360 Degrees of Influence: Get Everyone to Follow Your Lead on Your Way to the Top (MGMT & LEADERSHIP) - Hardcover

Monarth, Harrison

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 007177355X ISBN 13: 9780071773553

Publisher: McGraw Hill, 2012

Synopsis

SPREAD YOUR INFLUENCE FOR TRUE LEADERSHIP SUCCESS

“The extraordinary power of influence is now within everyone’s reach. Recent graduates, executive assistants, project managers, and business leaders can all benefit from Monarth’s simple steps for ‘getting everyone to follow your lead.’”
―MARSHALL GOLDSMITH, million-selling author of the New York Times bestsellers MOJO and What Got You Here Won’t Get You There

“Monarth’s monograph is must reading for everyone who needs to build their personal brand and sell themselves―which is, of course, everybody.”
―JEFFREY PFEFFER, Ph.D., professor, Stanford Graduate School of Business, and author of Power: Why Some People Have It―and Others Don’t

“Your ability to influence and persuade others is the single most important skill for success in business and leadership―and this book shows you how with simple, powerful, practical, and proven techniques.”
―BRIAN TRACY, author of Full Engagement

“Finally! A book about influence that doesn’t tell you how to impose your position on others but rather illuminates ways to build authentic relationships that are mutually beneficial. Truly a 21st-century approach to a critical skill.”
―LOIS P. FRANK EL, Ph.D., author of Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office and Nice Girls Just Don’t Get It

“360 Degrees of Influence breaks new ground. Harrison Monarth writes with fl air, passion, and insight. Even seasoned professionals will fi nd his advice practical and invaluable.”
―HARRY MILLS, Managing Director of The Mills Group and author of Artful Persuasion and The StreetSmart Negotiator

About the Book:

Leadership doesn’t have to be a top-down proposition. In fact, the best leaders influence those who are below and above them, as well as people external to the organization, such as customers and partners. This 360 degrees of influence is what separates the good leader from the great leader.

Founder of the global executive coaching firm GuruMaker, Harrison Monarth makes a living helping top figures in business and politics hone their influencing, communication, persuasion, impression management, and media skills. He teaches leaders how to operate without relying on spin or manipulation.

Now, in 360 Degrees of Influence, Monarth provides everything you need to gain the trust and respect of those around you―no matter where they’re positioned in the organizational hierarchy―and expand your influence well beyond your immediate environment. Providing valuable insight into human emotion and behavior, Monarth reveals the secrets to becoming the most psychologically astute person in the room―so you can be the most influential leader in the room. Learn how to:

• Assess your current influencing power
• Overcome resistance to your ideas and proposals
• Know what people are thinking and feeling―even better than they do
• Avoid the most common decision-making pitfalls
• Create an influence strategy tailored to your organization’s hierarchy

In addition to sharing insight he has gleaned during years of coaching leading executives, Monarth includes practice exercises, checklists, self-evaluations, and worksheets to help you tackle the challenge of influence and leadership head on.

Right now, one of your own counterparts might be exerting influence over you and your boss. You can do the same thing. Apply the lessons of 360 Degrees of Influence to place yourself in the best possible position to lead the leaders.

About this title

About the Author

McGraw-Hill authors represent the leading experts in their fields and are dedicated to improving the lives, careers, and interests of readers worldwide

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

360 Degrees of Influence

GET EVERYONE TO FOLLOW YOUR LEAD ON YOUR WAY TO THE TOP

By HARRISON MONARTH

The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Copyright © 2012 Harrison Monarth
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-07-177355-3

Contents

Preface
Acknowledgments
CHAPTER 1 Swayed, Nudged, and Driven: Influence Is Constant
CHAPTER 2 360-Degree Influence Starts with You
CHAPTER 3 Breaking Through Resistance: The Major Barriers to Influencing 
Others
CHAPTER 4 Know What Really Motivates People and What People Really Care 
About
CHAPTER 5 How Our Decisions Define Our Ability to Influence
CHAPTER 6 Setting the Stage: Strategically Influencing People's Decisions
CHAPTER 7 Mastering Organizational Politics
CHAPTER 8 Influencing Up: Bring Your Bosses Around to Your Way of 
Thinking
CHAPTER 9 Influencing the Opposite Gender for Mutual Success
CHAPTER 10 Influencing the Public's Impressions of Your Organization
CHAPTER 11 Using Your Words to Influence and Change Minds
CHAPTER 12 Managing the Influencing Power of Your Personal Brand
Notes
Index

Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

Swayed, Nudged, and Driven: Influence Is Constant

A New Zealand bank helpfully nudges customers to save money on impulse by justpressing a button on their iPhone. Apparently there is an app for that.

School cafeterias across the United States are experimenting with thepresentation of healthier food choices—making fruit and vegetables moreappealing than the more popular fried food by improving their lighting,positioning, and names (carrots called "X-ray veggies," anyone?)

