by Craig Weber
PRAISE FOR
CRAIG WEBER
and
INFLUENCE IN ACTION
Every so often, I come across an idea that’s so simple yet so powerful that it instantly changes my perspective. The sweet spot model within Conversational Capacity had this effect on me, describing how the best conversations and collaborations live in the paradoxical middle ground between passive and aggressive dysfunction. The methods described in Influence in Action will change how you behave in conversations ranging from chatting with peers to facilitating large high-stakes meetings. It’s that powerful.
—Jay Campbell, SVP of Products and Content, The Ken Blanchard Companies
Craig Weber has written a book everyone must read! It is a crazy world we live in, and we need a very different set of tools, techniques, and principles to navigate the unpredictable terrain and actually contribute positively to solving tough problems and shaping organizational life and our wider world. Craig draws on his experience working with thousands of executives from a broad array of institutions on the demands and requirements for making a sustainable difference. He presents a framework for leadership and change that is intellectually rigorous, extremely actionable, and delightfully inspiring. These are exciting and compelling ideas that you can use immediately to be a force for good and a dynamic change agent in business, government, or community life.
—Dr. Dean Williams, Faculty Chair, The Global Change Agent program, Harvard Kennedy School, and author of Real Leadership and Leadership for a Fractured World
Craig Weber has done it again. Following up on his first book, Conversational Capacity, Weber reminds us that conversation is perhaps the most powerful tool we have at our disposal in creating positive relationships and productive teams. Too often we take talk for granted, and we do not pay attention to what we are creating together. Influence in Action offers concrete steps that empower us to be mindful in our relationships and teams so that we can make a meaningful difference when and where it counts.
—Frank J. Barrett, PhD, Professor of Management and Organizational Behavior, Global Public Policy, Naval Postgraduate School, and author of Yes to the Mess: Surprising Leadership Lessons from Jazz
Craig Weber makes a convincing case that the most important skill we can cultivate as leaders—the most game-changing, life-changing, world-changing thing we can learn—is the ability to have better conversations in difficult circumstances. Then he shows us how to do it. Influence in Action is a practical guide for turning dialogue into a discipline, a map for finding the sweet spot where unspoken biases, hidden agendas, and entrenched positions yield to healthy, productive collaboration. I can’t imagine a more essential read for complex times.
—Chris Koch, Chief Marketing Officer, Banyan Communications
I’ve known Craig for years through our work developing engineering leaders. His ideas and skills for having effective leadership conversations in challenging circumstances were a central part of engineering leadership development. If you’re looking to gear up your ability to work well with others under pressure, have greater influence when it counts, and make a big difference in your team or organization, you must read this book!
—Dr. John J. Tracy, retired Chief Technology Officer and SVP of Engineering, Operations, and Technology, The Boeing Company
I count myself among those who loved Conversational Capacity and, after rereading it a few times, was looking for more. Craig delivers it in this book. He expands our understanding of the sweet spot and provides us with invaluable tools for taking our conversational capacity and our ability to be a positive influence in the lives of others to new heights.
—Leo Bottary, coauthor of The Power of Peers and author of What Anyone Can Do
The lack of self-awareness and purposeful communication can ruin any business. Craig established himself as the foremost thought leader on these issues in his seminal book, Conversational Capacity. In his new book, Influence in Action, Craig ups the ante with additional tools that empower leaders to transcend productive conversations to inspirational leadership. A personal game-changer, Influence in Action is a must-read for any current, or aspiring, leader.
—Drew Fortin, SVP of Sales and Marketing, The Predictive Index
Since reading Conversational Capacity, I have applied the concepts of candor and curiosity in my professional and personal life over the past five years and have seen the positive difference it has made. In Influence in Action, Weber illuminates the reality that progress and success depend as much on effective collaboration and communication as on resources and strategy. These truths inspire a renewed commitment to intentional leadership, focusing on what is possible, thoughtfully bringing your team on the journey, and remembering to have some fun along the way.
—Maya H. Pack, MS, MPA, Associate Executive Director, South Carolina Institute of Medicine and Public Health
Everyone wants to make a difference. Influence in Action will help you build the skills you need to make a difference that matters.
