By Steve Martin, CMCT

Today’s increasingly complex business world can serve up some pretty challenging situations that even the most seasoned of us will find difficult to navigate through. Thankfully though, there’s often a colleague, co-worker or friend who will be happy to pass on the benefit of their wisdom to help you deal with that difficult decision or knotty issue.

And while advice like “Why not sleep on it?” or “You should take a step back and view the issue from afar” certainly won’t be lacking in good intentions, it might sometimes be lacking a deeper understanding given that their appreciation of your situation will often be informed by nothing more than a quick and detached glance. But before completely dismissing their counsel it might be worth considering some new evidence supporting the benefits of consciously creating some physical distance from a problem at hand.

Perhaps even more interestingly, the insights from these studies are not only instructive when it comes to helping you to solve problems or make decisions. Especially during the early stages of making a business proposal or a sales presentation, asking potential customers and clients to take a step back before they consider your products and services could actually make it easier for them to do business with you.    

Researchers Manoj Thomas and Claire Tsai, from Cornell University and Rotman University respectively, thought that 

the physical distance between a person and an actual challenge or problem that they faced could influence their perception of how easy or difficult overcoming that challenge or problem might actually be. In one series of experiments designed to test how distance affects perceptions of how difficult or easy a task is, study participants were asked to read aloud a series of words that appeared randomly on a computer screen. Some of the words that appeared on the screens were (orthographically irregular non-words) made up and difficult to pronounce words. At other times, participants were asked to read aloud words that were simple and easy to pronounce. Additionally, each time one of the difficult-to-pronounce words appeared on the screen half the participants were randomly assigned to lean towards the screen in order to reduce the distance between themselves and the difficult-to-pronounce words while the other half were asked to lean back from the screen, thereby creating a greater distance.

Finally after reading each word, study participants were asked to rate how difficult they found that word to pronounce.

The results showed that when it came to the difficult words, those who were asked to lean back in their chairs to create a greater physical distance between themselves and the screen reported that they found the task to be easier compared to those who were asked to move towards the screen. In short the experiment neatly demonstrated that when a task appears tricky, making a small change by taking a step back and viewing that task from a distance can prove to be useful in reducing the perception of a task’s difficulty.

But what would happen if instead of asking people to report how difficult (or easy) it was to articulate a word, they were instead asked to report how difficult (or easy) it was for them to purchase a product?

To answer this question the researchers conducted another series of studies. This time participants choose from a range of electronic products including cameras and computers. For each product, participants were given a choice of evaluating their liking for the product immediately and subsequently making a purchase there and then, or they could defer their decision until later. To ad

d an element of real life to the situation, the choices that people were given were made harder by making the product comparisons difficult to evaluate. Additionally, it was also made clear that no obvious cost benefit marked one product out as any more attractive than another.

Consistent with the word pronunciation tests, the results clearly showed that those who were told to take a step back and compare the products from a distance found the evaluation task easier. And as a result they were significantly less likely to delay their purchasing decision compared to those who were asked to move closer. A small single change, brought about by increasing the physical distance from which a choice was viewed, had a significant influence over that choice. Put simply a complex product choice does seem to get a little easier when viewed from a greater distance. 

 The findings from these two sets of experiments suggest a couple of small, but potentially important, changes that would be worth considering when influencing the decisions of others. Imagine for a few moments that you are with a relatively new client and that the solution your organization is offering is a relatively complex one. These studies suggest that arranging for a small change in the distance from which your proposal will be seen could turn out to be a pretty persuasive thing to do. Accordingly, it will be important not only to carefully conside

r what will make up the content of your presentation, but also to pay close attention to the distance from which your content will be viewed. This might mean that instead of presenting directly from your laptop where the client may need to get much closer to the screen, it might be wiser to arrange for your presentation to be projected against a bigger screen, farther away, even if you are presenting to an audience of one.

 In a related example, retail and sales staff who demonstrate products as part of a sales process might wish to consider the physical distance between themselves and their customer, choosing to retreat slightly especially at points when they are introducing relatively complex or new technical product features to non-expert customers.

