Timestamps

00:00:00: Introduction

00:01:25: Books and quotes on social influence

00:05:07: Sequential techniques

00:09:12: Ego, names and commonality

00:10:48: Activating imagination

00:13:12: Recognising influence on other people vs yourself

00:14:18: Conformity and imitation

00:19:16: Sharing opposite opinions

00:21:06: The bag experiment on social identity

00:25:30: The inverted U

00:31:31: Recommendations for readership

00:34:17: Idea for action: do an influence audit

00:35:31: Idea for action: coach-yourself questions

00:00:00: Final thoughts

Interview Transcription

Helen Tupper: Hi, I'm Helen.

Sarah Ellis: And I'm Sarah.

Helen Tupper: And this is the Squiggly Careers podcast, a weekly podcast where we help you to navigate the ups and downs and ins and outs of your Squiggly Career, by taking the topics that you probably need a bit of support with, and so do we, and sharing ideas for action and different insights that we hope will help you and your development. Today's episode is the third part of our four-part series all around soft skills.  So, we were inspired by a report produced by the World Economic Forum, which focused on the ten skills that we all need to focus on for our development by 2025, and we looked through that list and thought, "What haven't we talked a lot about; and what would we like to learn a bit more about?" and that was the focus.  So, we have done one episode already on Originality; we have done one on Critical Thinking; and today's topic that we're going to talk about is on Social Influence.

Sarah Ellis: We've approached each of these episodes with a similar structure, which we hope just helps you as you're listening.  We start off with a quote that stood out for us from the book; we then talk about three things that we've learnt; who we think might want to read the book, if you want to dive a bit deeper; and an action for you to take if you want to increase your skills in this area.  So, if you want to get better at social influence, we'll suggest and recommend something that you might want to try out, based on what we've learnt from our reading this week. I think it's fair to say our reading this week has taken us outside of our comfort zones into new territories, as we've been learning about social influence.  So, tell us about the book that you've read, Helen?

Helen Tupper: Well, my book, I'll take a deep breath, is a very deep-breath book, everyone.  It's The Techniques of Social Influence: The Psychology of Gaining Compliance, it's not the normal book I read, by Dariusz Dolinski.  And what about you?

Sarah Ellis: So, first of all, I read a chapter from a text book, I think it's a university text book about psychology, to try and figure out where to go.  Because actually, if you go into the classic Amazon, "Other booksellers are available", and just write, "Social influence", not much pops up, which is very unusual, especially if it's a skill we're all meant to be getting better at. So, I read this chapter, got a bit lost, but the few bits that really stood out to me then led me to the book that I did read and I'm really glad that I did, because I now understand what social influence is.  And that's by Jonah Berger, who actually wrote a book called Contagious, that then did spring to mind for me when I was thinking, "Actually, I remember reading that".  But this book is called Invisible Influence: The Hidden Forces that Shape Behaviour.

Helen Tupper: Quite strong words, like "compliance" and "forces"!

Sarah Ellis: Serious stuff!

Helen Tupper: They're not light reads, either of these books, I would say.

Sarah Ellis: No.  I think we had quite different reading experiences, which we'll come on to.  Mine was a bit more accessible I think than yours.

Helen Tupper: Mine's the most academic book that I've read for a very, very long time.  And in fact the first point, which is to share a quote from the book, I found really hard to do.  It's not a very quotable book.  You're not going to see this on Instagram, I would say, this book!  So, the quote that I chose was this one, see what you think, Sarah, "Most people are concerned, not only with what they think of themselves, but also with how they are viewed by others.  We try to manipulate the impression we make on others, so that they think of us in a manner consistent with our own interests".  Discuss!

Sarah Ellis: Okay, I feel like that's like an essay question from a psychology A level!

Helen Tupper: This is the theme that we're going to go on throughout this podcast, definitely!

Sarah Ellis: Which actually, neither of us did.  You didn't do psychology A level, did you?

Helen Tupper: No, I wish I had.

Sarah Ellis: I did sociology.

Helen Tupper: They didn't have it at my school.

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, they did.  I don't know, I did sociology, which I loved.  I think I was actually a bit scared psychology was going to be a bit science-y, and you know you're attached to, "I wasn't very good at science GCSE".

Helen Tupper: I really wasn't.  I had to retake most of my sciences!

