Weapons of Influence

While I’ve been working on my Intelligent Influence site, I’ve been reviewing some of the classics of the persuasion and influence world.

After all, I make the big claim that my Secrets of Intelligent Influence video offers new ideas and information that you won’t get anywhere else. I’m delighted that the more I explore, the more I think my claim really does stand up

And as I re-read the classics, there’s always another level of knowledge and insight to be gained.

How about Robert Cialdini’s Influence: Science and Practice? If you’re interested in influence, persuasion and manipulation then it’s worth a read. In it, Cialdini describes a set of “weapons of influence” including:

• Reciprocation

• Commitment and Consistency

• Social Proof

• Liking

• Authority

• Scarcity

Naturally, he uses a metaphor to introduce these weapons:

“A woman employing the Japanese martial art form called jujitsu would use her own strength only minimally against an opponent. Instead, she would exploit the power inherent in such naturally present principles as gravity, leverage, momentum, and inertia. If she knows where to engage the action of these principles she can easily defeat a physically stronger rival. And so it is for the exploiters of the weapons of automatic influence that exist naturally around us. The profiteers can commission the power of these weapons against their targets while exerting little personal force. This last feature of the process gives the profiteers the ability to maniuplate without the appearance of manipulation. Even the victims themselves tend to see their compliance as a result of the action of natural forces rather than the designs of the person who profits from that compliance.”

“Weapons of influence”, then, is a very curious metaphor. For it seems that scarcity, reciprocation etc are not weapons at all, but principles, forces. The profiteer can exploit them, just as the jujitsu fighter exploits gravity.

If these weapons are not in fact weapons but natural principles, what happens when someone decides not to exploit them? The truth is that we can’t not influence, any more than we can turn off gravity.

It seems to me that we can become more aware how influencing principles work, and how we can use them most effectively in order to change what we believe needs to be changed. Or we can ignore them, singing “la-la-la” with our fingers in our ears.

• What do you think? Please comment below.