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What Is the Most Crucial Element of Influence?

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The Outcomes We Achieve

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Every person has influence. What what we say, and how we act has an effect on how others think, feel, and behave. As a writer, an observer, and manager, I’ve watched and studied how people respond to what we do, what we say, and what they see.

As every parent and pet owner knows, sometimes the outcome we’re going for — a change in belief or behavior — isn’t the outcome we achieve. Our intent, our feelings toward an audience are only one side of the equation. How that audience interprets our words and deeds determines the change in belief or behavior that might result.

Our influence is highly affected by context.

  • The world view of the people we might influence. An individual’s emotional associations and beliefs can filter how people interpret our intentions, our words, and actions. A person who believes all learning must be their own experience will ignore a warning to avoid a dangerous part of town. A person who has only had bad experiences with people from our “group” may fight against any message we offer.
  • The value those people put on their relationship with us. Filters such as the halo effect and other cognitive biases, such as wishful thinking, can change how our message is processes and received.

We don’t control how other people think, what they feel, or how they interpret what they hear and see.

Though we may carefully consider and choose the most generous way to communicate and interact within those those contexts, the audience will choose their interpretation of that interaction. The same authentic, highly influential, collaborative message to one audience will be a disingenuous, controversial, alienating rebuff to another audience. We see that all of the time in the world of politics.

The most crucial element of influence is understanding what the audience and what the already believes. If we want to influence people, to move them to an important action, to change their core beliefs, we need to know the audience, listen to their world view, champion their cause, and honor their reality. Lasting influence is a trust relationship built through time and shared experience.

How do you champion the audience you want to reach?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
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Tom Peters, the Chihuahua Story, and the Effect of Your Influence

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Tom Peters, Influence Quote and the Retweet

Recently on Twitter, author, speaker, professional agitator, and my personal hero, Tom Peters (@Tom_Peters) quoted John Knox with this tweet:

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I retweeted it.

Three Wise Men Respond

Three gentleman responded with interesting comments as you can see.

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bobegan

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That got me thinking about influence again and how the experts define it.

Wikipedia and What Is Influence?

I spent a few hours reviewing what I knew and researching more about influence, its definitions, and its synonyms to arrive at the most basic idea that connects them.

Influence is the power to change behavior or beliefs.

Wikipedia shares a wealth of information across domains on what influence is …

Sphere of influence (astrodynamics), the region around a celestial body in which it is the primary gravitational influence on orbiting objects
Sphere of influence (astronomy), a region around a black hole in which the gravity of the black hole dominates that of the host bulge
Social influence, in social psychology, influence in interpersonal relationships

In terms of social influence, they point to compliance, identification, and internalization. From what I see, the science of influence limits the change to be that which evokes a positive result.

Social influence occurs when an individual’s thoughts, feelings or actions are affected by other people. Social influence takes many forms and can be seen in conformity, socialization, peer pressure, obedience, leadership, persuasion, sales, and marketing.

Like the three who commented on my retweet, I agree, our words and acts have influence beyond what’s described here. Antagozing can influence beliefs or behaviors. Sometimes we influence without knowing it. Sometime our influence can bring about unexpected responses.

The Chihuahua and the Effect of Your Influence

We can set out to have influence or gain influence. We can see how our actions influence behaviors and belief systems. We can mislead ourselves into believing we have influenced in one direction, when in fact we have done no such thing. The intent of our influence does not guarantee the outcome.

Which leads me to the story of the chihuahua.

The Story of the Chihuahua

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A man renovated his house, tearing out the entire kitchen. Every fixture, appliance, and bit of the original room was removed. He started over with four walls, one window, and the door to the backyard. During the winter rebuilding the kitchen floor was down to the concrete foundation.

The man and his wife had a chihuahua and the one thing the man hated was taking the dog out to the backyard to pay its call to nature, especially in the winter. So the man covered a huge corner of the torn-up kitchen with a rubber mat and some newspaper; put a dog bowl there; and he allowed the nervous little pet to do his “duty” there.

When the spring came, the kitchen was finished complete with very expensive new hardwood flooring. It was no longer acceptable for the tiny dog to stay in the kitchen when nature was calling. The man made a plan to change the dog’s behavior.

Every time the dog messed the kitchen floor, the man would stick the chihuahua’s nose in the mess and then toss the dog out the back door or out the open kitchen window.

