Improving Your Persuasive Skills

2. Passive Facilitative. Sometimes the most effective way to persuade another is to do nothing. The passive facilitative approach recognizes that remaining silent, waiting patiently, letting others do the speaking, and similarly passive actions can, at times, be a highly effective means of influence. Victory doesn’t always go to the loudest, the longest-winded, or the person armed with the most facts. The astute persuader knows when to say nothing and let someone else take the offensive. 3. Active Inhibiting. What kind of active behavior hinders persuasive effectiveness? Examples include trying to “wing it,” stating views tentatively, being unwilling to negotiate, being aggressive, discouraging feedback, discouraging discussion, criticizing, changing the subject, rejecting ideas, and giving advice prematurely.11 This message should not be lost on those who want to become more effective persuaders: Action, without thought, is likely to be counterproductive. 4. Passive Inhibiting. The final category encompasses failure by omission. Examples are withholding information, not paying attention, being submissive, ignoring others or their ideas, failing to respond with empathy, leaving issues ambiguous, failing to give praise or appreciation, refusing to grant recognition, withholding help or support, failing to ask for help or support, or allowing others to define your role.12 Looking at persuasion through the prism of these four tactical categories drives home three points. First, the potential for failure always exists. Even with the best of intentions, you can fall flat on your face. Second, an active approach is not always preferable. At times, purposely “doing nothing” is likely to prove most effective. Third, whether you choose an active or a passive approach depends on whom you’re trying to influence. If you have the necessary information about that person’s needs, interests, goals, and the like, you can make a better decision about whether to use an active or a passive approach.

Improving Your Persuasive Skills

A review of the oral communication and persuasion research has identified a number of suggestions that can help you improve your persuasive skills. They build and expand upon the strategies and tactics previously discussed. 1. Establish your credibility. Nothing undermines persuasive efforts more than a lack of credibility. People don’t want to listen to a person they don’t trust and respect. They also won’t follow the advice of someone who doesn’t know what they’re talking about. Start by developing your expertise so that your information is reliable. Then demonstrate your belief and commitment to your suggestions with a dynamic and friendly presentation style.13 2. Use a positive and tactful tone. Assume the person you’re trying to persuade is intelligent and mature. Don’t talk down to that person. Be respectful, direct, sincere, and tactful. The worst thing that will happen if you follow this advice is that the person will respond in an immature manner and your persuasive effort will be for naught. However, you will have advanced your credibility and laid the groundwork for a more effective response next time. On the other hand, if your tone is negative or if you treat people as if they are unintelligent, you risk making them defensive, failing in your effort to persuade, and undermining your credibility for future persuasive efforts. Unless you’re a football coach—for whom talking down to players seems to be a role expectation—always speak to those you want to persuade in a tone that shows respect.

3. Make your presentation clear. In the event persuasion is successful, what exactly do you want to accomplish? This delineation of an objective should guide your presentation. That is, before you can convincingly articulate your view to someone else, you need to be clear about what you want. You’d be surprised how many people don’t focus on what they want to accomplish before they jump in. This explains why potential “persuadees” are often confused and unclear about what is being asked of them. Once your objective is clear, you should present your argument one idea at a time.

Don’t jump from issue to issue, and avoid unrelated topics. Focus on your end objective, and then present your ideas in a straight path that will lead the person to the conclusion you want and the objective you set. 4. Present strong evidence to support your position. You need to explain why what you want is important. Merely saying that a request is important or urgent is not enough.

Demanding compliance because you’re the boss has limited applicability, and even if it were appropriate, relying on authority doesn’t build credibility. You should demonstrate with strong supporting evidence why someone should do as you wish. The responsibility for building the case lies with you. 5. Tailor your argument to the listener. Effective persuasion demands flexibility. You have to select your argument for your specific listener. To whom are you talking? What are the person’s goals, needs, interests, fears, and aspirations? How much does the listener know about the subject you’re discussing? Does the person have preconceived views on this subject? If so, how do they align with yours? How does this person like to be treated? What is his or her behavioral style? Answering questions like these can help you define the right persuasion strategy to use. Different personal characteristics influence peoples’ susceptibility to be persuaded.14

For instance, research indicates that people with high intelligence tend to be more easily influenced than people with low intelligence when exposed to persuasive communications that rely primarily on strong, logical arguments. However, highly intelligent people are less influenced by persuasive communications that rely primarily on unsupported generalities or false, illogical, irrelevant arguments. High intelligence, in other words, seems to make people more receptive to logical reasoning and less susceptible to flawed logic. People with authoritarian personalities, who believe that status and power differences should exist among people in an organization, are easily influenced by those in authority. In contrast, nonauthoritarian types are persuaded more by facts and credibility. Our overall conclusion, based on this research, is that you should alter your persuasive strategy to reflect the personal characteristics of the subject. Specifically, the higher a person’s intelligence level, the more logical and well documented your arguments should be; in addition, you should rely more on facts than on your formal position in attempting to persuade nonauthoritarian types. 6. Appeal to the subject’s self-interest. To persuade people effectively, you need to understand what makes them tick. Then you can put yourself in their position when you make a request. An individual’s behavior is directed toward satisfying self-interests. You need to appeal to that self-interest by anticipating, before you make any demands, that the subject will ask, “What’s in it for me?” Don’t assume that other people will do what you want merely because you’re a credible person or because you can articulate logical arguments.

You also have to motivate people to action by showing them why it is in their best interests to do as you wish. 7. Use logic. A logical, reasoned argument is not guaranteed to persuade the subject, but if you lack facts and reasons to support your argument, your persuasiveness almost certainly