Social Engineering Blogs

An Aggregator for Blogs About Social Engineering and Related Fields

Restricted Freedom and Persuading Others

Recently on a flight home from a training session I did what I normally do on a Southwest flight – I grabbed the first available aisle seat upon boarding. After I settled in, the flight attendant asked if I wanted to move back a row. She was in the emergency row and reminded me I could not recline my seat. I declined because I normally don’t recline my seat anyway.A few moments later I began to regret my decision because the thought crept in, “What if I want to recline?” Suddenly having my freedom restricted caused angst even though the restriction was on something I hardly ever do. Scarcity was at work on me! This principle of influence tells us we want things more as they become less available and it doesn’t just apply to goods and services; it applies to our freedom of choice.A good bit of scarcity’s work on our psyche has to do with not losing out on opportunities because that restricts our freedom.  If you’ve raised kids undoubtedly you’ve seen this. Isn’t it the case that more often than not they want whatever they’re not supposed to touch, taste, smell, watch, listen to or play with?That doesn’t go away as adults. The moment someone tells us we can’t do something there’s a natural impulse that rises up in us, “Who are you to tell me I can’t…?”As persuaders, we’d do well to remember this because there are times when our well-intentioned communication backfires because our restrictions only make the other person want the restricted thing even more! There are times when we’d be better off taking a wait and see attitude rather than jumping in with a command – don’t, you can’t, you’d better not, etc.If you have to make such statements you’d do well to help the other person internalize why the restriction is actually in their best interest. This taps into the principle of consistency. People typically don’t resist their own beliefs, values and reasons, so helping them form those will go a long way toward them believing the restriction is actually good for them.Here is a very personal example. As a parent I believe it’s in my daughter Abigail’s best interest to abstain from sex for many reasons. But those are my reasons not hers and that means they might not last very long. When she was a freshman in high school she met a nice guy who was a senior and although they were not “boyfriend and girlfriend” they were more than just friends. A short time after going to college he said it would probably be best if they didn’t keep going like they were and Abigail was crushed. Perhaps you can remember the feeling from your first love.Sometime after that Abigail and I were driving somewhere and the subject of sex came up so I asked her, “Why do you think it’s wrong to have sex before marriage?” Right away she said, “Because the Bible says so.” So I asked, “Why do you think the Bible says so?” Immediately she replied, “Because God says so.” I probed more, “Why do you think God says so?” She was stumped so I asked, “Remember how bad you felt when he broke up with you? All you did was hold hands and have intimate conversations. How do you think you’d feel now if you’d given yourself to him?” I could see from the look on her face that she got it in the deepest part of her being.I went on to tell her when God, the Bible or her mom and I ask her to refrain from things it’s not because we don’t want her to have fun. On the contrary, we love her and want her to love life and enjoy it to the fullest! With more experience under our belts we know the pitfalls of the decisions many teenagers make. We talked more about sex, marriage and relationships and as we did so she was generating her own reasons for her behavior.Will she always do what her mom and I think is best or right? No, but then again, we’re not the final arbitrators on right and wrong, good and bad. And it’s been interesting to watch her grow up and make choices at her young age that are far better than we made at that age…and perhaps well into our 30s.So the takeaway for you is this – be careful about what you restrict and how you go about it. When you do have to make certain restrictions be sure to help the other person generate their own reasons because that will lead to better, longer lasting behavior.P.S. I wrote this during the flight home and not being able to recline was a non-issue.Brian Ahearn, CMCT® Chief Influence Officer influencePEOPLE Helping You Learn to Hear “Yes”. Cialdini “Influence” Series! Would you like to learn more about influence from the experts? Check out the Cialdini “Influence” Series featuring Cialdini Method Certified Trainers from around the world. 

Using Scarcity with Qualified Prospects

Last month I hosted a webinar on the principle of scarcity for the Cialdini “Influence” Series. During the 30-minute webinar I introduced participants to the ethical application of scarcitywhen it comes to managing salespeople and increasing sales. If you’ve followed this blog for any length of time then you know scarcity is the principle of influence which alerts us to the reality that we place more value on things when they’re rare or becoming less available. We see this principle at work constantly: Advertising – Perceived limited time or limited availability gets customers to act in ways they wouldn’t otherwise.Relationships – When we lose someone we love we often wish we’d done more for them or with them. The mere thought of losing someone could change our behavior.Work and School – Deadlines drive much of our prioritization and activity when it comes to school or work.I’m sure you can think of your own examples where you’ve seen your behavior influenced by this psychological principle. What I want to explore is a question that came up as the webinar was ending. Someone asked if personal preference played into scarcity’s effectiveness. It was a great question, one I’d never considered before. The example that came immediately to mind as I pondered the answer was something from my childhood.When I was young I collected baseball cards. This goes way back to the days before you could buy whole sets of cards. Kids got their baseball cards when they bought the bubblegum packs with cards inside them. From there we traded to round out our collections. I still remember the most famous card was the 1909 Honus Wagner. Although neither my friends nor me knew anything about Honus as a player we knew there were only six in existence and that made it the most valuable card. The card is reportedly worth $2.8 million today!Certainly anyone reading this would love to have that card but for the most part baseball cards are only valuable to those who collect them. When I showed one of my old cards to Jane and told her it was worth about $200 she said, “Hmmm, four pairs of shoes.” She could have cared less that my Ted Williams 1956 Topps baseball card was in very good condition and she never would have paid $200 for the card because baseball cards mean nothing to her.Much like beauty, scarcity is in the eye of the beholder. For example, hearing a furniture outlet is having a half price sale that ends Sunday will do nothing to incent my behavior if I’m not considering getting new furniture for my home. A large part of selling is contacting qualified prospects. Qualified prospects are those people or organizations that are in the market for what you sell. When a prospect realizes they may lose out on a great opportunity that could fulfill their need, quite often scarcity will impact their decision to act. Another category of qualified prospects would include people or organizations that might not see their need for what you sell unless you can arrange to meet with them and show how your product can positively impact them. Once you’re talking with this type of qualified prospect, introducing scarcity might be enough to get them off the fence to make a decision. In the Principles of Persuasion workshop I emphasize this point – scarcity is best used to motivate behavior. If you’ve already established some relationship and the prospect isn’t unsure about what to do – they’re just not making a decision – then scarcity can be just the thing to get them over the hump. However, just indiscriminately telling people they’ll lose something by not acting when they could care less about what you’re offering is a recipe for failure in sales. Here’s my sales advice – really get to know your current and prospective clients. Understand their business and their needs so you can match your product offering accordingly. Once you’ve done that, when you have genuine scarcity make sure you introduce it during the sales process because that might be just the thing that helps you make the sale.Brian Ahearn, CMCT® Chief Influence Officer influencePEOPLE Helping You Learn to Hear “Yes”.Cialdini “Influence” Series! Would you like to learn more about influence from the experts? Check out the Cialdini “Influence” Series featuring Cialdini Method Certified Trainers from around the world. Next up is Hoh Kim talking about Authority on April 17.

