Influencing people, negotiating and
emotional intelligence (EQ)
Influencing people is...
Winning respect and persuading people to do things for you.
This is closely related to emotional intelligence (often abbreviated as
EQ)
i.e. how good people are in their relationships with others (particularly helping them to do the right
thing).
Academic intelligence (IQ) only accounts for (at most) 20% of career
success – the rest comes from other factors, particularly EQ and luck.
How to influence people and be emotionally intelligent
1. Be kind and take responsibility for others
How?
a) do something for others, however small
– don’t always put yourself first.
b) be empathetic
Put yourself in other people’s shoes and listen and respond to their needs, views and feelings (like Princess
Diana, pictured right).
Concentrate on solutions to their problems and explain your
decisions.
c) help others to help themselves
(by encouraging them to make their own decisions).
d) be patient and keep calm
(particularly when people are stressed and angry).
e) always say sorry, thank you and well done
(when it’s required and unexpected).
f) forgive and forget
Don’t harbour resentment.
g) return good for evil
Revenge leads to hatred.
h) treat everyone the same
(don’t stereotype people).
2. Follow your values (e.g. kindness, honesty, fairness and
humility)
Self-respect is important, so look after yourself as well as other people.
You need to like yourself before you can like and respect others.
Humility is particularly important i.e. don’t be arrogant and think you know it all.
So:
- be aware of your own ignorance.
- be prepared to accept other people’s good ideas.
3. Be assertive
Defend your rights (particularly fair treatment) and learn to say ‘no’ to others.
They will respect you more for it, if there is a good reason.
4. Knowledge
Knowledge gives you power and confidence with others, but it should
be given with compassion and humility.
5. Trust
People must trust you, so keep your promises and be sincere, honest and loyal in bad times as well as good.
6. Self-control
Keep your head when others around you are losing theirs – how?
a) reduce stress
Keep relaxed by:
- reflecting and meditating
- slowly breathing in and out at times of anxiety (counting to ten each time).
b) don’t dive in
Reflect upon the problem and then act quickly with calm decisiveness.
c) perspective
Don’t give greater importance to something than it deserves.
d) keep your sense of humour
Self-deprecating humour is particularly endearing.
7. Self-knowledge
a) know your strengths
(so you can use them to help others).
b) know your weaknesses
(so you don’t hurt anyone with them).
Ask other people how they see you – this may be different to how you see yourself!
8. Be positive, enthusiastic and self-motivated
Helping other people is fun and rewarding – so do it!
9. Discussion
Use debate and constructive disagreement to
- learn what other people want,
- constructively criticize them.
- be prepared to give something up to help others (i.e. compromise and negotiate – see
point 10).
Two-way communication is vital – always listen and respond to what people say.
10. Negotiate well
How? See the 10 tips below.
Tips on
negotiation
1. Before you start, work out where the other side would like to end
up
Identify three positions:
- ideal (what you would really like to have).
- realistic (what you think you’ll get).
- fallback (the minimum you’ll accept).
2. Focus on the problem not the people you are negotiating
with
Look for alternatives providing solutions to both sides.
3. Find common
ground
- create a win-win situation where both sides achieve their objectives.
- focus on common interests, not entrenched positions.
- invent options for mutual gain.
4. Seek and give all necessary
information (but hold some back to use later)
Remember knowledge is power.
5. Empathize
- put yourself in the other side’s position.
- take a break when the going gets tough.
6. Exploit your power
But remember agreement is better for negotiation than coercion.
7. Be prepared to compromise
Identify your BATNA (the best alternative negotiated agreement) .
8. Use occasional summaries to gain agreement
For example, say ‘are we agreed on this, so we can move on to the next point?’
9. Ask lots of questions
But remember listening carefully, silences and responses are just as important - if you say ‘no’ try to make it
look positive!
10. Evaluate any deal
Both sides must be clear about what they're going to gain and lose. So objective criteria must be used to
evaluate the results of a deal.
Key quotes explained
“Be, know, do”
- American army slogan
(African American soldiers in World War Two are pictured
right).
