There was a time that having influence meant something.

Maybe it still does in certain circles, but for much of the world it means you have millions, or at least hundreds of thousands, of followers on Instagram, YouTube and Twitter (Facebook seems to be passé).

They are called ‘influencers’ and their followers treat their words, actions, recommendations, and opinions as gospel.

In spite of the fact that many of them are paid to promote [whatever].

Of course, famous people have been paid to endorse products for decades.

The difference is that many influencers are famous only because they are expert manipulators of social media — or they pay experts to build their brand.

So. Not new and relatively harmless.

But not when they are built on a lie and involve your health or money.

[Yovana Mendoza] The 28-year-old influencer, also known as Rawvana, has amassed more than 3 million followers across YouTube and Instagram by extolling the life-changing properties of a raw vegan diet. (…)  a couple of weeks ago, Mendoza was recorded eating seafood (…) Realising she was being filmed, she tried to hide the fish, but the jig was up.

Mendoza admitted she had stopped eating vegan for health reasons.

But she kept preaching the lifestyle.

There are dozens of similar stories and hundreds of influencers whose only true skill is self-promotion.

They talk about health; about money; about “living your best life.”

They talk to the millions of fools who follow them.

Image credit: Marco Raaphorst

Yesterday was election day of course and it was a doozie. I live in Florida and have found that it can be a bizarre state to reside in when it comes to election time.

Like most states there is a rural and urban voting divide. However, this state seems to be fairly even on that split and that results in extremely close elections.

I looked at past data for the state and it looks like 75% of eligible voters vote in the general election and around 50% vote in midterms. I am not sure what drives those numbers, but the election always comes down to less than 100,000 vote difference.

In Florida we are inundated with ads, money and agendas. I am registered independent (thinking it would spare me from phone calls, which it didn’t) and I received calls from campaigns, dozens of text messages and countless mailers.

I tend to tune it all out. I go search the info on the candidates and make a rational decision well before the election. However, I have found that Florida is anything but rational.

Depending on your leanings you believe your  guns will be taken, socialist are getting elected, migrants are being rounded up and so on. It seems that only the extreme version of both parties is presented to the public. What is funny though is when you actually listen to the candidates themselves they all seem fairly rational.

What drives us to our political camps? I know for me it was family initially; they all voted a certain way and so did I.

As I have come into my own I have learned to evaluate a candidate on their merits. Not by party or ads. Work and friends are another way. I am in tech and in an urban center. Most of my population is more left. As a result I tend to think most feel the same way. I could not be more wrong. Even in my county when you go to different areas you see a change in mentality.

Where else do you find the influence comes from? Religion and faith can drive it. Education of course. Income. I don’t have one answer but it’s obvious that it’s a cultural driver.

Now that the election is over maybe we can reach across the fence and begin mending it.

We are all in this together and have different ideas on how to get things done, but we gave value as humans.

Kindness goes a long way.

Image credit: Hiking Artist

Poking through 11+ years of posts I find information that’s as useful now as when it was written.

Golden Oldies is a collection of the most relevant and timeless posts during that time.

In a world of Facebook/Twitter/WhatsApp/constant notifications/etc. knowing yourself is not high on people’s priority list. Partly, because it requires introspection sans distractions and partly because it is hard work and often uncomfortable. That said, it also provides the highest ROI of any action you may take.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

Do you equate leadership to influence?

Does being labeled an “influencer” by LinkedIn or other social media make you a leader?

Not really.

True leadership is internal.

It’s a function of your MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™).

It starts by knowing both yourself and your MAP.

Knowing yourself refers to knowing what you’ve done.

Knowing your MAP means knowing why you did it.

Knowing both allows you to accurately evaluate where you are and where you’re going.

That knowledge is the rudder with which you can chart and achieve any course you choose.

Image credit: Jevgenijs Slihto

Poking through 11+ years of posts I find information that’s as useful now as when it was written.

Golden Oldies is a collection of the most relevant and timeless posts during that time.

Words have enormous power. In the past, dozens of companies stuck their foot in their corporate mouth by translating slogans, with no consideration of their meaning in the new language.

Today they face a much more serious challenge. AI’s ability to mimic voices and manipulate images means executives, as well as politicians, celebrities, religious leaders, and ordinary people, can be made to say anything, with images to match.

Caveat emptor has taken on a whole new meaning, not to mention urgency.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

Do words really make a difference? Can just one word change people’s perception of a person or event?

