Back to Behavioral Basics – 6 Principles
I) Principal of Liking: People like those who like them.
Application: Uncover real similarities and offer genuine praise.
Controlled research has identified several factors that reliably increase liking, but two stand out as especially compelling – similarity and praise. Similarity literally draws people together.
Praise, the other reliable generator of affection, both charms and disarms. Sometimes the praise doesn’t even have to be merited. (Researchers at the University of North Carolina writing in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology found that men felt the greatest regard for an individual who flattered them unstintingly even if the comments were untrue.)
II) Principal of Reciprocity: People repay in kind.
Application: Give what you want to receive.
If you have ever caught yourself smiling at a coworker just because he or she smiled first, you know how this principal works.
In 1996, purchasing managers admitted to an interviewer from Inc. magazine that after having accepted a gift from a supplier, they were willing to purchase products and services they would otherwise declined. Gifts also have a startling effect on retention (of employees).
Ultimately, though, gift giving is one of the cruder applications of the rule of reciprocity. In its more sophisticated uses, it confers a genuine first-mover advantage on any manager who is trying to foster positive attitudes and productive personal relationships in the office: Managers can elicit the desired behaviour by displaying it first – whether it’s a sense of trust, a spirit of cooperation, or a pleasant demeanor.
III) Principal of Social Proof: People follow the lead of similar others.
Application: Use peer power whenever it’s available.
Social creatures as they are, human beings rely heavily on the people around them for cues on how to think, feel, and act.
IV) Principal of Consistency: People align with their clear commitments.
Application: Make their commitments active, public, and voluntary.
People need not only to like you but to feel committed to what you want them to do. Good turns are one reliable way to make people feel obligated to you. Another is to win a public commitment from them.
Most people, once they take a stand or go on record in favour of a position, prefer to stick to it. There’s strong empirical evidence to show that a choice made actively – one that’s spoken out loud or written down or otherwise made explicit – is considerably more likely to direct someone’s future conduct than the same choice left unspoken.
The implications are clear for a manager who wants to persuade a subordinate to follow some particular course of action: Get it in writing. Once you believe you’ve won agreement, ask him to summarize the decision in a memo and send it to you. By doing so, you’ll have greatly increased the odds that he’ll fulfill the commitment because, as a rule, people live up to what they have written down.
Written statements become even more powerful when they’re made public. [The experiment] highlights how most people wish to appear consistent to others. Whatever way such commitments are formalized, they should never been like the New Year’s resolutions people privately make and then abandon with no one the wiser. They should be publicly made and visibly posted.
Samuel Butler wrote a couplet that explains succinctly why commitments must be voluntary to be lasting and effective: “He that complies against his will / Is of his opinion still.” If an undertaking is forced, coerced, or imposed from the outside, it’s not a commitment; it’s an unwelcome burden.
V) Principal of Authority: People defer to experts.
Application: Expose your expertise; don’t assume it’s self-evident.
Some questions, be they legal, financial, medical, or technological, require so much specialized knowledge to answer, we have no choice but to rely on experts.
Since there’s good reason to defer to experts, executives should take pains to ensure that they establish their own expertise befrfore they attempt to exert influence. Surprisingly often, people mistakenly assume that others recognize and appreciate their experience.
What we found immensely gratifying was not just how much we increased compliance, but how. We didn’t fool or browbeat any of the patients. We informed them into compliance. Nothing had to be invented; no time or resources had to be spent in the process. The staff’s expertise was real – all we had to do was make it more visible.
[In a social setting]… it is customary for people to spend time interacting socially before getting down to business for the first time. Perhaps it’s a matter of telling an anecdote about successfully solving a problem similar to the one that’s on the agenda at the next day’s meeting. Or perhaps… to describe years spent mastering a complex discipline – not in a boastful way but as part of the ordinary give-and-take of conversation.
VI) Principal of Scarcity: People want more of what they can have less of.
Application: Highlight unique benefits and exclusive information.
Items and opportunities are seen to be more valuable as they become less available.
Managers can learn from retailers how to frame their offers not in terms of what people stand to gain but in terms of what they stand to lose if they don’t act of the information. The power of “loss language” – significantly more people insulated their home when exposed to the loss language (and told that if they failed to insulate, they would lose X amount each day).
Executives should also remember that exclusive information is more persuasive than widely available data. Example: purchasers of wholesale beef buyers more than doubled their orders when they were told that, because of certain weather conditions overseas, there was likely to be a scarcity of foreign beef in the future. But their orders increased 600% when they were informed that no one else had that information yet.
Summary
Although the six principles and their applications can be discussed separately for the sake of clarity, they should be applied in combination to compound their impact.
For instance, in discussing the importance of expertise, I suggested that managers use informal, social conversations to establish their credentials. But that conversation affords an opportunity to gain information as well as convey it.
While you’re showing your dinner companion that you have the skills and experience your business problem commands, you can also learn about your companion’s background, likes, and dislikes – information that will help you locate genuine similarities and give sincere compliments.
And if you succeed in bringing your dinner partner on board, you may encourage other people to sign on as well, thanks to the persuasive power of social evidence.
Legitimate expertise (V), genuine obligations (II), authentic similarities (I), real social proof (III), exclusive news (VI), and freely made commitments (IV) can produce choices that are likely to benefit both parties.
Category: Psychology
Robert Cialdini © 2001
Excerpted from Harvard Business Review
August 27, 2019
State of Being 