664: Dr. Robert Cialdini on How to Persuade with the 7 Universal Principles of Influence

Welcome to the How to Be Awesome at Your Job podcast, the show where brilliant professionals share how to sharpen the universal skills required to flourish at work, enjoy more career fun, wins, meaning, and money with your host, Pete McKaidis.

Hello and thanks so much for joining us here for episode 664 with Dr. Robert Cialdini, a very special episode. I have been a fan of Bob's for a long, long time and wanted him on the show since before this was a show. So you're in for a real treat from the godfather of influence himself. Fun fact: I read his book Pre-Suasion on a beach in Hawaii on my honeymoon. So that's how riveting I find this stuff and valuable, and I think you will too. So you'll learn, one, the 5 words that doubled A student's persuasiveness. 2, how to masterfully and disasterfully employ each of the 7 principles of influence. And 3, the easiest way to lose someone's trust. So if you want to check out the show notes or the transcript or the links to items we've referenced, drop on by awesomeatyourjob.com/ep664. And if you're at awesomeatyourjob.com, I recommend you check out the gold nugget summaries, which provide the wisdom from Bob and all the other guests in bite-sized email doses. Now here's Bob's story. Dr. Robert Cialdini is the author of Influence and Pre-Suasion. He is the thought leader in the fields of influence and persuasion, and he's a 3-time New York Times bestselling author with over 7 million books sold in 44 languages. Dr. Cialdini received his PhD from the University of North Carolina and postdoctoral training from Columbia University. He holds honorary doctoral degrees from Georgetown University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Wroclaw, Poland, and the University of Basel in Switzerland. He's held visiting scholar appointments at Ohio State University, the University of California, the Annenberg School of Communications, and the Graduate School of Business of Stanford University. In acknowledgement of his outstanding research achievements and contributions in behavioral science, Dr. Cialdini was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences. His work and books have been featured in the New York Times, Forbes, Inc., Psychology Today magazine, and on the PBS NewsHour, Bloomberg, CNN, BBC, New York Times, MSNBC, CNBC, CBS, and many more. Dr. Cialdini is a highly popular keynoter and often referred to as the Godfather of Influence. For more about Bob and his life's work, visit influenceatwork.com. Big thanks to Bob for sharing his wisdom with us, and big thanks to our sponsors. Check them out. One sponsor to check out is Monarch. I don't enjoy thinking about or fiddling with money, so I love resources that make this quicker and easier. Set yourself up for financial success this year. Monarch is a gorgeous personal finance tool that makes your money life easier. It brings your whole money picture from budgets to accounts and transactions and investments into one super handy dashboard on your phone or laptop. I was such a fan of the old Mint.com and was super bummed when it disappeared. But the good news is that Monarch was founded by a team that includes the original product manager of Mint, and I dare say it's even better. I like the graphical summaries that help me drill down into things quickly and easily and helps me get to the bottom of anything that just seems off or weird or It helps me zero in on great opportunities for savings faster. In fact, Monarch helped the average user save over $200 per month after joining. So set yourself up for financial success in 2026 with Monarch, the all-in-one tool that makes proactive money management simple all year long. Use code awesome at monarch.com for half off your first year. That's 50% off your first year at monarch.com with code awesome. One sponsor to check out is Shopify. When you're starting something new, what-ifs abound. What if I fail? What if nobody cares? What if nobody buys my stuff? Shopify can help make things easy. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10% of all e-commerce in the US. From household names like Magic Spoon and Allbirds to brands just getting started. Shopify facilitates everything from inventory to payments to analytics and more. No need to use a dozen different software tools. Everything's all in one place, making your life easier and your operations smoother. And what if you get stuck? Well, Shopify is always around to share advice with their award-winning 24/7 customer support. You can get started with your own design studio with hundreds of ready-to-use templates. Shopify helps you build a beautiful online store that matches your brand style. It's time to turn those what-ifs into ka-ching with Shopify today. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at shopify.com/awesome. Go to shopify.com/awesome. That's shopify.com/awesome. Ka-ching. One sponsor to check out is Narwal. I am so impressed with the Narwal Flow 2 vacuum and mopping robot. I have tried 3 other robots in the past, and this is far and away my favorite. It just gets the job done without me having to babysit it. It's quieter, smarter, prettier, easier, and higher performing than any other floor cleaning robot I've used. Their FlowWash mopping system has 16 nozzles spraying fresh water continuously. They've also got a wastewater extraction and storage system to prevent residue and odors. It adapts to wet and dry messes with their NarMind Pro autonomous system. It gets back to its all-in-one base station without any trouble or requiring any help or intervention from me. It never just stops working in the middle of the floor or gets all tangled up in a cord. It's everything I've always wanted from a cleaning robot but have not had until now with Narwal. So if you want to treat your home to spotless, fresh floors, visit us.narwal.com/pete. That's us.narwal.com/pete. Now here's Bob. Bob, thanks so much for joining us here on the How to Be Awesome at Your Job podcast.

