How to positively influence others: Psychological skills of Impact and Influence

 
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How to positively Influence Others

Available in person or remotely for distributed workforces

We’ve all heard: “No matter how often I tell them, it doesn’t seem to get through”, “They don’t listen, I’m banging my head against a wall. I’m at my wits end!” –Telling someone what’s needed doesn’t mean you get the result you want.

It's not just negotiators or presenters who need to influence outcomes, the same can be said for every interaction where we wish to be influential; we want people to recognise the value in what we say. Yet few people are trained with that ability to influence others and help them take information and opinions on board. Whether we want the listener to gain understanding and buy-in, take action, or to make a sale, there is always an outcome that's desired.

To be heard, we can be loud, if we want our voice to matter, we must be influential. It’s not about power and authority, it’s about influencing others and bringing them with us.

Creating profound psychological influence is a skill we can learn. Some people may have the ability to influence others already but we can level the playing field by developing our influence so we can move ahead of the competition.

This program imparts powerful psychological strategies to grow your influencing skills to lead a team, increase sales, impact change or have your point listened to and acted on.

Objectives

Often a good idea is ignored because the benefits may not be obvious to others. When introducing an idea or plan, it’s how persuasive you are that determines whether the value is seen or not.

Being steamrolled or ignored is very common in all aspects of life. Being able to influence others without confrontation gives us an ability to build assertiveness and to grow control of situations.

A massive problem in business is that the person who talks themselves up gets ahead, even when they don’t deliver much. Influencing how your achievements are seen and levelling the playing field with the brash and the boastful is a vital skill.

When your ideas are passed by or ignored, your ability to grow income, generate sales, move projects forward, or meet deadlines is reduced. These powerful psychological skills will enhance your ability to be noticed, create positive impact, and achieve more.

Training

Through psychology of motivation, leadership, and communication we train your staff to maximise their potential to influence others and achieve more.

In doing so flashpoints, misunderstandings, and upset are reduced allowing more creativity and more effective and pleasant workplaces.

Our Positive Influence Training uses advanced Cognitive Psychology and NLP, combined with precise communication skills. These deliver strategies to achieve far greater rapport, enhanced connection and buy-in, as well as growth in influence.

This training is built on the realities of human psychology and neurology and is delivered in easy to learn steps.

Programme Leader

This training is led by John Prendergast MA, an expert in stress and wellbeing who has extensive training and experience in mental health and wellness. His delivery style is practical and make the learning easy to implement and is ideal for workplaces where tensions may already be high. (Read more about John here)

Relevant Research

Autonomous motivations increase work engagement over time. Building in motivational strategies to help workers self-motivate creates more engagement with work tasks. -

Temporary Agency Workers’ Motivations and Well-Being at Work: A Two-Wave Study, Lopes and Chambell, 2017.

Perceived character is weighted more than skill in weighting the evidence you present 

An Exploratory Study of Meta-Factors of Expert Witness Persuasion, Cramer et al, 2014.

Justifying your offer can undermine your negotiating position

Negotiation as a Form of Persuasion: Arguments in First Offers, Maaravi et al, 2011.

Using open ended questions can generate effective self-persuasion and change behaviour

Self-Persuasion in Media Messages: Reducing Alcohol Consumption Among Students With Open-Ended Questions, Loman et al, 2018.

Narratives have a stronger persuasive impact than statistical evidence. “Emotion and social influence affect behavioral intention, and narratives are more likely to convey emotional and social context than statistical information; thus, a narrative is more likely to influence intent than beliefs or attitudes.”

A Conceptual Framework of Narrative Persuasion, Hamby et al 2016.

Eliciting specific emotional states in the listener increases persuasion by a weak argument

Griskevicius et al, 2010.

“The most effective tactics were rational persuasion, inspirational appeal, and consultation; the least effective were pressure, coalition, and legitimating.”

Consequences of Influence Tactics Used With Subordinates, Peers, and the Boss, Yukl and Tracey, 1992.

“a learning goal orientation had a positive relationship with sales performance”.

The Influence of Goal Orientation and Self-Regulation Tactics on Sales Performance: A Longitudinal Field Test. Vandewalle et al, 2004.

Building connect through perceived similarity of opinions is effective in influencing likelihood of a job offer.

Higgins and Judge, 2004.

Taking a long term view changes people’s intentions around maintaining a behaviour

Temporal Framing and Persuasion to Adopt Preventive Health Behavior, Orbell and Kyriakaki, 2008.

Certain words we use increase or decrease perception of closeness or distance in the mind of the listener.

Sliding Into Happiness: A New Tool for Measuring Affective Responses to Words. Warriner et al, 2017.