When I am feeling especially honest, I admit that success in
business depends in large measure on one's ability to
influence others—to get them to do what we want.
Customers need to be convinced to make a purchase. Employees need
to be convinced to make a sale or build a product or whatever their
job may be in order to make that sale possible. They may even need
to be convinced to pack up their things and leave peaceably when a
termination or layoff is appropriate.
As a business leader, you often find yourself in a position of
having to exert influence over others. Businesses succeed by
getting hundreds, thousands, even millions of people to behave in
desired ways in order to help accomplish the business's goals.
And this means the owners and managers are in the wholesale
business of modifying human behavior.
A scary thought on a number of levels. First, changing human
behavior is a difficult thing to do, and second, it carries with it
considerable responsibilities. In my book Motivating &
Rewarding Employees, I include a chart that shows a range of ways
of motivating people to do what you want them to—from
coercive, nasty methods at one end of the spectrum, to friendly,
mutually beneficial ones at the other. It is easy to use coercive
methods if you think about it. Trickery, sheer force or the threat
of physical violence do influence others—but not for good and
not in ways that build businesses or retain employees and customers
over the long haul. So for practical as well as ethical reasons,
businesses need to be in the business of aligning their interests
with those of customers, employees and suppliers.
Content Continues Below
Alignment is the first step in successful efforts to influence,
and it comes from leaders and their insight into what other people
may want and need. It is always a good idea to check on your
alignment now and again. Are we doing things that give our
customers and employees opportunities to achieve their own worthy
goals? Are they better off for working with us? If not, business is
going to be a lot harder than it ought to be, and nobody is going
to profit substantially from your operations.
Page 1 |
2 