Do you wish you could wave a wand and have people do as you want them to? As organizations have become more complex (more moving parts and more ‘stakeholders’) the influencing landscape has become more like an obstacle course.

Expertise in human behavior is now essential for every business leader. Influencing people – re-positioning them from Point A (how they think, feel and/or act) to Point B (how they need to think, feel and act for XYZ to happen) – is fundamental to the average leader fulfilling his or her mandate – personal, collective, community or board-assigned.

While this article over-simplifies the influencing process, it still works reliably across diversities of culture and geography, gender and age, to influence opinions, decisions and actions. It applies to all human – i.e. brain-to-brain – impact, in both person and writing. Over many years of using this framework, I have had consistent stories of how clients have achieved their target response using this approach.

Heart Over Head

Today more than ever, organizations, markets and economies are about people and behavior. It is no coincidence that Richard Thaler – behavioral economist and researcher of the irrationality in human behavior – was awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics in October 2017.1,2

Martin Lindstrom – brand expert – linked the advances in understanding human behavior with advances in brain imaging technology. Lindstrom shows how emotion (not rational cognition) drives thoughts and buying actions, even showing that advertisers influence in utero brain wiring.3,4

A caution: It is human to be suspicious of ‘an agenda. Ensure your area of influence is at least in both parties’ mutual interests (if not more so the other party’s).5

How To Influence, In a Nutshell

It’s reassuring that so many viewpoints align on this topic, from a variety of frameworks and disciplines. These are the key factors in influence:

a.    Pain and/or Pleasure – human drivers of any person or group to be influenced
b.    Push versus Pull – the difference in effect between external pressure (push) and internal motivation (pull)
c.    Positioning – starting position (Point A) for both influencer and influenced
d.    Power phrasing – semantics matter; the choice of words and use of phrases counts. If they didn’t, advertising agencies would not be getting paid millions for catch phrases such as: “Have a Break, Have a Kit Kat”.

a.     Pain and Pleasure 

Given that these are the two fundamental drivers of human attention and subsequent behaviour, influence people using one, the other, or both.

Attunement to your audience will reveal what moves them naturally – what they move towards and away from. If your message or proposition aligns with their natural drivers, you have win-win. If not, you will possibly never win real support.

Find out what current problems they have that your proposition solves. Without your message meeting their current reality, there is no reason for their attention, let alone their support.

b.     Push Versus Pull 

People naturally resist what they experience as pressure. When you push a message onto them they retreat or push back. If they are already in motion towards an outcome you can provide, or are motivated away from some current and recurring hassle, they will pull a solution from you to achieve more of what they want and less of what they don’t.

An emotional message will implant firmly in the part of the person’s brain that moves them to action — it will stick and even sprout further arguments in support of your proposition. (Yet, many leaders still think a data-dump is a clarion call.)

c.     Positioning (and Re-positioning)

Positioning refers to the opening and closing positions of the target audience in relation to:

  • The message or proposition you are selling
  • The nature of your objective

It means how the person perceives that idea, item or event; on a scale of 1-10 (1 being actively resistant and 10 being ‘can’t wait to hop on board’), it is where they are on this scale.

Positioning, in the context of influence, also refers to the person selling the message. You have to be in the right ‘position’ before you try to re-position another. Not only must you be fully attuned to your audience, you must also be congruent in thoughts, words and behaviour or else your audience will register this dissonance.

“First position yourself before you re-position the other.”

Repositioning Steps

To move an audience from Point A (their starting point) to Point B (the frame of mind you need them to be in), follow these steps:

  1. Start in the other person’s (audience’s) frame of reference — identify and address a priority for them (If it is not a current priority, present information so that it is. Use a power phrase to grab attention – see section d.)
  2. Evoke emotion in or about their current and/or future situation — they tell you or you prompt them and listen, reinforce and/or emphasis
  3. Create and describe in detail the outcome they seek
  4. Summarise how this is achieved (at a high level) with your plan
  5. Check for conditional ‘yes’ (“If you could have……. then would you….…?”)
  6. Only then, give the details of how this is achieved, and conditions that apply
  7. Get agreement and plan the implementation together

If you don’t get willing agreement from the audience (this is not persuading or arm-twisting), start back at point 1. Or seriously reconsider what you are trying to achieve. If you try to ‘pull rank’, you will quickly learn what it is like to sprint through sludge.

d.    Power Phrasing

When you get this right, a single word or phrase can stop someone in their tracks and re-position them from NO (disagreement) to YES (agreement) – across the ‘buy line’, in an instant. The buy line is that imaginary horizontal line below which is NO and above which is YES. The purpose of the power phrase is to re-position the person/audience from below to above the buy line.

A simple example of an effective power phrase is the financial advisor asking a prospect: “Would you like to pay a lower mortgage interest rate or less interest?” The result? Immediate disturbance – a desire to know more.

You may not always have access to your audience’s specific ‘hot buttons’, but research in this digital age has never been easier. You will find out soon enough if your research is on the money. Always remember: you don’t influence people by throwing data at them, no matter how impressive it is to you.

Critical Influence Reminders

  • focus on the type of words you use (not the volume of words)
  • speak the audience’s language – find out their hot buttons
  • use pictures, symbols (somatic markers) and other right brain ‘hooks’6
  • broadcast on WII-FM — what’s in it for me? (the audience)
  • start  with impact e.g. a power phrase (statement or question)
  • relate on a human level — even chatting to people before starting a presentation can build rapport needed for positive influence. The opposite is when the presenter appears aloof and disinterested. Every interaction is one human brain interacting with another and brains have a lot in common.

Human behavior, while apparently irrational, follows specific patterns7. It can be predicted and therefore, with some insight and willingness to change your own point of view, you can change how others think, feel and act (without a magic wand).

Sources:

1Thaler, Prof Richard H. and Cass R. Sunstein. (2008) Nudge: Improving decisions about health, wealth, and happiness. Yale University Press, New Haven, CT.
https://www.amazon.com/Nudge-Improving-Decisions-Health-Happiness/dp/014311526X
2“Richard Thaler, A Giant In Economics, Awarded The Nobel Prize” Frank Armstrong III. Forbes Magazine Oct 13, 2017.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/frankarmstrong/2017/10/13/richard-thaler-a-giant-in-economics-awarded-the-nobel-prize/#1d27076d3a10
3Lindstrom, Martin (2009) Buyology. Random House. London
https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=19324362434&searchurl=tn%3Dbuyology%26sortby%3D17
4Lindstrom, Martin. (2011) Brandwashed. Crown Publishing Group
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/101774/brandwashed-by-martin-lindstrom-foreword-by-morgan-spurlock/9780385531733/
5Pink, Daniel H. To Sell is Human. Penguin Group. 2012.
6Holland, Cherri. Influencing 101. 2013.
https://www.amazon.com.au/Influencing-101-When-Selling-4-letter-ebook/dp/B01LVV25PW
7Parson, James. “Your Brain at Work: the stuff you need to know.” Published September 25, 2017. (From 8 mins – 15.10 mins) https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/your-brain-work-stuff-you-need-know-james-parsons/?published=t

About the Author: