How to Coach Yourself and Others How to Influence, Persuade and Motivate | Page 98

Want to Be More Influential?
Improve Your Social Skills!
Dale Carnegie got it right when he said that to win more friends and
influence more people you need to improve your interpersonal skills.
Twenty years of research on power and influence shows that people with
superior social skills are substantially
more influential than people with average
social skills. These findings make sense
when you realize that influence is not
something you have; it’s something other
people give you. In other words, you can’t
be influential with people unless they
allow you to be influential with them. So
influence is in large part a function of your
relationship with other people, and the rule
of thumb on influence is that you are
likely to be more successful if the people
you want to influence know you, like you,
respect you, and trust you.

Being Known
It is significantly easier to influence people you know than people you
don’t. So go out of your way to make yourself known. If you’re in an
organization, this means increasing your visibility throughout the
organization. Introduce yourself to people. As you get to know them, let
them know who you are. My research shows that people are who highly
skilled at being friendly and sociable with strangers and building close
relationships are more than twice as influential as people who are less
skilled at sociability and relationship building. People around the world
instinctively understand this, which is why socializing is one of the most
frequently used influence techniques globally. If you aren’t naturally
good at socializing, then this is a key skill to build. Extraverts are often
naturally good at socializing, but being an introvert is not necessarily a
liability. You may just have to try harder to do something that does not
come naturally to you.
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