"Influencer" is a word we hear very often on social media nowadays. Everyone wants to be an influencer. We can translate it into Turkish as "Influencer of Behavior" or "Person with the Ability to Influence". Influencers in every field pioneer many changes and transformations in society. Today I'm going to talk about the hidden influencers in companies.

Early in my career, an experienced mentor told me that even though appointed managers are formally responsible for the business, they are not in full control of the business. After 15 years in the corporate world, I have come to understand how true this is. During those years, I was working as a consultant and auditor for international organizations doing management system consulting and auditing, which gave me a front-row seat to watch experienced leaders and senior managers in organizations try to transform their organizations. I have worked with many very smart, well-educated executives, but I have witnessed that many of the sophisticated strategies that these leaders put forward are not implemented in the company in the way they envisioned. I have seen that some people who are not formally executives have just as significant an impact on the direction of the organization, compliance with rules, and commitment as formal executives. As I realized this, I slowly became more and more interested in the dynamics of human relationships that accelerate or, conversely, hinder transformation in organizations.

These hidden influencers, who are not formally appointed managers, have personal power, even if they do not have power because of their position. Other employees feel close to them because of their expertise, influence and role modeling. Influencersare critical for employee engagement, ensuring the right flow of information in the company, decision-making, spreading good practices throughout the organization, creating corporate knowledge, mentoring, and employee retention. In a nutshell, they are the key to boosting the morale and productivity of an organization. Even so, most of the time the manager does not know who these people are and suffers the consequences.

A McKinsey study backs this up; McKinsey found that managers who try to identify informal influencers in change management projects are often wrong in their initial assumptions. That's why experts in social network analysis often use web-based surveys to help executives more accurately understand the informal networks in the company, as well as the hidden Influencers within those networks. A study by our partner Decisionwise found that there are 3 main categories of Influencers in companies; Role Models, Experts and Change Agents.

• Role Models are people employees look up to and naturally go to when they need advice on how to do their jobs or advance in their careers. These mentors have a significant influence on people's moral behavior and offer guidance on how a person should behave if they want to succeed in the organization.
• Experts are the first peopleemployees or customers call when they need information. Often new employees want to be apprenticed to these knowledgeable colleagues. Managers and peers in the company go to them first when they need quick answers or support on key issues. The challenge is that they often think of the expert they turn to as a crutch, rather than learning the necessary knowledge themselves.
• Change Agents are charismatic, have a good grasp of company politics or are good at getting things done in the organization. The influence of this group is often the most visible. Yet because of their ability to effectively build trust, some of their influence is quieter and more invisible, as they make their way through more prominent colleagues or formally appointed managers.

In the study, it was initially thought that influencers were the most engaged people in the organization, as their colleagues went to them like magnets when they wanted to do meaningful work and found them valuable. But surprisingly, this turned out not to be the case. At the center of the company's informal networks, they were often asked to answer a lot of questions, solve important problems, and teach others the ropes, which meant that their workload was so high that they were not engaged. If these employees were not buried in high-priority projects as their main job, these activities could normally increase employee engagement. But many of these key contributors struggle to balance their work and their role as influencers because of all the skills they have gained through their talent. The British have a favorite saying, "Don't be a victim of your own success". This is exactly what it means for influencers... In a study of more than 300 companies, the employees identified as the most trusted collaborators and informants had the lowest employee engagement and career satisfaction scores. If these knowledge connectors become disgruntled enough to leave the organization, they take their valuable intellectual property with them. They leave behind gaps in both information and process flows.

An example from an international biotech company can illustrate how significant disruptions can occur in these informal networks. In order to redistribute workload and reduce time to market, the head of product development at this company identified key influencers in the information flow network who were overloaded. Unfortunately, no one took this data into account and made the effort to figure out how to lighten the load on these key people. As a result, almost a third of the Influencers left the organization due to burnout. This meant that the remaining 2/3 of their existing relationship networks were affected. Those who stayedfound it very difficult to build new relationships andfill the knowledge gaps left by those who left. The company has suffered a major shake-up.

Instead of shortening time-to-market, weeks were added to project timelines because key corporate information that was once available was no longer at hand. In addition, trust had to be rebuilt among the remaining employees to keep projects running smoothly. This meant more wasted time and costs.

Realizing who their hidden influencers are and increasing their engagement by relieving the workload on them has a significant impact on their engagement efforts across the company. At Success Programme, we help organizations identify and engage their hidden influencers with our expertise in survey design, statistical analysis and employee engagement consulting. Our network analysis surveys, combined with sophisticated data visualizations, enable our clients to find targeted solutions to engage and retain their key contributors. On an individual level, our executive coaches help you to increase the engagement of the 3 types of influencers in your company: experts, change agents and role models. In this way, we support them to increase their influence on the engagement of the many employees who rely on them. At the organizational level, our consultants help senior leaders redistribute their responsibilities to ease the burden on key influencers, unclog network bottlenecks and engage more employees for more meaningful work. If you are interested in assessing the hidden potential of your organization, contact us today.

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