I'm glad to be with you, Pete.

Well, I am glad to be with you as well. This is a treat and an honor. You've been on my list since before this show was a show. We're talking about your latest new updated edition of Influence, and you've updated and expanded a lot here, but I love how you have left the first two sentences in the introduction the same. Could you speak those words now and tell us if they still ring true after studying influence for all these decades?

Yes, there's a story that goes with them, but let me give them first. They are, I can admit it freely now, all my life I've been a patsy, which has to do with one of the reasons I got into studying the influence process and persuasion. I was forever the unwanted owner of various things that people would sell me. I was a contributor to causes I'd never heard of. And I would say to myself, what just happened here? There must be something other than the merits of the offer that got me to say yes. It must be the way the presenter delivered the merits of the offer that triggered some psychological tendencies in me to say yes to things. Wouldn't that be interesting to study, not just out of self-defense, but as a general inquiry into the way we work as members of our species.

Yeah, indeed. Well, and, and it is fascinating stuff, and we're all indebted to you for having delved in and codified a lot of the— and discovered a lot of this stuff. So maybe we'll give first a quick note to the pre-existing Cialdini fans. What is new in this latest expanded edition?

Well, of course, it's been 14 years since the last edition, so I've added 220 pages of new material updates as to what it is that makes people say yes to requests or recommendations or proposals. The science has advanced, but in addition, I've looked specifically at how the internet has interacted with this process. How the principles of influence have migrated over to these platforms that didn't exist in any meaningful sense 14 years ago, to look at how the influence process works on those platforms, social media, electronic marketing, and so on. That's a big difference and a big addition to this edition. But As well, I've added a 7th principle of influence. There used to be just 6 that I thought covered the waterfront, but no, I think there's a 7th that I call unity. And it has to do with the extent to which people are willing to say yes to anyone who is a member of what they will consider a we group, a group in which they share an identity with the other members of that group. So here's an example. A study was done on a university campus. Researchers had a young woman asking passersby for contributions to the United Way. Most of the passersby were students at that university. She was able to double, more than double, her number of contributors and the amount of donations by adding one sentence before she made her request. It was, "I'm a student here too." And now all the barriers to yes came down. We say yes to those individuals who are not just like us, but are of us.

Yeah, that is powerful. Well, so I wanna dig into quickly each of the six and then in some more depth, The 7th. But maybe for those who are not yet Cialdini fans, can you paint a little bit of the why for us? Like, just how much more persuasive are we when we utilize these principles? Is it a little bit of a lift, or is it transformational? And can you give us maybe some of the most dramatic numbers you've encountered?

