Let's talk about how we can influence people. Maybe you have children that won't eat spinach, or a teenager who's dropping out of their sports team because they're doing bad in school. Maybe you have a business associate that needs to see or think things differently. How do we influence these people to do what we need them to do? There are a lot of ways to get what we want, but we're going to focus on three specific ways that will help you get the most out of the people around you.
1. Don't Complain, Condemn, or Criticize!
First of all, when we complain, condemn or criticize we make people feel that their actions are
inadequate. This makes people feel resentment towards us. They tend to feel the need to defend and justify actions instead of making changes to them. Instead of criticizing people, we should lead by example.
What we have to remember is that we aren't dealing with creatures of logic. We are dealing with humans, creatures full of emotion, prejudices, creatures motivated by pride and vanity. When dealing with humans, we can't attack someone (by complaining) and still expect that they'll do what we want. As Dale Carnegie put it, "If you want to gather honey, don't kick over the beehive." If you kick a beehive, the bees inside stop focusing on making honey and start defending their hive. In the same way if we a attack a persons methods, they will focus on defending themselves and not on making a better choice.
Overall, the first step to influencing someone, is by not raising their defenses and by showing them a better way of doing things.
2. Give Honest and Sincere Appreciation
The best (and arguably the only) way to get someone to do anything is by giving them what they want. That brings on the question, what do you want?
According to Sigmund Freud, everything that we do has two motives: the sexual urge and the desire to be great. That answers the question of what a person wants most. Now I would never recommend
By no means am I suggesting flattery, I mean actually take the time to notice what others are doing right and then comment on it. I mean a new way of life, where we think about more then ourselves. A new way of life where we give others what they want so that they can give us what we want in return.
3. See Things From The Other Person's Perspective
Personally, I enjoy chocolate covered strawberries; however, I've come to the obvious realization that fish enjoy worms more than chocolate strawberries. That's
why when I go fishing, I try to bait fish with worms. In the same way if
you want someone to do what you want, try giving them what they want. Try not to focus only on what you want, but try looking at things from their point of view.
Henry Ford said it best, "If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the person's point of view and see things from that person's angle as well as from your own."
By seeing things from the other person's perspective, we can begin to assess their wants and needs. If you need something to be done by a person, show them how that action benefits them, because if we're honest, 99% of people don't care about what you want. However, by making a person feel that a certain action will benefit them, they will be considerate of that action. Let me give you a personal example of how this has helped me.
A couple of months ago, an organization that I work with rented a hall for nine days at a discounted price. It came up to an even $2500, while usually a single night cost $450. Four days before the first event was to take place, we were contacted by the hall and were told that we were no longer getting any kind of discount. The normal human response would have been to call them and begin a heated argument, instead my friend and I went and talked to the owner of the hall. We walked in with smiles in our faces and told him that we understood why they did that and that it made sense. We then proceeded to make a list of pros and cons regarding his decision. Under cons, we listed the fact that we couldn't afford his hall without a discount and he would lose those nine days of business. We also wrote that our seminars were bringing in quite a few high profile speakers who might be interested in using his hall again, however if we didn't use his venue, they would not be exposed to it. Under the pros we showed that he had the potential to fill those nine days with full paying customers (we all knew that he would be lucky to fill even three of those days). soon after we left and told him that if he would reconsider giving us a discount, we would still be interested in his venue. The next day my organization got a call informing us that we only had to pay $2500 for all nine days. Success!
In the above example, we used this method to try and see things from the perspective of the venue owner. By doing this we were able to show him that he stood to profit more by doing what we wanted.
By doing these three things, you can quickly learn how to properly influence people. This can be used to help you in your career, your love life, and in all your relationships throughout the years to come (if you apply them correctly). So spend the next month or two consciously working on these three things and see how it changes your life!
These three suggestions come from my own experiences and also partly from reading "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie. It's an amazing book that teaches one the art of influence in full depth. I would recommend this book to everyone! If you're interested in reading it, here's the link to purchase it:
-Syed Mahmood
