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How to Influence Others to Get Things Done

How to Influence Others to Get Things Done

by George KohlrieserJanuary 5, 2017 Time to read: 3 min.

By Richard Boyatzis

In most work situations, we work with others to get things done. Often, that means convincing people to agree with our point of view. To be most effective at bringing people to see the wisdom of your viewpoint, you need Influence, a key social intelligence competency and one of the elements I discuss with Daniel Goleman in Foundations of Emotional Intelligence and Crucial Competence.

The underlying intent of the Influence Competency is seeking to get others to agree with you.

The behaviors that indicate this Competency are doing things that appeal to their self-interest or anticipating the questions they would have and addressing them before they ask.

There is a part of Influence that becomes almost universally an indicator of effective leadership.

Actually, many of the Influence Competency indicators are good sales practices, but Influence matters for people at all levels of leadership, not just for salespeople.

Interestingly though, in certain types of leadership, Influence can have a negative impact. We found in a study of Catholic parish priests that if the priest is using Influence and people feel like it’s gone too far or that it belies a lack of humility, then it creates the opposite impact. A study of MBA students 5 to 19 years after graduation found that those who used the Influence competency at graduation were less satisfied with their lives and careers later.

Influence is a competency that needs to be applied appropriately and not go too far

That’s what we call Inspirational Leadership in our Emotional and Social Intelligence Model. This is when you’re influencing others not just to come around to your point of view””the Influence competency””but because it fits with the shared vision, purpose, or mission of the organization. When you are trying to get people to rally around this larger, often more noble purpose, it’s the competency we call Inspirational Leadership. The intent is to inspire people in their pursuit of the shared vision or mission. What it looks like in action is talking about the mission””the sense of purpose, why we are all here””and raising it up to a higher level.

How to Develop Your Influence Capability

What is the easiest way to develop or refine your Influence capability, your ability to get others to do what you want them to do? The behavioral indicators come across as pre-selling or making an argument to someone anticipating what they want out of it, and figuring out what each person can get in the situation. The easiest way to learn those techniques is to take a really good sales training course. There are a number of outstanding, three and a half-day to five-day courses out there sold by different training companies. If you really want to learn how to do the Influence competency and do it well, go through a sales training. It doesn’t mean you will become a salesperson, but it does help you in all of the ways you might want to use Influence.

To get started though, keep these three methods in mind:

  1. Aim to appeal to the self-interest of the people you’re communicating with. How would your intention benefit them?
  2. Think about any potential opposition that could arise, and prepare thoughtful ways to address those before presenting your ideas.
  3. Talk about the bigger mission of the group beyond your personal point of view.

Interested in learning more about building emotional and social leadership?

All 12 of the EI Competencies are explored in Crucial Competence, through in-depth conversations between myself, Daniel Goleman, and several other experts in the field. Foundations in Emotional Intelligence provides a great overview, and focuses exclusively on my conversation with Daniel Goleman.

 

George Kohlrieser has forty years of experience as a hostage negotiator and a psychologist. He’s the Professor of Leadership and Organizational Behavior at one of the world’s leading business schools, the International Institute for Management Development (IMD) in Switzerland. At IMD he created and directs the school’s flagship High Performance Leadership (HPL) program.

Kohlrieser works internationally with companies and organizations, focusing on the role neuroscience plays in high performance leadership and teamwork, conflict and change management, dialogue, negotiations, stress management, fulfilling potential, and playing to win. He also serves on the advisory board of the Neuroleadership Institute. In the past, he was the president of the International Transactional Analysis Association and the Founder and Director of the Shiloah Center for Human Growth in Ohio and Shiloah International in Switzerland.

Kohlrieser has earned many awards throughout his colorful career. In 2011 he won the global European Case Clearing House (ECCH) Hot Topic Case Award for Renewable and Sustainable Energy, Technology, and Development. A year prior, he earned the BrandLaureate International Brand Personality Award from the Asia Pacific Brands Foundation (APBF) for his contributions to the high-performance communication. His book, Hostage at the Table, is an international bestseller and received the Best Business Book Award in 2007 from the Dirigeants Commerciaux de France (DCF) and the Best Management Book in 2008 from the German business bookseller managementbuch.de. He’s also a popular motivational speaker, and has appeared on BBC, CNN, ABC, and CBS. He’s been interviewed for publications like the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and the Economist. His radio show, Matters of the Mind, is highly acclaimed and ran for over ten years.

Professor Kohlrieser completed his doctorate at Ohio State University and wrote his dissertation on the cardiovascular recovery of law enforcement leaders following high-stress situations. His research significantly contributed to understanding the importance of self-mastery and social dialogue in law enforcement personnel sustaining high-performance through self-regulation and emotional intelligence. When he became a licensed psychologist, he worked with the police department of Dayton, Ohio to reduce homicides in domestic violence. He was held hostage himself four times, and started to teach hostage negotiations at the Dayton Police Academy. He was also working at a psychiatric hospital at the time, teaching mental health professionals how to work with chronic schizophrenics.

At Key Step Media, Kohlrieser is a featured speaker on The Competent Leader video and as part of Key Step Media’s video series Crucial Competence: Building Emotional and Social Leadership. Both detail the importance of developing emotionally intelligent leadership skills.

Kohlrieser is a conversationalist in The Executive Edge: An Insider’s Guide to Outstanding Leadership, a book containing Daniel Goleman‘s in-depth conversations with respected leaders in executive management, organizational research, workplace psychology, negotiation, and senior hiring. The Executive Edge examines the best practices of top-performing executives. It offers practical guidance for developing the distinguishing competencies that make a leader outstanding.

Kohlrieser is also one of the featured speakers in Daniel Goleman’s Leadership: A Master Class. His segment, High Performance Leadership, reveals the latest research and practice behind high performance leadership, bonding, and managing conflict.