Influencing people Popular influencing styles: Raw emotion - blow my top, make them cringe. Rational persuasion - present facts and logic Manipulation - pretend to involve them Mental torture - pester until they give in Inspiration - dramatize everything

More influencing styles - all popular!

• Personal appeal -I draw on their loyalty or friendship.
• Ingratiation - I flatter them, pay them compliments, butter them up.
• Exchange - I do something for them in return, bribe them.
• Pressure - I get tough, demand action, use threats, coerce them.
• Legitimacy - I claim my rights, use my authority, cite the rules.
• Coalitions - I gang up on them, get my pals on side, get political.
• Packaging - I get liberal with the truth, exaggerate the upside.
• Sulk - I pretend to be hurt or offended until I get sympathy.
• Withdraw favours - I ignore them, cut them off, until they crack.
• These influence styles reduce to three...

1. Be demanding!

• Push people and you get short term gains and long term losses.
• Pressure gets immediate action but damages your credibility.
• The more fearful you make people the less useful they will be to you.
• Force is just one way of failing.
• Force only works when you are there to ENFORCE.
• Hence your influence is limited to those you can see.
• Force means regressing to childhood tactics.
• Who can look up to a child?

2. Using reason to get your way

• Works with disinterested or neutral parties because they have nothing at stake.
• Reason is still pushy --- you're trying to change someone else's mind.
• The more they have at stake in their position, the more you can be sure that reason will fail.
• Reason is one-way communication, amounting to "telling" or "selling".
• Asking people to "be reasonable" means asking them to see it your way.
• Pure reasoning sticks strictly to facts and logic, stressing organizational benefits.
• Reason becomes a bit more engaging when your arguments point out benefits to the other party.
• Reason, of course, often works but don't limit yourself to this influence tactic only.

3. Involving others

• This is the best approach, time permitting.
• Real involvement means seeking mutual gains.
• Start by trying to understand the other party's needs and interests.
• The key to influencing through involvement is to ask questions. Do more asking than telling and selling.
• Develop joint solutions with people rather than "reasoning" with them.
• Full involvement generates the highest level of commitment.
• Agreements are then negotiated rather than sold or imposed.
• Involvement builds mutual respect and greater trust.
• Involvement is harder work than pushing, telling and selling.
• Full involvement is as rare as full maturity - it takes emotional intelligence.
• More directive approaches only work when commitment is not important (when is that?).

All pages written by Mitch McCrimmon, Ph.D. and copyright © Self Renewal Group 1996-2010