New York taxicabs have a touchscreen on the back of the front seat suggestinghow much passengers should tip the driver upon arriving at a destination. Big,colorful buttons give the option of paying $2, $3, or $4 if the fare is lessthan $15. If your fare is more than $15, the buttons display percentages from 20to 25 to 30 percent. Clearly counting on people's laziness or inability tocalculate and self-select a fair tip, cabbies are happy to report thatgratuities have shot way up, again due in part to these highly suggestivebuttons that are tilted toward generosity.

We face tens of thousands of minor and major interactions every day that guideor steer us in one direction or another. While all this influencing and nudgingis perhaps becoming more obvious as we get older, it's been a factor from themoment we released our first gut-wrenching screams upon entering this life.

We Are Born to Influence

These days, it's impossible to walk down the street without experiencing thepower of influence. Even if the street is completely empty, beckonings,warnings, sales pitches, and opinions fill every conceivable angle of ourvision. This exposure to influence begins with our earliest sense of self, atthe moment we acknowledge we are not alone and experience desire in some form.For most of us, this begins at birth.

With that first infantile desire emerges a natural instinct as to how to obtainwhat we want. We cry, we wail, and we adopt this technique long before we learnthat we can also get what we want by smiling and laughing. Infants are not ableto rationalize, prioritize, or otherwise communicate outside of their owndesires, yet they get what they want by opening their cute little mouths andletting it rip.

Just as instinctual is the parental need to notice and respond from a context ofproviding care and/or learning. The need to nurture is as hardwired as thebaby's wailing and brings the earliest hint of nature's intention for us toexert and perceive a full circle of lifelong influence. According to a 1968study on this interaction, this parent-child exchange is precisely the stuff ofattachment, even love. Children and parents begin their journey together througha dance of influence and response, played out on a stage of interaction. Fromthe first frame, verbal and nonverbal clues fill the family room and quicklydefine a dynamic that will set the tone for an entire childhood.

This first taste of the power of influence begins a process of developing andunderstanding our inherent powers in that regard. While social and domesticvariables conspire to take this ability to different places and levels, theuniversal fact is that it is there within us, always available as a power to bereckoned with. Whether that power emerges as harnessing influence to get what wewant or succumbing to it and becoming helpless against the desires of othersremains an issue not so much of fate as of comprehension.

In other words, some get it and some don't.

A Never-Ending Battle for Rewards and Resources

As natural as it is for us to exert and respond to influence, it is a testamentto the power of influence that it takes on so many forms and levels amongadults. The constant battle for rewards and the pressures of competition forresources are woven into the fabric of any organization that's populated withgoal-oriented professionals. They're a virtual petri dish of human psychologythat elevates influence to nothing short of the currency of success.

In trying to cash in this currency, people sometimes overstep ethical and legalboundaries. A recent explosive article in Rolling Stone magazinedetailed how the U.S. Army may have misused some of its "psychologicaloperations" specialists (or PSYOPs, as they're commonly known) to influence U.S.senators who stopped by for visits. These specialists usually train their sightson hostile foreign organizations and individuals to manipulate various beliefs,value systems, and emotions for strategic gains in conflict situations andterritories. In this case, however, the magazine's writer reported that PSYOPstargeted U.S. lawmakers making an appearance in the field, in a calculatedeffort to sway them toward sanctioning additional troops and other resources.Scandal ensued.

Competition for resources is intrinsic to the evolution of any survivingspecies, and the ability to adapt it to the prevailing environment has, for themajority of life on earth, defined who lives and who dies. In the human realm,competition is the fuel of pretty much all that is political, economic, andrelational. We compete for votes; we vie for jobs and money; we battle formarket share; we score the best talent; we strive for prestige, badges of honor,and achievement; and on a global level, we wage war for power, advantage, andthe promulgation of our belief systems. The urge to influence is as old asrecorded history, and thus it comprises the very essence of human dynamics andevolution.

Winning the Battle with Influence

Whether by carrot or stick or any of the more nuanced forms of influence alongthe spectrum, everything we desire, negotiate, measure, and reward is theproduct of our ability to exert influence successfully. As our species hasevolved, our brains have literally grown larger, actually tripling in size overthe past two million years, according to a study by David Geary, professor ofpsychological studies at the University of Missouri College of Arts and Science.Natural selection drove this evolution as the complexity of needs became more,well, complex over the centuries. This phenomenon among humans is precisely dueto the natural instinct to compete for rewards, because humans do it in a moresocially complex and environmentally varied manner than other species, whosebrains are largely the same size as they were when giant reptiles roamed theplanet. The fastest lion eats; the slowest gazelle gets eaten. But with us,economic and social survival is a much more complex and delicate proposition.

