THE POWER OF

INFLUENCE

Lambert’s Laws of Business

Nothing should be done in a business that fails to:

Make a significant contribution to the achievement of the strategy

Pay for itself in a reasonable and predictable time

Be clearly explained to those that have to make it work

THE POWER OF INFLUENCE

Intensive influencing skills at work

Professor Tom Lambert RSA

The world’s friendliest Guru

Published in association with

TripleIC Ltd.

www.tripleic.com

International Investor in Customers

‘Happily children are generally too inattentive to derive injury from learning’

Reading Without Tears

To the children of the Information Age, especially Carole and David

First published in 1996

Second Edition (Abridged) 2008

© Tom E. Lambert 1996 - 2008

The rights of Tom E. Lambert to be identified as the author of this work have been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Published by People First Solutions Ltd.

ISBN 978-1-906054-02-1

eISBN: 978-1-44758-267-0

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording and/or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publishers. This book may not be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise disposed of by way of trade in any form, binding or cover other than that in which it is published, without the prior consent of the publishers.

[Also available in colour as ISBN 978-1-906054-01-4]

Foreword

How many of us have had this experience? We go to a meeting – whether a board meeting or some less formal assembly – hoping to gain agreement for a proposal. We have prepared our case carefully, deploying logical arguments and perhaps some convincing calculations.

Yet when we present our case, we are confronted with sceptical looks and irrational objections. They’re unconvinced. What’s next? It’s all too easy to lapse into frustration and irritation. Why can’t these stupid people see the point?

Professor Tom Lambert is an expert in ‘influence psychology’. His aim is to show us how we can use effective techniques of persuasion in our working, social and domestic lives.

THE POWER OF INFLUENCE shows the reader how to deploy arguments in ways that sensitively reflect the attitudes of the audience, but not to achieve success at any price. Lambert distinguishes sharply between exercising influence responsibly, and simply duping people. This is a highly powerful, yet totally moral, book.

We have trained generations of business men and women in cold, hard logic and number-driven business cases. When logic and numbers fail to seal the deal, they are often at a loss. This book explains to them and you how to make a case in human terms. It is the key to your successful negotiation in a complex world and a route to genuine engagement with your customers.

How I wish this book had been available when I started my career.

David Butler

CEO, TripleIC Limited

www.tripleic.com

Introduction

Had I the time to write a book, I would make the human mind as plain as the road from Charing Cross to St. Pauls.

(James Mill)

To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; to be credible we must be truthful.

(Edward R. Murrow)

I had no education - so I had to use my brains.

(Bill Shankly)

Doing the wrong thing in the right way

When I wrote my first business book, one critic, clearly disappointed, wrote: This is not an academic book. Few criticisms could have pleased me more. My intention had been to write a plain book for plain readers. This book is no different.

My goal is to write a comprehensive review of influence psychology, but most of all I want to write a useful book. I shall be dealing with areas of carefully validated research, but I shall make every effort to combine plain speaking with plain language.

When I conduct seminars I have a recurrent fear that people may leave looking highly satisfied and saying: That was interesting. I know from long experience that ‘interesting’ is far removed from useful. I hope that people leave my seminars - and put down this book - with the thought: Now I know precisely what to do.

But enough of my plans and wishes. The important person in the oddly intimate yet distant relationship between writer and reader is the reader. What do you want as you pick up and consider whether you should give some of your valuable time to reading this book? I have no realistic alternative but to hope and guess. Guess, because although I can ask my question I cannot hear your answer, and hope because I am writing a book with a purpose.

What This Book Will Do For You

My aim is to enable readers to survive and prosper in a rapidly changing business and social environment. I will put before you a comprehensive guide to influence psychology so you may use ethical, non-manipulative and above all effective techniques of persuasion in your working, social and domestic life. I will also show you highly manipulative techniques of very doubtful moral worth and how they are used by those Cialdini calls the compliance professionals.

I provide the good and the bad and sometimes the ugly; the good as an authority toolkit for all those who must influence the behaviour of others, whether as managers, salespeople, parents or teachers; the bad as an inoculation against the insidious powers of those who are without conscience and whose wiles make us all the potential victims of conmen (and women) of every kind. A quick dip into the ugly, in this case the extremely ugly, methods of religious cults, provides real world evidence of how the unsavoury use the unacceptable to promote their abominable ends.

The Importance of Influence

We must not treat people as mere things to be manipulated, but as free beings, to be treated with respect as themselves.

(Immanuel Kant)

Social discourse between individuals and groups is replete with examples of one person seeking to influence another. It is almost impossible to imagine a society in which all communication is neutral. If I believe that something is in your interests I will go to almost any lengths to persuade you that you should do this, rather than that. And I know that if I fail to persuade you, someone else, possibly less concerned with your interests, will be quick to put in their two pennies worth.

Like it or not, in our society you must be prepared to influence the behaviour of others - not to do so is often simply an abdication of responsibility. If you are going to be a persuader you might as well be a good one, and to be good at something you need information.

For information about human behaviour logic suggests that you look at the science which is devoted to its study.

If you are skimming through this introduction in a bookshop, try this. Wander across to the Psychology shelves, pick up the most weighty text books and look up ‘influence’ and ‘persuasion’ in the indexes. I am prepared to bet that you will, at best, find a few niggardly pages devoted to these critical subject areas.

