How to Coach Yourself and Others Influencing, Inter Personal and Leadership Skills | Page 10

3. The Wind and the Sun The following fable is told by Aesop: The North wind and the sun were having an argument as to which was the more powerful and, not being able to agree, decided to put it to the test. They spied a traveller and decided that whoever was the first to remove the traveller's coat would be the winner. The North wind tried first. He blew a strong cold blast, but the more he blew, the more the traveller held his coat tight around him. The sun's turn came. He began to shine on the traveller with all his warmth until the traveller grew faint and, unable to bear it any longer, took off his coat and retreated to the coolness of a nearby wood. Thus the sun was the winner. Moral: Influence is greater than force. 4. Where Influence Works You can choose to use influencing skills across a wide range of workplace issues... - to get something you want that is in the possession of others or controlled by them without recourse to force or threats or manipulation - to encourage people to change their habits, views, opinions, decisions, plans, actions, lifestyles - to affect the way someone feels about you or others - to help in facilitating a team of which you are either leader or member - to improve workplace relationships - to have a say in the way a person in a position of higher authority makes a decision that affects you - to have an involvement in decisions in areas where you have no direct line authority. 5. Influence and Motivation Influencing skills are of crucial importance to those who manage others because they are an alternative and more effective way to motivate people. force Force as a motivation tool invariably works when you want someone to do something but results in demotivated people who plot revenge. Persuasion Persuasion as a motivating tool can be very effective. Persuasion makes use of strong logical arguments to get someone to do something. One of the chief drawbacks to using persuasion is that, if people can be persuaded one way, they can just as easily be persuaded another way by another equally powerful argument. influence Influence works better than either force or persuasion. Unlike force, it doesn't alienate people. Unlike persuasion, it allows people the freedom to make up their own minds.