How to Influence Anyone, Anywhere, Every Time

CHAPTER 3BEGIN WITH WHY

Start With Why is a best‐selling book by Simon Sinek.⁶ He states that the simplest idea is to answer the question ‘What's in it for me?’ that every person asks in almost any communication context.

The reality is that relevance, or the Why? Frame, is often ignored, assumed or superficially handled.

Every Tuesday morning, we have to attend the weekly sales meeting. We have to present our sales, pipeline and forecast, and there are 16 of us. It takes 90 minutes. The only thing anyone is interested in is ensuring they don't make a mistake in their numbers. A total waste of time.

We have heard variations of this many, many times. It only takes a few minutes to define the relevance and purpose of a meeting. However, if relevance is ignored or the why? is assumed, the level of engagement plummets.

Two primary forces drive human motivation (see figure 3.1, overleaf):

1. move away
2. move towards.

Figure 3.1 People are motivated away and towards

We are motivated away from things we don't want: loss, shame, pain, poverty, failure, loneliness and so on. Or we are motivated towards things we do want: gain, pride, pleasure, wealth, success, love, etc.

Of course, complex human beings are influenced by biological, psychological, cognitive, economic, cultural and social drivers. And we can plunge deep into each of these, however, the foundations will stem from ...