choublak

Is the name of a college course, as well as the subject of several books. Proposal design, writing for sales, public relations and media, persuasive technique and organization.

If it is impossible to change another person, if you can't change someone with your words, then what is the point of all of these classes and books that teach how to do just that?

Disclaimer: I am not in any way trying to use persuasive communication on anyone in my personal life. I simply thought it would be interesting to talk about.

Isollae

Martin Luther King would have alot of eloquent words to explain just why it matters!

On a smaller level, it helps us as parents to teach and guide our children. Especially if we have highly intelligent, strong willed children that we want to grow up with their will, ability to question and self-esteem intact.

In the work force, its the persuasive people who make good team leaders, bosses, managers etc. Those skills help you to keep your employees motivated, happy and freer to give you 100% of their abilities.

In a healthy marriage it can help you to state your thoughts and feelings in ways that don't hurt or offend your loved one.

Words matter a great deal. Its the big difference between an animal and man. We'll never know what a dog really thinks but man....ah, there we can know everything! We need it expressed in a way that lets us/others process it all for the words to have their full meaning however.

skippernlilg

People don't generally get persuaded unless they want to.

Impurrfect

(((choublak))) - good point! While I know there are people I can't change with my words, I also know of others who have told me "I remember when you told me..." and it's been years later?

I think, like ((Skipper)) said, people have to be open to it. When I was using, the only thing that had much of an impact on me was handcuffs and jail cells. Even then, it took a few times of that to persuade me that I might want to change.

When I was a raging codie, I went through two copies of "codie no more", highlighted, etc. I wasn't ready. Just the other day, I was telling a friend of things another friend of ours had told me 20 years ago about my behaviors. I wasn't ready then, but I still remember her exact words.

I don't know about you, but I've walked in a store with the idea of getting something and walked out with it, thanks to some persuasion by a salesperson. Other times, I walk out empty handed. When I waited tables and worked at McD's, I was really good at "suggestive selling", but telling my niece she really needs to get her GED falls on deaf ears.

I think it boils down to knowing when your words are not having an effect and letting it go?

Hugs and prayers,

Amy

Cyranoak

The point is to influence decisions and effectively advance your agenda or that of your company. Professionally there is a place for it and it is important. Personally there is not.

My two cents.

Cyranoak

Tuffgirl

Like Impurrfect notes, I have found out later that I did "change someone with my words", but it was through encouragement, not persuasion. Offering a different viewpoint, not demanding they "change". Ultimately, changing was their choice, not my actions.

I think there's a big difference between persuasive communication and encouraging/inspiring communication. But I also know many people, especially in the business world, often confuse the two.

lillamy

As usual, Cyrano concisely summed up what I was trying to verbalize.

Programmatic

There's persuasive speaking and that is not demanding.

There's persuasive living and it begins with me.

Persuasion is just that, an open opportunity with no attached consequences for failing to be persuaded. Everything else falls under the heading of things like demands, blackmail, duress and coercion.

Thlayli

Maybe it's not that we change someone but we help create a situation that encourages them to be open to listening to us?

I have an article on my desk that is by the author of "Instant Influence: How to Get Anyone to Do Anything - Fast." I want the book but haven't bought it yet. I kept the article because I work with youth who are at-risk. Our program can be "voluntary" but it's typically the parents who are pressuring the kids to do it.

The author suggests that I could ask a question like: "On a scale of 1-10 how ready are you to get help." Most of the youth I work with would answer 5 or under (under meaning not very ready). I could then follow up with "Why did you not pick a lower number" This causes them to defend their answer and focus on the positive. If they pick "1" you can ask "what could turn that 1 into a 2?"

It intrigues me. I think it's helping them to reframe things to see the good of something. It's helping them convince themselves. Which can be what good sales is, yes?

choublak

Yes, but, you can't do the same with alcoholics or addicts.

Isollae

This is my concept of persuasive speaking. Its not about making them change or demanding change...its about helping them to see good choices.