 All in all, these studies go some way to explaining how small changes in physical distance can go some way to making your influence attempts more productive.

 They might also provide an explanation as to why, when agonizing over a knotty problem in the office, it is that smug colleague who looks over your shoulder at your screen from a distance, who always seems to believe they can get to the answer quicker than you.

Sources:

Thomas, M., & Tsai, C. (2012). Psychological Distance and Subjective Experience: How Distancing Reduces the Feeling of Difficulty. Journal of Consumer Research, 39(2), 324-340.

Discussion Questions:

1)      What is the most unexpected gift you either gave to someone or received?

2)      What effect did it have on them (on you)?  

You do your best to recycle whenever you can, right? Maybe the company you work for has a pro-environmental policy that encourages staff to use less paper and to recycle as much as possible of that which is used. It certainly wouldn’t be alone. Increasing numbers of organizations, communities too, are recognizing the benefits of recycling as a way to conserve energy and natural resources and many will have policies and strategies in place to encourage it. 

But could certain strategies designed to persuade people to recycle actually be counterproductive leading to an increase rather than a decrease in the use of resources? A new study suggests that, at least in certain conditions, they could. It turns out that the insights gleaned from this study don’t just have implications for your office environmental policy.

They may also have implications for your wider change initiatives too. 

Influence rarely occurs in a vacuum and one possible implication of focusing attention on a single specific behavior is that it might lead to unintended, even counterproductive behaviors down the line. Behavioral scientists call this ‘licensing’ or a ‘negative spillover’ and we can probably all think of examples from our personal lives. Spending an extra ten minutes on the treadmill so that we feel a little fitter might also convince us that we have earned the right to that tasty muffin to accompany our morning coffee. Selecting the healthy salad at lunch might ‘buy’ us the right to a dessert, or a ride on the elevator instead of the stairs when returning to our desk.

Jesse Catlin from Washington State University’s Business School, together with her colleague Yitong Wang from Tsinghua University in Beijing wondered if this ‘licensing’ effect might also occur when it came to encouraging environmentally protective behavior. For example, in an attempt to make it easier to recycle paper could providing recycling facilities actually cause people to use more paper than they ordinarily would if recycling facilities weren’t available?

In order to test this idea two studies were designed. In the first study participants were told that they would be evaluating a new brand of scissors. Part of the evaluation process required them to rate how good the scissors were at cutting out shapes (such as triangles and squares) from a stack of approximately 200 sheets of plain, white paper. Half the participants tested the scissors in a room where there weren’t any recycling facilities, only a trash can. The other half completed the task in a room where recycling facilities were available in addition to a regular trash can. The participants were purposely not given any specific instructions about the sizes of the shapes or the amount of paper that they should use in the task. Instead they were simply told to dispose of any scraps in the receptacle(s) provided and then complete a ‘green attitude’ questionnaire that asked them about their beliefs and attitudes towards the environment.

The results were quite simply staggering. Participants who evaluated the pair of scissors when recycling facilities were available used nearly three times more paper than the group who didn’t have recycling facilities. Interestingly this increase in the use of resources occurred regardless of how positive the participants’ ‘green attitudes’ were as measured in the post study questionnaire.

So this first study demonstrated a clear case of licensing; the presence of paper recycling facilities caused people to use more not less paper. Now, one potential criticism of studies like these is that because they are conducted in a laboratory setting the results may not reflect what happens in the real world. So in order to test whether they could replicate their results Catlin and Wang transported their studies out of the university lab and set them up…..in a men’s restroom!

Before starting this new set of experiments they first collected data on the amount of paper hand towels used in the men’s restroom for a period of 15 days to work out the average amount of paper towels typically used each day. Once this had been done they then introduced a large recycling bin near the sinks with signs indicating that the restrooms were participating in a paper hand towel recycling program and that any used hand towels placed in the bin would be recycled. For the next 15 days they then simply measured the amount of paper hand towels used.