Sarah Ellis: I probably would have been quite interested.  Okay, interesting.  So, mine is a few sentences, but I brought them together because I think it also helps to describe what social influence is, because that has taken me a bit just to get my head around.  So here he says, "Because, at our core, we are all social animals, whether we realise it or not, other people have a subtle and surprising impact on almost everything we do.  When it comes to our own lives, social influence is as silent as it is powerful.  Just because we can't see it doesn't mean it's not there".

Helen Tupper: So, yours is a lot nicer.  Yours is like influencing people consciously and unconsciously, and that's just the way the world is; whereas mine is almost self-serving and we're trying to manipulate people, which is just not quite as nice, when you look at it from that perspective.

Sarah Ellis: Well, he actually goes on to say, "By itself, social influence is neither bad nor good".  I thought that was quite interesting, because as you do read about social influence, we were both saying actually before recording this podcast, you do feel quite uncomfortable at times.  You feel uncomfortable about some of your own decisions, of being impacted by other people, how you might be influencing, and not wanting to be inauthentic or manipulative, and how your ego might get in the way.  So, it is quite a confronting thing to read about. Some of the examples that they give, and I think you talked about the same, you start trying out on people.  I've literally shown people pictures that are in this book and being like, "What would you say is the difference between these two bags?" which we will come back to.  And there was one that I was reading and I was like, "I really want to talk to Helen about this one, because she is actually this sort of person, and I'm exactly not".  And then, we've probably both built up our own perspectives on ourselves based on this, to do with bags; we'll come back to it.

Helen Tupper: What, like nice bags?

Sarah Ellis: Yes.

Helen Tupper: Great, can't wait.  If I can get excited talking about bags, that's brilliant on a podcast!  So, shall we do our insights, the stuff that we've learnt?

Sarah Ellis: Let's.

Helen Tupper: Who's going first?

Sarah Ellis: Go on, you go.

Helen Tupper: Okay, I've got a few things.  Insight one.  So, bearing in mind, everyone, this book is about techniques to influence people, so most of my insights are about, "What different stuff could we do?"  So, insight one is about a type of technique called a "sequential technique".  So, it's a way if you are trying to influence people, different ways that you can do it.  And there are three different sequential techniques: there's the foot in the door; the door in the face; and the repeating yes technique.

Sarah Ellis: Teach me!

Helen Tupper: So, I will teach you; Sarah's got a pen at the ready.  So, the "foot in the door" technique of influence is where you're going to make an easy request of someone first like, "Can I spend more time learning this year at work?" and Sarah will go, "Yeah, sure".  That's quite an easy request, and then I might say, "Great, there's a course I'd like to do next week".  But because we've started with an easy request first, it's called the "foot in the door" strategy, so at work you want to get something, someone to agree to something; what's the easy ask before you make the more significant request.  That's foot in the door.

Sarah Ellis: Okay, that makes sense.

Helen Tupper: It does make sense?

Sarah Ellis: I don't feel too bad about that one.

Helen Tupper: Great.  Door in the face?

Sarah Ellis: Less good about this!

Helen Tupper: So, this is where you give someone the opportunity to say no to something, so you sort of sacrifice something.  So I might say to you, "Sarah, can I have £100?" and you'd be like, "No!"

Sarah Ellis: I need to save up for a --

Helen Tupper: And then I might make an easier request which is like, "Okay, I completely get it, but I could do with a coffee; could I get a coffee?"  Obviously, apply that to something at work, but you take something that you think might be a "no", you offer it up, and the idea here is that people don't really like saying lots of nos.  So, if they've said one, you've given it up, they're more likely to say "yes" to your second request.

Sarah Ellis: Okay.

Helen Tupper: Your "in the face" strategy.

Sarah Ellis: More manipulative, one feels?

Helen Tupper: Yeah, there's a theme in these things!  Let's just call them "techniques" for you to try out, okay?!  Then the third one in this sequential series is about the "repeating yes".  So, this is where people get almost into a rhythm of saying yes.  So, you start with something quite big conceptually, so I might say to you, "Do you think that careers are Squiggly, Sarah?"

Sarah Ellis: Yes.

Helen Tupper: "Do you think that people should develop the skills to succeed in Squiggly Careers?"

Sarah Ellis: Yes.

Helen Tupper: "Do you think supporting people to develop skills is important?"

Sarah Ellis: Yes.

Helen Tupper: "Would you like to invest in a Squiggly Careers programme?"

Sarah Ellis: Well, I don't know, it depends how much it costs!

Helen Tupper: Well, you get the idea!  I was trying to go on a Squiggly relevant one.

Sarah Ellis: They're very closed though, aren't they?  Yes or no questions are very closed questions.

Helen Tupper: Yes, and I think you'd have to really think about it in advance.  But it's that idea of getting people to stay with the yeses.

Sarah Ellis: Very salesy.

Helen Tupper: Yes.

Sarah Ellis: It feels very salesy; it also feels very 50 years ago, in some ways, just in the way that you've described it.  It's quite blunt, isn't it, in terms of you're feeling like you're using something to get what you want versus everyone can win and there's room for everyone?

Helen Tupper: Yeah, I wouldn't say this is the "everyone can win" book!

Sarah Ellis: Right, okay!

Helen Tupper: Just to frame it.  This is about, how can you use some techniques.  It's a very research-heavy book, so these are research-proven ways to influence people to outcomes that you want.

Sarah Ellis: It's interesting.

Helen Tupper: So, that's the first insight I got to; sequential techniques, playing around with them.  The second one was all about ego, which I thought was really fascinating.  So, you can play with the concept of ego to influence people.  One of the things that really stuck out for me was around people's name.  So, when you get into the area of ego, people are very attached to their name, it feels very familiar to them. So, subtle things that you can do here are, if I could use your name slightly more in a meeting.  So, if I'm talking to you, I'd be like, "Sarah, I know that this is really important to you that we do it in this way", and you don't want to overuse it, but it really helps someone to feel a sense of connection, they like their name.  The funniest thing that I read about this was that people have so much ego about their name, that they are more likely to do jobs that have a connection to their name.  So statistically, there are more dentists called Dennis.

Sarah Ellis: Maybe that's why I, Sarah, worked for Sainsbury's, and I now work in Squiggly Careers.

Helen Tupper: Oh my gosh, it's your ego!

Sarah Ellis: I mean, I do also love food and I love careers, so that was the other reason.  And also, all the other companies don't begin with S.  But, okay!

Helen Tupper: But there's two!  But I just thought it was interesting, how you can use people's names perhaps as a point of influence.  And also, find points of connection.  So, people like people like them, and the research they showed here was, even if you and me found out we had the same star sign, they found that that -- it doesn't have to be an important point of connection.  It can be, we've read the same book, or we get the same train in the morning.  People like people like them, so if you can quickly find a point of connection with someone in a company, that can give you a foundation for how you might be able to influence them. Then the last one, this is quicker, activating imagination.  So, if you're in a meeting with someone and you can unlock their imagination, they are more open to influence.  So, let's say Sarah and me are writing a book, we've genuinely been talking about, "What might our next book be like?" and let's say I've got an idea that I'm really attached to, we've both got ideas.  But if I said to Sarah --

Sarah Ellis: I feel like you've been using this on me in the last two hours!  This is the big reveal!

Helen Tupper: It's not, it's not been working very well!  So, if I said to Sarah, "All right, so this idea that I've got about a book on X, Y and Z", let's imagine that you're a person in this stage in your career and this is the problem you're faced with.  The research shows that just getting you to imagine a situation that I'm trying to influence you in makes you more open to my ideas. So, I know there's quite a lot of theory in that, because it's all based on these experiments, but I do think there are some practical things you can do with the foot in the door, the door in the face, or maybe that find those points of connection, or getting someone to imagine scenarios, that I could imagine using at work in different situations.

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, I mean the imagining one could be really positive.  So, we know it's useful to hold your ideas lightly, it's good; scenario planning is helpful in careers.  So, that's a technique you could use for yourself as well as with each other.  If you were doing coaching, for example, if I was coaching you in your career and I was thinking, "I think Helen can only see her next step as a promotion", and I'm trying to encourage you to think more widely than that, because I think that will be useful for you in your career, I could say, "Well, just imagine for a moment that you are in this function, what skills do you think you would use; what do you think you would enjoy about that?" So, those kind of imagining options, I can see how that could be helpful.  And then actually, if that made you more predisposed to be curious and open to using your skills in a different way, if it unlocked confidence and capability, you could see how that could be helpful.  I feel more upbeat about that one.

Helen Tupper: I'm glad I ended my insights on a high!  Go on, then, let's get to the bags.

Sarah Ellis: Well, yeah.  It's interesting, I wonder whether yours has been written from a slightly different perspective.  So, yours sounds like it's more like the social influence that you could have on other people; whereas, I think this book is written more about understanding your own social influence, so understanding that you are influenced by lots of different things, understanding your own behaviour. Here's a really good example actually.  So, he put loads of fliers on BMWs, on cars, and the questions were, "Why do you think other people buy BMWs?" and then, "Why do you think you buy?"  Why have you bought a BMW, basically. 