And its definitely not something worth even trying with an alcoholic. With most people its not even needed.

For others, for whatever reason, it is.

With my youngest child, I think its needed. She has blamed a stone for tripping her and needs guidance to see that the stone is not at fault and that she has to think and make choices. My oldest only seems to need my love and encouragement and as sane an outlook on life as I can offer her.

StarCat

They say in things like hypnosis that you cannot convince someone to do something they would not be willing to do already. I think that persuasion is sort of like that.

I cannot convince someone to climb a mountain, but the words I use can someday turn into something for them to hold onto at some point on that mountain when they decide to climb it for themselves.
And the same is true for me - if I am not ready then all the persuasion in the world will not convince me, and in all likelihood will convince me to do the complete opposite if the "persuader" is forceful enough. That said, put an idea in my head and it will bounce around in my brain until I decide what I'm willing to do with that idea, and it might be ten years later until I have that answer but that doesn't mean the words themselves should not have been spoken.

A well-framed phrase spoken at the right time to invoke another to think can lead to amazing results. But here it cannot be with an expectation of a required result, and it cannot lean upon a particular timeframe, or with intent to change someone's mind so that they agree with your opinion so much as cause them to re-examine their perceptions and opinions and determine if they need to change something.

Anything else, any form of attempting to persuade someone to do something they would not typically do, is merely some form of manipulation. It may work in the short term, but in the long term relationships of any form cannot be built on this, and everything will fall apart eventually unless the issue is rectified as soon as it becomes an issue.
This is why addicts require new enablers when their current enablers wear out. This is the breeding ground of resentment.

lillamy

I think with true personal change of whatever kind, it has to come from within. It has to be an internal conviction that leads to the motivation to change. Like an old pastor of mine used to say: "Anyone who can be talked into the Kingdom of God can be talked out of it."

I think that's true of most fundamental personal change.

Persuasive writing and speaking usually isn't about that kind of fundamental change -- the kind that makes you sell your belongings and join Mother Theresa's convent because you want to make a difference in the world. Or the kind that makes you go against an addiction and decide you're done and need recovery and sobriety. It's more about more "superficial" behavior changes: What deodorant you use, what soda you drink, which politician you vote for. (Not calling politics superficial, but it's different than making a radical behavior change in your life.)

scrambled2012

While it is impossiable to know if we can influence another individual with certainty, by virtue of the human condition it is known that we can influence people overall through interpersonal and mass communications. In the legal world, this phenomina is captured with laws against "incitement to riot," "hate speech" (a very constitionally questionable concept), and the notion of it being wrong to "cry fire in a crowded theater." Clearly, communications given and recieved influence the behaviors of people. This concept is also captured by the word "propaganda," which is actually all information uttered by an identifiable entity, for good or for evil (post WW2 we in the West tend to use the term to describe only utterences we disagree with, but it isnt the true meaning of the word).

When it comes to influencing people in the areas of sales or politics, there first must be an opportunity to communicate. Then follows the building of shared references that assist in clear communication, and the building of a rapport (trust or mutual identification of some kind). To the degree some kind of problem or threat is the reason for the communication, this process is quickened. It is said that salespeople then sell not products, but rather solutions...so a drill bit salesmen isn't selling drill bits, he or she is selling a better way to make a hole. By communicating this better way, if it is indeed a better way, the reasonable buyer will--all else held equal--buy the product. So too are polititions selling solutions, but because political and economic problems are so complex, they are often simply striving to prove they are smart enough to solve issues we workers dont' have the time to address or understand.

With counseling or something like that, there is the assumption that a client is interested in solving some known or unknown set of problems. There must be that build up of trust, and a give-and-take to clarify priorities and put together an action plan that will help solve these problems. To the degree this plan is adopted and does what it is supposed to do for the client, we can say the person has in fact "changed" in some way. But, for sure, any given individual can and will ignore reason, ignore clear evidence of problems, tune out those attempting to communicate reasonably and in thier best interests, and totally resist change.

Thats my story and I'm sticking too it