Consistent with their laboratory studies, paper towel usage increased after the introduction of the recycling bin by an average of 0.5 paper towels per person. At first glance this small increase doesn’t seem that big a deal however, given that the restroom was typically used over a 100 times a day the increase in usage was substantial. About 12,500 paper hand towels annually for this one restroom alone. The presence of recycling facilities led to an increase not a decrease in the use of resources. And in a big way!

So what’s going on?  Well one possible explanation might be to do with guilt. If people experience a feeling of guilt when consuming and disposing of products they may feel that by recycling them they can reduce any negative feelings they experience associated with over consumption. Of course that subsequent reduction in negative feeling might now ‘license’ them to consume more because their over consumption will be mitigated by recycling.

Or perhaps the availability of the recycling option serves as a simple justification cue. Maybe people are saying to themselves “Hey if it can be recycled then it probably doesn’t matter if I use a little bit more.”

Regardless of the mechanism that is providing people with this ‘license’, one implication is immediately clear. When seeking to persuade people to behave in desirable ways, providing facilities that make it easy for people to do so, whilst vital, may not be enough to carry sway. Particularly in situations where there is little or no obvious cost to the user of the resource that is being consumed. This was certainly the case in the paper recycling studies and might be the case when it comes to influencing your colleagues and co-workers in the office too.

An example is in order. Imagine for a few moments that you have been ‘lucky’ enough to be volunteered as the new Green Champion in your office and you now have the not-so-enviable challenge of persuading your co-workers to use a little less paper, recycle the paper they do use and adopt some other environmentally friendly practices like turning out the lights when they leave the building. Imagine further that arrangements have been made for facilities such as recycling boxes to be strategically placed around the building and for energy efficient bulbs to be installed in the light fixtures. Knowing that these facilities, whilst essential, might also have the unintended consequence of licensing your colleagues to use more rather than fewer resources, you recognize the need to make some additional small steps to mitigate any potential licensing effects. So what might they be?

Well, the first might be to add a sign at recycling points and light switches, pointing out that whilst recycling is beneficial to the environment, using fewer resources in the first place is even more beneficial. Doing so would be consistent with emerging research that has shown that whilst the benefits of recycling are often highly salient to people, the cost of recycling is much less so.

Another potential step would be to take an insight from the consistency principle and highlight commitments that individuals may have previously made toward environmental protection. Better still you might seek small commitments from people prior to starting the program. Regular Inside Influence Report readers may recall the recent studies I wrote about in hotels where asking guests to sign a pledge when they checked into the hotel not only led to an increase in towel and linen reuse; it also caused guests to be more likely to turn off the light and TV when leaving their rooms. An example of a ‘positive spillover’ effect.

A well cited first order law of behavior change programs is to ‘make change easy for people’. These studies add a caveat. Providing facilities that make change easy for people, whilst crucial, won’t always be enough. The true detective of influence will also consider potential licensing or negative spillover effects and include steps to eliminate them within their strategies.

Discussion:

What examples can you recall of persuasion strategies that, at the time, seemed well considered only for an unintended consequence or negative spillover effect to occur?

How do you currently account for potential licensing effects or unintended consequences in your influence strategies?              

Source:

Catlin, J., & Wang, Y. (2013). Recycling Gone Bad: When the Option to Recycle Increases Resource Consumption. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 23(1), 122–127.

 In late October 2012 Hurricane Sandy bulldozed its way through the Caribbean and across the Mid-Atlantic before hitting land again in the North-Eastern United States causing a trail of destruction and devastation in its wake. Violent gusts nearing 100 mph accompanied by lashing rains left widespread damage estimated at over $75 billion. In the aftermath many thousands of individuals as well as organizations such as the American Red Cross and the United Nations marshaled resources towards clean-up and relief operations. Corporations and businesses helped too. A number of network news channels held telethons and appeals that generated millions of dollars in donations.

The role played by the news networks wasn’t just limited to encouraging contributions towards relief efforts. They were also responsible for generating a series of unofficial names for the hurricane. Snowicane was one such example that served to highlight the projected snow fall that would accompany hurricane Sandy. Frankenstorm was another – a reference to the storm’s close proximity to Halloween.

