Chapter 6 – GAME

The typical influencing dilemmas is how to leverage influence over others when they are mainly influenced by
political or economic power.
Preparation tools – Preparation for influencing takes time (is time well spent) and you do not save time by skipping
it. Preparations alone does not eliminate your problems – you still need to execute your influencing strategy
successfully – but preparation provides an agenda through which the initial complexity is simplified. Influencers
who try to “wing it” fall flat on their faces. Walking into meetings with a view of “ hearing what they have to say”
and reacting immediately to events as they unfold ensures lack of influence. Command of detail is an essential
ingredient of effective influence.
Influencing tools come from various sources.
GAME- Generate objectives, Arrange access, Mobilize allies, Execute Strategy.
Generate Objectives – Influencign requires focus and is undertaken for a purpose. It is more than building
relationships. Influences has a purpose in mind. Objectives are best done in layers. They dictate policies. Events and
new information changes policies.
Arrange Access – Influencing is about people and first thing is to identify people who may be important to
objectives. First statrt by you in the middle, The enter the names of
all the key players that you know – if you don’t know the name
enter their department. Lines not joint to you at present are
strangers. Knowing the key players has advantages expect if they
know you for wrong reasons. Influencing can only be done by
physically going from place to palce and seeing the people you
must deal with in person. Influencers gain access by GOYA (“Get
Off Your Ass”). They don’t wait for things to happens – they make
them happen. They find time. They go out and acess people and
influence the people who create events. Influencers supplement
GOYA with GOYA ( Get On The Telephone). They use the pone
as if it is free. Efforts on influencing on an adhoc, occasional,
intermittent basis seldom succeed. You have to invest in influence
and the price of influence is not money but your commitment,
time, energy, persistence, and above all what you have done to or for the person you are trying to influence.
Mobilize Allies – Force field diagram is a
popular tool for this phase. It is a
visualization of influencing forces that help
or hinder the achievement of objectives.
Forece Filed diagram originated in the Kurt
Lewin ‘s Field theory in Social Science.
This diagram rests on the simple idea that ay
any one moment there are forces operating
on a situation some of which drive for
positive changes in the status quo and some
of which restrain the driving forces to
maintain status quo. To change a situation
drivers must overcome restrainers. To change a situation strengthen forces for (drivers) and weaken forces against
( restrainers). Steps – influences identified forces that are present and divides them into forces for and against and
the impact of each force. Some forces are more important than other because of their impact. For each force the
influences has to develop strategies to weaken or strengthen the force. They can be marked as “high”, medium or
low and easy, moderate and difficult. Influencing works through people. Those people who mobilise on our behalf
are clearly our ‘allies’ and those who cannot are ‘potential allies’. The names of your key players are likely to
reappear in your Force Field diagram. If some of them do not reappear, this indicates that at present you do not
know where they stand and that you have more work to do to find out. Experience suggests that it is often easier to
weaken an opponent’s pressure
than it is to strengthen your own. This creates problems of maintaining your sense of balance if the objective you
seek is bitterly contested.
Execute Strategy – There are 2 parts to it. The first is to be clear on what it is you that want to happen (and why),
and the second is to have clear ideas about who is to do what, by when and with whom. A review of the original
objectives requires attention to detail. It may require revision of existing objectives, or the generation of new major
initiatives, and as many or more minor initiatives, with some scheduled to happen in sequence while others occur in
parallel. Influencers work to multiple agendas and must keep track of many moving targets. The execution of your
influencing strategy depends on players, arguments
 Chapter 6 – GAME
and events. Over none of these forces do you have total control. You only have the opportunity to exert influence on
them or to cope with their influence on you. How the players are disposed towards your objectives is expressed by
the relative strengths of the arguments that they perceive have been made for or against your objectives. You need to
become aware of the arguments against your case and not just with the merits of your own. If you are to influence
the case against you it may take more than a rehearsal of the arguments that support your own case and probably
more than a spirited attack on the people who oppose you. The Force Field, though simple in concept, has great
scope for enrichment through the inclusion of detail. It provides an influencer at a glance with a manageable
‘picture’. The act of constructing a Force Field diagram itself gives the influencer a structure by which to sift
through a mass of disparate detail. Prioritising the importance of the forces for and against and assessing the relative
difficulties of strengthening or weakening them produces agendas of activity for the influencer to progress the game.