It's transformational. We just talked about one. If you could more than double— is it— it's 2.5 times the amount of assent that you get to a request, you're going to be a master of that moment. So, but that will be true in a lot of instances, even though all it takes is an extra breath. All it takes is to say something that triggers a deeply seated psychological tendency in all of us It's that trigger that produces the power. In the same way that if I were the person who was in charge of lighting a stadium, right, I don't have to go run around on a wheel to get all that. I flip a switch. There's no effort involved. The power is what is stored in the system of that electronic network inside that stadium. Well, that's what you do with these simple words or phrases or sentences. You trip a switch that engages the power of a system that moves us powerfully, like the system that says, I say yes to those people who are of us, are one of us.

All right, so that 2.5x rate we're looking at in that particular example of Unity is somewhat representative of, of all of these principles used well in action?

It will be. It will vary from 20% all the way to 250%, but you'll get substantially more compliance than your competitors who don't know how to trigger those psychological principles.

All right, that's huge. So I just wanted to establish that for the record. We're not talking about studies that somehow managed to eke out statistical significance significance with a big sample size, it's transformational. All right, so covered. I'd love to hear, before we get into the particulars, is there one or two discoveries about influence that you've made over the course of your career that just surprised you the most? Like, holy smokes, is that how we humans really operate? Wow.

Yeah, I'll give you two. One is how small the footprint is for the fundamental principles of persuasion. I spent 2.5 years studying undercover the techniques and practices of various kinds of influence professions: sales, marketing, advertising, fundraising, recruiting, and so on. And what I found was that there were only very few principles of influence that worked across the whole range of these. There were thousands of individual tactics and techniques that were used, but I thought we could categorize the majority of them in terms of just these 7 universal principles. So that's one. We don't have to have a long compendium of these things that we've memorized and checked off. And so, no, there are only 7. We can handle 7. Know to include one or another of them into a message or a communication which will significantly increase the likelihood of ascent. Oh, and here's one thing I should say. The word likelihood is crucial here. These aren't magical. Yeah, there's no such thing as 100% all of the time that will get you success, but will get you better chances of success, will get you better probabilities of success every time. And if As I said, you use them and your rivals or competitors don't, you'll win every time.

Yeah, beautiful. Okay, well then let's, let's zoom in. Let's talk about these universal principles of influence. Also might be called weapons of influence or tools of influence or levers of influence. The, the big ideas here, could you maybe give us the, the quick version of the original 6? Hey, what is it? And maybe an example that you find intriguing of a professional using it masterfully and then maybe disasterfully, like, whoa, that's the wrong way to use reciprocation.

Good plan. Let's begin with the principle of reciprocation, which says people want to give back to those who have given to them first. So if you invite me to a party, I should invite you to one of mine. If you remember my birthday with a Card, I should remember yours. And if you do me a favor, Pete, I owe you a favor. And I'll say very simply, in the context of obligation, people say yes to those they owe. Yeah. So let's take an example. Recently, one of my colleagues, Steve Martin, did some research at McDonald's with a little procedure. In which the manager arranged for every family that came into that McDonald's location for the children in the family to get a balloon.

Okay.

Half of them got the balloon as they left as kind of a thank you. The other half got the balloon as they entered. Those who got the balloon as the kids got the balloon as they entered, The family bought 20% more food.

Beautiful. Because they felt a tug of reciprocation, like, oh, that was nice of them. I should probably go ahead and get some extra fries.

You have kids, Pete? You have kids?

I got two toddlers. Yeah.

You know, if I do a favor for your children, I've done a favor for you. And that's what happened. Now, here's the interesting thing about that study. They also got a 25% increase in coffee purchases. Not for the kids. The parents bought more food for themselves.

Now, I'm thinking John Mulaney, one black coffee. It's not for the kids.

