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PART I
GETTING OTHERS TO FOLLOW YOUR LEAD
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CHAPTER 1
FUNDAMENTALS OF INFLUENCE
Some books claim that if you follow their principles you can influence anyone to do anything. According to these authors, you can get anyone to like you, love you, and find you irresistibly attractive. Wow! They assert that you can take control of any situation, win at every competition, and gain the upper hand every time. One book, written for men wanting to pick up women, boasts that by following its mystery methods you can get beautiful women into bed. Another boldly proclaims that you can get anyone to say yes in eight minutes or less. When I read claims such as these, I am reminded of a saying attributed to Abraham Lincoln: âYou can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.â
Are there secrets that will make you irresistibly attractive to whomever you want? Is it possible to influence people to do anything you want? If these claims were true, then surely some pro-life advocates would have discovered these principles by now and used them to convert all their pro-choice opponents to their position (or vice versa). If it were that easy to influence people, to influence anyone to do anything, then why hasnât the conflict in the Middle East been resolved? Why havenât conservatives influenced all liberals to adopt their conservative philosophy and agenda (or vice versa)? For that matter, why hasnât some influential cook persuaded all other cooks to proclaim that her recipe makes the absolute best authentic Texas chili?
Apparently people arenât reading these books or arenât following the adviceâor the claims are simply nonsense, and itâs not actually possible to get anyone to do whatever you want in eight minutes or less. In the real world, you cannot influence some people all of the time. Nor can you influence all of the people some of the time, and you certainly cannot influence all of the people all of the time. People are more complicated than that, generally think for themselves, and may have many valid reasons for not doing what you want them to do or thinking the way you want them to think.
The next time someone promises you that by following his secrets you can influence anyone to do anything, beware: Heâs trying to sell you snake oil. In fact, if you have a choice between buying his advice or buying real snake oil, buy the snake oil. It probably has some useful purpose.
INFLUENCE ATTEMPTS AND THE RANGE OF POSSIBLE OUTCOMES
This chapter addresses the fundamentals of influenceâwhat you need to know to understand how power and influence actually work, in life as well as in business. These principles are universal. They apply in China and India as well as in Poland, Canada, Peru, France, and everywhere else around the globe. They apply in families, teams, clubs, and clans as well as in corporations and in one-on-one situations. A first, important fundamental is that influence attempts do not have binary (yes/no) outcomes. When you try to influence someone, the outcome is not simply âyes, she was influencedâ or âno, she wasnâtâ. In fact, there is a range of possible outcomes to every influence attempt, as illustrated in figure 1-1.
âș Figure 1-1. Every influence attempt can have a wide range of outcomes.
The Baseline
The baseline refers to the fact that all of us are headed down our own pathâdoing what we are doing, thinking what we are thinking, and believing what we believe. We will continue on our own path unaware of you and unaffected by you until you try to influence us to do, think, or believe something different. Once you do try to influence us, we may still not be influenced one way or the other. We may remain apathetic or indifferent toward you or what you are proposingâand we may not even consciously recognize your presence. One possible outcome of an influence attempt, then, is no influence. We remain unmoved or unaffected and perhaps even unaware of you.
Each of us is subjected to hundreds if not thousands of influence attempts every day. We talk to others, we see other people, we read books, watch television or listen to the radio, see or hear advertisements, read newspapers or magazines, open e-mails, participate in meetings, work with people, are approached by solicitors, call on customers, and so on. We may be influenced by people we see, talk to, meet with, or read aboutâor we may not. If we were moved by every influence attempt we experience daily, we would be tossed willy-nilly from one direction to the next and have no constancy in or control of our lives. So an important part of the human experience is deciding (mostly subconsciously) whether to be influenced by something we experience. I see the ad for some product but am not moved to buy it. I see the latest fashions displayed in a department store window but continue walking by. I hear someone complaining about a corporate decision but donât care. I receive brochures from suppliers but donât need or am not interested in what they are selling, so I put the brochures in the recycle bin.
