Need Help Influencing Your Staff Positively, This Principle can help.

Many, many thanks to all the 32,000 plus people who viewed, liked and commented on my LinkedIn article The 6 Principles of Persuasion Everyone in business should know. These principles have been instrumental towards my continued development and provided a platform for my research area for my DBA. I am very heartened by the responses, and I sincerely appreciate all the feedback.

Some leaders do not understand the science and power of influence when managing people. The research shows that persuasion works by appealing to a limited set of deeply rooted human drives and needs, and it does so in predictable ways. The research is very intriguing, and I want to share with you one of the principles covered in my book to help you motivate your staff and create a very enjoyable place for your employees to work.

Likability

The best companies to work for has some common traits, one of the more prominent ones is their organizational culture and their employees liking for one another. I can remember watching an interview with Zappos CEO Tony Shai talking about recruiting people whom he can hang out with outside of work and in the process, build a relationship. The important thing is, how do you make that relationship last.

I am not talking about boyfriend and girlfriend thing here but work relationship. If you are a manager or a CEO your company performance is determined by individuals. To ensure that your employees continue to work together and trust each other, you can achieve that by managing with influence and building an organization your employees will love coming to every day. Dr. Cialdini identifies two things a supervisor, team lead, manager or CEO can do:

?      Look for Similarity

According to Dr. Cialdini similarity help creates bonds, and as the manager, you can have informal conversations during the workday that creates an ideal opportunity to discover at least one common area of enjoyment. It can be sports, politics, family life or a favorite TV show. Some similarity can create a natural bond between two persons.

If your company is changing their strategic focus or working on a new project, your employees will be more inclined to support you simply because that bond creates the presumption of goodwill and trustworthiness. But remember you must be genuine in your actions, you cannot build a relationship with someone if you have no real interest in that person.

?      Praise

According to the Harvard Business review, research has shown that people feel great when they are praised for their work. Although insincere flattery is not recommended, any positive remarks about another person traits increase the willingness to comply with a request made by the person offering the praise. Dr. Cialdini gave an example,

“Imagine you are the manager of a good sized unit within your organization. Your work frequently brings you into contact with another manager – call him Dan – whom you have come to dislike. No matter how much you do for him, it’s not enough.

Worse, he never seems to believe that you’re doing the best you can for him. Resenting his attitude and his obvious lack of trust in your abilities and your good faith, you don’t spend as much time with him as you know you should; in consequence, the performance of both his unit and yours is deteriorating.

The research on praise points toward a strategy for fixing the relationship. It may be hard to find, but there has to be something about Dan you can sincerely admire at least, you value what he values. I predict that Dan will relax his relentless negativity and give you an opening to convince him of your competence and good intentions".

Different things motivate different people; some people like that their manager complements their work. For some people just asking how you are going will be enough. By understanding your employee’s internal motivations, you will be in a better position to generate that liking among your staff and encourage them to do their best work.

Sometimes as a manager, you need to remove that ego and take the first step towards building a relationship with your employees. By uncovering real similarities and offering genuine praise, your employees will be far more appreciative of you as their manager.

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