What is so interesting is you completely recognise social influence on other people, so, "Other people buy BMWs because of status and maybe ego, 'I want a swanky car', whatever it might be".  Things that perhaps are a bit more negative or detrimental, you assign that to other people. Then literally, you have the same car, and then when you answer that question about yourself, it will be, "The mileage is really good.  Practically, it was the car that made the most sense for my family".  You don't see the irony!  It's so interesting, isn't it, the difference between exactly the same thing, and then people can't see that gap?  That example has really stuck with me.  So, this book is more kind of you seeing it for yourself and then asking yourself, "So, what might I do with that?" What he talks about with social influence is that we all have this mixture of the need to conform, and a need to be different, and a need to imitate, and also a need to avoid imitating.  So, it's the same, but different.

Helen Tupper: Okay, there's a conflict.

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, that sort of drive for conformity and imitation, where it's more sameness; and then the drive for distance and divergence and difference is influenced by loads of different stuff, so your social class, where you work, how much you feel like you need to fit in, and I guess that can be in quite a bad way.  We've talked before about if you feel like you're being a career chameleon, everywhere you go you're having to be someone else, that's really tiring.  It's almost noticing, do you feel you've got a really high need for conformity; or, are you working somewhere where there's this expectation of conformity? We have talked before about, some companies almost have that sense of sameness, everyone is quite similar, and I don't want to use the word "cult", but you know there's a sense of like cult-ness to it?  For some people, that might actually work really well; but for other people, if you really value difference, then it wouldn't.  So, that's quite interesting; it's almost like there is a tension.  In social influence in ourselves, there is this tension.  I will want to conform enough, then there'll be a point where I want to be different. So, let's say I thought I really liked some of Helen's jewellery, what I'd probably do is go, "I'm not going to get exactly the same jewellery.  It's going to be different enough, but I've still been inspired by Helen, because she's very familiar to me and I see her and I like her", essentially.

Helen Tupper: So, in the context of careers, there's a level of social conformity, if you think, with people's careers?

Sarah Ellis: Well, so then I started to get to, "This is quite interesting for Squiggly Careers".  So, if you think about the shape of careers, conformity, certainly historically, has equalled, "Climb the ladder, go on that staircase".  So, that is where all of the sameness and our need to feel like, "We should do what's done before", we would all be quite driven by that.  But some of us would be more driven by that than others. For example, one of the things they talk about, and this actually really resonated with me, is if you're from more of a working-class background, you have more of a need for sameness and fitting in, because also you see it as a good thing.  So, I remember at school not having the cool shoes and being like, "But I haven't got the cool shoes" and I really wanted the cool shoes and I wanted to fit in.  And so actually, let's say now me and my friend got exactly the same car or exactly the same outfit, or something, you wouldn't see it as a bad thing, you'd be like, "It's good, it's a sign of almost success".

Helen Tupper: Yeah, "I'm in the club".

Sarah Ellis: Yeah.  So, because of your background, I might be more impacted by, say, my peers and what my peers are doing and, say, comparison and conformity might be more my inclination.  Whereas actually, if you have grown up potentially in very comfortable surroundings, you almost might be more encouraged to be distinct and different; you know the sort of go your own way, and your career feeling really unique to you that we always talk about?  That is probably easier for you.  It's easier to let go of the ladder, is my hypothesis, if you have grown up with quite a lot of difference and distinctiveness bedded into your home environment, your school environment, your university environment. So, I was thinking I definitely found it really hard to let go of some of the status symbols, some of the things that go with the ladder.  And also, you and I both spent a long time in very big organisations. 

So, if you're thinking about, for example, one of the reasons why you might not have made that move earlier, moved to Amazing If earlier, is probably that need for both conformity and familiarity, because familiarity feels comfortable and we feel at ease, and it's a really good, distinctive shortcut for our brain. First of all, massive credit to people who've had very Squiggly Careers for a long time, because that will have felt harder and harder the further back you go.  And I was thinking, hopefully one of the things we're making it easier for people to do is say, even though we probably all have a bit of a drive for conformity and familiarity, hopefully we're giving people the permission, "It's okay to be distinct, it's okay to squiggle in your own way, to not feel like you need to be the same as the person you sit next to".

Helen Tupper: So, if you could connect to a community of people who are more Squiggly, then from a social influence perspective, you're going to conform with Squiggly, rather than conform with the ladder basically?

Sarah Ellis: Yeah.

Helen Tupper: Okay, got it!

