Message of the Day - The Power of Influence

Good Morning,

 

I have been reading “Influencer: The Power to Change Anything” by Kenneth Patterson (et al), and have really enjoyed the powerful messages the book conveys on influencing others and becoming a person of influence. There are a lot of reoccurring themes with other books of similar subjects, but this books adds a lot of scientific reference to their points which helps bring them home.

 

Some of the key areas are getting others to do what you want them to do (not so much being bossy, but getting folks to stop bad or even dangerous habits). Below are some of the tools the authors give on this.

 

1. Give your message vicariously, not just verbally. You can talk until you are blue in the face, and you will not have your audience always listen or even understand. By giving your message vicariously, you are using other means to convey your message. Brad Barton is wonderful at this by using his magic to show a point without having to talk about it. Other forms of vicarious communications are videos which have actors, or animation playing out the message you are trying to get across. If the character in the show thinks something is bad, so will many of the watchers.

 

2. The power of peer pressure is amazing (this example is a bit extreme, but it happened). In one experiment in 1961, a Dr. Milgram tested to see how likely people would give electric shock to another person, in increasing voltage even though they here discomfort, pain, crying and then silence (they either passed out or worse). The shock recipient was part of the experiment and never actually was shocked, the cries and all were a recording. If the test subject objected to giving the shock, the man in a lab coat said it was part of the experiment. If the subject objected 5 times, the experiment ended. The results were shocking, 65% of people gave the shocks beyond the silence until the maximum voltage was delivered. When another person was in the room with the subject, if they acted against the experiment, then only 10% of the subjects gave the full voltage, and if they supported the experiment, 90% gave the full voltage. Dr. Milgram was publicly flambéed for this experiment, but it shows some real insight into people and peer pressure.

 

3. When giving information, who gives it matters a lot. When fighting off a horrible disease (Guinea Worm) in Africa, the simple solution was to strain the river water before they drink it to strain out parasites. Many people tried to tell the natives this, Doctor’s, Chieftains, etc. and they would not listen. Then a revered national ICON came and gave the same message and demonstrated the technique and then they got it.

 

Remember when getting your message out, use the tools of vicarious communication, using the right people to give the message and if necessary, some peer pressure (but only for the forces of good) by having others who agree with you join you in conveying your message.

 

Influencers are powerful people, you can be one too, and this book gives great insights on how to.

 

Note: Nobody was hurt during the creation of this message.

 

Enjoy!

 

Sanford Berenberg

Sanford@berenberg.net

http://sanfordberenberg.blogspot.com/  ß Check out the new Blog site

502-533-9336

 

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