Every day we are able to influence our peers in the workplace. Some occasions, like formal presentations, are obvious opportunities to influence while others are less obvious but no less valuable. For example unplanned meetings, impromptu interactions with your colleagues, an informal conversation with a stakeholder, a lift ride with a possible referrer, a professional development event that you have decided to attend at the last minute; they all present a chance to influence and persuade those around you.
Most of us don’t take full advantage of those opportunities and can unknowingly limit our persuasiveness with our communication style.
And yet it is clear we all believe being persuasive is important. In my research I found that 93.7% of Australians thought they would certainly be better placed to accelerate their careers if they were more persuasive. Unfortunately 92.8% of those same people said you are either born persuasive or you’re not, and it’s simply too difficult to change.
The good news is, however common that belief is, it is completely incorrect! My experience with executives and their teams over the past two decades is that anyone can be persuasive, in any situation. It’s just a matter of knowing how to read the situation, planning your approach effectively and then executing in the most natural, authentic way possible.
Read the situation
Plan your approach effectively
Execute in the most natural, authentic way possible.
Are persuasive people born or made?
Persuasive people are born in the sense that some people are just naturally more driven to change people’s minds. Interestingly this doesn’t necessarily mean that they are more persuasive. It could just mean they are more pushy! And in Australia, at least, we tend to prefer what is known as ‘pull persuasion’ (where the stakeholder has some measure of freedom or free choice) rather than ‘push persuasion’ (where the stakeholder is forced, directed or coerced into an attitude or behavior).
How persuasive are you in the workplace?
Persuasiveness is made up of a set of competencies that can be acquired by modeling specific behaviours that are achievable for everyone.
I have developed a new psychometric tool, the Persuasion Reality Check, that will identify the strengths and weaknesses in your communication style. The test is administered confidentially by a team of psychologists and statisticians in the UK.
The tool looks at your natural predisposition to persuade and which of the persuasive competencies are your strengths and which are your weaknesses.
If you are to be persuasive in every situation there are four competencies, or techniques, that you need to master. (The alternative is to just be persuasive with people who have the same personality preferences as you).
These techniques are:
- Arguing the Case
- Establishing Credibility
- Building Rapport
- Delivering the Message
Completing the check will give you a better understanding of the skills, techniques and approaches that you need to use when persuading the people around you. It will highlight graphically where you are strong and where you are weak. From there you can begin learning techniques and behaviours that will assist you to persuade in a variety of situations.
To complete the Persuasion Reality Check click here.