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 influential people make for influential organisations
The founder of our latest programme, Steve Martin, explains why managers should see influence as a joint endeavour, not a solo activity
At one level, influence and persuasion are personal skills, honed by individuals to make an impact at work. But the most important workplace decisions often involve many people: teams speaking to teams, departments to departments and organisations to organisations. Wielding influence in these situations is a collective challenge—and a business imperative. Economist Education spoke to Steve Martin, a behavioural scientist and the founder of our new course, Influence and persuasion in business: strategies to connect, convince and lead. In comments which have been edited for publication, and supplemented with material provided over email, Martin explained why managers should seek to cultivate influence among their workforce.
Economist Education: Why are the skills of influence and persuasion so important to modern businesses?
Steve Martin: Influence and persuasion are everywhere. Whatever someone’s role in an organisation—whether they are the chief executive or just entering a new career—their ability to connect, convince and capture attention is going to be crucial. So this course is relevant to a wide variety of people, organisations and teams, in any industry.
Economist Education: Isn’t influence mainly a skill for managers?
Steve Martin: If the role of a leader is setting out their organisation’s vision and direction, and the role of a manager is marshalling people and resources to achieve those goals, then the ability to influence people up, down and across an organisation is vital to both. But even relatively junior members of staff need influence. So organisations hoping to improve their performance must instil these skills at all levels.
Economist Education: Influence can be a group activity, where one team needs to win the buy-in of another. How does this course fit with that?
Steve Martin: Often we need to persuade not just one person, but a whole group of colleagues, for example when one department needs to convince another, or the leadership of one organisation needs to persuade another firm to partner with them and share information. These are very different situations to influencing one co-worker, but actually the principles that we need to use are the same. All that changes is how we tailor our approach to the context. Participants on this course will learn to apply the skills and tools they learn to a broad range of influence challenges, including those that require them to influence many people, often on a large, organisational scale.
Economist Education: Why should managers nurture the skills of influence and persuasion among their teams?
Steve Martin: It is becoming increasingly clear that it’s no longer OK for us just to have one person in our team who’s skilled in influencing and persuading others. All of us need to be able to do so. It’s no good having a sales team of 50 and only one good persuader, whose shoulders we stand on. It’s really important to improve everyone’s ability to communicate; build new relationships; seek out new opportunities to grow the business; and be more effective, ethical influencers and persuaders. Skilled leaders and managers know this—and work to cultivate the tools of influence among their staff.
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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.