No, no. Right. But okay, now your point. So how do people sometimes use this poorly? Notice that it was the same cost of the balloon, right? Right. For the kids as they left her, you have to go first. You have to go first. How many restaurants have you been in that they do this wrong? As you leave the restaurant, there's a basket of mints on the desk for you to sample as you leave, right? Nobody gets any benefit inside the restaurant for that little favor that you've done, right? In fact, it's probably cost you more because I see people digging their hands in and taking handfuls of mints. Mints, right? Well, there was a study that showed that if you put a mint on the tray just before people pay their bill, the tip goes up 3.3%. That's good. If you put 2 mints on the tray per customer, the tip goes up 14.3%. All right, so you can see the difference now, right? It's the same expense. But only one gives you anything in return.

That's powerful. And while we're talking about reciprocity, I said we'd go fast, but I can't resist. You suggested if you do a favor for someone and they say thank you, don't say it was nothing, but you might say something along the lines of, I know you'd do the same for me. Do you have any pro tips on how to deliver that line, or alternatives if people feel a little funny saying it?

Look, that's what I would recommend for somebody who you don't have a relationship with. So what do you say to just put them on record that in the future, if I need something, you'd do the same for me? So one of the tips is don't say, if the situation had been reversed, I know you would have done the same for me. That's in the past. You say, if the situation were ever reversed, I know you would do the same for me. Now they're on record.

Yeah. Right. All right.

Now, if there is a relationship and you've done something a little special for people inside that relationship, maybe a business relationship, and they say, thank you so much. I really appreciated the way you got this order to me quicker. You arranged the payment plan for me to fit. All right. And then here's what I think you say. Of course, it's what long-term partners do. And then you add the addendum, for one another.

I'm applauding. Thank you. I'm glad I asked. So that's reciprocation. Let's talk about commitment and consistency.

Yes. So one thing, another thing that people are very, feel very strongly is they want to be consistent with what they have already committed themselves to, either in action or word, especially in public. You want to be consistent. You don't want to be seen as a flip-flopper, as somebody who says one thing, does another, and so on. So if people are, if you can arrange for people to make a small step in your direction or make a statement or something that they truly believe, but make it out loud in public, they're more likely to then continue to be, to move in that direction. And the great story I like in this regard comes from a study that was done in a restaurant in Chicago where the owner was getting about 30% no-shows. When people would call and book a table, then 30% of them wouldn't show up. And they wouldn't call to cancel. So he had his receptionist change what she said when she took a booking from, "Thank you for calling Gordon's Restaurant. Please call if you have to change or cancel your recommendation," to, "Will you please call?" Okay. And then pause. The pause was crucial. Because it allowed people to say, "Yes, sure, of course." In other words, they committed themselves. No-shows dropped from 30% to 10% that day and never went back up.

That's good.

Now, what's the implication for your listeners? If you're running a meeting and you're assigning people tasks to do before the next meeting, never let Anyone out of the room without saying, will you be able to complete this task properly by the time of our next meeting? Most of them, if they say no, that's good. That means, you know, you gotta give them more time. You gotta give them some resources or help, but most of them will say yes. And you've now significantly increased the likelihood that they will come properly prepared.

Mm-hmm. Beautiful.

Because they've made a commitment to it, public commitment.

Okay, well, so one key principle there is just to, to do it and, and not forget and not assume, but actually get the yes. Any ways this can be done inappropriately?

Yeah, it's by failing to pause.

Yeah.

And let them make a commitment to you.

All right, perfect. Well, now how about social proof?

Social proof. This is the one, the principle that says people want to follow the lead of multiple comparable others. If a lot of people are raving about a new restaurant, a lot of people, a piece of software or a new film or something on Netflix that you don't want to miss, uh, The Queen's Gambit, but you're likely to follow through because they've beta tested it for you. Yeah. So people are much more likely to say yes if There's evidence that that's the case. There was a study done in Beijing, China, shows you the cross-cultural reach of this. Restaurant managers put a little asterisk next to certain items on the menu, which increased the purchase of those items by 13 to 20%. What did the asterisk stand for? It wasn't what it usually stands for, right? This is a specialty of the house. 'Or this is our chef's recommendation for the evening.' That's what we normally see. It was, 'This is one of our most popular items.' And each one became 13 to 20% more popular for their popularity.

