Don’t confuse influence with authority

While some architects have people who report to them on the organizational chart, the vast majority do not. Even those that do have people that report to them only have authority over those people, not the project teams they work with. This is an important point, as many architects mistakenly believe they have authority when working with project teams for reasons such as:

• Management mandated a policy that project teams conduct design reviews with the architect
• Management implemented a governance policy that requires project teams to follow architect recommendations

Even if management has implemented such policies however, management still ultimately chooses whether or not to enforce them, not the architect. Among other things, the architect is typically responsible and accountable for conducting reviews of solution designs against adherence to IT policies, principles, etc. established by the organization. As a result, they often identify deviances and suggested courses of action to reconcile the deviances. Ultimately though, management chooses whether or not to take those courses of action. As an architect, you typically must rely on influence. For this post, consider this definition of influence:

What you say/do that causes others to want to do what you want them to do because it’s of benefit to them.

Management, even with authority, typically relies more on influence than authority because they know that if the people that report to them want to do what they're doing, rather than being forced to, they will do a better job of it. People will want to do what you want to do for a variety of reasons, but ultimately, will because doing so benefits them in some way. It may benefit them by making their job easier, making them look good, or because it helps them avoid undesired consequences such as escalations for instance. You are likely similarly driven…most people are.

Getting people to do what you want is hard, because it requires you to know your audience and you to know what makes them successful. This requires a lot of effort on your part, but will pay off if you invest the time in doing it. Remember that ultimately, people don’t care about what you want; they care about what they want…so find the common ground where they want the same thing as you and both parties benefit.

In addition to a previous post on knowing and improving yourself, I suggest the following for improving your ability to influence:

• Familiarize yourself with the different personality styles. You need to communicate differently with each of them, and each of them will communicate differently with you. Influence requires you to know your audience and how to best work with them, not that they know how to work best with you.
• Read, and re-read the book How to Win Friends and Influence People, by Dale Carnegie. Practice the skills covered within it. This book was written decades ago but contains critical information that should be taught in high-school.
• Read the book Influencer: The Power to Change Anything, by Kerry Patterson. This book contains a lot of great information about how to influence others.

Influence is yet another key skill for an effective architect and the better you get at it, the more effective you’ll become.