Be a good person, know all you need to know and do everything with maximum effort.
You will do these better, if you continually question yourself to understand yourself better and find the right
way to live
“The unexamined life is not worth living”
- Socrates, Greek philosopher
(pictured right)
The person you are and your attitudes have a big effect on your negotiations.
“Until I changed myself, I could not change others”, the South African leader,
Nelson Mandela, said.
Mandela also said:
“When you are content to be simply yourself and don’t compare and compete, everybody will respect
you”.
“Kindness will attract kindness”
-
Sophocles (the Greek playwright,
pictured right)
Follow Jesus’s advice of giving
wholeheartedly with humility and loving your enemies.
As Abraham Lincoln asked: “Am I not
destroying my enemies, when I make friends of them?”
Love and friendship will destroy fear, suspicion and hatred.
Love is a self-disciplined, conscientious effort to help others.
So the American psychiatrist, Scott
Peck, said: “Laziness is love’s opposite”, because “Love is as love
does”.
“The person who influences me most is not he who does great deeds but he
who makes me feel I can do great deeds”
- Mary
Parker Follett , American
management writer (pictured right)
Great people inspire others by example and doing things for them.
Elie Wiesel, a Jewish
survivor of the Holocaust, said: “The opposite of love is not hate, it's
indifference”.
Turning a blind eye to evil is just as bad as the evil itself.
“Let us never negotiate out of fear but let us never fear to
negotiate”
- John F. Kennedy(American
president, pictured right)
Negotiate with courage, compromise and an understanding of the other side’s position.
“Understanding is a two-way street”, said Eleanor Roosevelt (wife of the American
president Franklin D. Roosevelt).
“I don't like that man. I must get to know him better”
- Abraham Lincoln, American
president (pictured right)
Bad relationships come from inadequate knowledge and understanding of the other person’s position.
Best books
Daniel Goleman
(pictured right), Emotional Intelligence
(1996)
Popularized the idea of EQ and its importance over IQ.
Success is a mixture of heart (caring for others) and head (tough
minded logic).
(For more detail see Emotional
Intelligence in the Business Books section)
Danah Zohar and Ian Marshall (pictured right), Spiritual Intelligence
(2000)
Spiritual intelligence (SQ) is closely related to EQ and comes from:
- values and principles (from reflection).
- vision (wanting to make a difference).
- lifelong learning (from openness to new ideas).
Dale Carnegie (pictured right), How to Win Friends and Influence People
(1936)
Successful relationships come from empathy, sensitivity and motivating people (by letting
them think your idea is theirs and always keeping them positive and enthusiastic).
(For more detail see How to Win Friends
and Influence People in the Business Books section)
Thomas Harris (pictured
right), I’m OK – You’re OK (1973)
Popularized Eric Berne’s idea of transactional analysis (TA) that
says we communicate and interact with other people through different roles. For example:
- Parent-child – someone (the parent role) tells another (the child) to do
something.
- Adult – the role for working something out with logical and creative analysis.
Desmond Morris (pictured
right), Manwatching (1977)
There are five ways we behave in our relationships:
- Self-assertive (helps me, harms you).
- Self-indulgent (helps me, no effect on you).
- Co-operative (helps me, helps you) – also called enlightened
self-interest.
- Courteous (no effect on me, helps you).
- Altruistic (harms me, helps you) – compassionate self-sacrifice.
M. Scott
Peck (pictured right), The Road Less Travelled
(1985)
Love is working very hard at being kind to people, so laziness is the opposite of love.
John Gray (pictured
right), Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus (1993)
Men and women are different, and they have to accept and respect these differences to get on well together.
Men like power and achieving things, so they don’t like to be corrected or told what to do and need to be
accepted, admired and encouraged.
Women value love and relationships and need caring, understanding, devotion and re-assurance.
Roger Fisher (pictured top
right) and William Ury (pictured bottom right,
Getting To Yes (1981)
“Principled negotiation” is best where you don't concentrate
on the people involved but:
-
the merits of your case.
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