How to Coach Yourself and Others How to Influence, Persuade and Motivate | Page 59

3. Using Another's Communication
Preferences to Influence and Persuade
3.1 Introduction
In the last chapter, we examined the stages of communication, which is
the basis for persuading or
influencing another. In this chapter, we'll look further at what the actual
mechanisms of communication include and how you can use that
information to improve your ability to persuade others. We'll look at the
communication process again from the standpoint of how your message is
formed in your brain, how it is received in the other person's brain, and
what happens in between these stages. We'll look at the ways that our own
experiences have impacted our ability to influence others and we'll look
for ways to identify the challenges that another's experiences might
provide to our ability to influence them as well. The process we'll be
examining is shown in the figure below:
This figure shows us that communication starts with input - what I say to
you, or the email I send to you, or you see the angry look on my face. You
interpret that input through filters that are made up of your experiences,
history, prejudices, and more. That interpretation creates what we call an
‘internal map' of meaning. It's made up of the pictures you see in your
mind. The map is how your brain processes and makes sense of the
filtered input.
If it recognizes the input, as in, if you've seen me make that face before,
you are able to easily map out what is happening. You would probably
start picturing me yelling at you, or sensing how you are about to feel.
That map generates a state of being within your mind. You might
suddenly be in a state of mind such as anger, fear, resistance, or any other
emotion and associated thoughts. That state of being will then lead to your
behaviour and your response to me. Will you scowl back at me? Ask
what's wrong