Most people bowl into influencing with their tried and tested techniques, without thinking about how suitable they may be to the individual about to be influenced and the situation they are in. In the last article, I alluded to making a definite choice about which of nine tactics to use (you may use more than one, and you may decide to alter the order).
These were originally defined by Dr. Cecilia Falbe and her colleagues who were studying the relative effectiveness of each in gaining influence. The nine influencing tactics are:
- Inspirational Appeals
- Consultation
- Rational Persuasion
- Ingratiation
- Personal Appeals
- Exchange
- Pressure
- Legitimating
- Coalition
You can read more about them here – Choosing Your Stakeholder Engagement Tactics.
Each of these has their place in your repertoire of influencing skills. Some of them you may be more comfortable with than others, and indeed, more skilled. The main point for me is to learn to choose the right one for the job and then be able to execute it well — or the right combination.
Take your notebook and maybe a friend and answer the following questions for each tactic:
- In what situations could the tactic be most useful?
- When might it be least useful?
- Which of your stakeholders would most likely to be influenced by this tactic?
- Which would be least likely to be influenced?
Now, think about the tactics as a whole:
- Which are you best at?
- Which do you need to improve?
- Who is really good at the one you want to improve?
- How do they do it, and what can you learn from them?
Once you’ve built your awareness of these, and hopefully increased your skills too, the next step is to make sure and remain aware and make more conscious decisions about which tactic(s) to use and when.
The Gautrey Influence Blog
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