Influence and Win All Your Colleagues!

It is essen­tial to influ­ence your col­leagues to get things done.  How do you win and cap­ture their heart and mind so that they can work things for you?  Do you exert your author­ity or do you use unscrupu­lous meth­ods to make them work?  Using neg­a­tive meth­ods (as what we pointed) will only bring you fur­ther from get­ting closer to your col­leagues.  Yes, you may have got­ten what you want.  But this will man­i­fest into neg­a­tive sen­ti­ments towards you in future.  You may not be able to have their full sup­port in future.  There­fore, it is pru­dent and wise that you need to win your col­leagues heart using the right meth­ods!  Find out more with our tips here.

Find out what is the most essen­tial or impor­tant thing that is so dear to your col­leagues. Marslow Hier­ar­chy of Needs is a good the­ory you can adopt to under­stand how your col­leagues think.  You may or may not have heard before, that’s ok.  Basi­cally, you want to know the pend­ing con­cern that they have when you want to influ­ence them.  Is it their pro­mo­tion and career progress that is impor­tant to them?  Is it the com­pen­sa­tion and over­time pay?  Is it fewer hours in the office or being able to leave office ear­lier than the others?

This relates to another mod­ern the­ory – WIFM or “What’s in for me?” This is more anal­o­gous in what is ben­e­fi­cial to them.  Col­leagues that have tasks on hand will always pri­or­i­tize what­ever is impor­tant to them.  There­fore, by intro­duc­ing new things to them through influ­enc­ing, they will def­i­nitely ask “What’s in for me?” if they were to help you.

Why is some­one hes­i­tant to work over­time for a project?  There must be some rea­sons behind it and it’s your job to find out.  It can be they are rush­ing to watch a bas­ket ball match with his friends?  Or plain rea­son, off office hours is my time so doesn’t bother me, which gen­er­ally is the rea­son.  So how can you use “car­rots” to entice them to work for you?  You have to find out from them as dif­fer­ent indi­vid­u­als have dif­fer­ent desires.

Some­times, it’s exter­nal fac­tors that cause your col­leagues not to be influ­enced by your ideas.  Is it pol­icy and reg­u­la­tions?  Is it lim­ited bud­get from your cus­tomer if it is influ­enc­ing a sales deci­sion?  Is it their wife that will be nag­ging them for com­ing home late?

This applies to your bosses as well.  What does the boss have in mind at the moment?  Is it the sales quota for the quar­ter that is caus­ing his con­cerns?  Or is it some­thing that you never thought before (as he is the boss), such as, he wants to spend some time with his daugh­ter after promis­ing her to bring her out this week­end for a fish­ing trip.  After all, he is still human (not god) and will have things that is impor­tant to him (at that point of time).

So before you approach any­one to influ­ence your ideas, always find out about the back­ground of your col­league.  He or she will have a basic set of needs and wants.  Tar­get them.  Influ­ence your ideas by tar­get­ing their needs and wants.  Peo­ple may change over time so be sure to find out what is their needs and wants at that point time.  If you are able to mem­o­rize each and everyone’s needs and wants, good for you!  If you can’t, try to keep a jour­nal after talk­ing to them.  It will come in handy in future when you need to influ­ence them again!

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