Learn the Do’s and Don’ts of Influencing Others

Influencing ‘Do’s’

1. Put your main effort into trying to understand the other person. 90% of the time, influencing goes wrong because we put all our effort into expounding our own views.
2. Listen and show you are listening, by using the skills of summarising and clarifying.
3. Know yourself – understand how you appear to others: recognise your own unhelpful ‘hot-buttons’ and work on eliminating them.
4. Ask open questions and listen carefully to the answers.
5. Create authentic rapport with the other person by using appropriate body language.
6. Let people find their own solutions. Develop alternatives to giving out advice and Giving Feedback
7. Adopt an appropriate influencing style to the situation – don’t rely on your usual style of influencing.
8. Stay open to being influenced yourself. Ask for feedback and learn from it.
9. Act on the belief that you have the right to be heard and to say what you want – appropriately.
10. Create common ground through your enthusiasm and your focus on the positive.

Influencing ‘Don’ts’

1. Start with a fixed position that you are determined to defend at all costs – ‘telling it like it is’.
2. Shout, yell, point or lose your temper.
3. Interrupt the other person with your own views.
4. Talk more than you listen.
5. Rely only on facts, logic and data as the most compelling part of your argument.
6. Be determined not to be influenced by the other person.
7. Make assumptions about the other person’s motives.
8. Neglect to ask for and act on feedback.
9. Give advice.
10. Leave other people to guess what you want.

Adapted From ‘Influencing Skills – The Essential Guide to Thinking and Working Smarter’ by Jenny Rogers