The chihuahua did change its behavior. After it “went” on the floor, it jumped out the window.

Sometimes we mistake, misinterpret, and totally miss on seeing our influence. The man changed the dog’s behavior, but it wasn’t the change the man had been going for. All of the predictable outcomes of our influence aren’t always obvious.

Silence doesn’t always mean agreement. Changed behavior doesn’t always mean a change in thinking. Sometimes we influence a change in behavior that goes in a direction other than we’re thinking.

No one is really without influence. we all have the power to move another person to change a belief or behavior. The most influential watch what how influence works in their own lives and learn from that. As my friend, Chris Brogan demonstrates exactly how he does that when he discusses ways we can improve our influence. It’s the quality of our thinking, the concern for the listener, and care in our delivery, that makes our influence move a thought or action in the direction we hope.

What examples of “chihuahua story influence” have you seen in business?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
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7 Ways to Be Sticky with Millennials

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A Guest Post by Patricia Martin

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Let’s be honest. There’s so much information out there about marketing to Millennials that it can get confusing. That’s why I leapt at the chance to undertake a research project for Steppenwolf Theatre Company, based locally here in Chicago. For those of you who might not know them, Steppenwolf’s founders include Gary Sinise, John Malkovich, Laurie Metcalf and Joan Allen. They asked me to interview CMO’s of world-class brands to find out what they were doing to woo Millennials. To my surprise, each and every executive I spoke to, from Google to Red Bull, eagerly shared their secrets.

The wisdom they shared comes from several years of experimentation and leans heavily state-of-the-art social media strategies. Results? Wrap your mind around this: Ford Fiesta’s blogging agents campaign earned it an unprecedented 64 percent brand awareness among the target prior to the vehicle launch. That’s without spending a dime on traditional advertising.

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The following 7 tips for making your brand irresistible with Millennials, or “sticky”, are taken from the FREE eBook that I wrote with Steppenwolf. The book distills the lessons these brands have learned…and now share with you.

#1: Surprise and delight

Overall, young people prefer to discover new things, rather than being “told” what’s interesting. Spontaneity is pleasurable.

Suggestion: Invite them on the spur of the moment to be your guest, or give them a token of appreciation out of the blue for engaging with your brand.

#2: Create a feedback loop

Young cultural consumers crave meaningful interactions. Attractive brands invite dialogue, and then show they are listening by being responsive. Twitter, Facebook, and comment replies facilitate this.

Suggestion: If you ask for their input, make sure there is some kind of feedback loop. Post results of surveys, email or direct tweet a follow-up “thank you” or otherwise credit their contributions. Failing to recognize a contribution from a Millennial feels like unrequited love.

#3: Invite people to share

Teams and tribes, friends and family groupings—Millennials like to team up. Host contests that require them to create content or collaborate in some way. Offer tools or apps to self-organize. Facebook is a self-organizing platform.

Suggestion: Seed group events. Offer discounts or special status to mavens to share with their inner circle.

#4: Justify the purchase

Price is a consideration for this age group. They will spend, but the product alone may not be enough. It’s not just about offering a discount, but providing a value-related benefit.

Suggestion: Offer a discount, special premium, sneak-peek experience. Incent, invite, hug them with a free fan T-shirt.

#5: Embrace the remix culture

Well educated and living in a post-modern culture, little is new for them. Fusing genres, technologies, and art forms not only lends an element of surprise, it also energizes the experience with the spirit of experimentation.

Suggestion: Don’t be afraid to switch gender roles, create hybrids, and involve cross-disciplinary collaborations to borrow vintage icons and wed them to the digital culture.

#6: Emphasize humanity

Millennials are idealists. Many of them who consume culture also crave intimacy. They embrace ideas and organizations that represent a grander purpose, and they prefer that these ideals have spokespersons with whom they can relate or admire.

Suggestion: Ask for a comment: “Ever felt like that?” Consider auditioning guest bloggers who fit your brand’s psychographic profile. It’s fine to give them some guidelines. They will likely consider it a cherished credential.

#7: Stay sticky with reusable content

Keeping up with the content demands of self-expression—blogging, tweeting, and maintaining fresh content on Facebook walls-—makes this generation hungry for content they can reuse. They need fodder for the Facebook pages and tweets. Give it to them.