Sarah Ellis: So, I was like, "That's quite interesting".  And, another work example, and there aren't that many work examples, I wouldn't say; a lot of it is more life example, which we'll come on to the bag in a second.  But sharing an opposite opinion in a meeting is very hard to do.  So, if you're in an organisation firstly where it is quite similar, and then you've got a different point of view, that's where those opinions don't get heard. One of the things they do talk about in the book is -- because essentially, you're asking people to go against human nature, to stand out, to be the person zigging when everybody else is zagging; so, they were saying, if you want to encourage people to do that, you've either got to create anonymity, and they did some experiments where that made a really big difference, because suddenly you're not going to get called out on it, you're not going to stand out in any way; or, you've got to create something, almost a mechanism, where that means opposite opinions are voiced. For example, someone in our team last week gave a really good example of a knotty problem we're trying to solve, and she was saying, "Sometimes, a really good technique is to, rather than say,

'What would make this situation better?' is to say, 'What would make the situation worse?' and that unlocks new thinking".  By her doing that, she's given us all permission to make the situation worse.  And someone else might have already been thinking about that, but not dared to say it out loud. So, just thinking about, given we all have this need of familiarity, to do things the way we've done them before, but we also know at the same time, what got us here won't get us there, you can't expect everybody to do things very differently, to behave in different ways, maybe to experiment, which we've talked about how important that is, or to try things out; you've got to create the conditions to make that as easy as possible, given essentially it does go against how we are hard-wired.

Helen Tupper: Got it, okay.  That makes sense.

Sarah Ellis: Okay, so we're onto the next thing.  So, I'm now going to do a scientific experiment on Helen.  And I expect if any actual psychologist is listening to this, they'll be like, "No --"

Helen Tupper: "Don't do it like this!"

Sarah Ellis: "-- you're not in a controlled environment, this is absolutely not how to do this".  But we are actually recording this podcast, very unusually, in the same room.  So, I'm just going to show Helen a picture of two bags.

Helen Tupper: I know the brand of those bags, yeah.

Sarah Ellis: You can say the brand.

Helen Tupper: Longchamp.

Sarah Ellis: We're not the BBC, we don't have to be balanced!  So, describe to me the differences between those two bags.

Helen Tupper: So, the bags are similar in size, they have a long handle.  In fact, the only difference that I can see, well the primary difference that I can see, is that they're different colours.  One looks black, one looks white, however this is in a black-and-white book, so that might not be the case!  I think maybe the handle's a slighter darker colour, maybe one of the handles is lighter, one of the handles is darker.  But the sizing looks the same; colour, I would go colour.

Sarah Ellis: Okay, so what's interesting is if you show that image to people who don't own those bags, which is you, I assume you don't own those bags, do you?  You have got a lot of bags.

Helen Tupper: I have in the past, but I don't now, no!

Sarah Ellis: That's interesting you had them in the past.  Oh no, I don't know how that affects this experiment!

Helen Tupper: It's a new variable!

Sarah Ellis: But if you've not got the bags, people describe it in the way that you did.  So, people say that they're 90%, 95% similar, the colour's slightly different potentially.  If you own one of the bags, you describe all of the differences.  You go into, "These are not the same two bags.  This one, the stitching is slightly different". 

Because it's part of your identity and you've made a choice about this bag, for you those bags are very distinct and very different.  So, even though they're exactly the same two bags, almost once you've attached yourself to something, you basically tell yourself a story. The other example they gave, which I was like, "This is definitely true as a parent", you know if you saw 15 kids had done a picture of a tiger and they've all coloured in that tiger?  You're like, "They're all broadly the same".  But then you see another one, and you're like, "But this is your kid's picture of the tiger", and suddenly they're not all the same. 

Suddenly you're like, "Well, this one, I love the way he's coloured in, I love the orange contrast that he's used".  And actually, my son did a picture of a tiger and actually I didn't do that, I was slightly meaner about his; but you know, the meaning we attach to things when we've made a choice about it. It's all really about how we see ourselves and our preferences and our uniqueness.  Because in some ways, even though we've talked a lot about conformity, we all sort of create this character.

Helen Tupper: It's like the ego bit that's like mine.

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, I wonder if it is.  He doesn't ever use the word "ego", I don't think; I didn't come across the word "ego".  But he sort of has this point of view of, you sort of build up this profile of yourself which is influenced by other people, it's influenced by brands and what brands are telling you, like marketing and sales people; he talked about Starbucks as a really interesting example where it's like, one of the reasons that people like Starbucks is, you know you can be very specific about your preferences?  It's like, "Here's Sarah's flat white with whatever milk…"

Helen Tupper: Oh, that's interesting, isn't it?  Back to the name.