You know, that is interesting in terms of— and did they do that research kind of head-to-head? Like, most people— asterisk means most people like this versus asterisk means chefs suggestion, and social proof wins?

No, they didn't do that.

Okay, so we don't know.

We don't know. But what we know is that they had never used— this is our most— okay, yeah, one of our most popular items there, and it produced this effect, right? Honestly, it was their most popular items.

Certainly, we're not just blowing smoke. And that makes everything easier from like a supply management inventory complexity running your business situation on the back end because it's just way simpler.

Yeah, just point to it.

Yeah, there it is.

And the other— the lovely thing about it is it makes it ethical, right? You're just informing people, in a sense. You're not tricking them and certainly not coercing them. It's just educating them.

It's even helpful. It's like, I don't know, I mean, exactly, if I'm a tourist, I might actually want to know. People might ask me, oh, did you get to this? I had no idea I should have gotten that thing.

You put your finger on it Another factor in this study that I usually don't talk about, but it's true. There was, although this technique worked for every demographic that came into the restaurants, young, old, business, people, men, women, whatever it was, the one demographic that most responded to this was people who were there for the first time. Okay. Who were unsure.

Yes.

And what this does, it reduces your uncertainty. That's what social proof does. It reduces your uncertainty of the step you should take.

Mm-hmm. It certainly—

yeah.

And that really does seem where social proof shines. If you've ever had the conversation with a parent, like, everybody else is doing it, and they say, well, if everyone else were jumping off a cliff, would you do it? I think the real answer is, if you're on top of a cliff, you'd be like, this is kind of scary. I'm not so sure about this. But then you see 10 people jump off, have a great time, be okay.

Like, right.

I guess it's fine. Social proof.

Yeah, precisely.

Cool. Let's talk about liking.

There wouldn't be a single member of your audience that's listening to us who would be surprised that we prefer to say yes to the people we like. That's not a surprise. Here's what's surprising. There are two things you can do, very small things you can do, to significantly increase the rapport that people feel with us. One is to point to genuine similarities that exist between us.

You know, Bob, we've both written books. I like you.

We're authors. If I just bring that to the surface at the top, there's a bond between us now, right? Well, there was a study done of negotiators that found that if they sent information to one another before the negotiation started, right, about their interests and hobbies and backgrounds, where they went to school, what their family situation was, and so on, they significantly reduced the percentage of stymied negotiations where people just walked away. Nobody won. Both sides left with nothing, right?

Yeah.

Now, the interesting thing was it wasn't the amount of information that was conveyed by one or another partner. It was whether there was a commonality, a parallel inside that information that was revealed. Oh, you're a runner? I'm a runner. You're an only child? I'm an only child. You have twins? I have twins. And that was the thing. So we now have the internet available to us. We can identify before we ever try to do business with somebody or negotiate with somebody or make a request of somebody, they tell us all kinds of things about them on LinkedIn or Facebook. It's not proprietary information. It's not embargoed. They want us to know this about them. If we go there and locate something that's truly in common and then bring it to the surface, we get a better outcome.

That's good. And not to get too into the weeds with distinctions, but so there's there's liking, and one way that we produce liking is by seeing a similarity. But then that kind of feels like we're now in unity territory, right? Like, oh hey, we're both all—

yes.

Is there— do you think about that distinction in any particular way that's helpful?

I do. One is a similarity of preferences or tastes or styles or inclinations, and these kind of proclivities. And the other is a similarity of membership in a group that people define themselves with.

Like who I am, my identity.

Yes. So if I were to say to my fellow group members, oh, Pete is like us, I'll get some movement in your direction from them. They'd be more inclined to achieve. But if I were to say Pete is one of us, everything, all barriers to influence come down.

I am now.

