The Power to Persuade and Influence Without Authority
Lori Silverman

Why this seminar?

How often do you need others to take a particular action or change their minds on an issue? Ever wonder why some individuals are more successful at achieving these outcomes? What can you do to get the same results? Anyone can be influenced or persuaded; the challenge is learning what techniques really work, what approaches often do not, and why. Discover how to enhance your credibility, the difference between persuasion and influence, and how to decide what technique to use to positively alter the behaviors, attitudes and beliefs of others to enable you to achieve the results you need at work.

Audience

This seminar is appropriate for anyone who has responsibility for getting work done through others. You do not need to be in a formal leadership role to benefit from this seminar.

Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of this seminar, you will be able to:

·      Increase your personal credibility by building trust and expertise;

·    Analyze a work situation for key factors related to power, persuasion and influence;

·      Determine whether it’s best to use a persuasion or influence strategy to get others to change or take action;

·      Utilize personality temperament to better understand an individual’s needs and persuade him or her;

·      Use stories as a tool of persuasion;

·      State three ways in which language can help or hinder your abilities to persuade and influence;

·      Apply seven proven influence strategies in the workplace.

Outline

Getting Started

·      Distinguishing between influence and persuasion

·      Activity: Your perceptions about influence

Assessing Yourself and the Situation

·       Influence starts with credibility

·       Activity: Building trust and expertise

·       Activity: Assessing your credibility

·       An assessment model for influence and persuasion

·       Activity: The price we pay to get results

·       Activity: Assess your situation

Personality Temperament and Type

·      Activity: Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

·      What forms personality

·      Temperaments: Artisan, guardian, rationalist, and idealist

·      Activity: Temperament card sort

·      Temperament values and needs

·      Communication cues

·      Activity: Four communication paradigms

·      What the four temperaments have in common

·      Activity: Using temperament as a persuasion tool

·      Type: Sensing and intuiting, thinking and feeling, judging and perceiving, and extroverting and introverting

·      Activity: Matching perceptions to the MBTI

·      Type dynamics

Using Stories to Persuade

·      Activity: What makes a story memorable

·      Where to find and how to choose great stories

·      Activity: How could you use this story?

·      Crafting powerful stories

·      Activity: Craft a story

·      Activity: Using stories to persuade others

·      Evoking stories from people

The Power of Language

·      Activity: The cobbler’s children

·      Working the human system

·      Communication choices: Expressive and receptive

·      Activity: Sorry, we can’t do it

·      Using representational systems to build rapport

·      Assessing and responding to objections

Influencing Others

·      Strategy 1: Commitment and consistency

      Gaining small concessions
Making commitments public
Structuring questions to get the response you want

·      Strategy 2: Authority
Impact of the formal use of power
Informal approaches to gaining authority

·      Strategy 3: Liking
How to establish and build rapport
Specific approaches that promote liking

·      Strategy 4: Reciprocity
Giving something of perceived value
Rejecting extreme requests·      Using representational systems to build rapport

·      Strategy 5: Scarcity
Making something rare
The art of telling secrets

·      Strategy 6: Social proof
The power of conformity
Identifying situations where social proof works

·      Strategy 7: Perceptual contrast
How the contrast principle works
Creating benchmarks

·      Activity: Who called this meeting?

·      Activity: Sorry, we can’t do it

·      Activity: Your use of influence at work

Handouts

·      Copy of all information covered by the instructor, including visual aid

·       Copy of activity and case study materials

·      Certificate of Completion, with 1.5 Continuing Education Units