Ask HN: How to Influence People?

[trickdoc]

Influencing people is a skill that can do wonders. As an engineer, a reserved person, and an introvert, how do you influence others?

What steps one must take if you are not native English speaker but can operate well with good speaking/writing skills?

[anigbrowl]

Figure out who you want to influence; figure out what that group of people already believe to be true; write some articles that reinforce that belief but add a little nuance or a slightly surprising twist. Make your 'insight' simple enough that it could be explained in 3 minutes at a cocktail party. People generally prefer to be entertained rather than informed; the former is fun, the latter is work.

Humor helps a lot. The easiest humor to deploy is to describe a mistake you made and the rueful realization of it. So a popular blog format is 'how I fell into a hole - silly me! - and then pulled myself out after multiple failed attempts.' Everyone fails so writing about problems in an entertaining way makes them feel better about themselves. Don't make fun of other people. Satirists make a good living at this but they already know they're funny and are willing to give up part of their audience because they're confident of being consistently very amusing to the rest.

[mrfusion]

Unfortunately most people these days have joined a “tribe” and they need to maintain their beliefs to feel like part of the tribe.

Watch “behind the curve” for a good example of this.

The only way to change someone’s mind is to offer them a better tribe to join. Kind of like selling a timeshare.

[tacostakohashi]

Would you like to win friends as well? If so, try this book:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Win_Friends_and_Influen...

[emteycz]

Knowing what you're doing is the most influential thing - learn about individual and social psychology. It's an incredibly deep rabbit hole. Applying it on the field to "influence people" requires balls of steel and a level of smoothness you can get only with hard practical training; changing your goal to "using psychology to achieve mutually beneficial results" helps a lot.

As for the learning, Wikipedia is your biggest friend, but don't rely solely on it. Always try to consider multiple opinions, sources. Don't forget that words can have different meanings in different contexts, that's very often the case in psychology so never trust yourself and always check, even if you are sure.

Let's say you want to become more effective manager of a team - I'd start here and follow the links: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_and_organizational_...

[ping_pong]

Listen to the people you want to influence.

Get in their heads, and understand their point of view.

Be smart enough to know how to bridge the gap between where they are in their thinking, and where you want them to be.

[aristofun]

Best option is to find a good cause, reason, mission or goal to influence about.

All famous leader are famous for some specific mission/goal they were leading to.

You can’t be just influential in general, but the bigger cause you have and the more you passionate about it — the easier to attract people to follow your ideas.

[ID1452319]

I always try to take people on the same journey that I've been on to reach my conclusion. Therefore, don't jump straight to your recommendation. Instead, lay out the options, articulate the pros and cons and then make a recommendation. That way people can understand the background and context of the direction you're trying to influence them in.

[runawaybottle]

Tell people what they want to hear. Donald Trump is a good example of it if you have an open mind.