That's a much more powerful form of similarity. It's who I am is shared by this individual. We share a social identity. And there are various ways of doing that that don't take a lot of time. Everybody says Warren Buffett is the most successful financial expert of our time, investor of our time. He did something in a recent letter to his shareholders where the question was, what's Berkshire Hathaway's, that's his business, his company, future going to look like in the future, right? What's it going to look like? And he said, I would tell you what I'd say to a family member if they asked me that question. In other words, he brought everybody inside the boundaries of his family. I own some Berkshire Hathaway stock, and what he said at that moment opened my ears and opened my mind to the next thing he said in ways that he wouldn't have been able to do without that preface. He said, I'm going to bring you inside my family, my identity, my social identity. I would do the same thing for you as I am for them.

Wow.

You can do it. You can do those sorts of things.

Well, now that we're talking about unity, let's roll with it. So any other key things you want to share about unity? It's about identity, that shared we-ness. We're in the same tribe.

Yes. We-ness. Partnership.

Yeah.

So here's one small, again, small thing you can do that flips the script and significantly increases the likelihood that people will follow what you ask them to do. Many times we have ideas or initiatives perhaps at work that we would like to get installed and we would like to be associated with that would bolster our reputation as somebody who comes up with ideas that work if we run them up the hierarchy. But now often we need buy-in from people around us, fellow colleagues, maybe our immediate manager and so on, that this is a good idea, right? And what we typically do is to show a draft of our idea or a blueprint of it to this person whose buy-in we want. And we ask for their feedback on it. And typically, here's the mistake that we make. We ask them for their advice. And the truth is, psychologically, when you ask for someone's advice, you get a critic.

Okay?

You get someone who goes inside, who introspects and thinks about you as different, and they separate from you. Almost physically take a half step back, certainly psychologically, and go inside themselves to consider the pros and cons.

Just with the word advice.

I'm sorry, did I say advice? I meant opinion. Okay. If you ask for their opinion, you get a critic.

Opinion leads to critique. All right.

If you ask for their advice, you get a partner.

Okay.

You get a collaborator. And there's research to show that if you send people, this is an online study that was done, a business plan for a new restaurant called Splash, it was gonna provide fast, healthy food, right? And they read the business plan and then you ask them, to what extent do you favor this idea? If they were asked for their opinion on it, versus their advice for it, right? The opinion gets significantly less favorable commentary than advice.

Yeah.

And the researchers asked why. And here's the kicker. It was because they felt more identity. They felt more of a shared identity with the business plan developer. If the business plan developer asked for their advice, they felt a partnership with them.

Yeah, that's right. It's like, hey, we're members of this community, we want to make the downtown really cool. Like, yeah, yeah. And I imagine if, to the extent that there was sort of write-in options, there's probably more of that, right? Like more helpful stuff written and by word count.

Yes. There's another example of a small thing. You change one word and you get a different psychological response based on what it triggers in you. In one case, it triggers a sense of, well, I'm a critic here. In the other case, for advice, oh, I'm a collaborator. I'm a partner with this man or this business developer in this project, in this idea.

That's good. Well, I don't want to be a critic of other podcasters and bloggers, but I guess I will. Sometimes I feel a little weird when it's almost like— this is before I had the language of the unity principle— but if I'm listening to a show in a podcast and they sort of address me as in the group— for example, if I were to say to my audience, what's up, awesome nation, we got a really cool guest, it's Bob, you know— and so I've sort of just defined that this is our group. If I'm on the receiving end of that, I'm like, I feel a little weird. It's like, I don't know if I am in awesome nation, and I almost feel a little bit more distance from them having to try to grab me in. What do you think about this?

Well, that may be the case because you see it as manipulative. But yeah, if you're truly looking for insight and collaboration and you want to share the, the idea or the membership and people see that, that you feel that you want to be more inclusive and bring people in inside the tent, then I think they'll let you get, get a pass with that. Okay, cool.