With all our available intellectual square footage, two thousand millennia ofevolution, and more rewards than ever up for grabs, our heightened interest inmastering the art of influence is more than understandable. Those who havemastered it are the ones in the corner offices, while the rest of us have tosome degree clung to those first pangs of need expressed through crying out andsmiling in the hope of getting something in return. That's because, whileinstinctual, exerting influence at the level at which it becomes effective in acomplex economy and culture is as much a learned psychological art as it is agift of gab.

Our Values Are Targets for Influence

To truly understand the power of influence, one needs to grasp the context fromwhich it springs. According to Shalom H. Schwartz, Ph.D., of the HebrewUniversity of Jerusalem, values are the result of belief systems linkedto emotions, and thus they are a strong motivating factor in our daily decisionmaking. These values define the sweet spot for intended influence, because theultimate goal is to point the decision making of others to the destination ofour choice.

According to Dr. Schwartz, our motivations are colored by 10 distinct beliefsthat do not distinguish between where we live or who we are in terms ofworldview:

1. Self-direction: The ability to choose; act on preference; and create,discover, and explore options

2. Stimulation: The experience of energy, excitement, and challenge

3. Hedonism: Gratification achieved through maximizing pleasure

4. Achievement: The channeling of competence toward specific goals thatare socially accepted or elicit approval

5. Power: Dominance or control, often imbued with prestige and status

6. Security: A sense of safety and stability relative to ourrelationships and ourselves

7. Conformity: The avoidance of responses and actions with negativeconsequences or the risk of disapproval, demonstrated through restraint anddenial

8. Tradition: Conformity with customs and practices defined by religion,culture, or long-held belief systems that elicit respect and acceptance

9. Benevolence: The furtherance of others' well-being, especially thosewith whom we have personal relationships

10. Universalism: A respect and caring for all aspects of nature andother people through appreciation, tolerance, and understanding

The depth of this analysis subordinates the very things that make influence intoday's world more challenging than ever: the astounding breadth of humanexperience and modes of socialization. Never before have we faced this manyoptions with this level of competition for rewards. The scope of potentialinfluence is unprecedented; so much so that we may find it hard to link ourdesires to our values, at least until we begin to question our motivations andself-knowledge. Self-reflection rather than basic instinct is the basis of anevolved self in an evolved culture, and the art of influence is the beneficiaryof this process. Our efforts to change or even sway someone's mind are hinderedif we don't comprehend the motivations of our audience or opposition.

Effective influence counts on our understanding of why people resist change evenwhen an idea or opportunity serves their interests. Influence isn't as muchabout packaging truths for others as it is about presenting those truths in sucha way that others think they have realized and discovered the ideas forthemselves rather than hearing them from us. Among the many factors at the coreof resistance is the myriad of belief systems and values that divide our cultureinto so many subsets and isolated silos of like-minded people. These systems areso powerful that they can conquer logic and evidence, which is why someextremists blow themselves up in the name of their beliefs. This is as truewithin organizations—and for organizations—as it is in anyother subgroup. A culture is a hard thing to change and an even harder thing toinfluence if your intention departs from accepted and well-understood norms.

As leaders, we need to anticipate what it takes to effect change and thus how toshape our efforts to exert influence. A number of esteemed scholars have alignedbehind seven basic phases of the cycle of change that influencers need toconsider when mounting an effort to move an audience off the status quo. Thissequence is as follows:

1. Business as usual: The same-as-it-ever-was modality, a frozen state

2. External threat: The potential for loss; impending disaster; anending of sorts; a shift via the introduction of a new element

3. Denial: A simple refusal to look at evidence, consider probabilities,and face the truth

4. Mourning: The dark and confusing state of letting go of what was

5. Acceptance: The final letting go of the past with an open mind towhat comes next

6. Renewal: The discovery of new realizations, the thrill of newbeginnings and forward movement, the sense of vision morphing into reality, thefruition of hope

7. New structure: The new becoming the status quo with a sense ofstability and permanence

Attached to this values-anchored resistance to change is the presence ofemotional inertia, or the simple lack of the energy required to do thingsdifferently. Influence is the energy that trumps inertia and whatever subtextualcommitment defies the logic of a better path. What appears to be resistance maysimply be two opposing emotional forces battling it out. Influential leadersfind a way to discover and understand what these conflicting beliefs and forcesare.

