How to Coach Yourself and Others Influencing, Inter Personal and Leadership Skills | Page 11

6. We Are Easily Influenced
In 1979, White and Mitchell carried out an experiment to show how easily we are
influenced.
They put together two teams of undergraduates who were employed to do some stock
work for one of their professors.
In each team there was a "plant": in one team a positive plant who throughout the job
was primed to make positive comments such as "this is interesting work"; and in the
other team a negative plant, primed to make comments such as "this is boring work".
At the end of the job, both teams were questioned. The team with the positive plant
scored much higher on satisfaction ratings than the team with the negative plant, thus
showing that the plants in the teams had managed to influence the way the rest of the
team thought about the job.

7. Conscious Influence
While the vast majority of influencing happens without influencer or influencee noticing
it, influencing only becomes a practical skill when it is practised consciously.
David McClelland of Harvard University discovered in his research that there are four key
elements in successful influencing. These are:
1. you must know what end result you want to achieve
2. you must tune in to other people's wavelengths
3. you must have self-confidence
4. you must have a desire for authority over others.
McClelland then found that given these factors an influencer can select from three
strategies. He can simply tell someone what to do; he can influence others by the use of
interpersonal skills; or he can work symbolically by setting an example which others
then copy.

8. First, Build Rapport
Establishing rapport with someone else is an important pre-condition to any attempt to
influence them. If you are wanting to influence a stranger, for example someone
smoking in your train compartment, it is essential.
There are 3 keys to building rapport:
1. notice what is going on in the other person. You don't have to be a psychologist to do
this, but you can observe from what the other person is doing what their likely mood,
thoughts and emotions are. You can also listen in an empathic way
2. see things from the other person's point of view, whether you personally share this
view or not. This is known as "shifting perspective".
3. match their movements, mood and thoughts to establish a pattern of liking and
harmony. You are then on each others' wavelength and can begin to influence them.