Influencing Skills – How To Influence People
Whatever the arena you work in, influencing others is about having the confidence and willingness to use yourself to make things happen.
Wondering How To Influence People?
There is no single right way.
Every one of us is able to be influenced – but we are also all capable of influencing others.
And we are, all of us, influenced by people, places, events and situations at all times.
How To Influence People
Influencing in the Workplace
Your job will always require you to influence people at work.
It may take the form of gaining support, inspiring others, persuading other people to become your champions, engaging someone’s imagination, and creating relationships. Whatever form it takes, being an excellent influencer makes your job easier.
People Like Influencers
An interesting point about people who use their influencing skills well is that other people like being around them. There’s a kind of exciting buzz or sense that things happen when they’re about.
Research shows that likeability is vital for influence.
It’s because they don’t sit around wishing things were different while moaning there’s nothing they can do about it.
They don’t sit around blaming others or complaining about what needs fixing that will make things better. They see what needs doing and set about getting it done.
Influencing Skills
Truly excellent influencing skills require a healthy combination of interpersonal, communication, presentation and assertiveness techniques.
It is about adapting and modifying your personal style when you become aware of the effect you are having on other people, while still being true to yourself.
Behaviour and attitude change are what’s important, not changing who you are or how you feel and think.
Coercion and Manipulation
You may try to exert your influence through coercion and manipulation. You might even succeed in getting things done, but that isn’t really influencing people.
That’s forcing people to do what you want, often against their will. You won’t have succeeded in winning support.
Pushing, bullying, bludgeoning or haranguing DO NOT WORK! Like elephants, people will remember the experience.
Work With The Long Term In Mind
Indeed, if you force someone to do something you want, without taking their point of view into consideration, then the impression the person is left with is how they will see you forever.
You’re stuck with it unless you deliberately change what you do in order to be seen differently.
People are far more willing to come halfway (or more) if they feel acknowledged, understood and appreciated.
They may even end up doing or agreeing to something they wouldn’t previously have done because they feel good about making the choice.
How To Influence People?
Influencing people is about understanding yourself and the effect or impact you have on others.
Though it can, on occasion, be one way, the primary relationship is two-way, and it is about changing how others perceive you.
In other words, the cliche, perception is reality, makes perfect sense in the context of influencing others.
It doesn’t matter what’s going on internally for you – if it isn’t perceived by the other person, then it doesn’t exist, other than in your mind. Learning about the seven key barriers to communication will help you understand more about how we perceive others.
The Eye Of The Beholder
You could be doing the most brilliant presentation you’ve ever created, but if you haven’t brought your ‘audience’ with you, the brilliance is wasted.
And that’s about being able to see what’s going on for them, which will be different, however much you may have in common.
Influencing people at work can sometimes be looked at as the ability to ‘finesse’, almost sleight of hand.
The other person isn’t prodded into seeing your view of the world but is persuaded, often unconsciously, into understanding it.
Personal Influencing Style
Sometimes you can get so used to your own personal style or way of being or pattern of communicating, that you don’t think of how it is being received, and you don’t think of behaving in any other way.
Influencing people is about being able to move things forward, without pushing, forcing or telling others what to do.
Now what we know is that one of the most powerful forces that affect people’s behaviour is the avoidance of humiliation.
Behaviour Change
No one wants to embarrass themselves if they can help it.
So changing your behaviour entails a certain risk.
But if that behaviour change is deliberate, and you have made an effort to see the world from the other person’s point of view, then humiliation can be avoided on both sides.
Whatever the arena you work in influencing others is about having the confidence and willingness to use yourself to make things happen.
Influencing people is also the ability to ‘work’ a dynamic, whether it’s a large group, one-to-one or over the phone.
By ‘working’ the dynamic, we mean using everything at your disposal, both verbal and non-verbal communication, to create the impact you want, rather than letting things just happen.
Check out Robert Cialdini’s Influence – The Psychology of Persuasion
How To Influence People
Impact Factory runs
One-Day Influencing Skills Courses
Two-Day Influencing and Negotiation Courses
Tailored Influencing Skills Training
Five-Day Elite Communicate With Impact Workshops
and personalised
One-to-One Influencing Skills Training
for anyone who is interested in