While I am not aware of any evidence that assigning an unofficial name to a hurricane would have any influence on an individual’s likelihood to support relief efforts, there is evidence of a connection between a hurricane’s official name and some individual’s likelihood to donate.

Not only is this connection surprising, it could offer some important insights into how you persuade others in the future.  

In a 2008 paper published in the journal Judgment and Decision Making, psychology professor Jesse Chandler highlighted an important factor that appeared to influence people’s likelihood to donate to fund raising appeals set up to help hurricane victims. People were more likely to donate if the initial of their first name matched the name given to the hurricane. For example, those whose names began with the letter R, such as Robert or Rosemary, were 260% more likely to donate to the Hurricane Rita relief appeal than those whose name didn’t begin with the letter R. A similar effect was noted after Hurricane Katrina with folks whose name starts with a K significantly more motivated to donate. And so on. In each case a disproportionate number of donations came from those with the same initial as the hurricane. 

In his super interesting new book Drunk TanK Pink, Adam Alter, a Professor of Marketing at NYU’s Stern Business School makes a serious point. If people are more likely to donate to hurricane relief programs that share their initials, then the World Meteorological Organization which is responsible for naming hurricanes has the power to increase charitable giving simply by giving hurricanes more commonly occurring names.         

To dismiss these insights as simply arbitrary would be to dismiss a fundamental feature of our psychology. Our names matter to us.

We can all recall a time when we have been deep in conversation with someone, maybe at a conference or at a business meeting. We are so focused on what is being said that we are largely oblivious to what’s going on around us. But then we hear our name mentioned from another part of the room and instantly our attention is diverted. It’s almost as if an invisible antenna exists that constantly scans the environment waiting to tune into mentions of our name – a phenomenon psychologists refer to as “The Cocktail Party Effect”.     

Should you need further convincing of how important people’s names are to them, then you might like to try this little experiment next time you’re in a meeting. Simply hand out a sheet of paper to everyone in the room and ask them to write down their 5 favorite letters of the alphabet. If they are anything like the subjects in studies where this has been done, when you review their choices you will likely notice a remarkable similarity between the letters they choose and their own names, especially their initials.

All of which brings us to ask what has this to do with business and influence?

Well, given that an important part of any successful persuasion strategy will be to get people’s attention, at a basic level it seems sensible to use people’s names more often – or at least signal that your request or message has some connection to their name. For example, recent studies have shown that including a person’s first name in a text message reminding them to attend a health appointment or to pay a local tax increases,  response rates significantly compared to sending exactly the same message but without their name.

And as for generating support for a new business initiative or work program, one wonders whether Professor Alter’s hurricane advice might also apply. When it comes to considering what name you should give to that new project of yours you may be tempted to consider an ambiguous, mysterious sounding name in the hope that it will spark interest and get people’s attention. These studies however suggest that you would perhaps receive more support by looking down the list of people who work in the department responsible for implementing your project and choosing a name that most commonly matches theirs. Or at the very least, tally up the most commonly occurring initial among the group and use that as a basis for your project name. 

Discussion:

Has using someone’s name ever made a difference in your influence attempts? Or perhaps you have been influenced by someone using yours? What happened?

We’d love to hear your examples of names given to projects and initiatives? How successful (or not) were they? 

Sources:

Chandler, J., Griffin, T., & Sorensen, N. (2008). In the “I” of the storm: First name initial influences donations to disaster relief efforts. Judgment and Decision Making, 5, 404-410.

Alter, A. DRUNK TANK PINK (2013) Penguin Press. New York.

Nuttin, J.M. (1985). The name letter effect. European Journal of Social Psychology. 15, 353-361.

By: Steve Martin

As any good economist will tell you, people respond to incentives. But as a behavioral psychologist will also point out, peoples’ responses to incentives will be influenced as much by the context in which an incentive is presented, as what’s actually on offer. For example, people are generally more persuaded by the thought of avoiding a loss of something than gaining the exact same thing. In the arena of loss versus gain, what is the same economically becomes very different psychologically.