I am unmoved. I have not been influenced. I have not changed direction. The baseline is the norm. Itâs what exists before an influence attempt and often what exists afterward.
Compliance, Commitment, and Leadership
If an influence attempt succeeds, the most likely outcome is simple consent, agreement, or compliance. The person complies with your request, agrees with your suggestion, or does what you want. You try to persuade a potential customer to look at a demo of your product, and the customer is willing to do so. You ask a colleague to give you feedback on a report youâve just written, and the colleague agrees. You tell your teenage son that youâd like help cleaning up the kitchen after dinner, and he helps youâbegrudgingly perhaps, but he helps. These are examples of compliance. The person you are trying to influence goes along with what you want. He deviates from the path he was on and consents to do or think what you would like.
Sometimes you want more than compliance; you want commitment. You want the person not simply to agree with you but to agree wholeheartedly, to be enthusiastic and engaged, to consent not merely with the head but also with the heart. Compliance usually implies rational consent. If I were asked why I complied with someoneâs request, I would most often explain my decision in logical terms: âIt made sense. I had no reason to say no.â However, commitment means to be emotionally impelled, to assume an obligation, to be swept up in an emotional current and be willingly engaged. If asked why I became committed to someone or something, I would usually explain my decision in emotional terms: âBecause I believed. Because it was the right thing to do. Because it moved me to tears.â One reason Barack Obama won the 2008 U.S. presidential election and John McCain, his Republican opponent, did not is that Obama spoke to peopleâs emotions and inspired them to believe in hopeful change, whereas McCain offered rational reasons why he should be president. (âVote for me,â he said, âbecause I know how to confront our enemies.â) In essence, McCain asked for compliance and Obama inspired commitment. Whether President Obama has delivered on his promises is another issue. My point here is that candidate McCainâs rhetoric was not as compelling to as many American voters as candidate Obamaâs rhetoric. McCain wanted peopleâs votes; Obama wanted their hearts and minds.
Figure 1-2 illustrates the difference between compliance and commitment. The lab on the left is compliant. It is poised dutifully, obeying its masterâs commands to sit and stay. Collar around its neck, tethered to a leash, watchful, it waits to be released. In contrast, the dog on the right is committed. Leaping for the ball, it is as far off the ground as it can get. Ears flying, mouth open, this dog is committed because it is doing something it loves to do. Anyone whoâs ever played ball with a dog knows the boundless joy the dog experiences. You are usually worn out before the dog is. These photos illustrate an important distinction between compliance and commitment. Animals and people who comply with an influence attempt often do so because it feels compulsory or required either by the person making the influence attempt or by the situation. They comply because they must, or because they have no reason to disagree, or because itâs what theyâve been trained to do or have become accustomed to doing. They commit when what theyâre being asked to do fills them with joy, engages them emotionally, is rewarding in some way, or is what they love doing anyway.
âș Figure 1-2. The difference between compliance (left) and commitment (right).
Beyond commitment, another possible outcome of an influence attempt is leadership. Here, the person is not merely influenced to become committed to the cause but goes beyond that and assumes a leadership role, taking the mantle from the influencer and advancing the cause even further. Throughout history, many people have been influenced to the point of leadership. Ronald Reagan inspired legions of Reaganite fiscal conservatives in the United States and abroad. Mohandas Gandhi moved hundreds of millions of Indians to nonviolent protest and noncooperation with British authorities, which led to Indiaâs independence, and he influenced a number of political protĂ©gĂ©s to assume greater leadership roles, including Jawaharlal Nehru, who became Indiaâs first prime minister. Prominent figures in the African-American civil rights movementâW.E.B. DuBois, Malcolm X, Rosa Parks, and Martin Luther King Jr., to name a fewâinfluenced many followers to take leadership roles, among them Jesse Jackson, Julian Bond, Robert Moses, James Meredith, and Andrew Young. A common goal of inspirational leaders is not merely to induce commitment but to inspire others to assume leadership and carry forward the aims of a movement that the inspirational leader could not accomplish alone.
