Category: Professional Development

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6 Techniques to Influence and Persuade Stakeholders at Work

Are You Under The Influence?

Wouldn’t it be great if we could easily gain the willing cooperation and buy-in of others? We approach them because we need a favour, or some form of action on their part, and they agree to comply happily under our influence, instead of resisting or claiming they’re too busy.

If done correctly, people don’t mind being influenced, mainly because they don’t know it just happened. However, if you try too hard, your influencing endeavours will become obvious, and people might feel manipulated, which will not be well received!

To improve your influencing skills, let’s consider the work of Robert Cialdini, who identified 6 principles of influence:

Reciprocity

If you do something for someone, they will feel better about doing something for you in return. The key is to be the first to give and make sure that what you give them is personalised and unexpected.

For example, if you get a tea or coffee for someone, then when they go to get their own, it’s highly likely they will repeat the good deed and get one for you. It’s the classic ‘you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours’ concept!

Scarcity

People are more interested in things that are difficult to obtain or might run out. Anything that’s in short supply will be highly prized. If you possess and can control a resource that nobody else has, then your ability to influence will be greatly enhanced.

You might be a specialist in your job, which means you have unique skills and knowledge, and people will come to you in need of your expertise. Or you’re the Head of Finance and you control the company’s bank account, so you decide which projects receive funding or not. Advertisers use this principle: these prices must end on Sunday at 4pm! Get here while stocks last!

Authority

This principle works on the basis that people will follow the lead of credible, knowledgeable experts. You’re more likely to believe what your doctor, dentist or accountant is telling you because they display their diplomas and other prestigious-looking certificates in their offices. When a police officer in uniform tells you to do something, you obey.

It’s important to establish with others what makes you a credible and knowledgeable expert before attempting to influence, for example ‘I’ve been doing this for 20 years, and in my experience…’

Commitment & consistency

People respond favourably to those who are consistent in their message and committed to what they believe in. If you remain consistent, the response you get is likely to be consistent also. If you believe in something, then so can they, which makes them easier to influence.

Liking

People prefer to say yes to those that they like. If you can build a good relationship with someone, it will be much easier to get them round to your way of thinking. There are 3 important factors to bear in mind: we like people who are similar to us, we like people who pay us compliments, and we like people who cooperate with us towards achieving mutual goals.

Consensus

This principle (also known as social proof) works on the basis that people will look to the actions and behaviours of others to determine their own. If you can show someone that what you’re asking them to do has already been done many times by many others, then it makes it feel safe and they will feel more comfortable complying,.

For example, ‘You weren’t at the meeting, but when I explained my idea everyone thought it was brilliant and they all agreed’.

Conclusion

We all rely on others for help and assistance, so wouldn’t it be great if we could get people willingly on board, whilst maintaining good relationships? This is where your influencing skills come into play. Cialdini identified 6 principles; you probably already use some of them and the others are at your disposal too. Happy influencing!

 

 

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Techniques to get to the real Root Cause of a Problem

What’s really causing the problem?

You solved a problem at work – well done you! But, a few days or weeks later, the problem rears its ugly head again – how?

Turns out your time and efforts were misplaced, and what you thought was the problem was in fact merely a symptom or knock-on effect of the real underlying issue. In medical parlance, you applied a sticking plaster to a gaping wound!

Solving problems

When attempting to resolve an issue, the hardest part can be defining the real problem and the root cause. If you don’t deal with the problem at its source, then don’t be surprised when it keeps coming back to haunt you. Think of the gardener who pulls up a weed, but only gets 90% of the plant – most of the root is still in the ground. One week later, the weed has grown back!

So, we need a way to ‘drill-down’ into the problem to discover what’s really driving it. Here are a couple of useful techniques:

The 5 Whys

This technique was originally developed by the Toyota Motor Corporation during the evolution of its manufacturing processes. Its primary aim is to determine the root cause of a problem or defect by simply repeating the question ‘why?’ Each answer provided leads to the next ‘why?’ question.

There are 5 whys because it was observed that this was the average number of why questions that usually needed to be asked, in order to resolve the problem. You may need more than 5 to get to the root cause, or possibly fewer!

Here’s an example – my car won’t start:

  1. Why? The battery is dead.
  2. Why? The alternator isn’t working.
  3. Why? The alternator belt has broken.
  4. Why? The belt was well beyond its useful service life and hasn’t been replaced.
  5. Why? The car hasn’t been maintained according to the recommended service schedule (a root cause).

The Ishikawa diagram (or ‘fishbone’ analysis)

Developed by Kaoru Ishikawa, the fishbone diagram allows us to graphically depict the problem and the factors which may be causing it.

All you need is a flipchart, pens and your team (or anybody affected by the problem). On the right-hand side, draw a box and write in it what you think is the problem, e.g. low staff morale. Draw a horizontal line across the page (the backbone of the fish) and add diagonal lines (ribs).

Now ask the group – what do they think is causing this? Record their answers on the diagram along the ribs. Add more ribs if you’re getting lots of answers. If you’re not getting much from the group, prompt them for ideas using the default 4 M’s: manpower, machinery, materials or methods? Do they think the problem is linked to any of these areas?

Hopefully, you now have lots of potential causes recorded on the diagram. But which ones are causing the problem? Now you need to gather evidence, by monitoring the different areas over time, perhaps weeks or months – this is not an overnight solution! Eventually, you should have a good idea of the root cause(s) of the problem.

Conclusion

When trying to solve a problem, we must make sure we’re focusing our time and energy in the right place. If the same problem keeps happening again and again, then we probably haven’t identified the real problem yet. Instead, we’re just trying to fix the knock-on effects of the underlying root cause. The techniques described above enable us to ‘drill-down’ into the problem to understand its origins. Now we know what we’re looking at, we can sort it out!