to learn, adapt, survive and thrive

INFLUENCE MEASUREMENT

Philip Sheldrake, 12th September 2014, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

a contribution to!

AMEC!Measurement Week 2014

The International Association for the Measurement and Evaluation of Communication!

!www.amecorg.com

The single!biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.!

George Bernard Shaw.

It is not the voice that commands the story; it is the ear.!

Italo Calvino.

In the last analysis, what we are

communicates far more eloquently than

anything we say or do.!Stephen Covey.

The most!important thing in communication is

hearing what isn't said.!Peter Drucker.

And we don’t communicate for communications’ sake but to influence and to be influenced1.

You’re in the business of influence. Everyone is.

We don’t have media for media’s sake but to communicate.

A media business focus.

Whether paid, owned, earned or machined2 media, maintaining a focus on the means rather than the ends causes problems for translation into the organizational context.

So don’t begin with media and media measurement.!Begin with the business and business performance management3.

A management focus.

Management is about doing things right, and therefore about ascertaining how well things are going. Measuring. Sensing. Sense making.

It’s about operational flexibility, performance and accountability. It’s about executing the plan devised by the leadership4.

A leadership focus.

Leadership is about doing the right things5 – learning and determining what the right things might be. Shaping. Adapting. Deliberate and emergent6.

It’s about helping people with shared values and purpose come together to do great things, to create mutual value. It’s about hearts and minds.

Hearts and minds.

What is the intended outcome of your marketing and PR campaigns, and the design of your organization overall, if it’s not to get stakeholders7 to think and behave as you’d like, and to be sensitive to how they’d like you to think and behave?8!The business of influence.

The business of influence.

We employ information technologies to track the flows of time, money and materials.!Now we’re developing IT to track influence flows.

We’re sensitizing the organization to all stakeholders, for all stakeholders, building mutual understanding to enable mutual influence in the pursuit of mutual value9.

The Six Influence Flows

Who ‘does’ influence?

There’s influence in everything an organization does, and sometimes in what it does not do10. It involves everyone, but it will be useful to have people focused on the system of influence flows11.

It’s cross-departmental12, bigger than the current scope of marketing and PR practice and theory13. Yet perhaps today’s practitioners are best placed to grow into such a role14.

Who does influence measurement?

It’s about understanding how influence goes around comes around. Tracing influence15.!An augmentation of performance management I call the Influence Scorecard16.

It’s bigger than the current scope of marketing and PR measurement. Yet perhaps today’s providers are best placed to grow into this role.

It is not the most intellectual of the species that survives; it is not the strongest that survives; but …!the one that is able best to adapt and adjust to the changing environment in which it finds itself.!Leon C. Megginson!http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/six-things-darwin-never-said !!!

Note: nor is it the loudest firm, nor that with the greatest reach, nor most engagement, absent adaptation in pursuit of sustainable mutual value.

Influence measurement.

Assessing the importance, effect, or value of changing hearts, minds and behaviours of all stakeholders in creating mutual value in the context of our organizational purpose, goals and values.

Notes.

1. http://www.attenzi.com/forty-five-ii/!2. http://www.philipsheldrake.com/2011/11/the-influence-view-of-content-0-1/ !3. http://www.eulerpartners.com/balanced-scorecard-and-strategy-maps/ !4. Whether specific indviduals or more sociocratic / collective!5. http://www.philipsheldrake.com/2014/04/triple-loop-profound-leadership/ !6. http://www.philipsheldrake.com/2014/07/deliberate-emergent-design/ !7. A person or organization with an interest or concern in the organization or something the organization is involved in.!8. http://www.philipsheldrake.com/2013/03/influence-request-for-comments/!9. http://www.philipsheldrake.com/2014/03/social-business-mutuality-stack/!10. http://www.attenzi.com/thirty-iii/ !11. http://www.eulerpartners.com/influence-flows/ !12. http://www.philipsheldrake.com/2014/06/measuring-communications-reconciling-models-amsterdam/!13. http://www.prredefined.org/ !14. http://www.philipsheldrake.com/2014/08/pr-changing-whos-going-to-do-it/ !15. http://www.eulerpartners.com/the-business-of-influence/ !16. http://www.eulerpartners.com/influence-scorecard/