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Anubhav Raina shares a series that presents a model for understanding how influencing works and how you can train yourself to excel at it. It combines his personal observations with the latest research in influencing.

Note this is a three-part series:

1. Intro (this article)
2. CIF — Core Influence Framework
3. Building Trust
4. Convincing people

Appendices

1. Using effective questioning
2. Expanding the size of the pie
3. Negotiation: sweetening the deal
4. Using biases to your advantage
5. Negotiation: When to walk away

Being able to influence someone on a key issue is the single greatest superpower you can have.

From convincing a client or boss to try out your idea, to being able to guide your family into seeing things your way.

Humans are influencing each other ALL the time, and similar to other activities –influencing is a skillset. In fact, it is one of the most useful skillsets you can learn.

Like many other behaviors, influencing too has a large evolutionary basis. We can use this knowledge to develop a gameplan for many situations that require influencing.

Building upon the work done in evolutionary sciences, psychology and management thinking, this short series sets a repeatable framework for building trust and convincing that will help you face each interaction with a solid plan of action!

How it started

I still remember the moment. I was 23 and had just found out what my division head’s year-end bonus was — a sum almost 10x my own bonus.

No one was surprised. It was expected and natural. I was told the discrepancy existed because the boss had “put in the time”, or “had taken more risk”, or “was rewarded for his expertise”, along with a number of other reasons.

But the question never stopped nagging me — what possible value-add could be worth 10x more than my own work?

Many people in my company seemed to have expertise and experience on their side. BUT they weren’t making the same money as my division head.

Could the division boss really be that much more effective at his job?

It took years (and more than a few grey hairs) of observing C-level clients, senior partners at prestigious banks, consultancies & law firms to finally figure out that the answer had to do with one thing alone — being able to influence others.

Let’s explore this thought in greater detail.

Key points include:

• Core influence framework
• Expanding the size of the pie
• Using biases to your advantage

Access the full series, Influencing others: The greatest superpower you’ll ever need, on Medium.