The FCC/SLA November meeting was enlightening and delightful. Before he program began, we had an opportunity to spend a social hour in casual conversations with our speaker, Tesse Santoro of Thomson’s Quantum² program.

 

Following dinner, Tesse presented an innovative skills development program. Speaking on Achieving Results through Relationships: The Power of Influence, Tesse encouraged us to evaluate our professional images. Does your sphere of influence reach across your organization and up to the highest levels of  management?

 

It’s essential that we have an accurate understanding of the way our managers and clients perceive us. Have we earned credibility with our accomplishments, integrity, and research skills? Tesse recommended techniques to assess our visibility and performance such as opinion audits, peer reviews, and benchmarking.

 

Information professionals need to understand the culture of the organization. Assess your environment to make sure that you are conforming to expectations for executive behavior and communication style. There may be subtle differences from one department or team to another. Because we have opportunities to work with so many groups in our companies, we are well placed to perceive and react to these differences.

 

Understanding the stakeholders’ information needs is particularly important. We have value to add to the decision-making process by providing relevant and timely information. If we wait for management to send us requests, we may be missing important opportunities to contribute. Tesse advised us to move beyond the information center walls, and develop partnerships that will involve us in critical activities.

 

New relationships will bring us greater respect among our colleagues and increase the influence we wield in our positions. So how do we determine our power to influence? Tesse provided copies of a self-assessment tool and encouraged us to analyze our own Components of Influence. This exercise gives us a structure for considering the impact we have on our organizations. It asks us to look at five components: Role, Respect, Relationships, Rhetoric, and Research. Each category lists several skills or qualities that we can use to rate ourselves. Tesse also provided a matrix for us to use in conducting a Respect and Relationship Inventory. Meeting attendees were encouraged to use these simple tools to evaluate their images and to set goals for increasing our influence through the power of professional relationships.

 

This meeting was outstanding and I wish all members of the Chapter had been able to attend. We had an excellent turnout of both members and guests at a new venue for the Chapter, Il Falco restaurant in Stamford. The hors d’oeuvres were bountiful and delicious, followed by an excellent Italian dinner. Our sincere thanks to Thomson Micromedex for sponsoring the meeting and to Dialog for providing such an excellent program.