How influence actually works

0:01NPR.

0:11This is The Indicator from Planet Money. I'm Adrian Ma. And I'm Waylon Wong. Influence. The ability to persuade, motivate, or connect with other people. It's one of these skills that's hard to measure, but incredibly important in the world of work. Steve Martin knows this because he's the faculty director of behavioral science at Columbia Business School. And for years, he's been studying what makes people influential within organizations. It's at the core of everything. It's around us. Without influence, nothing gets done and nothing changes. And yet Steve argues that we often misunderstand how influence works.

0:48So today on the show, Adrian's conversation with Steve. He distills his decades of research to explain the unspoken rules of influence in the workplace.

1:04This message comes from NPR sponsor Zendesk. Introducing the next generation of AI agents built to deliver resolutions for everyone. With an easy setup that can be completed in minutes, not months, Zendesk AI agents resolve 30 % of interactions instantly, quickly giving your customers what they need. Loved by over 10 ,000 companies, Zendesk AI makes service teams more efficient, businesses run better, and your customers happier. That's the Zendesk AI effect. Find out more at zendesk.com. Just to set the table, what is influence? I mean, that sounds like a basic question. I think it's a good question, actually.

1:41When I think about influence, I think about it as a change that you are able to affect in someone else as a result of a message that you deliver to them, a request that you make of them, or perhaps it's an incentive that you offer. But the core to influence, Adrian, is to have an impact or a change on someone else. That's what influence is. Early in your book, you talk about some of the common myths and misconceptions that we have about the way influence works. What are some of your favorite of these myths? I think many of us believe that if we simply provide people with information, give them the facts, then they'll listen to us and they'll be influenced by that information and those facts.

2:30But actually the evidence that it's an effective mechanism for influence and change is actually very poor. Because from the moment we wake up in the mornings to the moment we go to bed in the evenings, all of us are overwhelmed with information already. And so the analogy I use, it's rather like pouring water onto an already full bucket. It just seeps over the side. And so the reality is that there's really no evidence at all that suggests that information alone is an effective mechanism to get someone to listen to you and to change. There's another popular idea that if you want to know how to influence people, just ask them what would influence them.

3:10But you say that the research doesn't really back this up either. For instance, there's an interesting experiment you write about where researchers asked people what would get them to recycle more. Could you tell us about that experiment? Yeah, exactly right. So we give people four messages. One is about do it for the kids, future generations. Another one is, hey, if you recycle more, you can consider yourself an environmentally friendly family. Another message simply said, hey, here's how you can save money if you recycle. And a fourth message said, a lot of your neighbors are finding ways to recycle more and reduce their energy consumption.

3:47We show these messages to people and we ask them to rank them in terms of the one that will have the most motivational impact and influence over them down to the least. And people typically rate the environmental message as the most motivating. And the message about their neighbors is the least likely to have any influence. But then when we present these messages to people in their neighborhoods, we put them on bus stops, we put them on door hangers in front of their homes and things, and then measure their recycling and their energy consumption on those days. It turns out the message that they say will have the biggest influence over them has no influence at all.

4:25And the message that they rejected that their neighbors wouldn't have any influence over them at all, that was the only message that actually did influence their behavior. So there's a really good example of what we think influences our behavior is very different to the reality. So those are some common myths and misconceptions. But you say research has actually shown us how effective influence can work. You've distilled what you've learned into a sort of formula you call the influence equation. And you argue that effective influence is essentially made up of three things. So it turns out that any of us, all of us, in fact, can be a little more influential, boost our powers of persuasion, if we craft our message based on the optimal combination of evidence, economics, and emotions.

5:13Put another way, Adrian, influence is all about the right mix of facts, finances, and feelings. I love the alliteration here. So, emotions, economics, and evidence, or facts, finances, and feelings. I wonder if we could go through each of these categories one by one, because it's still a little abstract to me. What's some advice you would have for people trying to influence with facts and evidence? We live in a world where we're so overwhelmed with information, and so the research now is very, very strongly advocating that when we present our ideas, less really is more. In fact, the evidence actually shows that the moment that we try to present more than three ideas, people become more skeptical and they become more resistant to our ideas.

5:58And so the amount of evidence we present is important too. What about the second piece of your equation? How do people use finances or economics to influence people, you know, besides the obvious of offering people money? Sometimes it's the way we actually present it. Let me give an example. If you're asking for a pay rise, the advice is don't ask for a pay rise that has a round-ended number. Don't ask for 10%. Ask for 8.65 % or 11.25%. The research actually shows is that when you ask for something and you use a precise number, people are more inclined to believe that there's a good reason why you've asked for that precise number.

6:40Interesting. Okay. The third part of your influence equation is emotions or feelings. How might we think about those? I think there's two things that we can do here. The first is we can choose our timing. People in a good mood tend to be more inclined to say yes to our requests than people in a bad mood. So the message here is that we don't have to change our request. We just have to change our timing for it to be optimal. Consider the emotional state of the person that you're interacting with. You're exactly right. Consider the emotional state. Now, here's another thing we can do, though. We can actually create emotions.

7:17People create emotions by telling stories. Some of the stories we can tell might be inspiring and exciting to people. And we know that in emotional states like excitement and inspiration, people think much, much quicker. They're more likely to want to grasp opportunities and gain things. And so if that's our message, creating that environment of excitement and awe might be a good thing. And in that example you gave of somebody going to their boss and asking for a raise, they could tell a story about, hey, you hired me. You took a chance on me. And you were right. Entirely consistent. Further confirmation of your brilliance.

7:57It is. It is. It is. You made a good decision. You made a good decision to employ me. We've been working well together. Look at the results that we've actually generated. And in that context, I'm not going to ask you for a 25 % pay rise. I think that would be wholly inappropriate. But maybe a 6.73 % pay rise. Sounds about realistic. And there you've got your contrast and your precise number working for you as well as the emotion. I love it. Okay. Okay. So I think this gives us a sense of what the research says about how effective influence works at work. But I know some people are going to be listening and thinking, this feels a little icky to me.

8:39Like the idea that you can sort of decode people's psychologies and influence them, that could be used in a way that's maybe unethical. So what do you have to say to that? Well, first of all, I completely agree with you. The fact is, is that these can be tools, approaches that can be used in irresponsible, unethical, perhaps even dishonest ways. I wouldn't recommend it. Doing something unethical, manipulating your colleague into a decision at work, that might win you the outcome in that moment, but you've destroyed the relationship forever. We have what we call our favorite sister test. And it's basically, would you be happy with someone doing this with your favorite sister or your auntie?

9:23And if you can say yes to those three things, it's truthful, it's wise, and it passes the favorite sister test. Generally speaking, that falls on the side of it's sound and it's probably ethically sound too. Do you have a favorite sister? I do have a favorite sister. Her name is Joanne. Love her dearly. How does your other sister feel about that? I'm kind of hoping she doesn't listen to this podcast. This episode was produced by Corey Bridges with engineering by Kweisi Lee. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. KK Cannon is our editor, and The Indicator is a production of NPR.