Impactful influencing: actionable advice to get things done through and with others – Interview with Julia Carter

In this episode we have our first non-statistician as a guest. Julia has build her own consulting and training company Zestfor. She and her team specialise in developing Training programmes and resources scientifically tailored for technical markets – including Pharmaceutical, IT, and Life Sciences.

Getting things done through others is a key part or even the definition of leadership and her clients face often the same situation like statisticians. They need to convince people rather than commanding them.

In this episode, we cover the following topics:

• Why statisticians need to be more influential?
• Is influencing actually something bad on inappropriate?
• What characterises an influential person?
• Which practices help statisticians to increase their influence?
• Many statisticians are more introvert. As such, how can they deal with more extrovert business partners from other functions?
• Relationships are key for influencing without authority. Trust is key for building these relationships. What can statisticians do, to generate more trust?
• Networking is another aspect of building relationships. What actions to take to build networks?
• Many of us work in virtual settings to some extent. This poses additional barriers on influencing others as it is much harder to be heard and understood. Which techniques can we apply to overcome these hurdles?

Finally, we have curated the best of Julias content from her blog at Zestfor.com in terms of leadership, which you can download here:

About Julia Carter (MRPharmS, MCIPD)

Director, Zestfor Ltd.