So, You Think You’re a Good Influencer?

By Deirdre Murray, Executive Coach, Trainer and Facilitator with PEOPLE RESOURCES

How often have we misread a situation completely and as a result the important interaction or negotiation that we want to influence just falls flat? We thought we had prepared well, had done all the research but we missed our opportunity to influence and persuade effectively. What has happened? What did we miss?

Below I explore the top 6 proven techniques to help you develop a keener awareness of your own individual influencing and negotiating style and provide practical tips to help you become a much more influential persuader.

 The ability to influence and persuade others to take positive action is a key skill in today’s business world. As John Maxwell wisely tells us, “leadership is no longer about titles, positions or flowcharts, it is about one life influencing another.” In this article, we explore ways to communicate well and develop style adaptability to maximise our influencing and persuasion skills with stakeholders, both internally and externally. Leaders today face much  more complex situations, deal with a wide range of stakeholders, both internally and externally. Therefore, it is no surprise that influencing skills was identified as the top area for development for leaders in a recent global coaching survey by CoachSource LLC. In their global survey of 2,200 coaching assignments they found that 30% of development issues related to communication, executive presence and influencing, and that influencing skills came top of the list.

What is Influencing?

 In simple terms, influencing is about affecting the beliefs, attitudes or behaviours of another person in a positive direction; it is about moving others to do something. It is about understanding clearly what your purpose is and what you want to achieve in your successful interaction or engagement with your audience.

In order to influence effectively, we need to start with ourselves first. Understanding how you like to influence and how you like to be influenced lets you see how others might see the world very differently from you. I often work with individuals to help them reflect initially on their personal communication and behavioural style and help them understand how their own behaviour impacts others.

I once worked with an Executive who was a great planner and had all the data available on spreadsheets to show the VP. However, he was shocked to discover that the VP was outraged as this was not what he wanted at all. All he wanted was the top line, not to be buried in reams and reams of data. As you can imagine, the Executive was devasted and realised that he had failed to influence his boss appropriately. He had only taken into account how he would like to be influenced, not what the other person might require. As Anais Nin states, “we don’t see the world as it is, we see the world as we are.”

Jay Conger, Professor of Leadership Studies at CMC, defines four essential aspects to influence well: To be credible, to find common ground and understand your audience, to provide appropriate and relevant evidence and lastly to connect with them emotionally:

Being credible: To influence effectively, we need to be credible and competent at what we are delivering. As well as knowing our audience, we need to knowledgeable on our subject matter and this will often require great preparation and research and additional learning on our part. As the old saying goes, “fail to prepare, prepare to fail.” One Executive I worked with told me that she had been put into a new role as manager of an area she knew nothing about and as you can imagine, she was highly nervous. I helped her to reframe this as a positive as it was a completely new area of business that no-one had encountered before and that she now had the opportunity to become the “expert” in this area. Sometimes the issue that seems challenging can build confidence. As Susan Cain wisely says, “Failure is courage walking.” We may not always be as confident as we should be but we can be brave. The courage comes afterwards.

Find common ground: Listen carefully to the needs of your audience and be able to reflect these. Understand the challenges they are facing and find out specifically what your audience is looking for and how you might provide an answer. It’s often useful to talk to and build a relationship with relevant stakeholders individually beforehand to explore their thoughts and mindset before meeting the entire group. This helps you identify your champions and those who are passive observers or complete dissenters.

Use vivid language and compelling evidence: Use previous relevant examples of where you have had success and back up your positive stories and metaphors with hard data and evidence. Clarify what the benefits are for them in participating or taking action, not for you. As Dale Carnegie once said, “the only way to influence another person is to talk about what he wants and show him how to get it.”

Connect emotionally with your audience: Show your commitment and enthusiasm in helping them achieve a solution to their issue or problem. Be able to read the room and be aware of the need to adapt positively to your audience’s demands or queries. Avoid defensiveness and deal with disagreement as an opportunity to discuss things further and be open to seek compromises where needed.

6 Proven Techniques to Help You Influence Well:

Robert Cialdini* identified six proven techniques from his research on influence and persuasion that will support your ongoing success:

(* Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion Robert Cialdini)

1. Reciprocation – Ask for a favour. This is a powerful technique as people, in general, want to be helpful and it’s inherent in our nature to repay the favour. In many instances, I’ve found that people are just afraid to ask, either out of a fear of rejection or looking stupid. The only thing they can say is “No!” At least you asked!
2. Liking: As Conger mentions, it’s essential to find common ground or similarity. People do business with people they like so it’s important to find some common ground and build a good trusting relationship with the other person. If you have ever been “persuaded” by a pushy salesperson you’ve probably wanted to run a mile. You want someone who listens, understands your needs and will help resolve your issue in a professional manner.
3. Use authority: Sometimes the issue is related to some external legislation, directive or corporate requirement – you are simply just the messenger. Use this external authority to provide a meaningful purpose for your request and explain the reason, importance and purpose of what is required.
4. Consistency: People like to be consistent in their actions. By agreeing to some small request or implementing a pilot programme allows the person to try it out in a safe environment. Cialdini found that by getting people to make a small gesture led to acceptance of making a bigger gesture later on. We’ve all seen this in hotels where housekeeping request that people hang up their towels to save the environment. His studies showed much greater adherence of this action when he mentioned the percentage of people in that particular room who did the same.
5. Use Social Proof: This is one of the key influencing factors. People are very influenced by what not just others are doing but what relevant others are doing. When trying to influence change, it’s important to show solid evidence of relevant benchmarking data and talk about what the competition are doing. This ties in with what Conger mentions when he talks about compelling evidence. This often requires going out and visiting other companies, researching and speaking to other customers and stakeholders. In one firm I worked with, we wanted to introduce teamwork into a highly unionised environment and this required a massive change in our operations. When our team members had the authority to go out and visit other relevant firms and interview customers this completely changed their perspective about the positives of good teamwork and collaboration across departments.
6. Scarcity: We see this frequently in sales ads, where there is always a deadline, and the week after, there’s another deadline. Never feel that you’re missing out but it’s a common feature in today’s environment. If we don’t have a sense of urgency we can tend to become complacent. This becomes a critical factor when we’re dealing with change in organisations. As Bernard Burns, Professor of Organsiational Change states, there needs to be a “felt need for change” to avoid apathy.

Influencing and persuading is a learning process. Focus on what works and be open to compromise and be able to adapt your approach based on the needs of your audience. You want to appeal to them to help them get from here to there. Practicing some of the techniques above will help you become a much more influential persuader.

About the author
Deirdre Murray, Founder and Director of PEOPLE RESOURCES, partners as an Executive Coach, Trainer and Facilitator with leading multinationals and public sector bodies across all sectors. She works with leaders and teams to maximise their potential through focused and timely coaching and leadership development.
Deirdre is co-author of “Emotional Intelligence (EQ) – A Leadership Imperative!” Her second book in the management briefs series, “Communicate with Impact! Communicate & Influence Successfully,” is out now at peopleresources.ie. She is a regular motivational speaker at conferences, seminars and on radio broadcasts and provides journal entries for leading business magazines.

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