Timing can provide an important context too. Studies have shown our tendency to live for today at the expense of tomorrow. Offered a choice between $20 today or $22 tomorrow, most will take the money now. Change the context though – $20 in a week’s time or $22 in eight days – and more people will wait the extra day for the bigger reward and, in doing so, demonstrate how frustratingly inconsistent human decisions and behavior can sometimes be.

So when it comes to using incentives to influence behaviors, context (such as a loss versus gain frame or timing of the reward) matter. A lot! And according to new research, so does how you categorize incentives. It seems that separating incentives into different categories can motivate more people to acquire them – even if those categories are meaningless!

Scott Wiltermuth from the University of Southern California and Francesca Gino at Harvard University wanted to see if people’s motivation to achieve a reward could be affected by the category in which the reward was placed. Their research into the matter is published in the latest edition of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

In one of their studies, participants were randomly assigned to two groups and asked to complete a simple 10-minute writing task in exchange for a reward.  The possible rewards consisted of a mix of inexpensive items displayed in two large plastic containers from which participants could choose one reward.  All participants were told that if they (voluntarily) chose to continue working and completed a second 10-minute task—therefore working a total of 20 minutes—they could chose a second item from the available rewards.

Unbeknownst to the participants there was one important difference in the information given to the two groups. The first group was told that if they completed the additional writing task, they could take any two rewards from the containers. The second group was also told that if they completed the additional task, they could take a second reward but that the two rewards they selected would have to come from different containers, because the containers contained “two categories of rewards.”  

Remarkably, despite the fact that all the participants clearly saw that the two containers contained the same mix of items, those in this second group were three times more motivated to complete the additional task than were those in the first group. Perhaps even more surprising was the fact that enjoyment of the writing tasks was significantly higher among the participants who were told they could choose from two categories rather than one.

So why did the prospect of receiving rewards from two categories energize people to a greater extent than did the prospect of receiving the same number and value of rewards from only one category? And be happier to do so?

Well, according to Wiltermuth and Gino, dividing the rewards into categories (even meaningless and inconsequential ones) made people feel that they would be “losing out” on something (one of the categories) if they didn’t complete the additional task. Thus, when seeking to influence people to complete tasks by offering incentives or rewards, separating those incentives or rewards into different categories can, without increasing their economic value, increase their psychological value—because of people’s desire to avoid missing out. Cialdini’s principle of scarcity in action!  

These findings could provide useful insights to anyone who has an interest in, or a responsibility to motivate others through the use of incentives. For example a sales manager tasked with motivating employees through a new sales incentive or bonus scheme could optimize the scheme by (1) offering rewards that fall into two distinct categories and (2) allowing employees access to the second category of rewards only after they have earned one from the first.  Not only would such an arrangement encourage employees to expend the efforts to attain both types of rewards, it might even lead them to enjoy those efforts more in the bargain.

Discussion questions:

What other opportunities do you think exist to ethically influence behaviour by changing the way incentives are presented?

Which incentives or reward schemes have been particularly effective at influencing you to complete a task or make a purchase?

Source:

Wiltermuth, S. S., & Gino, F. (2012). “I’ll Have One of Each”: How Separating Rewards Into (Meaningless) Categories Increases Motivation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 104(1), 1-13

Twitter contest details:  click here!  

10 People will win:

Steve Martin, CMCT

Social Proof, at some point most of us will have succumbed to its powerful draw. Perhaps we’ve chosen the busy restaurant over the quieter one, been carried along by the momentum of the Mexican wave at a sports stadium or simply joined the burgeoning line at the airport without really knowing for sure if we are in the right line. 

Regardless of ‘the what’ and ‘the where’ there is a universal truth at play. Witnessing others behaving in a particular way will often lead to us following, in a largely automatic and unthinking fashion.

That a context of consensus will frequently trump cognition is both worrisome and comforting. We worry about being seen as lemming-like, of submitting control of our decisions to the crowd, even if doing so allows us to gain command of some of the more important decisions that we need to make in our daily lives. And yet we can take comfort because such submissions mostly lead us to the right decisions regardless of their magnitude. If my work colleagues are all talking about how they enjoyed that latest movie then I will likely enjoy it too. And if hundreds of them rush from the office building shouting ‘FIRE’, it probably makes sense to follow them.   