Suggestion: Stock your sites with pithy quotes, quick-hit ideas, photos, and videos that make people come back to you or your site for something: a download, application,
comment, or vote. Then stand back and watch it go viral.

For many more tips in this spiffy eBook, download it as a PDF, or as an
ePub for your reader, iPad or iPhone. It’s a quick and easy 32-page read of invaluable
secrets from top brands.

Find out now how top brands are Tipping the Culture.

—–
Patricia Martin is a speaker, author, consultant and researcher on the consumer culture. You’ll find her at
Patricia-Martin.com Her twitter name is @PatriciaMartin

Thanks, Patricia! Every time I read your work, I find out something new about people. I love that!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
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WHEN do you think?

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by Patty Azzarello

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time-to-think

The big idea…

If I could offer one idea that will have a huge impact on your success and your satisfaction with work, it would be that you give yourself time to think on purpose.

(you can stop reading here if you accept that point!)

Time to think

I work with so many executives that tell me they would be so much better at their job if they had more time to think.

Think about a typical day, week or month in your work.  How much time to you spend in uninterrupted, quality thinking time?

I know when I was a corporate executive I had the same problem.  My calendar was fully booked.

If I tried to schedule time for myself it would get over-ridden with urgent customer problems, staff crises, or emergencies from my boss to deliver something to his boss.

My personal, thinking time got wiped out.

So I needed to work differently.  I have written much on the topics of defending your time and energy, making more time, delegating better, and many other topics which help you use your time more strategically.

But today I just want to focus on this one idea:

Give yourself time to think.  Schedule it.  Protect it.

This will have a bigger impact on your success than almost anything you can do.  If you are giving yourself this time, don’t ever feel guilty about it.  If you are not, start taking it.

Key point: Remember, your job as a leader is to build capability underneath you, so your team can handle more work, and so you can apply yourself to solving higher order problems.

Enable your team to do the work

  • Let your team handle the customer escalations, you need to create the quality program that reduces them.
  • Let your team handle the marketing events and deliverables, you need to create the market-changing strategy.
  • Let your team handle the product development.  You need to create better processes to deliver more, faster.

You will never do any of this if you don’t give yourself time to think.  You will get caught up in a sea of activity and reacting.
Think about it this way:  If you stay overwhelmed with activity you are not doing a good job.

Schedule time to think and HIDE

Try it for 2 hours.  Tell everyone you are at the dentist.  The world will not come to an end.  Hide. The hiding part is important. The activity knows where to find you.

Think about how you can improve all of this chaotic, reactive, repetitive activity and do something better.
Then give yourself 2 hours a week to think.

Don’t feel guilty

I can’t tell you how many teams I work with where they all live in fear of their instant message window saying “unavailable” for a second.  It’s fascinating that no one holds it against anyone else, but each person feels this huge pressure to always be available.

I know people who work at home who are afraid to go to the bathroom because they think their company will think they are not working if they don’t answer IM’s instantly.  This is crazy.

Why not put your IM status for an hour or two as “working on a deadline” or “on a call” or “be back at 2pm”?

If you tell people to expect that you will be away from IM working on strategic projects a few times a week, no one will hold it against you.

Being over-available can backfire

If instead you stay infinitely available, but never do anything strategic, you will fail to do your job well.

I hear upper managers talking about their workhorses… “Oh yeah, we can throw anything at him,  he’ll work round the clock, he’ll travel anywhere, we can always count on him… “

Notice they are not saying, “he is someone we should promote.”

If you work tirelessly 24×7 to accomplish a goal or meet a deadline once in awhile that is OK, and sometimes necessary.  But if you work tireless 24×7 for 5 years you will be stuck.

If you never give yourself time to think about how to work better or more strategically, and just keep doing all the work as it comes at you, you will never be as successful as if you figure out how to rise above it.

How do you defend your time to think?

Tell us how you’ve been successful in the comment box below.

—–
Patty Azzarello works with executives where leadership and business challenges meet. She has held leadership roles in General Management, Marketing, Software Product Development and Sales, and has been successful in running large and small businesses. She writes at Patty Azzarello’s Business Leadership Blog. You’ll find her on Twitter as @PattyAzzarello

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How Signs and Rituals Draw In Your Loyal Brand Fans

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10-Point Plan — Attracting Second Generation Heroes and Champions

Employees as Volunteers and Volunteers as Employees

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In less than three years, Lady Gaga has built an incredible business that counts on a fan base of fans drawn consistently closer to her. The fans aren’t loyal to her music. They’re loyal to her and each other. She’s accomplished this feat with a true understanding of the function of rituals and symbols as connectors in a community culture.

