Leadership & Influence
HOW TO INFLUENCE PEOPLE AT WORK
By Shaun Mendonsa, PhD
December 13, 2020
Influencing is hard for most of us.
But we've been taught the wrong ways to influence.
Influencing At Work The Right Way
The true way to grow your influence lies in your ability to employ the most basic of techniques that go undetected. Now you will learn the best way to convince people to your point of view.
How We Make Decisions
Firstly, people make every important decision deep in their subconscious minds. Secondly, our conscious reasoning ability (rational mind) evolved more for the sake of winning arguments than for decision making.
Mistakes To Avoid When Influencing
Pay close attention to what this is telling us about how we should NOT go about influencing people. You should not try to convince them by reasoning. Don’t let others know they are being influenced by you.
How To Influence People Correctly
1
Don't Start By Reasoning
Reasoning triggers argumentation and resistance in others.
If you try to convince someone by directly reasoning with them through their conscious mind — as most other schools of workplace influence teach — you will typically encounter a roadblock. This is the single biggest factor that results in unsuccessful influencing.
2
People Should Not Know You Are Influencing Them
Use techniques that are not sensed by the person you are trying to influence.
People can't resist what they don’t detect. Influencing subtly does not come naturally to any of us. We feel the urge to reason with people first. But if you can check your instincts, then rest of your influencing tasks are much easier.
3
Put Their Needs First
Don't talk about yourself first. Make it about the other person and their dreams.
Almost all persuasion taught these days is based on getting you to communicate better, boosting your visibility, your network and reputation, and framing your arguments and sales pitches better. How can you expect to get someone on your side if it is all about you and your needs?
4
Mimic Their Emotional State
What the other person experiences before they hear your request is key.
Match their tone and pattern of speaking. More importantly, mimic their emotional state. This will help forge a sense of unity with them which has a powerful influencing undertone — framing you as being one with them or as their leader.
5
Visualize Your Request
Visual persuasion is the most effective form.
If you get people to imagine clearly where you want to lead them, they are convinced more readily. Describe what you want so that people can quickly construct a mental image of your pitch.
6
Help Them Justify Saying Yes
Once you win over their subconscious mind, they are ready to say yes to you.
People still believe they make decisions rationally. So, once you have won over their subconscious mind and have primed it to be more receptive to your ideas, all they need now are reasons for saying yes to you. In truth, these are only excuses to do what their inner self has already been nudged to do by you.
How To Influence People Positively
Master Influencers can get others aligned and influence people’s decisions even before making a request.
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Every decision we make is made in our subconscious and is only later propped up with reasoning. We suffer from an illusion of choice. Our conscious mind ends up creating a fictitious story around the decision that the unconscious had already made for us. This cognitive deception fools us into thinking that decision-making works through our rational, reasoning mind.
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