I recently wrote a very lengthy essay about the book, Influence: Science and Practice by Dr. Robert Cialdini. It's a great book about sales and leadership which I recommend as a read to anyone who is responsible to influence others.
Over the next few days I'm going to post different portions of that essay here on my blog for you, free! Enjoy and read the introduction to my essay, Influence at Work below.
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Influence at Work
A well researched book, Influence: Science and Practice by Robert B. Cialdini Ph.D symbolizes the bookends of life: people who try to influence others and those of us who are influenced.
Reading it is eye opening and helps us see why we do what we do. What a revealing read! Many a time while reading I concluded “so that’s why we do what we do” or “that’s why I bought what I bought in that situation, even though I didn’t want it.”
Dr. Cialdini’s basic point throughout the book is that each of his six principles of persuasion facilitates an automatic response from us. Dr. Cialdini dubs these as “fixed-action patterns” (17). If “A” happens in the physical environment, then a natural reaction of “B” is acted upon from us.
Further illustrating his point of this “fixed-action patterns” behavior, Dr. Cialdini reasons “automatic, stereotyped behavior is prevalent in much human action, because in many cases, it is the most efficient form of behaving” (7). And why wouldn’t we participate in this behavior where we simply react to an outside stimuli? Following Dr. Cialdini’s “fixed-action patterns” allows us to be more active as humans because we do not have to think fully through every situation. It allows us to become faster and quicker in our reactions, therefore allowing us to move on to the next task.
Further illustrating this point, Dr. Cialdini explains the “advantage of such shortcut responding lies in its efficiency and economy; by reacting automatically to a usually informative trigger feature, an individual preserves crucial time, energy, and mental capacity” (17).
Isn’t time, energy, and mental capacity something all Americans want more of? In America, faster is almost always better. And salesmen, fundraisers, and marketing geniuses have learned to play on these “fixed-action patterns” to their advantage. Since these principles are used in a subtle way that we don’t always know about, Dr. Cialdini envisions them similar to a “woman employing the Japanese martial art form called jujitsu would use her own strength only minimally against an opponent” (12).
The principles of persuasion that Dr. Cialdini helps our naked eyes to see are gentle and light. If a salesman is attempting to use these principles on you, he cannot allow you to know he is attempting to use the principles to his advantage; otherwise the principles drastically lose their effectiveness. To illustrate Dr. Cialdini’s principles I am going to bring them to life for you by using recent examples and show them in practice in your life and in mine. The first of those principles is authority.
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