How to Prioritize Your Relationship-building Tasks
How to think about the work outside your core projects that you are asked to help with, or you want to invest in to increase your influence and build trust with key stakeholders.
This week, as part of the group coaching program in my AI-Amplified Leadership Accelerator program, a design leader from a FAANG company working on her next promotion asked me a brilliant question: Some of what you’re describing as influence-building tasks sound like Non-Promotable Tasks (NPTs).
And previously, I was advised not to invest time in NPTs. So should I be doing these tasks or not?
Non-Promotable Tasks vs Influence Building
Non-promotable tasks are work that doesn’t show up in promotion packets. Examples include taking notes in a group review meeting, planning the team offsite, or mentoring the new hire. NPTs don’t have direct or clear business impact. It’s hard to make the connection to increasing revenue or decreasing costs. Instead, NPTs come up because teams want to collaborate better or level up the skills of the overall team. As I’ve written about in this past post, women and high performers are more frequently asked to do these tasks. So the advice is to say no, protect your calendar, and prioritize the stuff that counts.
It turns out this is only half correct.
Let’s take the influence-building lens. To build influence, we want to rely on the very human tendency to reciprocate ( What we get wrong about influence). When you help someone, they are likely to return the favor in the future. When you help someone, you have gained (some) influence over that person. Trust and influence are built through repeat interactions where someone seeks your support, and you live up to their expectations. Therefore, through the lens of helping another person and triggering reciprocity, we may decide to prioritize non-promotable tasks.
How To Prioritize Your Work
Here, we have a standard two-by-two. On the X-axis, we consider whether the task is a non-promotable task (refresh rules on how to decide if it’s a NPT). On the Y-axis, we consider whether this task allows us to help a stakeholder with whom we need to build more influence.
In the top right, we have work that has clear business impact and builds influence with those who matter. This is a no-regrets P0 for your to-do list. These tasks allow you to nail two birds with one stone, building towards your career progress and increasing your influence at the same time. For example, as a PM, you prioritize a feature your team wants to build that also unblocks the team whose VP you need in your corner.
Then, in the bottom right, we have your core project work for your role. Doing well at these tasks is the foundation for building influence. It’s unlikely that others will seek help from someone who isn’t good at their core job.
Now, let’s look at the work that’s considered non-promotable tasks. In the top left, we have tasks where the “impact” is in building influence. For this work, the core question to ask is whether you want to increase influence with the person asking. For example, if your team is asking you to take notes, and you already have their trust, then it’s likely best to say no. However, taking and sending next steps in a cross-functional forum where you want to get your name in front of the executive sponsoring the project is likely a yes. The key is to be deliberate about mapping out and knowing where you want to invest.
And finally, if it doesn’t help you build influence and it’s a NPT, then practice saying no kindly. (Related read: How To Say No to NPTs).
The tldr? Adding the influence-building lens makes some NPTs worthwhile. But be intentional about who you need to build influence with and why you’re taking on a NPT.
That’s all folks! See you next week at 3:14 pm.
Yue
Yue’s Coaching Corner
Hey guys, I’m back! It’s been a while since I’ve regularly new content on Substack. I’ve been in a sort of writing block and needed to take some time away. Thanks for hanging in there. In the meantime, we’ve crossed the 30,000 subscribers mark!! Woot! =)
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