Those agendas become the strategies of influence.
Sequence of GAME - An influencing game is not necessarily played in a rigid linear GAME sequence
from ‘G’ through to ‘E’. The sequence can be ordered in any direction.
EPILOGUE
Influencing games require attention to a myriad of detail, and influencers need some simple tools to keep track of
changes in the detail. The tools must be simple because if they are complex they will take too much time to use and,
inevitably, will be abandoned by busy managers.
The mnemonic ‘GAME’ is a first cut at structuring the events that guide an influencing project and it is used to
introduce two simple ‘doodles’, the Key Players and the Force Field diagrams. More work needs to be done on the
game plan and practice is needed through applying it to other influencing cases.
Mei had an objective from the moment she was assigned to the redevelopment project to undertake this through a
single company, New Harbour Co, as this was the normal vehicle used by her agency in these projects. She did not
have large funds at her disposal, which could give her authority, but she would have
to make a business case for such funds to government and the private sector. Her early access to some of the key
players revealed a possible obstacle to her plans in the purchase of abandoned land on onerous terms. This
necessitated that she act quickly to prevent such a purchase going ahead. The urgency of her new objective ‘kill the
deal’ risked damaging her relationships with the council’s key player almost before she had had time to establish a
good working relationship with him.
Influencing is aided by strict attention to detail, and simple tools such as the Key Players and the Force Field
diagrams convey at a glance a lot of detail that is usually left jumbled together in the heads of influencers.
These tools can be created quickly on a sheet of paper and their construction reveals the gaps in an influencer’s
preparation. Not being able to enter the names of players reveals instantly that there is work to do in finding out who
they are and where they are. Arrangements have to be made to meet with them
or meet with people who can give an account of the attitudes and the best lines of approach to take with them.
Ignoring gaps in a Key Players’ diagram is not advised, though whether they are approached immediately is a matter
of judgement. Leaving gaps through ignorance, or lack of information, or from the fog of overwhelming detail, is
risky. You can cut the risk by using a simple doodle. From the Key Players diagram it is a short step to developing a
Force Field diagram that neatly captures the balance of forces for and against your proposals.
These are so simple to construct that you can do one quickly showing the disposition of the Key Players for and
against the current situation, and then construct two more diagrams that concentrate on the arguments for and
against – and the arguments that are being used, fairly or otherwise – and the presence of threats or events that will
affect the game. You can combine all three onto one Force Field diagram and identify what has to be done, bearing
in mind that it is often easier to weaken the opposition against a change than it is to strengthen the forces for a
change.
The mnemonic GAME helps you to remember the phases of conducting an influencing campaign: ‘Generate
objectives; Arrange access; Mobilise allies; Execute strategy’. These are toplevel
phases, with much work to do within them, and they are to be thought of as flexible rather than strictly sequential.
From deciding on your objectives, which may be modified, added to or reduced as people, arguments and events
impact on your campaign, you go to active involvement with the players. Some players will be unambiguously on
your side; others against. There will also be players who deserve to appear on both sides of the balance of forces –
they are against you to some degree or in some respects, and for you in
others. This is a not unusual phenomenon. Sometimes you are not sure where certain players stand. Nominally,
because of their position, past associations or prejudices, they may be required to support their department’s
(opposing) views, but in private conversation with you or third parties they may well aver that they support what
you are attempting. On the Force Field diagram place their arrows for and against opposite each other.
Players may start off in opposition and during the influencing campaign they may switch sides (as some might who
begin on your side, of course). The diagram is so easy to construct you can redraw it in minutes to take account of
swaying loyalties (and the intrusion of unforeseen events – such as a major
 Chapter 6 – GAME
ally becoming seriously ill, or being arrested on serious charges, or innocently resigning).
There is much more to do in respect of marshalling allies and executing the influencing strategy, but with the two
diagrams described in this module the foundation is laid to conduct an effective influencing campaign.