Influence – Baring it all!

 Oct 29, 2013

There I was aged 19, dressed in a loin cloth at the Jungle Party at the University Bar, working the crowd; singing the Eagle Rock on a bar table out in front of my band. Luckily I was at the closing stanza of the song, because all of a sudden two guys – one on each side, whom I previously counted as friends – ripped my scant clothing off me, leaving me to sing the finale stark naked.

In my last blog article, I mentioned about how I unwittingly used Aristotelian and Cialdinian ideas to influence the audience in my days as a professional musician. I also mentioned I was going to do an analysis of influence in the written word in this blog post.

What does that have to do with my Eagle Rock story? I am uncertain how I influenced the crowd that evening – hopefully it was not with Cialdini’s “scarcity”. Thank goodness it was not in today’s age or it would have been on YouTube.

When you write, you expose yourself for all to see, yet you don’t get immediate feedback from a written piece the way you do when you are speaking to someone. There are no verbal or visual cues to help you adjust your content and tactics mid-process. So you must well plan your tactics of how to influence.

Further, writing lasts longer than speaking and like YouTube and social media, exposing the wrong thing in print can tarnish your reputation. It can influence people the wrong way! For these reasons you need to be extremely careful of how you go about it.

So why would I want to share such a personal and embarrassing story? Before I tell you that, let’s do an analysis of the previous blog post I wrote (Influence – after nineteen years I finally get to blend my two great loves!) and see how it stacks up on the areas of influence.

As mentioned in the previous post, Aristotle realised the three ways to influence 2,500 years ago: Ethos (credibility), Pathos (feelings) and Logos (logic). Robert Cialdini has in recent years refined these three into six elements, but they are really distinctions of the original three.

Hopefully, the title of my last post was intriguing. I linked ‘influence’ (the main subject) with something obscure. If you can arouse curiosity within individuals they are more likely to listen up. The brain fires into action to finding a missing piece or see if the information will benefit them. This was pathos at work; it did not make sense yet.

I then shared a secret and told you a story.

“I don’t share this much in corporate circles but I am a closet muso and in my younger days I used to play professionally as a solo guitarist, pianist and singer. Being self-taught I am not a fantastic musician on either instrument, retarded by the fact that I can mask any musical fluffs with my singing. Still, I was good enough for people to sing along and get drunk to and most times, even though I’m boasting, people would have a thoroughly enjoyable night.”

We are wired to want to know missing pieces of information and stories – they educate and entertain us. That is why gossip mags sell! What’s more the secret and story was about me – it was personal! (Again, pathos.) This has two benefits: it allows you to build more of a relationship with me because you know more about me and it creates more trust because I am willing to be honest and ‘expose’ chinks in my armour. (It builds ethos.)

At this point, I moved to logic, I brought back a question regarding the topic to try to help you bridge the gap and told you I had already given you two clues.

“What’s this got to do with influence? Well, I've already given you two of the keys, so stay with me if you haven’t picked it up yet.”

This really frustrates the mind (pathos) but I still didn't give you the answer…you had to follow me a little longer. This is called an ‘open loop’ (it uses pathos and Cialdini’s scarcity).

I then moved to ethos. I established my qualifications, how long I have been in the industry and importantly that I really love working with people. (This is all true by the way.)

“My other love is of people and what makes them tick; which is why I retrained in psych after having started off with a business degree. After 19 years, I’m still intrigued by why some people motivated and others not; how you achieve behavioural change, and; what happens if people are not on board.”

Aristotle said you must establish credibility up front as quickly as possible but we must be subtle. Now that I have told you the trick I lose my subtlety but hopefully you will find this piece illuminating enough to forgive me.

Next, I logically put forward my argument and articulated a problem that many people have in business. In the process, if it is an issue you have, reading it would have brought up feelings about the issue (pathos) and if you think I may give you a solution, you will be motivated to read on.

“These days, if I go out to a bar or a restaurant and there is someone playing in the corner and not moving a crowd, I watch and analyse why. Generally, it’s not their playing or singing ability.

Many times in business, people can be technically competent but what they lack is the ability to move people artfully. They lack the ingredients for getting people engaged and motivated or trying to get by in to a particular point of view. Sometimes they try coercion; other times they simply fail at their quest. Unless they can influence and persuade, it’s probably going to be hard slog.”

Subsequently, I told you that there is knowledge on this subject that has been around for a long time. Those that didn't know may then have said… “What? Why didn't I know this?” (pathos). Those that did know may have been intrigued (pathos) to know how a singer might do it in a performance (thirst for logos).

“There was a trick to being able to move the crowd like I did. Not so much a trick; I simply employed three concepts that have been around forever. I didn't know I was doing it at the time. I, sort of, stumbled onto it.”

I then introduced Aristotle’s three tenets (which used ethos and Cialdini’s “authority”) and then logically demonstrated how I used it with an audience as a musician. Further, I then gave you ten tips to help you influence others (mainly logos but a bit of ethos and pathos).

The second last thing I did was close the ‘open loop’ I created in paragraph two. This is logos again but it also influences pathos; the reader either felt good that they got the answer or a bit miffed they didn't. Hopefully, both feelings made them want to get more.

Hence, lastly, I announced that I would share more about influence (specifically for the written word) next time. This hopefully left readers on a high note that they would receive more soon.

That reminds me, I had better close off the open loop I created at the beginning of this blog.

Why did I share a personal and rather ‘exposing’ story?

Well, as I mentioned before, we learn and are entertained by stories and get emotionally invested in them (pathos). They are part of the human condition and if you want to be good at influence this storytelling is a skill you must master.

Starting with a secret or in the middle of the action is a very important way to arrest the attention and entertain and/or influence feelings. If it is a personal story then it’s even better, because it is a firsthand account and builds your relationship. Further, if it is self-deprecating and/or humorous (at least in Australia and Britain) then it gets even greater buy-in. So hey, a little joke at my own expense just to get you interested hopefully won’t hurt me…unless you were there on that night (ha ha)!

If you want to improve your influencing skills, working on your storytelling skills is a good place to start. Next blog, I'll tell you what we're doing to help people in this area.

How do your Excel skills stack up?   

Test Now  

About the Author:

Tim Higgs  

Tim has been involved in the corporate training industry for over 15 years; seven of these have been as the Portfolio Manager and Senior Facilitator at New Horizons. Tim holds a Graduate Diploma (Psych/Couns), a masters’ degree in Cultural Psychology and a bachelor’s degree in Business, giving him a unique theoretical backdrop for understanding human performance in the workplace. This complements his actual experience of working within the corporate sector in sales and management positions and owning and running a small business. Having worked with individuals and groups in both clinical and business settings, Tim has a fantastic insight into human behaviour, motivation and the issue of human change.

Read full bio
top