Jackie Huba wrote a detailed description of how Lada Gaga built a culture by naming her fans, giving them a cause, adding symbols, and making them rock stars.

You can do the same thing inside and outside your business.

How to Use Ritual and Symbols to Build a Loyalty Culture

You don’t have to be a rock star with special hand signal to make folks feel important to be part of what you’re doing. What’s important is to draw folks closer by valuing them and their ideas.

  • Start with Stories Send the 8-12 people, we’ve been talking about out to gather stories of the heroes of the business. Have a storytelling lunch hour. Choose the story that defines your business or organization. Teach it to everyone. Let them make it their own. Invite them to tell their own version of the story. My community story is about taking folks to lunch and tipping the whole restaurant. It’s a story of how my dad built his business by honoring everyone who helped his business thrive.
  • Call it something. I called my dad’s community barn raisers, because they built the business together. Are you ship builders? world changers? Does your name come from the company itself? Are the folks who work on the Chevy Volt the Voltage Vanguard? Are the folks at our event SOBConners? Pick a name that describes the higher purpose.
  • It’s a quest. Decide what will be the symbol of your community. Blog badges and t-shirts are too easy. Look around for the habits and symbols that you already use. You’ll find them in the ways you greet each other and the ways that you celebrate things that go well. The hashtag handsign has become a symbol to recognize someone in social media. What symbols can sit on their desks or in their pockets to remind them of the quest that you share? Every barn raiser should have a tiny hammer on a sticker, a key chain, a card, a pencil, something to remind us of why we do what we do.
  • Be inclusive. Not everyone is right to move your quest forward, but many people outside your business are. Don’t limit your name or your community to only those who get a paycheck from the business. Include family, friends, partners, volunteers, vendors, fans, and anyone who can proudly wear your logo and tell your story.
  • And don’t forget those sayings that grew from stories within your group experience. Say them often. Share them with new friends and share the meaning behind them. They help explain how the “family” and the culture came to be and grew.

If you constantly invite new heroes to join in the group and notice their ideas. You’ll find inside every collaboration a chance to celebrate with a ritual or two.

How would you start establishing signs and rituals that develop a sense of inclusive identity within your group. ?

READ the Whole 10-Point Plan Series: On the Successful Series Page.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
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How to Be an Opportunity Magnet

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Do You Really Think You’ll Have More Time Later?

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Where we’re working at home or working in an office, at this time of year, time is hard to find, hard to manage, and basically not there. What’s new about that?

Stop! Think for a moment. When do you remember having too much time on your hands?

Do it now!

Bet it’s been a while since you didn’t have plenty to do even if it was things you didn’t want to do. I’m guessing that finding time to do everything that you could, should, or might be doing to move ahead right now is one of the biggest problems you’ve ever had.

How to Be an Opportunity Magnet

Strategy is a realistic plan for taking advantage of how opportunity fits our unique situation and skills. Yet, opportunity can pass us by and keep on moving, if we don’t have time for it.

To be ready for the opportunities coming our way, we have to create space and time to handle them. Here’s a few ways to be ready when it does. Become an opportunity magnet.

  • Tell people where want to be giong. The more people you tell, the more people who can be passing along opportunities.
  • Know your focus. Not all opportunities are equal. Look for those that match your focus.
  • Know what you need to move you forward. Some opportunities will be in your line of focus, but they’ll be just more of what you’re doing. Look for chances to meet new people, gain new skills, and expand your expertise and experiences.
  • Stop again to ask questions. See every person as a chance for learning. They know about shorter ways to get to where you’re going. That makes them opportunities too.
  • Don’t do everything yourself. Enlist your network and friends to help you with those things you’re not so good at. Let them help you build what you’re building. They’ll know better how to refer you and how to help you find the opportunities you need.

One single NYTimes has more information than an average 18th century person learned in a lifetime. We’re not going to get away from the constant noise and time burden. But we can create a space where opportunity can squeeze and flourish … if we know how to recognize the right opportunities and develop the habits that will attract them.

What do you do to attract more opportunities to your life?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
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