Predicting Success: Evidence-Based Strategies to Hire the Right People and Build the Best Team

Chapter 6How to Persuade

HOW COME CERTAIN PEOPLE SEEM SO UNCOMMONLY blessed when it comes to their ability to win others over to their point of view? Exactly what is it about some individuals that they possess an uncanny ability to nudge the sentiments of others into their favor, even if they launch the process at opposite ends of the spectrum of opinion?

Mastering this important skill should be a life lesson each and every one of us takes on. The ability to persuade other people about something is a critical one that finds constant application throughout a person's life, in a multitude of personal, social, and professional situations. You may want to persuade an employee to smarten up or deliver more. You may want to persuade your boss to give you a raise or adopt your idea. And if you're a kid—the most pervasive persuaders of us all—you probably want to persuade your parents of almost everything.

In any event, understanding the trick to persuasion will deliver certain happiness and satisfaction to your life, as opposed to a perpetual state of dissatisfaction and frustration. If you can persuade people, you can achieve your goals, both big and small. More than that, cultivating an appreciation for the techniques of persuasion will heighten your sensitivity to those occasions when they're being wheeled out on you. That'll keep more money in your pocket and won't fill your closets up with infomercial-peddled junk, if nothing else.

The Role of the Subconscious

The more sensitive ...