Using your influence

One of the persistent challenges of working life is how to persuade other people to do what we need them or want them to do — and, ideally, to do this faster and better. For example, we might need them to provide us with information, complete a task, take a decision or innovate in some way.We shouldn’t be surprised at the permanence of this challenge. Everyone has their own job description and work, so why should others be interested in involving themselves with our work? Asking this question is the starting point for understanding the phenomenon of influence.

False interpretations

Instead of seeing people’s reluctance to do what we want them to do as something inevitable and natural, we typically experience it as a source of frustration. We often think that people don’t cooperate because they are, well, uncooperative. We see their failure to deliver what we need on time — and with the desired quality — as a demonstration of their inefficiency, lack of commitment, incompetence or unprofessionalism. We may even see their failure to deliver as some form of innate human aversion to change. Our conspiratorial interpretations quickly become ridiculous.

Maybe, we’re the problem

If we misunderstand the barriers to collaboration, our efforts to persuade others are almost certain to fail. To better understand the barriers, it helps if we see ourselves rather than others as the source of the problem. If we just assume that our “urgent” is more important than another person’s “urgent”, this is unlikely to be persuasive. Insisting on our own view of timelines and quality is not the smartest way of getting others to do what we want. And asking others to react to our priorities before we have shown the same behaviour towards them is hardly a good model. Few people react with unlimited joy to others telling them what they should do. This contravenes the basic human impulse for autonomy and independence from tyranny.

Our efforts to influence others often lack understanding of their challenges, priorities, perspectives and underlying values. More fundamentally, unless we have a sufficiently good relationship with the other person, we may not have earned the right to demand anything in a professional context, where multiple high priorities coexist and compete — often without anyone having the authority to say what matters most.

An influencing process

As with any act of communication, reflecting and strategizing before we start to speak will make our efforts to influence others more intelligent and effective. The following “5-C” process can be used both generally in key relationships and also for specific conversations in which you wish to influence someone. The process will definitely bring greater success — but the first person you need to influence is yourself. You have to convince yourself that it is worth the time you will need to invest.

• Comprehend. The first step is not to talk, but to listen. We need to understand the interests of others before we can pitch our own. And we have to demonstrate that we are open to others, and care about them, before we can expect them to be open to us. These two basics are missing in many discussions.
• Connect. Robert Cialdini’s first principle of influencing is “rapport”, or connecting with others (see box below). This is based on the idea that we are more likely to be able to influence people who like us than people who are indifferent or hostile towards us. Remember: relationship precedes task.
• Calibrate. Based upon the first two stages, we have to design an influencing strategy that we feel will succeed. These can diverge wildly, depending on the person and context. Crisis situations may require us to bark out orders to save lives, while discussions to increase someone’s job responsibilities may require sensitive negotiation over a period of time.
• Communicate. Without competent messaging — the appropriate use of language, tone, energy, rhetoric and pacing — people will not listen to what you say. The fact that you can talk does not make you a communicator. It just means you are capable of making a noise with your voice.
• Critique. As with any communicative competence, practice can make perfect. If you fail to influence others immediately, you should stop and think about why this might be. It could just be an initial setback on the way to success. And if the failure is real, it may be evidence of your own lack of nuance as a communicator rather than obstruction on the part of the other person. View failure as a learning process and a challenge to improve. This fundamental openness to improvement will, in itself, make you more appealing and influential.

Not a one-way street

Whenever people ask me in seminars for tips on how they can influence others more effectively, my response is always the same. I ask them instead why they don’t want to learn how to be influenced. Why don’t they want to be on the other end of the influencing process, supporting the influencer to reach their goals in a timely and effective manner?

My questions typically generate a moment of pause, perhaps a grin or two. They reflect on the insight that influencing should never be a one-way street. We need to enter discussions with humility. Yes, we have our convictions, but there may be another perspective, another route to success, another need not yet expressed. And we have to remain open to these possibilities.

But now I’m trying to persuade you that you may have got it all wrong about influencing. It probably doesn’t feel great. But that’s the whole point.