Message of the Day - The power of the invisible

Good Morning,

 

Welcome new recipients!

 

Last night I finished the book “Influencer” and found a very powerful section.

 

The book talks about using influence to make changes, but you cannot do it in one area, you need to do it in six different areas. Focusing on one area alone is usually not enough to enact change. If one area fails, another could pick up the effort.

 

To enact change you must influence:

 

1. Personal Motivation – Make the Undesirable Desirable
2. Personal Ability – Surpass Your Limits
3. Social Motivation – Harness Peer Pressure
4. Social Ability – Find Strength in Numbers
5. Structural Motivation – Design Rewards and Demand Accountability
6. Structural Ability – Change the Environment

 

It is the last one that struck me as I read on. Changing our environment can change the way people think and act. That is, things we often take for granted or seem invisible to us for their commonality are sending their own messages. For example, when you go into a bosses off and their chair is higher than yours and your chair makes you sit low to the ground so you have to look up to see them. This can make you feel smaller or make the boss seem more self-important.

 

Things send messages, here are some more examples:

 

• If you have a place you want people to go, and they cannot easily find it, it may send the message, you don’t want them to come.
• Having long hallways and massive rooms so that guests have to walk a long way to get to the end helps people feel the power of the establishment (Hitler did this with his HQ).
• Wearing Jeans and a T-Shirt when everyone else wears formal gives people a lot of information about the person in jeans which may or may not be true.
• Having a room full of flowers in bloom sends a different message than a room full of dying plants.
• Having small cubicals on one side of the floor and large ones on the other tells something to employees.
• A store which is constantly out of stock tells customers they do not matter by saying come back later or take a raincheck.

 

These are powerful messages from inanimate objects.

 

What are your things telling people?

 

Enjoy!

 

Sanford Berenberg

Sanford@berenberg.net

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

502-533-9336

 

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