—Karina Forrest-Perkins, CEO, People’s Center Clinic & Services
Influence in Action provides a simple, practical, yet incredibly powerful methodology for building your conversational capacity while making a profound difference in your teams, organization, or community. This book will transform the way you think about leadership and how to build a strong, adaptive, sustainable, visionary, high-performance organization.
—Andy Restivo, President and CEO, Creative Channel Services
Business leaders can fall in love with strategic planning and flavor-of-the-month leadership approaches. Yet, without active communication, the best intentions can stall and team dysfunction often takes root. Influence in Action provides CEOs and key executives the tools and a pathway to become leaders of engaged teams.
—John Surge, President, The A|E|C Agency, and Chair, Think Tank Roundtable
Influence in Action delivers. As a practitioner who not only uses Conversational Capacity in my work but also teaches it, this new book is exactly what I’ve needed. It’s not one of those follow-up books that simply repackages content from the first: Influence in Action provides both deeper insight into the basic discipline as well as foundational how-to practices to help you build and strengthen your conversational capacity. The insights and skills you’ll learn will make you more effective in all your relationships, and you might just find the motivation and confidence to work on those difficult, important issues you’ve been avoiding.
—Chris Soderquist, President, Pontifex Consulting, and creator of SysQ (Systemic Intelligence)
Craig’s first book, Conversational Capacity, helped me to better understand myself and improve my interactions with others to such a degree that I recommend it as the singular most important text for institutional leadership of any kind. Influence in Action takes the ideas and skills he shared in Conversational Capacity a step further by providing action steps and opportunities for practice. Weber’s work is deeply impactful on an individual level, but more important, it has the ability to transform institutions into places where growth and learning are cherished, and which yield better outcomes for all parties involved. The work isn’t easy, but it’s worth it!
—Krista L. Taylor, 2015 Educator of the Year for Cincinnati Public Schools and coauthor of Angels and Superheroes: Compassionate Educators in an Era of School Accountability
Communication is the cornerstone of culture. I spend over 1,000 hours a year with CEOs in private conversations. The top issue in almost every case is the avoidance of the most important conversation. Influence in Action is like a highlighter for Conversational Capacity. This book opens doors to successful relationships, enhanced effectiveness, and leadership growth using clear, real-world techniques.
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—Tom Cuthbert, Vistage® Chair and CEO Coach, San Antonio, TX
Influence in Action is a critical next step into the sweet spot of conversational capacity. In this new book, Craig details the mental software necessary to eliminate dysfunctional interpersonal behaviors and to bring out the best in each individual. I recommend Influence in Action to everyone willing to embrace the daily leadership opportunities that await them and who would like to take their seat as part of a high-performance team.
—Tom Van Dorpe, President and CEO, VCA Consultants, Inc.
This book applies to all aspects of your life, professionally and personally. In fact, once you start practicing Craig Weber’s Conversational Capacity model, you’ll become more effective in all your relationships. It’s work—real introspection and growth always is—but you have nothing to lose (except your dysfunctional need to be “right”) and everything to gain!
—Lynn Marmer, retired Group Vice President for Corporate Affairs, Kroger Co., and former Executive Director, The Child Poverty Collaborative of Cincinnati
For the past 30 years my mission has been to help build leadership capacity in line leaders and executives, helping them to create environments where people and their organizations can flourish. Somewhere during the last few years, I lost sight of my purpose. Exercising leadership has been replaced with learned silence. Influence in Action has helped me reframe my thinking and reexamine my skill set by providing a structured guide for doing meaningful work and making a powerful difference. This book has given me the desire, courage, and specific actions needed to expand my ability to stay in the sweet spot and get myself back in the game! Thank you, Craig, for such a motivational and practical guide!
