How You'll Do Better: Manufacturing Influence

Here's what'll change.

The world will present itself somewhat differently;. You'll see the emotion-driven decision-making going on around you with an unusual clarity, as a kind of ongoing bargaining process. And you'll respond like a world-class negotiator.

You'll stay calmer longer. You'll step back more easily than others. You'll contemplate solutions while others are still venting. 

You'll ask questions, rather than lecturing. Questions that will take the heat out of the room, put the other person off-balance, engage them. All while arming you with an understanding of the problem from their perspective, which you'll use to express your solution in their language.

You'll have indefatigable charm, persuasive persistence. This approach is deeply frustrating to the pushy and ill-intentioned, because they can neither set you off nor get around you. To the unfocused, you're the best person to bounce ideas off, because you drive a process that ends in clarity and fairness. While to the underdog, the eccentric, the misunderstood genius - the bearer of that unusual idea that might change everything - you're their favored ally, the one who can be trusted to push the best idea to the top.

Most ordinary folk - those who play it out minute-to-minute, the bickerers and game-players, the whiners and battlers - will look at you with that special respect reserved for those who play the long-game well. They won't quite understand how it is that the best ideas tend to win out when you're in the room, how often those ideas seem to come from you or through you, how strangely willing they are to let go their attachment to their own ideas. And because they don't lose face with you (even when angry), because they get a fair hearing and feel they have a fair chance to win when they're right, because they can earn your respect, they'll continue to turn to you.

Now, you'll never be able to stay completely out of trouble - you'll still be human. However, the arguments you do have will be shorter and do less harm. You'll surprise yourself and those around you with the quality of the solutions you generate under pressure. You'll make others feel part of the process. Your conflicts might even serve to drive intimacy in your life. Intimacy?

Yes. Here's how Persuasive Under Pressures defines intimacy: When there is conflict, each person involved feels - knows - there is zero chance the relationship will be thrown out of orbit because of it. As a persuasive person, those you deal with will come to believe they are more important to you than the disagreement. This builds trust and manufactures influence. By the very way you manage a difficult, conflictive, persuasive process, they will like you more. Even if you all continue to disagree. Intimacy.

In short, in all sorts of environments, you'll be more efficient. When others are losing their heads, you'll be the calmest, most strategic person in the room.