Does that mean that little is known about them? Far from it. It is not a question of ignorance, only of selection.

Rapid Change

One of the more positive legacies of the Thatcher era has been a growing understanding of how quickly culture can be changed. In 13 short years not only did British society swing from caring pluralism to egocentric individualism, but under the influence of Mrs Thatcher and Mr Reagan much of the world, including Yeltsin’s Russia, followed suit, with results which I will leave to the reader to evaluate. I regard the knowledge of how quickly social change can be created as positive rather than otherwise because the speed of cultural change in one direction suggests a capacity to make equally rapid changes in any desired direction. There is increasing evidence that genetic evolution is being replaced by cultural evolution. The genes are being overtaken by the memes (basic elements of communication).

If we want a better world we only need pick up the tools to be well on the way to finishing the job. For the committed, this book will provide some of the key tools.

Why are leading edge influencing skills needed today more than ever before in human history? Bear with me for a page or two while I explain, very briefly, under four distinct headings.

Post-Modernism and a Changing World

The first may seem trivial, but it is a fact of our post-modern world that technology, where it exists, will be used. In medicine, for example, CT scanners are routinely used to assure those who experience pain, discomfort or fear that there is nothing wrong with them. Frequently such technological approaches are more in the interest of the doctor who wishes to use the current toy than they are helpful to the patient who needs the time and psychological space to express how they feel and what they experience. Thus use can lead to misuse and even abuse.

We understand the processes which can be applied to direct and manage human behaviour better than ever before. There is a persuasive argument that suggests that the smaller and therefore the more authoritative the group that has the techniques, the greater the potential for abuse. Thus there is a need for this technology to be widely understood.

There are, however, more immediate and obviously practical reasons.

The Changing Situation Of Management

Expensive, time-consuming business initiatives such as business process reengineering, TQM and empowerment often fail dismally to give a return on the very considerable investment made when introducing them. Research in Germany, the United Kingdom and America suggest, for example, a failure rate for business process reengineering projects of between 76 and 80 per cent. Some empowerment initiatives lead to a frustrating combination of paralysis and anarchy, and if TQM is defined as ‘consistently delighting the customer at minimum cost’ the failure rate is very close to 100 per cent.

This does not indicate that business process reengineering, empowerment and the rest are a waste of corporate time - far from it. What it does is to draw our attention to the truism that if people are critical to the success of an initiative you must have the means to win their hearts as well as their minds. People do not always immediately recognise the future value of change. You need, in an early period of uncertainty, to be able to show them convincingly what is in it for them. Get them to share an attractive enough vision and they will bust a gut, if they must, to make it work. For that you need leading edge influencing skills. But it doesn’t end there.

The growth of telecommuting and outsourcing of key services means that influence will in future need to be exercised at a distance, or managers and leaders will have no choice but to abdicate their responsibility and hope for the best in what may prove to be far from the best of all possible worlds. This too will demand something special in terms of influence.

A report published by the Institute of Management in May 1995 tells us that 76 per cent of managers surveyed reported low morale and supportiveness within their work teams following headcount reductions and redundancies. Add that to the Handy formula that we are now requiring from those at work three times the output with half the staff, and we have a field in which leadership influence is going to need all the help that it can get.

Charles Handy also tells us that business is, and will continue to be, increasingly dependent on highly skilled, independent-minded and potentially highly mobile knowledge workers. Getting to first base in terms of offering leadership to these new prima donnas of the commercial world will require exceptional persuasive skills and the cost of lacking the knowledge and ability to retain control can be high. The Nick Leeson affair at Barings Bank should be a salutary lesson to all who believe that specialists should be simply given their heads and left alone to ensure maximum performance.

A rapidly changing business world is still often in the grip of managerial dinosaurs. Managers who have new and valid ideas often have little chance of getting them accepted in the business Jurassic Park. Ideas will be accepted and implemented if, and probably only if, the thinkers acquire and use state of the art influencing techniques.

No-Fail Techniques for Salespeople

In today’s and increasingly in tomorrow’s business world, the salesperson must be perceived by the customer as an ally and a resource. This means that the salesperson will sell as much on the basis of their own status and reputation as on the intrinsic value of their service or product. They must, therefore, present themselves as totally ethical and totally professional. Many, if not all, will need to access a whole new level of skill and a range of highly effective customer-facing behaviours.

As products and services increasingly become globalised and standardised, more and more customers and clients seek a long- term relationship with the salesperson. Building such a relationship cannot be left to chance or chemistry - it demands considerable knowledge sensitively applied.

While costs of manufacture have reduced, the costs of marketing, sales and distribution have escalated. Future competitive advantage will be the result of low-cost referral business. Customer care and total quality programmes have invited the customer to anticipate higher value at lower cost. Referrals may prove to be the only way to make future cost savings, as process savings become more and more difficult to find and referrals come most readily to those who demonstrate the most subtle and sensitive skills.

In the insurance industry from 1 January 1995 there has been a legal requirement for commission disclosure. There is no reason to believe that increased regulation of selling will not be introduced into other areas. Experience in the insurance industry suggests that those able to apply effective techniques to build customer relationships have been able to take an assertive approach to disclosure and have gained a clear and considerable selling edge.

Many people who find themselves in a selling role today would not have regarded themselves as salespeople until circumstances dictated the need. People running small companies and one man bands,