Issue 107: Persuasion
THE LEAP
BY QUANTUM ORANGE
GROW, EXPAND & EVOLVE
ISSUE 107 | PERSUASION
Each week The (Quantum) Leap summarises a key aspect of success into what you need to Think, Feel and Do to create a personal shift.
Pretend that every single person you meet has a sign around his or her neck that says, ‘Make me feel important’. Not only will you succeed in sales, you will succeed in life.
~ Mary Kay Ash
THINK
How often have you needed to persuade others to do something?
Time and motion studies show that a person with a job, a partner and a child will spend 67% of their day persuading or influencing outcomes. It’s a situation that arises almost every day, whether it’s getting your teenager to tidy their room, your preschooler to get dressed, or a work colleague to attend a meeting on your behalf.
Some people do it effortlessly, almost without anyone noticing, while others fall back on the power of their position to enforce what they want.
Persuasion can have both a positive and negative impact. For some people, to persuade has a negative connotation: seduce, force, or cajole. For other people, to persuade has a positive meaning: encourage, inspire, or motivate.
Since we spend so much of our time persuading and influencing others it’s worth reflecting on your attitudes and beliefs about persuasion:
- Do you think persuasion has been a positive force or a negative force in your life so far?
- Do you think you have the right to influence the decisions and thinking of others?
- Do you think persuasion is the same as manipulation?
- What do you think are your barriers to being able to persuade others?
- What do you think you need to change?
FEEL
Many people avoid learning to be persuasive. This generally happens when someone was unfairly influenced by those with authority during their early years.
As an adult, they’re unwilling to inflict the same kind of pressure on another person because it felt so damaging to them. Since these people avoid learning how to be persuasive, they remain vulnerable to those who are and the damage continues.
Set aside so time to reflect on your feelings around persuasion, both in your formative years and now.
- What feelings do you have about the influence of those with authority you experienced during your childhood?
- What has been your ‘felt’ experience with persuading others and being persuaded by others?
- How do you feel when others nag you or try and coerce you into doing something they want you to do?
- How do you feel when you nag you or try and coerce others into doing something you want them to do?
DO
Learning more about how persuasion works can help you better understand how you might be influenced by the messages you see and hear. It can also give you the tools you need to make persuasive arguments of your own.
There are eight key skills required for persuasion.
On a personal level, successful persuaders tend to have:
- High self-esteem
- Good emotional intelligence skills
- Self-motivation
- To be persuasive you also need to understand how other people think. The interpersonal skills that facilitate that are:
- Empathy
- Good listening
- Rapport building
- Good communication
- Being organised
Spend a moment reflecting on your current level with the eight skills above. Give yourself a score between 1 and 10 in each area - 1 being low, 10 being high.
- Which skills do you need to improve?
- How will you do that?
Make a commitment to DO something to develop one or more of the above skills this week.
It takes time, but developing these skills will result in ‘authentic power’, because people believe you when you speak. Once you have that, you’re likely to be much more successful in persuading others.
Read. Watch. Listen.