—Dr. Tony Herrera, Chief Learning Officer and SVP of Learning and Development, LPL Financial
When we launched the Child Poverty Collaborative, we knew we needed to have deep, meaningful community conversations about an often controversial, even divisive subject: the causes and solutions of poverty. Craig Weber taught our 40-person Steering Council how to develop our conversational capacity. Craig’s content was so strong and his style so inviting that I asked him to train our entire 120-person United Way staff team in several sessions. Diving into Craig’s new book, Influence in Action, I was reminded of how important Craig’s trinity of awareness, mindset, and skills are to the development of conversational capacity, while I picked up some great new tips for continuing to develop my conversational skills. If you can’t have Craig guide you in person, reading and using Influence in Action is the next best thing. Better yet, do both!
—Rob Reifsnyder, President, RCR Philanthropic Solutions, LLC, and retired President, United Way of Greater Cincinnati
Craig has written another masterpiece that addresses what I believe to be one of the most critical and important leadership/human functions: to communicate clearly, collaboratively, and effectively and influence others to do the same! Since most issues seem to revolve around human beings interacting with one another, the communication concepts and best practices that Craig has so expertly covered will make anyone willing to apply these have more success in their relationships, business, and life!
—Bob Dabic, Vistage Master Chair for Orange County and Best Practice Chair for Los Angeles
Success in today’s complex world requires agile and resilient teams. Craig Weber’s work on conversational capacity provides practical tools to develop and empower people to meet these adaptive challenges. It’s an immensely powerful framework for leaders building collaborative teams and organizations. Influence in Action takes the tool sets from his first book several steps further, equipping leaders and teams with additional skills and skill-building to shift their thinking and their behavior to better meet the messiness of tomorrow’s challenges.
—Lee Davis, General Manager, Rheinmetall Defence Australia
Finally, it’s here! As a student of conversational capacity for the past five years, I have been hungry for more ways to learn and practice. Influence in Action is just that—a practitioner’s guide to sharpening your conversational capacity and getting the most out of your interactions in work and in life. I appreciate all the practice exercises, especially the personal plan worksheet, that help me get clear on the skills I want to improve by creating a focused road map—and accountability tool—to improve my thinking and my actions.
—Rachel Ferencik, MPA, health policy professional
Once again, Craig continues to write in a manner that is accessible to all readers, presenting ideas that are extremely practical. If you want to learn methodologies that you can employ to help you develop your teams, then this book will provide many of the tools that will help facilitate this process. Based on excellent research and relevant to current leaders, this book will help you build the conversational capacity of your team, ensuring future success in their performance.
—Brendan Newell, General Manager Competency Training, Logicamms Australia
Copyright © 2019 by Craig Weber. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
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To Renee and to everyone striving to make the world around them a better place
CONTENTS
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction
The World Needs People Willing to Stand Up, Speak Out, and Make a Difference
CHAPTER 1 The Case of Steve
The Key to Conversational Leadership Lies in Your Capacity to Influence
Part I
AWARENESS
CHAPTER 2 Disciplined Awareness
Learning to Control Your Beam of Attention
CHAPTER 3 Personal Awareness
The First Step in Getting Out of Your Own Way
CHAPTER 4 Situational Awareness
Paying Attention to People, Patterns, and Purpose
CHAPTER 5 Awareness Practices
Building Your Ability to Focus on Purpose
Part II
MINDSET
CHAPTER 6 The Conversational Capacity Mindset
Turning Your Mind into a Workshop
CHAPTER 7 Expanding the Sweet Spot
Eight More Balanced “Character-istics”
CHAPTER 8 The Leadership Mindset
Taking Responsibility and Being Constructive
CHAPTER 9 Strategies for Embracing and Strengthening Your Mindset
Building Your Ability to Place Learning Over Ego
Part III
SKILLS
CHAPTER 10 Candor Skill #1
Stating Your Position
CHAPTER 11 Candor Skill #2
Helping Others See Your Thinking
CHAPTER 12 Curiosity Skill #1
Testing Your Hypothesis
CHAPTER 13 Curiosity Skill #2
Inquiring into the Hypotheses of Others
CHAPTER 14 Sharpening Your Skills
Learning to Balance Candor and Curiosity, One Skill at a Time
Part IV
MOVING FORWARD
CHAPTER 15 Putting It All Together
Building Your Skills While Doing Meaningful Work