Of course not everyone follows the crowd in every context. In some instances some people will purposely not follow the crowd because they want to be different. And some new research is shedding light on when people are most likely to diverge from the social proof of a situation. Understanding these insights could be very useful for anyone looking to ethically and effectively influence others.

Recognizing that sometimes people move away from and not towards the norm, University of Pennsylvania social psychologist Jonah Berger set up a range of experiments to identify the situations in which people seek divergent behavior from others.

In one of Berger’s studies participants were asked to make choices from a range of consumer products that included paper towels, clothes, detergents and music. Before making their choices they were told that a peer would witness the choices that they made and as a result be able to form inferences about them. Half the participants were also told how someone who was a couple of years older than them had previously chosen.  

Consistent with decades of research on conformity, the participants were at least 10% more likely to choose the same detergent and paper towels brands that the older person had selected compared to the control condition when no-one else’s choices were shown. However, when making choices about music and clothes, participants were 15% less likely to select options that the older person had chosen.

That younger people made clothes and music choices which were different from someone older than them hardly seems surprising or worthy of attention. But understanding the mechanism as to why could well be. The fact that the choices made were different for music and clothes than for detergent and paper towels lies in a phenomenon that social psychologists call ‘social identity’. Simply put people derive their social identity from the groups they consider themselves to be members of. As a result people tend to express their existing and desired social identities by behaving and choosing in ways that are aligned to their ‘in- groups’.

For example, economics students are more likely to wear business clothing than those studying literature, driving a high end SUV might signal a nouveau riche or wealthy identity, and classical music is typically more associated with well-educated groups.  

Equally people will tend to avoid behaviors and choices that are associated with their ‘out-groups’. Literature students might deliberately avoid wearing clothing associated with a business identity and people who do not want to signal a wealthy identity are less likely to drive that high-end SUV slowly through town.

Now let’s go back to the study described earlier. Why were the participants more likely to choose the same detergent and paper towels as an older confederate but less likely to choose the same music and clothes? It turns out that it is all about the product domain. People are more likely to be influenced to make choices about products and offers that fall outside of their in-group if those products and offers are identity-neutral (such as the paper towels and detergents). However they are more likely to diverge from, even avoid, options chosen by out-groups in more identity-relevant domains (as was the case for clothes and music).

So if your product, offer or service is one that allows people to, in some way, signal their identity, it will be especially important that your communications and messages align to that target group. That’s all well and good and reinforces previous Inside Influence Reports on social proof that have stressed the need for communicators to provide evidence of what multiple, comparable others are doing that they would like their influence target to do also.

But what about those situations when people diverge not just from the choices made by an out-group but even those made by their own in-group?

In a separate study the same researchers asked participants to consider the purchase of a new car. Information about three cars was presented to them along with some additional information about what other car purchasers who were similar to them (their in-group) had chosen. Specifically they learned that out of 100 similar car purchasers 60 preferred product A1 (e.g. a black BMW), 20 preferred product A2 (e.g. a silver BMW), and 20 preferred product B1 (e.g. a black Mercedes).

The results showed that the greater the need for uniqueness in participants (this was measured separately), the more likely they were to choose option A2. Why? Well by choosing the favored brand of their group (BMW) they satisfied their need for social group identification, while at the same time by choosing the less popular color (silver) they distinguished themselves from their group and satisfied their desire for individual uniqueness. In conclusion they identified with their group on the brand level and sought individual differentiation on the product level.

In sum, these studies confirm that both the principle of social proof and the tendency to follow authority cues are highly applicable to the majority of consumer decisions, particularly if products are identity-neutral and have no utility in enabling consumers to signal their identification with a particular social group. However, the more identity-relevant your product or brand is, the more important it is for your marketing campaigns to target the groups that identify with it. Be aware also that if your goal is to gain new market segments, your campaigns will need to be planned carefully to avoid groups that currently identify with your product potentially dissociating themselves if they see the new audiences you are attracting as an out-group.

