The Art of Calibrating While You Influence

My team employs, constantly refines, and espouses (and builds into most of its client training programs), a model called "Humanistic Influence". It's a model that describes an orientation one can adopt when trying to influence a person. It is very focused on the psychology of high-integrity influence--how to lead, sell, present, negotiate, coach--explaining how people can self-manage their thinking through the dialogue process.

This blog entry is about a recent modification. It might LOOK simple, but it's really just the tip of the iceberg and it took us a while to land on it.

We've been wrestling in particular with one component of the model: calibration. That is, what goes through the mind of a humanistic influencer when he or she is interacting in a high integrity fashion with an influencee?

Our present view is simply this: calibration is a process of reframing one's goals and an influencee's goals, through dialogue, to find a point of unity.

For example, let's say you work for a manufacturer of a bunch of different types of food products. You want me to put your whole product line-up on a lot of linear feet of my store's shelving. I'm not inclined to let you do that; I want to offer my customers a selection of products from multiple manufacturers.

Just how do you, the noble influencer, win this sale? The two goals seem in conflict, yes?

So, in your head you calibrate. You dialogue with me and clarify with me that behind my goal is the desire to offer wide selection AND, particularly these days, improve my overall profitability. Indeed, I agree, I want both.

So you've tweaked our description of my goal a bit. That's no small feat. Great.

And you tweak your goal a bit. You pull back on your effort to "own" my shelf space and offer to help me take full advantage of some unused space in my store by installing an end-aisle unit that can be usesd to highlight your, and my, most profitable product.

I say "yes" because you've helped me achieve my goals, and you're pleased as punch because you got more shelf space in my store (the end-aisle unit) and the chance to draw attention to a key product.

Bingo, bango...I've been influenced. I get what I want and I respect you. You make progress against your long-term goal. Everybody goes home happy.

Dialogue. Calibrate. Go home happy.