Influencers from Around the World – Hardwired Humans

This month our Influencers from Around the World guest post comes from Anthony McLean, Australia’s one and only Cialdini Method Certified Trainer (CMCT®). We owe Anthony special thanks for taking time to share with us because his busy schedule last month included a trip to the States to meet with Dr. Cialdini. I know you’ll enjoy what Anthony has to share.Brian Ahearn, CMCT® Chief Influence Officer influencePEOPLE Helping You Learn to Hear “Yes”.Hardwired HumansWhy would a Global Healthcare company like Philips undertake a change management program in a zoo? The answer is they were following research revealed in Andrew O’Keefe’s book Hardwired Humans.In Australia/New Zealand, Philips had undergone four change programs in as many years preceding the unexpected global change program announced in 2009. Managing director Harry van Dyk and HR director Jo Hilyard admitted the company was suffering from “change fatigue” and a vastly different approach was required to that used previously.What happened next was a little unexpected for many. Philips took 30 of its leaders to Taronga Zoo in Sydney for a workshop that introduced them to the role basic human instincts play in the workplace. The workshop looked at nine hardwired instincts of humans and the leadership implications including the management of change. In one part of the program the leaders were addressed by The Jane Goodall Institute and its chimpanzee program to demonstrate the social and hierarchical structure off chimpanzees and the implications this has for modern business. Unexpectedly for the participants they discovered the comparisons between chimp and human social structures were numerous and provided a whole new perspective on resolving workplace challenges. One of the key insights was that the conventional wisdom that claims people resist change is wrong. We learned that humans, rather than being resistant to change, are actually hardwired to avoid loss. Upon hearing about a change people instantly screen their environment for the risk of loss. If we detect loss, we resist the change. If we detect gain, we support the change. If we are unsure about the impact of the change (and this is the big swinger), then we assume loss. This means that for organizational change we often have people unnecessarily erring toward loss and resistance, merely because people were unable to make sense of the impact of the change for them at the moment they first learned of it. (HR Monthly, March 2011, p30)The Persuasion ImplicationsThe implications for persuaders are clear. Through scarcity, we know that loss framing is more persuasive than focusing on the benefits of a thing. The final part of the above quote is very important because it highlights that under conditions in which the risk cannot be assessed the subject will assume loss if they have no other means to assess the risk.You may say great, scarcity is at play without you having to do anything to get people to take action. In reality the targets of influence, under this assumed loss, will employ coping mechanisms and strategies to protect themselves from that loss rather than take healthy proactive workplace behaviours.For example, in a change management project if the targets of influence assume loss because they have no other basis to assess the risk, they will then react against the project, at times for no other reason than they associate loss (i.e., of position, status, pay, etc.) with the project itself.Anyone who has managed a change project will tell you the reluctance at times seems unnecessary and ill informed; now you understand that it is a hardwired response to the subjects’ inability to assess risk, so they assume loss and react accordingly.Steps to Counter Perceived LossIf we know that people scan for loss in any situation before moving forward, it makes sense to manage this situation and brief the relevant staff fully on managing the default towards loss and reacting against the situation unnecessarily. By providing this briefing it is more likely to trigger reciprocity because you as the change agent have given them the information they require to assess the risk for themselves. Potentially it may even increase liking if you are then required to work together and you have already opened up the channel for cooperation. The warning however is, that left unattended to the development of a loss aversion mindset, this reaction may cause the audience to take a stand and trigger consistency, towards the negative and this could be all the momentum that is required to drive consensus in the wrong direction.So ask yourself these questions: 1. What risk is involved in your project, service or request? 2. Is it real or perceived?If the targets of influence are unable to assess the personal risk of loss for themselves (i.e., the risk is not clear or able to be easily understood), they will most likely assume loss and react against you and your project, service or request.Brief the targets of influence appropriately so they can adequately assess the risk from an informed position and give yourself every chance of success rather than having to start the influence process on the back foot. It may also be prudent to lobby support from others who already understand the project and during the briefing ask them to discuss the implications for their business area and support for the change. This simple step uses consensus to show others are already moving in the direction of the project not away from it and as we know when we are unsure of what we should do we look to the behaviour of others like us to guide our decisions.Cheers!Anthony McLean, CMCT® Sources: From A to Zoo, HR Monthly March 2011 p28-30O’Keefe, A (2011) Hardwired Humans Roundtable Press.