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, so I was like, "That's really interesting".  So, they use your name, but also it's very distinct.  Your cup of coffee is not the same as the next person's.  So, you're basically prepared to pay twice as much for a coffee that feels very like yours.  And if you've bought one of these bags, it's yours.  You don't want other people to have it, you've created this world.

Helen Tupper: So, at work, it's almost like, how can you let people personalise their work in some way, personalise the way that they want to work, or the project that they're working on?  Yeah, interesting.

Sarah Ellis: It's really interesting.  But these signals are not set in stone; they can be revised with new information.  So also, we should all feel reassured that it's not like we're not open to understanding other things.

Helen Tupper: It makes me think, so in Amazing If, the company that Sarah and I run, we let people choose their job titles.  Again, that kind of gives that sense of ownership and personalisation.

Sarah Ellis: So, let's say you've got an alternative Amazing If in an alternative reality, called --

Helen Tupper: Imagine If!

Sarah Ellis: -- Imagine If, yeah!

Helen Tupper: Back to imagining things.

Sarah Ellis: And, two people in Imagine If could have exactly the same jobs as people in Amazing If, but they haven't chosen their job titles, they would probably feel very, very differently about those jobs versus that sense of, "This is unique to me, this is mine". Then the last thing I found really interesting actually is this idea of an inverted U, which is how we feel about loads of things, but I could apply this quite quickly to jobs.  This inverted U is to do with our relationship between newness and familiarity, and how influence affects that.  So potentially, what this is arguing is, when you're first in a new job, it can feel really hard because there's a lot of newness, and particularly where there's complexity.  The more complexity there is, the less likely there is to be habits or things you can fall back on, or things that feel familiar. So, that can feel really, really hard, and you might not be enjoying that, you could even be tempted to give up.  So, I guess if you were learning a new skill, you might initially be like, "I'm just not enjoying this, can't get my head around it".  It's like when I first started Wordle last year, it took me a week of not being able to do Wordle --

Helen Tupper: And now look at you!

Sarah Ellis: -- and now look at me!  Now, I can some days do Wordle; most days, I actually do Wordle.  But initially, I could have been really tempted to give up, "It's too difficult, can't do it".  Then you get into the top of the U, and that's where you feel really positive about it, because it is familiar enough, but without being too familiar.  That's almost the sweet spot. If you can keep people in that, I was thinking about that in terms of jobs, as in job crafting; how do you keep updating roles and responsibilities, giving people enough stretch?  Because, what you don't want to do is come down the other side of the U, because when you do, you then fall into boredom, which is a bit like, you know the Finding Flow model, where you get into autopilot?

Helen Tupper: Yeah.

Sarah Ellis: That's what it reminded me of.  I was like, "If you come down the other side of the U --" and I hear people talk about jobs in this way quite a lot where they say, "I feel like I've done everything there is to do" or, "I feel like I've done this now", and you've lost that sense of any newness, or any stretch, and then you start to lose motivation.

Helen Tupper: So it's like scary; stretching; stagnant.  But the connection with social influence?

Sarah Ellis: So, the connection with social influence is, firstly, if you were trying to influence other people, you don't want it to feel so alien to people.  So, say you were trying to sell a new product, if it felt completely alien, people would find that really hard; it would often be really difficult for people to get their heads around it.  Whereas, if you could make it feel just familiar enough, that's when you'd probably get lots of people getting quite excited about it quite quickly. Now, I suppose there are some examples of things where, if you think about some of Apple's things, the classic innovation example, where they did things very differently; but I was thinking they probably still felt familiar enough.  People were used to listening to music on Sony Discmans, or whatever, before the iPod came along.  It was close enough to something that people could recognise, but equally different enough for people to get excited about.

Helen Tupper: Interestingly, the very first podcast we did in this series, Originality, and I read Originals by Adam Grant, he said, "The most successful ideas were iterative, not brand new", because they actually built on things that already existed, which probably both reduced the risk, but also meant they felt familiar to the people that they were being sold to.  So, maybe there's a bit of that as well.

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, and they call it sometimes the Goldilocks Effect; it's like, "Too hot, too cold, just right".

Helen Tupper: I like that.

