Tips on advocacy from a social worker

Though I don’t have any degree in Social Work, but I prefer calling myself social worker because it is easy to explain what I do as a Social Worker than to explain what I do as a District Program Officer. 

When you work for a Not-for-profit organisation, you have two major customers- Government and Community. Though, customer could be anyone whom you serve, for instance, Boss, colleagues, investors, etc., but in this blog, I would use the word client to describe both government, and community.

These tips are largely inspired from my Managerial Experience, but I believe anyone from any industry can use these tips for effective advocacy.

Advocacy simply means to take support from someone, for some cause. Remember, if you want people to get into action, you’ll have to give them some motive. 

If you really want to succeed in your business, you will have to take support from your client. I am simply here to share what I have learned from my experience in social work, and advocating something to my clients.

1.      Your biggest competition is ignorance of your client. When your client does not know about you, your company, and your work then you’ll have to devote lots of quality time in making a rapport with your client. Meet your clients, share your work, tell them how you can help, and the more your client is aware about you, the more you can advocate easily about some cause.

2.      Make yourself special in some way. If you are like any other person, then people would treat you jus’ like any other person. Dress up properly, communicate effectively, and make your personality your Unique Selling Proposition (USP).

3.      Meet your client in the office, in morning, and at home, in evening. (Though, I don’t do this, but I have found many social workers doing this to get the rapport.)

4.      Your competitor can be your mentor. You’ll find people in your district or town who are already serving your clients effectively. Learn from them. See what they are doing, and you are not. Remember, success always leaves the tracks, if you do the same things what successful people do then you’ll also get the same results.

5.      The best time to meet your client is when you have made a strong appearance at some platform. Success increases your confidence, and best time to meet your client is when your confidence and influence is high.

6.      Prepare yourself before every advocacy, prepare your conversation. Meeting even a  one single client is a ‘meeting’. Give your best. The more you prepare yourself, the more would be the impact of your advocacy.

7.     It is easy to advocate anything to your client, when he thinks that you are harmless. If your client is afraid of you or does not trust you then it would decrease the impact of your advocacy. If you don’t care about your client then why should they care for you? Remove fear from your client. Tell him that you want his good. Create an environment where your client can talk with you freely.

8.    Suggest your client the benefit of a decision- tell them how they can get profit or how can they avoid loss?

9.   When your client does what you want them to do then appreciate your client. The action which is appreciated gets repeated. 

10.  Position yourself as a consultant or advisor, who can be approached anytime for the problem solving.

11.  Advocacy does not mean that you should do all the talking. Ask questions, and listen. Person who asks questions has control on the conversation. Quiet and introvert people are the most effective people in advocacy. 

12.  Make a list of your primary and secondary clients. Put your maximum energy with your primary client than on your secondary client.

13.  Don’t compromise with your self-respect in order to get any favour from your client.

People, who have high self-respect, have positive emotions, and that gives them power to persuade anyone with their conversation.

14.  You may do all this, but then also your client may reject your points of advocacy. Don’t worry; reach up to a level where you do not feel rejection or failures. Move forward towards your next goal. 

The above points are followed by all the top executives I have met in life. Follow them, and soon your productivity would rise. All the best for your future.

5 most common lies of the world

Generally, fresh graduates have certain pre-conceived thoughts in their mind about the work, workers, and organisations. They learn these 'lies' from their teachers, parents, etc. My blog is dedicated on the most common lies of the world. (Which I believe all the fresh graduates would like)

1.To lead, you must learn to obey- It is one of the popular proverbs in Leadership. But, whoever advocates this type of proverb, they should ask themselves that a person who has obeyed everyone for 15 years gets a position where he or she will have to give orders to others. Will he be able to do that? I want to share a small example from my school days- One of my teachers got promoted as principal. She started treating ‘teachers’ the same way she used to treat ‘students’. Soon, her leadership doomed, and she was replaced. To lead, you must learn to lead, and not just to obey.

2. Try, and try until you succeed- I always appreciate persisting attitude, but I don’t appreciate foolish persistence. Since childhood my elders have taught me that-do your work, and one day you’ll get success. But, it is my suggestion that invest your time both in ‘work’ and ‘relationships’. Suppose, you do great work, but your superiors don’t like you then no matter how hard you try your success would be delayed.

3. Only most experienced people should get into the top management- Experience is an important asset, but sometimes it is your biggest baggage. Generally, old people give huge importance to experience. Probably, experience is the only thing by which they can control others. I want to share a small story here- Once two generals were fighting on the depth of the river, which soldiers had to cross. They argued for two days. A soldier got fed up. He took his horse and rode across the river. After crossing the river, he screamed- its fine, we can cross it! This General and soldier type of situation would occur many times in an organisation. If we really want to keep top management active then we should definitely hire some young minds into higher positions, else we will get into the paralysis-by-analysis.

4. It’s easy to manage from the top- Many people believe that it is easy to manage from the top. You can take your own decisions, you’ll have to deal less with difficult people, everybody listens to you etc. It requires efforts to reach at the top, and it requires almost double effort to remain on the top. Saying it is easy to manage from the top is just like saying that grass is greener on the other side of the fence. The more successful you’ll become the less honest feedback you’ll get. Your staff would crystallize the information, and then it would be presented to you. Many employees believe that showing the clear picture would cost their job. This small fear always holds people in presenting the real situation to their supervisor. 

5. We hire only the best- As a fresher this was really motivating when people used to say that certain organisation hire only the best. But, slowly I realized it is a half-baked truth because I find so many incompetent people in the industry handling the most important posts. Remember, organisations want ‘best’ consultants who can work on ‘average’ salaries. Generally, these organisations give you respect, recognition, etc. so that you don’t ask for money. In short, organisations want their employees to be moralistic who can happily help in achieving organisation’s pragmatic goals.