“That stupid kid. He says, ‘yes’, but then he won’t do it.” Have you ever been frustrated with someone’s inaction even after they agreed? This is the sort of phrase we hear when we’re ignoring the second law of influence. We think all we have to do is to get them to agree, and then we’ve influenced them. Hooray! Ugh, guess again.
If you missed reading about the first law of influence or would like a quick reminder, you can look at it here.
The second law of influence states that to influence someone, they must want the change themselves.
When you truly influence someone, they will do it because they want to, not because you want them to. External motivation only results in compliance at best, and compliance isn’t influence. When you truly influence someone, they will keep on going even after you have left their world. With compliance, as soon as you leave, they stop.
Think about your workplace. Are the workers compliant, or are they self motivated? How would it look if the workers were self motivated? Would there be an air of gratitude, expectation, success, and fun? In my experience, there is nothing more draining than a department of compliant workers.
The key to making the second law of influence work is to tap into the drives and motivations of the other person. Maybe they don’t yet know that they want to engage in your project, for example. But you can help them see the vision and why it will be worthy of their effort.
Of course, if you don’t see the value in your project, you’re going to have a really hard time enrolling others in it. Often the first step is using the second law of influence to enroll ourself into our own change effort.
Where can you use the second law of influence this week?