They also demonstrate the importance of providing multiple options in identity-relevant products so that certain customers are able to satisfy their need for uniqueness. As a result creating more customized options similar to those for new cars, or programs such as NIKEiD, that let consumers customize the materials and styles of their shoes, might be worth considering for other products and services also.

Discussion

Can you remember products or brands you (or others) have or haven’t bought due to other people buying them?

Did you choose slightly different versions than your group members?

Source

Berger, J. (unpublished manuscript). When Does Social Influence Attract versus Repel?

Identity-Signalling, Conformity, and Divergence. University of Pennsylvania.

Chan, C., Berger, J. and Van Boven, L. (2012). Identifiable but Not Identical: Combining Social Identity and Uniqueness Motives in Choice. Journal of Consumer Research, 39(3), pp 561-573.

Hat Tip: Danica Giles

This new article just came out from Psychology Today written by Dr. Douglas Kenrick

  Check out this new animation describing the Universal Principles of Persuasion based on the research of Dr. Robert Cialdini, Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Marketing, Arizona State University.

Dr. Robert Cialdini & Steve Martin are co-authors (together with Dr. Noah Goldstein) of the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Business Week International Bestseller Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to be Persuasive.

To Order Yes! :

US Amazon http://tinyurl.com/afbam9g 
UK Amazon http://tinyurl.com/adxrp6c

IAW USA: www.influenceatwork.com
IAW UK: www.influenceatwork.co.uk/

Whether you are looking to position your company as the obvious choice for that lucrative new contract or to position yourself as the obvious choice for that new promotion an important part of your influence strategy will be to highlight your previous experiences and past accomplishments. The skills you have developed and the successes you have achieved can serve as important pointers serving to persuade future customers and employers alike to choose your organization or you.

But when it comes to convincing others, doesn’t prospect beat precedent? And as a result won’t people be more persuaded by your potential to deliver for them in the future rather than the success you have had delivering for others in the past.

When it comes to the business of influencing others, where should you focus most of your attention – describing the realities of your past, or communicating your potential to deliver in the future? 

In a quick (and admittedly very unscientific) survey that I conducted with some folks in the office, a clear answer to this question emerged. Focus on your past success and achievements. At first glance this intuitively seems to make sense. Actual achievements are surely more compelling than the potential to achieve in the future for one very good reason. They have already been achieved. They are concrete. They leave no room for doubt.

Therefore, all other things being equal, it is more likely that the award winning company with many years experience will be more likely to secure that lucrative new contract compared to the less experienced company that merely has the potential to win future awards. Similarly, it is likely that the candidate who has already achieved notable success will be more attractive to a prospective employer than one who only has the potential to succeed.

Of course this isn’t always the case. Examples abound of budding sports stars that negotiate eye-watering sums of money on the basis of their future potential. Former American Football Quarterback JaMarcus Russell was The Oakland Raiders’ first pick in the 2007 NFL draft, landing a contract worth an astounding $61million. Clearly, the Raiders saw such potential in Russell that they were persuaded to pay top dollar for his services despite that potential, never translating into reality. 

The persuasive pull of potential isn’t just limited to the domain of sports – it happens in business too. Many of us will recall examples where the inexperienced but promising candidate landed that promotion over a more experienced one. And pretty much everybody who has worked in a business development or sales role will, at some time, have lost a deal to a supplier that, at least on paper, didn’t match your level of experience and past achievements.

Kevin posted some great photos of himself and his friends reading an array of Dr. Cialdini’s books.  We asked Kevin to share a little bit about himself and here is what he had to say:

“My name is Kevin, I’m a college student. I’ve been going to Laney College for a little over a year now. My major is Business Administration. Some of my hobbies include listening to music, watching movies, and playing video games. My psychology teacher introduced me to some of Dr. Cialdini’s books. I love reading his books especially “Yes!”, the book really helps me become a good communicator. His books help me figure out what career or path I should pursue. “

Thanks to all who entered.  We had a great time with this contest because of all the creative photos we got to see! 

Stay tuned for more contests and for more ethical applications of The Science of Influence!