Rules
3 answers on workplace influence mistakes, in order
Workplace influence mistakes that spend standing faster than any habit builds it, and the small unreliabilities that cost more than the large failures do.
Standing takes about a year to build and can be spent in two weeks. That asymmetry is the subject here. Most of what destroys it is not a dramatic failure; it is a series of small things that each look survivable. People generalize from those small things more readily than from large ones.
The three answers below cover nine workplace influence mistakes, roughly in order of how quietly they do damage. Each answer names the mistakes behind it and what to do instead.
What to take away
- Small unreliability costs more than large failure. People forgive a missed deadline on a hard project and remember an unanswered message about a trivial one.
- Every use of standing draws on the same account. Winning a preference argument spends the balance you needed for the thing that mattered two months later.
- Being right is not the currency. Credibility is, and it is made of being right about checkable things and saying plainly when you were not.
The three answers, in order
Answer 1: Be reliable on small things, and stop spending standing on preferences
Small unreliability. The message not answered, the file not sent, the fifteen minutes late. Each is trivial and each is a data point about what you are like when nothing is at stake. People use that data to predict what you are like when something is.
Spending on preferences. Arguing to a win about how work is presented, which tool is used, or how a document is structured. The argument may be correct, and it draws down the same account as the thing you will need in the fall.
Answer 2: Be honest about credit, correction, expertise, and interests
Claiming credit that was distributed. Describing a shared result in the first person, once, in front of somebody who was there. The correction never happens out loud, and the standing does not come back.
Being right in a way that embarrasses somebody. Correcting a senior person in public, or being visibly right about their decision, costs more than the point is worth almost every time. Make the prediction where it can be checked and let the outcome speak instead of the correction.
Advising outside what you know. Confident opinions about somebody else's specialty are heard as confidence about everything. When one turns out wrong, the discount is applied across your whole judgment, including the parts you did know.
Never saying you do not know. If everything you say arrives at the same level of certainty, nobody can tell which of your views to plan against. "I do not know, and I can find out by Thursday" is what makes your confident statements worth anything.
Not declaring an interest. Recommending an option you benefit from, without saying so, is a conflict of interest whether or not the recommendation was correct. Declared, it reduces the weight of your advice a little. Discovered, it reduces the weight of all your previous advice retrospectively.
Answer 3: Maintain what you own, and spend what you have
Letting the document go stale. Owning the thing everybody opens and then not maintaining it. Standing built on an artifact depends entirely on the artifact still being right. An out-of-date document does more damage than no document, because people act on it.
Accumulating and never spending. The quietest failure. Standing that is never used decays, because the habit other people have of checking with you is maintained by the checking being worth something. Somebody who is consulted and always agrees stops being consulted.
What each answer costs
| The mistake | Answer | What people conclude | How long it takes to repair |
|---|---|---|---|
| Small unreliability | 1 | This is what they are like by default | Months of the opposite |
| Winning preference arguments | 1 | Consulting them is expensive | One quarter of not doing it |
| Claiming shared credit | 2 | Work is not safe with them | Rarely repaired |
| Public correction of a superior | 2 | Being near them is risky | Depends entirely on the person |
| Advising beyond your knowledge | 2 | Their confidence means nothing | Slow, and needs visible limits |
| Never admitting ignorance | 2 | Everything they say is a guess | One well-placed admission |
| Undeclared interest | 2 | Their past advice was suspect | Very slow |
| A stale document | 3 | The source cannot be trusted | One update and an apology |
| Never spending | 3 | There is no reason to ask | Immediate, once you spend it |
The third and the seventh rows are the ones with no cheap repair. Both are about honesty rather than competence, and both are learned about by people who were not in the room.
Cost and repair time by mistake
Mistake
- Small unreliability
- Default behaviour
- Winning preference arguments
- Expensive to consult
- Claiming shared credit
- Work unsafe
- Public correction of superior
- Risky to be near
- Advising beyond knowledge
- Confidence meaningless
- Never admitting ignorance
- Everything a guess
What people conclude
- Small unreliability
- Months
- Winning preference arguments
- One quarter
- Claiming shared credit
- Rarely repaired
- Public correction of superior
- Depends on person
- Advising beyond knowledge
- Slow
- Never admitting ignorance
- One admission
Repair time
- Small unreliability
- Winning preference arguments
- Claiming shared credit
- Public correction of superior
- Advising beyond knowledge
- Never admitting ignorance
The pattern underneath
Six of the nine are versions of the same thing: a claim that turns out to be worth less than it appeared. The examples are a commitment not met, a credit not yours, an opinion outside what you know, and a certainty you did not have.
Two more are a recommendation with an undeclared stake and a document that is no longer true.
Standing is other people's willingness to act on what you say without checking. Every one of those teaches them to check, and once they check, the habit that constituted your standing is gone. That is why the repair times in the table are so long relative to how small the incidents are.
Where standing comes from is in workplace influence; what builds it is in workplace influence techniques.
Several mistakes concern who was exposed to a decision you took credit for, mapped in stakeholder influence. Spending it on a specific request is influence without authority, and the test for whether a use is legitimate is positive influence.
Common questions
Is small unreliability really worse than missing a big deadline?
For your standing, usually yes. A missed deadline on a hard project has visible causes and people can see them. An unanswered message has no cause anyone can see, so the explanation they reach for is about you.
How do I stop arguing about preferences when I think I am right?
Say your preference once, with the reason, and then say that you will go with whatever is decided. That sentence costs nothing, it is remembered, and it keeps the account intact for something that matters. Most preference arguments are lost even when won.
I was right in public about my manager's decision. What now?
Do not repeat it, do not refer back to it, and give them something visible to be right about within the next month. The cost was not the disagreement; it was the audience, and the only repair is time plus evidence that you are not collecting these.
Declaring an interest weakens my recommendation.
It should, and the reduction happens either way. Declaring only decides whether it happens now, while it is small, or later, applied to everything you have ever recommended.
How do I know if I am the person who never spends?
Ask when you last used your standing on something uncomfortable: stopping a decision, backing an unpopular colleague, raising something nobody had named. If the answer is more than a year ago, you have been conserving something that does not keep.
