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When I worked at White Pages, a new leadership team from the US was temporarily installed to reignite the Australian business.

Every few months we gathered for an all company meeting, 500+ of us sitting in a theatre to hear our Chief Strategy Officer share plans and progress.

Let me tell you, this leader was big on applause. So big that she constantly paused to prompt round after round of noisy affirmation.

As a result, these meetings got longer and longer. 

And longer.

In fact, they too...

I end my email newsletter with the following:

“When you know how to change behaviour, you can change your world.”

Your was deliberate.

I could have said the world, but that seemed grandiose.

By your I mean whatever you define your world to be. 

That could be your community, your business, your family.

Because it’s your behaviour and the behaviour of those around you that you can influence.

How well you influence, that’s entirely a question of technique.

If you found this interestin...

Have you noticed?

When someone does what we want, it’s because we are genius communicators. We credit ourselves for knowing how to convince people to change their behaviour.

When they don’t do what we want, we blame them. They don’t get it. They’re stubborn. They don’t listen to reason.

This is the fundamental attribution error: Blaming (or crediting) the person rather than the context.

Let’s be clear, though.

Influencing someone isn’t a superpower.

It’s a process.

👉A repeatable, learn...

Think you know how to influence?

You’re right.

You do.

You know your way to influence.

And it obviously works…to an extent.

You wouldn’t have gotten to where you are without some level of influencing skills.

But I’m guessing that being where you are comes with lots of frustrating follow ups, blown timeframes and compromises. 

👉 So, do you know the best way to influence?

Because they’re not necessarily the same.

Your way relies on subjective experience.

The better way relies on objec...

Brad the Breather is a real person. 

I met him at a health retreat a number of years ago where he taught us how to breathe correctly.

Big, life changing belly breaths.

Did I know I wasn’t breathing correctly? 

No. It had never occurred to me that I was doing it wrong.

“Most people don’t have any clue about the process of breathing”, says Brad Thompson, “it’s just something they automatically do”.

Just something we automatically do.

And until I experienced how different it could be, I w...

We think having the idea is the difficult part.

No.

Getting buy-in is what’s difficult.

Think about all the time and effort you expend creating emails, proposals, business cases or presentations in the hope others will support your plan.

Now reduce that time by half.

Just imagine the great things you can do with 50% of your time back.

That’s what knowing how to influence action can give you.

I’m going to let you in on a little secret.

Very few are doing it well.

You see, reviewing the work of others is something I do a lot. 

When clients share with me their website, marketing, proposals and internal comms, I get to see what’s happening ‘out there’, across all industries, functions and sizes of organisation. 

I have a front row seat to people’s best work.

And here’s what’s disappointing.

The intent is there. People want to do great work. They may even think they are.

But fo...

There are five myths about behaviour that persist despite being debunked by social sciences like behavioural economics.

In this video, I share what they are and why the science of influence has its own influence problem!

Snails are amazing, the way they lug their homes on their back. 

It’s quite the balancing act:

• Too heavy a shell, they can’t move.
• Too flimsy, it doesn’t protect them, which curtails their freedom.

It’s a balancing act humans are subject to, as well.

We’re constantly assessing what level of risk to carry before we compromise either freedom or safety. 

• Yes, I can post on social media, but what if I attract hate?
• Yes, I can buy your services, but what if I don’t get results?
• Yes, ...

You may have seen it a hundred times.

It’s part of the cultural landscape. A meme, even.

But what does a TV test pattern actually mean?

I’d never even thought about this until I saw it revealed.

What looked random to me is actually intentional. Nearly every pixel in that pattern has meaning. 

It’s purposeful. Predictable. Testable.

Now imagine having that same discovery about behaviour.