Get fresh perspectives and insights into the actionable approaches needed to build back smarter after inflation. Be inspired to transform your organisation while delivering profits.
Get fresh perspectives and insights into the actionable approaches needed to build back smarter after inflation. Be inspired to transform your organisation while delivering profits.
Get fresh perspectives and insights into the actionable approaches needed to build back smarter after inflation. Be inspired to transform your organisation while delivering profits.
Why anyone can become more influential at work
The founder of Economist Education’s latest course argues that influence is an indispensable workplace skill—and one that can be honed
The workings of influence are all around us. Those professionals with the power of persuasion can put their ideas into practice at work by bringing their colleagues along with them. Those without influence can find themselves languishing in the background while others take the big decisions. Our new two-week course, Influence and persuasion in business: strategies to connect, convince and lead, is built on the insight that influence is teachable. Steve Martin, a behavioural scientist and the programme’s founder, spoke to Economist Education about the nature of influence and how, by mastering a framework based on evidence, economics and emotion, participants can enhance their authority in the workplace. His answers have been edited for length and clarity.
Economist Education: Why are influence and persuasion important skills in modern business?
Steve Martin: Because influence is everything. Without it, nothing gets done. Messages don’t get heard; people don’t change. So an ability to influence and persuade people is crucial to succeeding at work.
Economist Education: What is this programme trying to achieve?
Steve Martin: Let’s be clear: influencing people is hard. There are thousands of potential influence strategies that we can employ. What this course does is provide you with the most reliable, robust and important ones. It gives you the tools to connect with people, capture attention, and effectively and ethically persuade others.
Economist Education: What if you’re not good at influencing others?
Steve Martin: A lot of people think the ability to influence others is a God-given skill—one that some people are born with, while others look on enviously as their own goals go unrealised. That’s simply not true. Influence is based on a set of principles and tools that anyone can use to become a more effective leader.
Economist Education: What are some of the main takeaways from the course?
Steve Martin: Some of them might, at first glance, be a little surprising. We might think that to get our voice heard, all we need to do is provide more data—more information. But actually that’s often not the case. Instead, to have the desired impact we may need to combine that evidence with a careful mix of economic arguments and emotional considerations.
What you’ll get from this course is a framework for wielding those three components of influence: evidence, economics and emotion. You can use them in any professional situation and significantly improve the chances of people saying “yes” to you.
Economist Education: Is it possible to influence other people in a way that doesn’t compromise who you are?
Steve Martin: A lot of people have a slightly negative view of influence and persuasion, thinking that they’re tools for coercion—for manipulation. Now, that might apply to some people who use these tools. But the majority of us want to influence people in a morally responsible way, and for a very important reason: we aren’t interested in just influencing someone once. We need to build longer-term relationships, and it’s entirely possible to influence others so that you win today and you win in the future, too.
Economist Education: What final advice do you have about influencing others in business?
Steve Martin: Be more human. We all have access to information at the click of a button, the swipe of a screen—too much information. When it comes to connecting with others, those that apply the human touch will often be at an advantage.
If you’re interested in exploring Economist Education’s course on influence and persuasion, click here.
Find out more on this topic in our course...
Influence and persuasion in business
Do you feel powerless or persuasive at work? This course provides psychological principles to equip you to be more influential in all sorts of settings. Explore a practical, flexible framework for influence to apply in common workplace situations—and become a better leader.
