影响力的艺术

   Earlier this year,International Business Machines Corp.manager Kate Riley Tennant wanted to reassign some engineers.But the staffers didn't report to her;she had to persuade peers thousands of miles away to make the switch.

   Ms.Riley Tennant's challenge is increasingly common.Managers say they increasingly must influence -- rather than command -- others in order to get their own jobs done. The trend is the result of leaner corporate hierarchies and the erosion of division walls.Managers now work more often with peers where lines of authority aren't clear or don't exist.

  In response,some companies are helping managers bolster their influencing skills.It is a skill managers need more and more today,says Rich Wellins,a vice president at Development Dimensions International Inc. a human resources company.

  Mr. Wellins says demand for DDI's influence-skills training classes is up in recent years.Another consulting company,personal Decisions International,says it now runs dozens of 'Impact Without Authority'classes,up from a handful five years ago.

  Gerdau Ameristeel Corp.recently hired PDI to teach influencing skills.The Florida steel-products maker is reorganizing some workers into teams; some supervisors are being retrained as 'facilitators'who counsel and coach workers,but don't have direct authority over them.It's really a different set of skills:How do I influence this group and gain credibility? says John Churchill,the training and develipment manager.

  Union Bank of California added a PDI-led influencing class to its training roster this year,after top executives in a survey noted the importance of influencing skills,For several years,the bank has been encouraging employees to work with peers in other groups.Denise Ascheri,a bank training and development executive,says the training also helped some 'tell managers' -- those who tell people what to do, rather than persuade -- get better results by learning how to motivate rather than command.

  At IBM,Kari Barbar, vice president of work-force programs,says she and peers noticed managers in the past few years needed help with projects that included people outside their division.They created a two-hour online course that is now offered three or four times a month for about 15 participants.Using a case study of a failing cross-group project,participants are taught to set goals,define roles are build relationships.

  That is a far cry from when Ms. Riley Tennant began working as a software-testing manager 20 years ago. "You just decided things and people went off and executed, she says.Now, not everybody reports to you and so there's much more negotitation and influence."

  In january,Ms.Riley Tennant took a job managing engineers who customize IBM database software for specific industries,shch as financial services,government and health care.Four U.S.-based developers report directly to her.Three others based in China and India also do work for her,but report to managers in those countries.

  After taking over the team, Ms. Riley Tennant concluded there were too many people working on financial services and not enough on government or health care.She needed to persuade the country managers to shift resources.

  Initially, the country managers resisted,fearing some of their local financial clients might lose out.Applying lessons from the training program,Ms.Riley Tennant promised to use other engineers to help serve those clients.The local managers agreed.So far,she says,the new arrangement is working.

Frank Martino also applied a lession from the IBM training to complete a staff reorganization.Mr.Martino manages about 15 developers who make IBM's software work with other software.They provide expertise to customers by working with IBM's business-development group.

  Historically,each business-development staffer worked with a specific engineer in Mr. Martino's group. He wanted to create teams of engineers to work with business-development staffers.Business-development managers feared the move might lead to confusion and missed connections.So Mr. Marrino agreed to appoint team leaders to help coordinate.He says the system is working well.

The more we operate as a global company, you're going to be faced with dealing more across group boundaries he says.It's just the reality.