Natural Influencing Will Only Take You so Far, Learn 4 Common Mistakes

By Sherri Malouf, PhD - CEO of Strategic Soft Skills Institute

Natural Influencing will only take you so far! Read on to learn about four common mistakes most people make when using intuitive influence.

Most of us have a job where we need to achieve goals and work with other people. For many, the work with other people is both the most rewarding and the hardest part of the job.

Throughout our lives, most of us have been using our natural style to influence other people which we learn by trial and error as we grow and mature. Sometimes our natural style works and sometimes it doesn’t.

Many of us have one challenging person in our work or personal lives, whom we can’t seem to convince of anything, and we can’t get what we need from them. We have grown frustrated with them as we feel that we have tried everything to get them to understand our ideas.

But “everything” means something different to each one of us. Consider the following four common mistakes people make when using their natural influencing style.

1. Many of us just keep telling the other person the reasons why they should support us or our project. We have data that proves our position, however, many of us over-rely on one’s own reasons and thus do a poor job at communicating that data effectively with logic and specific evidence. In fact, when others listen to us, they just hear opinion versus data, and then the other person argues back with their opinion.

2. Another challenge is that many of us are not clear when we communicate what we “want”. For many, saying “I want” is rude or selfish and may damage the relationship. From my own experience, my Mom never came straight out and said what she wanted as we grew up. She would usually hint and imply what she wanted, but was frequently disappointed because we didn’t realize what she really wanted. When I attended this program and learned how to productively assert my wants, I felt like I was released from prison and never looked back! So, maybe that challenging person simply isn’t clear about what we want from them!

3. Then there is the “blocked ears epidemic” – most people are terrible listeners. If we don’t listen, we don’t know what data would work for someone else, we don’t understand what they want or what matters to them, and we don’t realize what experiences or values we have in common. A big part of successfully influencing is how much we understand the person we need to influence.

4. And finally, we may not realize that people need to know that they are a part of something bigger than just their small piece of a project. If they don’t know where the project is headed, they feel lost, alone, and demotivated. Sharing our vision of the entire project is important so that people can picture the end result and will go the extra mile with you!

Do you know what style of influencing you rely on most of the time?

Try this short quiz and see what you think you do. It’s not your impact, just your intent.