Sarah Ellis: That's how they describe our emotional reactions, which is like you were describing in terms of get an easy yes, get a very dramatic no, then you get to just right, kind of in the middle.  I mean, the more you read about these things, it does start to be a bit scary, in terms of all of the things you can be influenced by.  Then you start to question, "Do I like being influenced by those things?  What am I influencing without knowing?" But I think sometimes, what I started to do as I was reading this, was understand how and why I might react in the way that I do to certain things, and help me to question those things for myself.  So, it made me be questioning of myself and really think about, "What do I want to be influenced by?" in a positive way, because as he says, he doesn't see social influence as good or bad, he just sees it as, "It just is". I don't think you can escape social influence, because we are social beings.  But I think what you can start to do is think, "Okay, well, given I'm always influenced by the people and places that I spend time in, is that a good thing; and what does that mean for me and my character?"

Helen Tupper: I think Dariusz, the author of my book, he doesn't really have this good and bad take either, or he sits on the fence.  But he does have a chapter which touches on the ethics of influence, because I think mine does have more specific techniques that you can try out, that if you did lots of them, it is quite manipulative I think if you did all these things; whereas yours seems to be slightly more inciteful and considered, I would say.

Sarah Ellis: Yeah.  They do describe at the start, "And then there's lots of examples of how you can apply that application".  That application never quite came for me when I was reading. 

What came for me was lots of, "Oh, that's so interesting", like I had that reflection of, "When I was growing up, I definitely wanted to fit in.  Okay, so that's probably why I was very comfortable working in very big organisations, where lots of fitting in happened". If I had gone and worked in very small, organic, fail-fast type organisations at the start of my career, I probably would have found that very difficult, and might not have enjoyed that environment, because it would have felt too unfamiliar from where I'd come from.  It's probably why I was attracted to those big companies in the first place.  Also, I spent a fair bit of time in my career with people very like me; again, probably no surprises.

Helen Tupper: So, if you are going to really invest in this skill, because I think the books Sarah and I have read are really different, but I guess it's looking at the skill from two sides of the same coin.  So, the book that I have read is about what you can do to influence other people, lots of different techniques to try out.  And the book that Sarah has read is more about you as an individual, and how you are influenced by I think bigger, broader things than just by what someone's saying to you in a meeting.

Sarah Ellis: Yeah.  So for my "who", who should read my book, I think anyone who is curious about psychology.  I think if you're just interested in psychology, for some people listening, I guess if you know a lot about psychology, you might be, "This is psychology 101; I already know all of this".  But as someone who doesn't know all about it, I was just, "This is just fascinating".  And you and I actually kept sharing little bits of what we were reading, more so than some of the things that we've done, and we weren't necessarily going, "This is really useful", we were always going, "So interesting, this is really interesting". 

I wasn't always quite sure what to then go and do with it, but I was like, "But it's certainly interesting.  So, psychology. In terms of areas you might work in, I think if you were in marketing or sales, lots of the examples you start to see, if you were trying to sell something to someone else, or if you were trying to market or maybe innovate, almost increasing your chances of success, but that doesn't mean doing something you feel uncomfortable about.  And as somebody who used to work in marketing,

I was thinking, "Actually, I think lots of marketeers would find this really interesting".  It's human behaviour, it's like understanding that. More generally, if you're really curious just about, "What might influence me?" I think I've now got a better understanding of the social influences on me.  And I think his point is, he really wants you to accept that you are influenced by other things, and I definitely got to the end of the book being like, "Yes, I definitely am".  And you can start to be quite specific about those influences and how big an impact those things might have, and I got to some questions that I'll talk about in a minute in terms of action, that I think might be useful to ask yourself.

Helen Tupper: I think mine would be exactly the same in terms of who would want to read this book, with one exception, which I think this one is a bit more academic.

Sarah Ellis: When you say, "A bit more", that's not how you described it to me, Helen!

Helen Tupper: It's basically 200 pages of research studies.  I would say on every page, there's maybe ten different examples of research studies.  And the author has basically gone through them all and found the points of connection and joined the dots for you, in terms of what are the main insights across this.  So, the language is very academic, which is fine if you like reading that, but it is quite a lot to sift your way through if you want to take some stuff away you can put into practice at work.  But that's what we're here to do for you, so it's fine.

Sarah Ellis: Whereas I would say Invisible Influence actually is easy to read.  The experiments, which they do still describe experiments, but they've got pictures in the book, like I loved the pictures of the bags, and they got, "Which of these lines is longer?"  Have you seen that experiment before?

Helen Tupper: Yes!

