Getting someone to change their mind, especially when they feel strongly about something, is never easy. If you go straight in, and especially if you let your strong feelings on the topic get the better of you, the chances are you will trigger the ‘Backfire Effect’, leaving them more convinced than ever. To increase your
The UK’s recent referendum on European Union membership seems to have exposed deep fault lines in British society, if the strength of feeling shown in arguments on social media is anything to go by. I’ve certainly seen the normal rules of civilised conversation set aside, people on either side calling each other terrible things, and huge
Recently I was interviewed by Robyn Stratton-Berkessel for her ‘Positivity Strategist’ podcast about the relationship between Appreciative Inquiry and NLP. During the conversation a couple of connections occurred to me that I hadn’t thought of before. Firstly, let’s look at the Appreciative Interview process (in which the interviewee tells the story of a time when
The ‘Golden Rule’ or ‘ethic of reciprocity’ – essentially, ‘treat others as you would like others to treat you’ – is one of the foundation stones of morality, not just in Western thought but in religions and cultures worldwide. It’s currently undergoing something of a revival among business thought leaders – as in this article
I came across a useful short article in the New York Times by Alina Tugend summarising research into the effects of ‘bad’ events (setbacks, losses, criticism) versus ‘good’ events (progress, gains, praise): Praise Is Fleeting, but Brickbats We Recall. This is a quick summary of the main points that emerged, plus some thoughts about the implications
This is a simple 5-step process to for influencing people to change their minds. It’s not the only way to do it, but it does give a step-by-step process that I trust you will find useful. The process is derived from NLP, but if you’re not familiar with that area you can slot in whatever
Specifically, these insights come from the book Primal Leadership (UK title The New Leaders) by Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee. For my money, this is still the best book on Emotional Intelligence as it applies to leadership. 1. The emotional climate affects results When people feel good, they think and work better, with
Bearing the principles for delivering emotionally intelligent feedback from the previous article in mind, here are the steps for actually delivering the feedback. As a reminder that what you should be doing is stirring the recipient to change their behaviour, it has the acronym STIRS: 1. Set the stage Make sure that you are in
Or: Why does everyone love Occupy Wall Street when they hated the English rioters? It’s not every day that something useful comes out of an online discussion, but in this case I think something has. During the recent riots in England, most of my Facebook contacts, who I had thought had a fairly liberal political
Robert Cialdini, professor of psychology at Arizona State University, is the world’s leading authority on the psychology of influence and persuasion. His studies, summarised in the great book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, identify six principles of persuasion – essentially, six ‘buttons’ that, left to itself, the human brain responds to automatically. I should point
Some research from Dr Robert Cialdini’s excellent Inside Influence Report for May 09 suggests that the emotional state of an audience affects how receptive they are to particular kinds of messages. To save on processing effort and stave off information overload, our brains rely on simple rules or ‘heuristics’ to make decisions. Two of the
An excellent (and short) article by Peter Bregman on the Harvard Business Review blog. It turns out that the easiest way to change people's behaviour is not through threats, not through 'leadership', but by making it easier for them to do what you want and harder for them not to. (thanks to Mollie Dierbeck for the heads-up).
Sometimes tiny changes in the way the environment is set up can have big results. For example, I know from being a trainer that if you want people to talk to each other and feel part of a group, you arrange the chairs in the training room in a circle. If you want them to shut up and listen to you giving them information, arrange the chairs theatre-style in flat lines.
In my small-group NLP courses, I arrange the chairs in a single shallow horseshoe shape which gives a nice blend of participation and focus on the trainer. In Appreciative Inquiry facilitator training, I arrange the chairs 'cabaret style' with round tables, to encourage participation in workgroups.
What changes could you make in your working or home environment to make yourself or your team more productive?