I’ve read several items lately on the importance of influence in leadership. Several even make the point that it’s the ability to influence that marks a person as a leader.

Personally, other than socially acceptable definitions, I don’t see a lot of difference between influence and manipulation.

Both influence and manipulation seek to produce an effect without any apparent exertion of force or direct exercise of command.

But if you say someone has a lot of influence it’s a compliment; call the same person a master manipulator and you’d better duck.

It’s a good example of the real power that words have to inspire or crush even if their meaning is the same.

And it’s important to remember that words come with baggage that goes well beyond their actual definition.

That baggage was one of the main reasons corporate marketing departments made so many mistakes when moving from one culture to another.

Braniff translated its slogan relating to seat upholstery, “Fly in leather” to Spanish; only it came out as “Fly naked.”

Coors slogan, “Turn it loose,” means “Suffer from diarrhea” in Spanish.

Clairol, introduced a curling iron called the “Mist Stick” in Germany and learned the hard way that mist is slang for manure.

Gerber started selling baby food in Africa using US packaging with the baby on the label until they found out that in Africa the picture on the label indicates what’s inside since most people can’t read.

There are hundreds of similar mishaps. They made marketing departments a laughing stock, forced companies to hire locally, helped change the headquarters mindset and encourage global companies to be truly global.

The point of all this is to encourage you to take a few extra minutes to think through not only what you want to say, but also what your audience will hear when you say it.

That effort can make the difference between going up like a rocket or down like a falling star.

Image credit: flickr

Or not…

Although yesterday’s post about influencers focused on founders, influencers are everywhere.

Influencers effect the entire global population, because they populate social media, new media, old media, and your entire offline world.

Some influencers are real people who are paid real money to endorse a brand, movement, or some other effort, lending credence as well as a halo effect.

Others are faux.

The symbols that identify “real” influencers and provide immediate legitimacy are sold in a black market that is an open secret among those who earn their living as influencers — and they are willing to pay.

For example, Instangram’s little blue check sells for anywhere from $1500 to $7000

More importantly, it’s a status symbol. The blue emblem can help people gain legitimacy in the business of influencer marketing and bestows some credibility within Instagram’s community of 700 million monthly active users. It cannot be requested online or purchased, according to Instagram’s policies. It is Instagram’s velvet rope.

In addition to verification, there are black markets for attractiveness, Likes, followers, and anything else that boosts profiles and Klout scores.

We live in a world where everything is for sale, so when it comes to influencers, caveat emptor is the watchword to live by.

Image credit: USFWS Mountain-Prairie

It’s amazing to me, but looking back over more than a decade of writing I find posts that still impress, with information that is as useful now as when it was written.

Golden Oldies are a collection of what I consider some of the best posts during that time.

It used to be said that a person was “influential” — these days they are “influencers.” Are the terms synonymous? Can they really be used interchangeably? I don’t think so, and plan to enlarge on the differences over the next two days.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here

Influence isn’t about your online ranking or the strength of your brand, although they contribute.

Influence is about effect.

The effect your words or actions have on those exposed to them.

Yesterday I linked to an article in which Penelope Trunk said that it’s a bad idea for founders to be of different genders and because of her influence dozens of founders are probably rethinking their startup plans.

There is a common arrogance among influencers to generalize their opinion and present it as fact applicable to all. Typically, the more successful the influencer the greater the arrogance.

But from day one every founder has influence, before success and beyond the expected, so even a casual word can cause trouble.

A founder CEO I know, whose original education years before was engineering, had a habit of occasionally strolling through engineering to see what was going on.

One day he commented that he wouldn’t do a design the way the team was doing it. It was a casual, throw-away comment, one he had forgotten five minutes later, but it devastated the design team.

The CEO had no clue to the havoc he wrought and it took the vp of engineering, who was co-founder, hours to settle them down. He then told the CEO not to talk to the team and banned him from the department.

What those on the receiving end of influencers need to realize is that no matter how brilliant or experienced someone is they are still voicing an opinion.

And as valuable as the opinion may be, it should never be swallowed whole, because opinions are subjective.

They are the product of that individual’s MAP, which itself is a product of upbringing and experience. Even someone else having exactly the same background and experience would not have identical MAP because each person processes differently and has different inherent characteristics.

Influence comes with responsibilities—how well do you handle yours?

Image credit: HikingArtist

It’s amazing to me, but looking back over more than a decade of writing I find posts that still impress, with information that is as useful now as when it was written.