Sarah Ellis: You know, some of those classic, quite fun things.  Or, they get you to memorise some words and then read a paragraph and they're like, "Which of these can you remember?"  So, it's quite fun, mini experiments, and it's not a tough read and you can definitely read it in chunks.  So, perhaps the more accessible of the two.

Helen Tupper: So, shall we go through actions then?

Sarah Ellis: Yes.

Helen Tupper: So, the action that I have taken away is one that I've made up, because I've given you different ideas.  But what I think I've shared with you listening is six different tactics to try out.  So in summary, that was, foot in the door; door in the face; repeated yes; say the name; create connection; and, activate imagination.  Those were the things I talked through. 

And my recommended action would be to do a bit of an influence audit. So, I think write the list of the people that you work with that you might like to influence for different reasons, your manager, your colleagues, stakeholders, whoever they are; then review those tactics that I just talked about, and we'll put them on the PodSheet; and effectively, match the tactic to the person, like who could you try this out with, just so that you could more actively experiment with it.  But I think the point is, you're trying to be authentic here.  You want this to feel like you, and it is likely that different people will be influenced by different tactics. You're just trying to think, like with Sarah, I don't think I'd do the door-in-the-face thing, like get Sarah to say no in order to get Sarah to say yes; I'd do imagination, 100%, with Sarah.  That would get her onboard.  But I think that would be a good way of you taking this stuff and doing something with it at work that felt practical.

Sarah Ellis: So, I've taken a similar approach, but taken some questions that I thought might be helpful for people to think about.  So I thought maybe a good starting point is, "How much are you motivated?"  Almost, if you've got a zero in the middle and ten at one end and ten at the other, "How much am I motivated by sameness versus difference right now?" and you could do that with a lens of looking at your career, your work, just generally. I actually found that a really helpful question to think about perhaps where I'd been in the past versus where I am now.  I think I'm more motivated by difference now than ever before, and I wonder if that's also connected to, I'm probably more confident than I've ever been before, and I'm less influenced by comparison, I think. 

I'm probably not!  But I think I would have been way more influenced by sameness.  And again, sameness and difference, it's not bad and good; we are all influenced by some of those.  But it might be helpful to know where you feel like you are right now. Then, think about who influences you at work; what influences you at work; how can you have a positive influence on others?  I added that word in "positive" because I felt better about it when I did.  And then I just thought very practically a "where" question, you might want to think about, "Where am I on that inverted U in terms of my role today?"

So, I think if I had understood that earlier, I've had a couple of jobs where I've been like, "This is not going well, this is very tough", but probably because I was almost too near the start still of that inverted U, where there was so much complexity and so much newness, my brain was grasping at straws for anything that felt familiar, anything that I felt like I was good at, didn't know the people.  It was sort of almost overwhelm and overload, to the extent where you could have, and I very nearly did on one job, you could have given up, or you could have lost a lot of confidence; versus if you know that's where you are, you're just like, "It's okay, I've just not quite got to the good bit of the U yet". Or, if you feel like you're coming down the other side of the U and getting into overfamiliarity, "I can do all this on autopilot", you can then think, "Well, how can I add in interest; how can I add stretch?"  So, I was again very practically and visually, maybe knowing that scale of sameness and difference and where are you on that inverted U, could be helpful.

Helen Tupper: And maybe for managers to think about for their team as well, and what might they need differently to be at their best.

Sarah Ellis: Yeah.

Helen Tupper: So, I feel that's quite a lot.

Sarah Ellis: It wasn't an easy topic.

Helen Tupper: It was not an easy topic.  I mean, the World Economic Forum have given us a --

Sarah Ellis: What will we do next week?

Helen Tupper: Oh my gosh, well next week, we're doing stress tolerance!

Sarah Ellis: Right, okay, great!

Helen Tupper: Oh, dear.  I feel like we covered the originality and critical thinking ones first, and they get a bit harder now.  But hopefully, we've made it something you can act on.  And to make it a bit easier for you as well, we have got the PodSheet. 

So, you can always find the link to the PodSheet in the show notes, or at our website at amazingif.com, where we summarise the quotes, we summarise some of those insights that we've got and perhaps most importantly, those ideas for action that we've got to after reading, so you don't have to plough through all the different things that we have done. But we would love your feedback on this series.  Is it one that you find useful?  It's one that we quite like researching, but it is something different than our normal episodes.  And you can always email us with your feedback.  We are helenandsarah@squigglycareers.com.

Sarah Ellis: So, that's everything for this week.  Back with you again soon.  Thanks for listening and bye for now. Helen Tupper: Bye everyone.