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Source: Stephen R. Covey, The 8th Habit.
Influence - A case study
The Greek philosophy of influence called ethos, pathos, logos, is an excellent summary of the process of increasing your influence.
Ethos basically means your ethical nature, your personal credibility, the amount of trust or confidence others have in your integrity and competency. When people consistently come through in a principle-centered way on those things they have promised and what is expected of them, they have ethos. SQ (Spiritual Quotient).
Pathos is empathy - it's the feeling side. It means that you understand how another person feels, what his needs are, how she sees things, and what he is trying to communicate - and she feels it. EQ (Emotional Quotient).
Logos basically stands for logic. It has to do with the power and persuasion of your own presentation, your own thinking. IQ (Intelligence Quotient).
The sequence, of course, is supremely important. To move to logos before people feel understood is futile; to try create understanding when there is no faith in your character is likewise futile.
One time I was teaching a Twenty Group - a group of twenty professional insurance general agents who gather together every quarter in a learning forum for an idea exchange. For two years I was their resource person. One January in our meeting they were all complaining and murmuring about the lousy training and development program in the company. And the straw that broke the camel's back took place just before Christmas at the big international awards ceremony held in Hawaii, where part of the time was spent in training. The training involved no idea exchange or learning from one another. At best it was an expensive and impressive laser show. They complained that this was typical of the training they received and that it was essentially short-lived and useless.
I asked them why they didn't change it. They responded, "Well, that's not our role; we're not in charge of that." I told them they were copping out, that they could change the training program if they had the mind to. They were among the top general agents in the entire company and had enormous credibility, or ethos. They could visit with anyone in the company they chose. I encouraged them to make a presentation to the decision-makers and to make sure to begin by describing the decision-makers' point of view (pathos) as well as or better than they could themselves - including all their potential concerns about making changes to the training program and beautifully orchestrated annual celebrations. The goal would be to describe these concerns until the executives felt so deeply understood that they would then be open to the logos, or logic, of the agents' recommendations. The agents would also present many positive options and ideas, and should approach it with absolute clarity as to what they wanted to change.
So they sent two representatives to see not only the president and CEO but also the person in charge of training and development. They allowed for whatever time they needed to describe the company's approach and the reasons for it, as well as the economic, political and cultural struggles of making a change. They continued this description until it was obvious that the decision-makers felt deeply understood. As soon as they felt understood, they became very open to influence. They literally asked for the recommendations of these
two general agents, who gave not only the recommendations but also a plan of action that dealt with all the economic, political and cultural realities they had described before.
The decision-makers were blown away. Even though the recommendation was to start off by designing a pilot program, the decision-makers instantly made it a company-wide program.
When we had our next quarterly meeting, they told me what happened. So I said, "Now what do you want to take on - what other stupid thing is going on in the company that you'd like to see changed?"
This Twenty Group was literally amazed at how they had empowered themselves - how their initiative and courage and empathy had paid off. They ceased moaning, complaining and murmuring, and started taking more and more responsibility. While continuing to plow their own small fields, they surveyed large fields and saw things in a larger context. They saw the top decision-makers as human beings who were struggling just as they were, who needed models rather than critics, needed sources of light rather than sources of judgment.
Comment
Group Training Manager: Roger Smyth
"Of all the initiatives I have been involved with, one of the most rewarding has been the series of workshops which were run by Sean Donnelly on Career Strategy using the book 10 degrees to North, it is different and the response from those who attended was AMAZING. In a very real way many lives were changed and individuals took charge of their own careers."
It will stay with them for a very long time.