication gap. My regional teams thought he needed a detailed plan while the requirement was very little. I added my colleagues to the call and when they understood what was required, it was provided by next day.

In the example above, it is evident that we need to understand the problem first. A person may seem arrogant (as the customer was being perceived) and people seem unprofessional by not responding to reminders. So we need to understand why a person in behaving in such a manner. Judging a person when he/she is angry should be avoided at all cost. This misunderstanding could have easily been avoided by just communicating and not relying on email as the only medium of information exchange.

I got an email from a customer who wanted me to visit their office with project updates tomorrow. I responded that we could do an online meeting as I was busy at that time. I told him to do it on MS teams and next week I will visit their office. After that I got involved in my work. An hour later I got a call from the same customer. He was very rude and was complaining a lot about my company’s previous project delays. He asked me to join him on MS Teams for online meeting immediately after our call ends. I agreed as the issue seemed urgent and needed my attention. When our meeting started, he showed me the project updates he got from my regional teams. There was no standard format and in one of the updates, it was not clear what work has been performed. He told me that he has to present this to his Chief Technology and Information officer tomorrow. He shared the information that he wanted. I added my regional teams to the conversation, and they promised to share the data before close of business that day. The attitude and tone of the customer suddenly changed. We all had a very good discussion afterwards. When I met the customer the next week in his office, he had arranged tea with doughnuts/pastries as his CTIO was very happy with the progress. This is also the case due to non-standard format of data. He could not understand the progress (which was good) and was under pressure as he had to present the data to his big boss. With little discussion where the issue was understood first, we also understood the person better and served better.

The conversation is not complete and we will continue from here. Take care.