As you will read later in the discussion of each of the influence techniques, some techniques are more likely to result in compliance than commitment or leadership. Logical persuading, legitimizing, exchanging, and stating, if they are successful, generally result in compliance or simple agreement. On the other hand, socializing, appealing to relationship, alliance building, and consulting have the potential to cause commitment, and appealing to values and modeling may result in leadership. This is not to say that you canât use logic, for instance, to inspire others to assume leadership, but logical persuading is far less likely to have that effect than appealing to values or modeling.
Skepticism, Resistance, and Rebellion
What are the possible outcomes when an influence attempt is unsuccessful? As figure 1-1 shows, the least undesirable outcome, from the influencerâs perspective, is skepticism, which indicates doubt or distrust. Like most people, I receive unsolicited calls now and then from high-pressure salespeople who believe that their unrelenting barrage will convince me to send them money. Regardless of what they are selling and whether I need their product or service, I am so put off by their approach that I am more than unmoved and uninfluenced; I am annoyed and even angry. You could argue that apathy is also an unsuccessful outcome, and it is, but skepticism is more than someone simply being unmoved; skepticism plants the seeds of doubt and distrust in the influenceeâs mind and makes it more difficult for the influencer to successfully influence that person in the future.
Even stronger negative reactions to an influence attempt are resistance, where the influencee either actively or passively resists what the influencer wants, and beyond that, rebellion, where the influencee takes the lead in resisting the influencer and tries to enlist others in a rebellion against what the influencer seeks. For instance, imagine I have a colleague who comes to me with a proposal to outsource what I believe is an important part of our core business. She tries to persuade me that we can save money and improve service and quality by outsourcing. However, I donât buy it. Iâm skeptical and give her reasons why I donât think itâs a good idea. Not only did she fail to influence me, she has created doubt in my mind, and I will be less inclined to agree with her in the future unless she returns with far more compelling arguments.
But I might also respond to her influence attempt with active or passive resistance. If I actively resist, I might do some research on outsourcing in this area, compile evidence against the idea, and circulate a report to that effect. My aim is to counter her by trying to influence others against her idea. Or I may passively resist by failing to support her, by voicing my skepticism in private meetings with others, and by working harder to ensure that the area she wants to outsource is performing well. But an even stronger negative reaction would be for me to rebel by taking up the anti-outsourcing cause, visibly and enthusiastically opposing outsourcing, building an alliance of managers who oppose the idea, and waving the flag at the executive level to not only resist her idea but crush it.
The outcomes shown on both sides of the baseline in figure 1-1 are, in effect, opposites. Skepticism is the opposite of compliance, resistance is the opposite of commitment, and rebellion is the opposite of leadership. Of course, reality is not as neat as this figure suggests. How people respond, positively or negatively, to an influence attempt varies tremendously, but the essential point is that with any influence attempt there can be no outcome (the baseline), a positive/successful outcome for the influencer, or a negative/unsuccessful outcomeâand these outcomes can vary in the intensity of the reaction. Why is this important? Because a number of personal, organizational, and cultural factors affect how people will respond to you when you try to influence them. Understanding the possible outcomes and what you can do to manage them is crucial if you are going to be more successful at influencing others, especially across cultures.
An important fundamental of influence, then, is that every influence attempt has a range of possible outcomes. To be most effective at influencing others, you need to know how to achieve the successful outcomes and avoid the unsuccessful ones.
THE TEN LAWS OF INFLUENCE
There are ten more fundamentals of influence, which I call âthe ten laws of influence.â
Law 1:
Influence Attempts May Fail for Many Legitimate Reasons
As I said earlier, the idea that you can influence anyone to do anything is nonsense. There are many reasons why people may not be moved by or even aware of your influence attempt. In his book John P. Kotter on What Leaders Really Do, John Kotter explores why people may not respond to a ma...
