Why You Must Protect Yourself and Your Team

So far you’ve learned about the basis of power, where that power comes from, and how to obtain it. You’ve also learned about various tactics and strategies that you can use to influence people or processes for which you do not have authority over. You’ve even learned about how to build and leverage relationships in order to get things done in organizations, and to leverage those relationships to influence people within your organization, and even outside of your organization. In this segment, we’re gonna talk about, how do you protect yourself from other’s influence? In particular, the unwanted influence of others. Why?

Well, the reality is that other people are going to be able to use these same strategies, these same tactics on you or your team, and you have to be able to protect yourself from that unwanted influence. Think about the influence toolkit that you have. We’ve talked about social proof, authority, availability, framing, anchoring, liking, scarcity, reciprocity even the non-verbals. All of these strategies, all of these influence tactics can be used to influence you and your team. It’s essential that you have the ability to protect yourself and your team from the unwanted influence of others. Why do we care so deeply about your ability to protect yourself from this unwanted influence?

Well, all you have to do is remember back to our conversation that we had about, for example, the Stanford Prison Experiment. Where Zimbardo and his colleagues in the early 1970s gave power to participants in the experiment, to be the prison guards. And those guards used that power to command, control and even in some cases, torture the other participants in the experiment, who were the prisoners. It’s a profound impact that power can have on our relationship with other people. And in many cases, that power can be used for no good. For evil, even. Also, take the experiment that we shared with you done by Stanley Milgram and his colleagues.

In the early 1960s, the electric shock experiment experiments, where participants in the experiments came in and they either served as the teacher or learner. And medical psychiatrists expected the participants to engage in the electric shock of the learner, only up to a very small amount. And what we actually found is that when there’s an experimenter in the room and he or she is wearing very professional attire, or a white coat, to be seen as the power or authority figure in that room. Simply that authority figure telling other people to continue with the experiment, to continue shocking these other people who they don’t even know.

62% of people go as far as to administer 450 volts of electricity to other human beings. This is why it’s so essential that we are able to protect ourselves from the unwanted influence of other people. Ultimately, this conversation boils down to this fundamental question. And the question is, what is the difference between influence and manipulation? They’re very close concepts, but what I’d like you to think deeply about is from your experience, from your perspective, what is the fundamental difference between influence and manipulation? What I’d like to do, is I’d like you to start by going to your discussion forum online and share with your classmates what you see as the key difference between influence and manipulation.

Share your point of view. Share your perspective. And listen and hear what other classmates have to say about the difference between influence and manipulation. Then we will come back and talk about what our science talks about as the key difference between influence and manipulation. And then we will go into the strategies and the tactics that you can use to make sure that you and your team are protected from the unwanted influence and manipulation of other people.