3 Big Mistakes You Make When You Try to Influence

You have to be good at influence to get what you want in this world.

You want the design of a product to go a certain way. Or you’re dead set against a proposed deadline and have to talk your boss out of it. Or you want to persuade someone to fund your project.

You need to influence the outcome of a decision and you think to yourself “I’ve got this one!”

But do you?

If you’re making one of these common influence mistakes, don’t even waste your breath. It’s not going to work.

Mistake #1: Over-weighting Facts

Surely, if you have enough charts and graphs, your audience will be sold on your point of view…right?

Not likely.

Human decision making is far less logical than you think. The person you’re influencing is trying to make a decision he is comfortable with; and that’s an emotional decision not a rational one. Even engineers aren’t as Vulcan as they like to think.

The facts you present should be aimed at shifting how the decision makers feels about your request.

You need facts that increase their excitement about what’s possible.