Golden Oldies is a collection of some of the best posts during that time.

This week is a two-fer, the first post was written in 2009, while the second is from 2015. Both contain links to other relevant posts. And both address a pet peeve of mine involving words — what else — their use, misuse and baggage.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

Discriminating Leadership

The ability to influence is not the sign of a leader; nor are visions, forceful opinions, board seats, titles or popularity. After all, if a high media profile was a sign of leadership then Britney Spears and Paris Hilton are leaders.

Millions of people are influenced and even inspired by writers and actors, but does that make them leaders? Angelina Jolie is considered a leader for her tireless charitable efforts as opposed to her screen credits; Rush Limbaugh may influence thousands, but I’ve never heard him called a leader.

It is the singular accomplishments; the unique actions that deserve the term, not the position you hold or just doing your job.

I knew a manager who thought his major accomplishment was managing his 100 person organization, but that wasn’t an accomplishment—that was his job. The accomplishment, and what qualified him as a leader, was doing it for four years with 3% turnover and every project finished on time and in budget.

Jim Stroup over at Managing Leadership (no longer available) wrote, “There is a strong and general instinct to ascribe positive values to what we have determined to be examples of leadership. In a world that so often confuses forcefulness with leadership, this can be – and frequently is, in fact, revealed to be – an exceedingly dangerous habit… There is a particularly frustrating – and increasing – tendency to characterize any practice or trait deemed “good” as “leadership.” When an executive exhibits behavior that is highly valued – or even expresses a perfectly ordinary one especially well – he or she is declared to be a “leader,” or to have demonstrated “leadership.”

Dozens of corporate chieftains who were held up for years as exemplifying visionary leadership now stand in line for bailout money—or dinner in jail.

There is no way to stop the word being used and abused, but you have the option to hear it for what it really is—a word with no baggage, no assumed meaning.

A word on which you focus your critical thinking instead of accepting it blindly, assuming that all its traits are positive or rejecting it based on nothing more than ideology.

Influence, Persuasion and Manipulation

Last week I had lunch with four managers, “Larry,” “Mandy,” “Paul” and “Ashish.” At one point the conversation turned to how the ability to influence people affected the ability to lead.

It was a lively conversation, but I stayed on the sidelines; noticing my silence, Ashish asked me what I thought.

Instead of responding I asked all of them what the difference was between influence, persuasion and manipulation.

This provoked another active discussion, with the upshot that while it was acceptable to influence people it was wrong to manipulate them. This time it was Mandy who asked what I thought.

I responded that I didn’t see a lot of difference between the three.

That shocked them all, but really upset Larry.

So I explained my thinking, which formed the basis of this post in 2011.

Influence = Manipulation

Every conversation about leadership talks about ‘influence’ and how to increase yours.

In a post at Forbes, Howard Scharlatt defines influence this way,

Influence is, simply put, the power and ability to personally affect others’ actions, decisions, opinions or thinking. At one level, it is about compliance, about getting someone to go along with what you want them to do.

He goes on to describe three kinds of influencing tactics: logical, emotional and cooperative, or influencing with head, heart and hands and talks about ‘personal influence’ and its importance in persuading people when authority is lacking.

A couple of years ago I wrote The Power of Words and said, “Personally, other than socially acceptable definitions, I don’t see a lot of difference between influence and manipulation,” and I still don’t.

I realize most people consider manipulation negative and influence positive, but they are just words.

I often hear that leaders are good people, while manipulators are bad people. But as I pointed out in another post,

leaders are not by definition “good;”

they aren’t always positive role models; and

one person’s “good” leader is another person’s demon.

Everyone believes they use their influence in a positive way, but when you persuade people to do [whatever] who are you to say that both the short and long-term outcome is positive for them?

Influence, persuasion, manipulation; call it what you will, just remember that it is power and be cautious when you wield it.

In spite of the heated disagreement I saw no reason to change my thinking.

I was surprised at the end of the discussion when even Larry commented that while it made sense that the words didn’t actually signal intent he still didn’t like it and wasn’t about to use them interchangeably, which made sense to me, because language carries the meaning (and the baggage) of the time and place in which it’s used.

Image credit: Anne Adrian

It’s amazing to me, but looking back over nearly a Decade of writing I find posts that still impress, with information that is as useful now as when it was written. Golden Oldies is a collection of what I consider some of the best posts during that time.

