How to Become a Master Influencer Without Sacrificing Who You Are

I was in the monthly business development meeting when my boss looked right at me and said:

“Aga, let’s hear from you - what are your thoughts? How can we generate more leads for the business?”

I got excited hearing that question. I knew I had a lot to offer. I might have been new to the company, but I had plenty of experience in similar roles and a solid track record of growing revenue and customer base.

I started by suggesting we position ourselves as a trusted advisor by creating valuable content - a blog, a podcast, and some useful e-books. My boss entertained my ideas for a brief moment but then interrupted, cutting the conversation short:

“This is not for us, Aga. We are not in the content creation business. We are a consulting firm.” -- As if I didn't know that.

We never discussed it again. But a few years down the line, I used the ideas I had shared in that meeting to build my own successful consulting firm.

Was my boss to blame for a missed opportunity? In hindsight, I don’t think he was, at least not entirely. Here's why:

I realized that the key players in my success — my bosses, colleagues, potential clients, or investors — aren't just busy and preoccupied with their problems; they're bombarded with ideas like mine every day. So, to make what I’m suggesting stand out and appear like a risk worth taking, I need to hone my skills in persuasion and impact. I realized that to drive change, we need to master the art of influencing others. And this is where I hit a snag:

Many of the strategies and influence tactics I encountered left me feeling uneasy. Words like “manipulative,” “sneaky,” and “coercive” came to mind. I felt a huge internal resistance, feeling I might not be cut out to influence others.

According to my upcoming guest on The CultureLab Podcast , Zoe Chance , I wasn’t alone:

The idea of influence has been corrupted by tacky, greedy people using tacky, greedy tactics to sell used cars, to promote sponsors’ products on social media, and to get us to buy now, while supplies last!

Zoe Chance is a distinguished behavioral scientist at Yale School of Management , and she champions a different approach to influence, one that resonates with me. It's really effective, too - her students achieve remarkable feats: they raise funds for charities, win political seats, kickstart successful startups, initiate social movements, save lives, and drive cultural change.

Here are three things I learned from Zoe Chance :

To influence what people think, we need to learn how people think.

There is a pretty good chance that you’re thinking about thinking all wrong.

Ready for some cognitive science?

So, humans have two basic modes of thought processing. Daniel Kahneman labelled them System 1 and System 2. Not very catchy, I know.

I prefer how Zoe Chance calls them: System 1 is the Gator Brain, and System 2 is the Judge Brain.

The Gator Brain

Alligators can weigh up to 999 pounds, but their brain is the size of a tablespoon. Because their small brains need to power their big bodies, gators are all about conserving mental energy. Essentially, whether they are swimming or enjoying the sun, they spend the majority of their time on autopilot. Our brains are bigger than half a tablespoon but are also wired to conserve mental energy. As a result, we spend a lot of time in Gator mode - certainly when doing something habitual like brushing our teeth or driving home.

The Judge Brain

Our Judge Brain performs more complex cognitive tasks like analyzing, counting, questioning, etc. But here’s a catch. We think that the Judge performs the bulk of our cognitive workload, however the reality is that we operate far more frequently in Gator mode. In other words, our brains are seriously lazy.

When I presented my ideas to my boss, I tried to appeal to his Judge Brain. With hindsight, I see that appealing to his Gator Brain would have yielded better results.

What does this mean in practical terms?

It means simplifying the process for him.

If I could do it over, I'd start with something straightforward and relatable, like launching a newsletter. I'd present a mock-up of the first issue, clearly outline our sources — our Global Centre of Excellence and Research Centre — and provide a time estimate for its creation. Additionally, I'd lay out a lead-capturing strategy from the newsletter, complete with quantitative projections. My pitch failed because it demanded too much mental work from him — work that was mine to do, not his.

To sell our ideas, we need to frame the concept.

A few years after Steve Jobs founded Apple, he started searching for the CEO. In his mind, he saw only one right candidate for the job - John Sculley. There was one problem, though - Sculley was already the CEO of PepsiCo. For Scully, Jobs's proposal was ridiculous - why would he leave one of the most successful companies in the US for a start-up? Scully declined Jobs's offer. Multiple times. But Jobs persisted. Finally, however, he hit the right frame for his proposal, asking Sculley:

“Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life? Or do you want to come with me and change the world?”

For Sculley, that was enough. Jobs reframed his request in a way that made Scouley consider the significance of his work.

Some people can easily devise the right frame for the right person at the right time. But if it’s not you, don’t worry. Zoe Chance shares three frames in her brilliant book, Influence is Your Superpower :

• Monumental. The monumental frame tells the Gator Brain, “Pay attention! This is HUGE! ”It motivates it by implying something is incredibly exciting, important, or urgent. Companies often use monumental framing in their mission statements. For example, take Tesla’s "To accelerate the world's transition to sustainable energy."
• Manageable. Some problems feel too big and daunting to handle for our Gator Brains. When they are presented with an overwhelming problem, they tend to ignore it. This is where the manageable frame comes in handy. It presents things as doable. Chunking stuff down, guiding people one step at a time, setting very small achievable goals is the way to go here.
• Mysterious. If you’ve ever found yourself clicking on a clickbait headline starting with “You’ll never believe this!” (now you know what the title of this newsletter is all about!)- you know how powerful and irresistible a mysterious frame can be. That’s because our Gator Brain is attuned to change or uncertainty. Intrigue is the name of the game. Just make sure not to oversell on the mystery and overdeliver on the substance because this can compromise your credibility.

Sometimes, as Zoe Chance mentions in her book, combining frames can be very powerful. Just think of Marie Kondo’s “The Life-Changing Magic of Tyding-Up.” Life Changing = Monumental, Magic = Mysterious, Tidying Up = Manageable. Pretty neat, isn't it?

To get what we want, we should try asking.

I was flying back and forth between Larnaca and Venice for almost two years.

My job was in Larnaca. My husband was in Venice. It was exhausting. I didn’t want to quit my job, but I also didn't want to be apart from my husband. It felt like a problem impossible to solve.

Finally, my boss told me: “Aga, I don’t think this is sustainable. I don’t want you to quit - so why don’t you move to Venice, and we'll figure out how you can work remotely from there?” That’s how I got my first remote job, and it was almost a decade before the pandemic.

Why didn’t I ask my boss for this opportunity myself?

I guess it felt like a very long shot. And rejection is scary. Our Gator Brain is programmed to avoid it. And so we do. We don’t ask for what we want for fear of rejection.

Effective influence requires us to get comfortable with hearing the word “no”, however. Zoe Chance suggests we can learn to overcome our fear pf rejection by putting ourselves on “rejection therapy.”

For the past five years, my ongoing rejection therapy has been inviting guests to my podcast. I have a bucket list, and it has always had moonshot guests like Satya Nadella and Simon Sinek on it. Satya Nadella’s assistant sent me the kindest and most gracious rejection letter. Simon Sinek said yes. That’s the power of asking. Once in a while, people say yes. And those who don't teach us that hearing a "no" won't kill us.

For more tips on becoming a master influencer, listen to my interview with Zoe Chance on The CultureLab Podcast and read Zoe’s book, Influence is Your Superpower . If you don't want to miss Zoe's interview, subscribe to the CultureLab Insider HERE - it's free.

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