Employees who demonstrate repeated self-defeating behavior are examples ofcompeting belief systems rather than overt opposition. Take the example of ayoung man who, in his free time, plays in a rock band and remains close andintegral to the social group that embraces him in that area of his life. On thejob, he demonstrates good work habits, is well liked and trouble-free, andconsistently performs at a level that meets and often exceeds expectations. Buthe has been passed over for promotion in favor of seemingly lesserperformers—it may have something to do with his bloodshot eyes from late-night rehearsals and a sometimes-visible neck tattoo; his performance reviewsnote that he doesn't quite fit in with the corporate culture and needs to workon integrating with the team. Given time and access, a psychologist mightdiscover that this fellow is having trouble letting go of his underlyingidentity as a rebel and resists turning into just another one of the "suits" atthe office, despite sharing their work ethic and their professional goals. Thereis potential for reconciliation at both ends of this dynamic, however, if theemployee learns of and is given the opportunity to manage his apparent biasagainst prevailing corporate culture and understand the organization's bias forcultural conformity; the organization itself benefits from self-reflectingstakeholders and leaders who discover that by loosening up their archetypicalprototype candidate profile, their influence leads to better forward-lookingchoices, unencumbered by hidden layers of skewed belief and prejudicialthinking.

A Closer Look at Our "Irrational" Behaviors

While it is perhaps paradoxical, many of us tend to think we know whereinexplicable behaviors and belief systems come from. The closer they are tohome, the more we think we understand, and as it turns out, it is less likelythat we do. That's because an entire grad school year of human psychology couldhardly account for what motivates us to act on or resist incoming influence.Again, effective influencers understand this level of complexity and use it tobreak down barriers more quickly and completely.

The presence of a psychological factor sometimes imbues irrationality withlegitimacy. Take, for example, someone who has trouble remembering things.Without acknowledging that anything may be wrong, we assign this behavior tobeing scatterbrained, overloaded, or unfocused. But the moment we know forcertain that a chemical imbalance is in play, the memory issue switches contextto something that explains the behavior and elicits a different, more tolerantresponse. It also provides an opportunity to improve it.

Supposedly rational behavior in modern economic culture stems from decisions andactions that serve the interests and rewards of the decider. But there are ampleexamples of people who do the exact opposite of what's expected; they resistthat which might help them and adopt beliefs and demonstrate behaviors thatinevitably come back to bite them in some way. Almost as if this were theirintention from square one. Are they masochists in full command of their path, ordoes something else—an issue of psychological imbalance orneurochemistry—take over at the moment of decision?

The answer is that it could be either or neither. In the growing field ofbehavioral economics, leading researchers such as Daniel Kahneman, Amos Tversky,Richard Thaler, and Predictably Irrational author Dan Ariely havesufficiently debunked the notion that humans are rational at all. Instead ofrationality, the effective influencer looks for cues to determine the mostlikely causal factor for a person's "irrationality" and goes from there.

Sometimes the human voice of unreason that stands in the way of positivedecision making is social rather than biochemical. We have to look no furtherthan the community of extremist martyrs to recognize this. Are they all mentallyill? Chemically imbalanced? Or have they been conditioned and programmed to suchan extent that their neural pathways run in a direction that aligns with theirbelief systems and trumps their sense of self and any resident fear? Almostcertainly this is the case, and it completely frames the context of any attemptto rationalize with or influence such people.

Whether biological, chemical, or social, if our beliefs are "irrational," so toowill be our behaviors. Our brains dictate our choices before they are even onthe table, according to a study conducted at the University of Minnesota. Awidely cited example is what researchers call the gambler's fallacy,which posits that when gamblers believe there is an emerging pattern in anotherwise random deck of cards, they play according to self-proclaimedprobability. They believe they're "hot" and will continue to win.

Maybe they will, maybe not. But it's one of the reasons why "the house alwayswins." Gamblers who see a pattern where randomness is the only thing controllingthe cards will follow that pattern right into bankruptcy.

For the more "rational" heads among us, that may be an offbeat example. Everyoneknows that gamblers have a problem—one which thankfully doesn't affect youand me. Right?

If you believe that, a quick mental trip to the stock market should sober youup.

Irrationality in the Stock Market

After the economic crash of 2008, behavioral finance was once again a hot topicin the debate about what went wrong. The early research of Amos Tversky andDaniel Kahneman offered some answers. They called it prospect theory.Specifically, they learned that investors—all humans really—valuegains and losses differently. When it comes to potential losses, our panic maybe disproportionately greater than the pleasure we take in the prospect ofpotential gains. In a nutshell, the idea of losing $100 hits us twice as hard asthe idea of gaining $100. In this context, the scholars also discovered thatinvestors—and the rest of us—are much more open to risk to avoid anylosses than we are to capture potential gains.

Leavey School of Business's Meir Statman, an expert in behavioral finance, saysthat people actually grieve after having made bad decisions, including financialones. For most people, facing the prospect of selling a particular stock isanything but a rational search for clues; rather, it is an emotional exercisetightly connected to the difference in how much we paid for the stock versus howmuch we can get for it now.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from 360 Degrees of Influence by HARRISON MONARTH. Copyright © 2012 by Harrison Monarth. Excerpted by permission of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc..
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Edition details

• Publisher: McGraw Hill
• Publication date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 007177355X
• ISBN 13: 9780071773553
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 304