I wrote this six years ago, but it could have been 60 or 160 or longer. There isn’t now, nor has there ever been, a good substitute for initiative — and I doubt there ever will be in the future. Read other Golden Oldies here.

Monday I wrote that so-called leadership skills are actually the skills everyone needs to live a satisfying life and to that end they are well worth developing.

I also said I would share the most important trait of leadership—and life.

It’s Initiative.

Initiative is the number one key leadership ingredient.

More so than vision or influence, it’s initiative that puts you in the forefront of any action, large of small.

Initiative is what

• separates the doers from the observers;
• stokes creativity and innovation;
• drives entrepreneurial activity at all levels; and
• makes the world a better place.

Initiative isn’t about schooling, although education can enhance it; it’s not about birth or clothes or cool. It’s not about networking or connections or followers on Twitter.

It’s about awareness; about noticing what needs to be done and doing it whether or not anybody is around to notice; doing it whether or not there is credit and kudos.

Initiative doesn’t wait for someone else to lead the way, nor does it play Monday morning quarterback to initiative taken by others, instead it actively contributes to that initiative.

Initiative doesn’t wait to occupy a certain position before becoming active, preferring to constantly seek ways in which it can contribute.

I believe that initiative is latent in every person, but it’s up to each individual to make it active.

Image credit: business mans on sxc.hu

How often are your actions influenced by what someone else says they heard?

I think most of us have a tendency to accept that kind of commentary, especially when other outcomes are unlikely.

The recent experience of Anthony Perosi is a shinning example of just how costly relying on second-hand information can be.

Like millions of others, Perosi plays the NY Lottery.

A few days after the Powerball drawing on March 14, Mr. Perosi, 56, was eating lunch at a restaurant, where someone told him that the 7-Eleven on Page Avenue had sold a Powerball winner.

“I says, ‘I’ve played at Page Avenue 7-Eleven,’ ” Mr. Perosi recalled on Thursday.

“She was like, ‘Forget about it.’ ” She heard a schoolteacher had won. She told Mr. Perosi, “You didn’t win nothing.”

So rather than checking himself he accepted what Sandy had heard as fact.

But his truck breaking down in April gave Perosi the impetus to check himself.

To his total astonishment the winning numbers were his.

His and the IRS, to the tune of 136 million dollars

The lesson here is that the next time you start to accept what someone states as fact, it pays to check for yourself.

Sometimes it pays very well indeed.

Flickr image credit: Mark Morgan

Wally Bock is one of the smartest guys I know on the subject of being a boss. I find his approaches on everything to be based in the kind of common sense that is easily recognized as being bang-on.

If I knew Wally better, and he didn’t live on the other coast, I would have kissed him for his post last Friday.

But,  since that isn’t possible, I’m reposting it here — in total gratitude.

Leadership “wisdom” that makes me crazy

May 28, 2015 03:00 pm | Wally Bock

Did you know that there are almost 300 books that Amazon thinks contain “leadership secrets?” Do a Google search for the phrase and you’ll get more than nine million results in about half a second. That makes me crazy.

We’ve studied leaders and leadership for millennia. Is it really possible that there’s a secret out there that we haven’t uncovered? This sounds to me like those “medical breakthroughs” that are announced in infomercials.

Those thoughts started me thinking about other “leadership” things that make me crazy. Here they are in no particular order.

Anyone can lead

Really? In theory maybe, but in real life there are people who don’t want the accountability. Others are pathologically afraid of confrontation. And there are others who won’t make decisions. Anyone can have influence, but not everyone is willing to lead.

Don’t bring me a problem unless you bring a solution.

Oh right! If I see a problem and can’t find a solution you don’t want to know about it? Do you really think it’s better to go on in blissful ignorance until the problem blows up all over you? Besides, problems are often where progress starts.

That stupid bus!

Getting the right people on the bus and then deciding where to go sounds good, until you think about it. First off, most managers don’t get that luxury. They have to achieve the goals they’re given with the people they’ve got. But more fundamentally, how can you know the characteristics of “the right people” until you know where you’re going?

For the record, this might make sense for some start-ups. It did for Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard.

Leaders versus Managers

Argh! I don’t care what Warren Bennis said. It’s not about people. It’s about different kinds of work. If you’re responsible for the performance of a group you have to lead and you have to manage and you have to supervise. You don’t get a choice.

For the record, Peter Drucker never talked about leaders and managers as separate kinds of people, but he did discuss leadership and management.

Flickr image credit: US Army