Thank you.

Well, all right.

Well, so we talked about liking and then went right into unity. So should we hit authority?

Sure. Another way to reduce your uncertainty about what constitutes a good choice for you is to follow the lead of genuinely constituted experts, people who know what they're talking about. And Of course, if you have that access, if there's a testimonial that fits with the recommendation you're making or the request that you're making from a legitimate authority on the topic, you need to bring that to bear, especially online. You see this all the time where people will provide testimonials of one sort or another. What they make— here's the mistake they make though. They bury it inside the message. My view is that it should go first. It should be the first thing you see so that all that aura, that positive aura of authority, now infuses the rest of the message.

So that's authority. So we want to put that a little bit more front and center as opposed to buried, right?

Where you've got it, don't forget to bring that. and people say, is there anything you can do to up the amperage of authority? Yes. Multiply it. Multiply the authorities. It turns out that people are more swayed by multiple authorities that you present all pointing in the same direction than any one. Don't stop at one.

Perfect.

You've missed a gear. There's another gear available to you.

So, and I guess it might vary case by case, but as you noted with like the mints, You know, there's one mint gives you a little bump, two mints gives you a much bigger bump. I guess you can go overboard. I mean, I've seen some books. Yeah, I kind of like it. But if there's like 20 other authors and endorsers on it, I'm like, oh, that's very impressive. It's a good lineup. But at some point, I don't know, is it sort of like trying too hard? I don't know. It comes across bad.

What I think it is, is people don't read it.

Okay.

Read all— read all 20 of them. Sure. They don't really get— because you've made it a burden for them to process all of that. But I think The fact that there are 20 is a plus.

Gotcha. And that's true. I'll scan them as like, oh, okay, because you got Bob Cialdini, you got Adam Grant, you must be fairly legitimate, even though I'm not going to read the details of it. Every single one of those people said about a book, right? Cool. Well, and now how about scarcity?

Scarcity. People want more of those things they can have less of. And that's true, it turns out, from a very young age in in us by the age of 2. Children are preferring to go in a direction of something that is scarce or rare or dwindling in availability to them, right? A toy compared to one that— a comparable toy that isn't dwindling in availability. So that's true of all of us. And the reason that that's the case is that if things are scarce or rare or dwindling in availability, we suffer the possibility of loss and we have loss aversion as a species. We are more motivated into action by the idea of losing something than gaining something of equal value. The Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman showed this in his prospect theory and he says we're twice as likely to move in the direction of something that prevents a loss than that obtains a gain. Yeah, for the same thing.

That's good, that's good. Well, Bob, this has been quite a rundown. Thank you. You tell me, is there anything else you really want to make sure to mention before we shift gears and hear about a few of your favorite things?

Well, you know, I think we've highlighted it before, and that is the importance of doing this ethically. That the only way you get to continue long-term productive relationships with people is that if these principles are used to inform them into ascent rather than trick them. As soon as they've recognized the trickery, they're gone to you. They're going to ghost you. That's it. You're gone. So ethics is crucial.

Certainly. Well, maybe could you share with us what is the most frequently occurring abuse you've seen of these principles?

I think it's lying with statistics. Okay. Where people will claim certain kinds of growth or size of the market share and so on, and they, they fix the data so that it seems that way. And it's not really— that's the case, right?

It's not representative for the reader.

That's right. Okay.

Well, now could you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

You know, I'm a researcher, so I'm gonna use a version of this quote, but there's an old Chinese proverb, "The years say what the days can't tell." The years say what the days can't tell. So it means don't jump on the first impression, the first piece of information, the first data point that you get as a way to decide If you can collect more evidence, then your choice will be more solid.

Yeah.

So the research-based version of that would be multiple data points tell what a single data point can't say.

Well done. And speaking of data points, boy, this might be hard for you. Is there a particular study or experiment or piece of research that you think of often that you're, you're fond of and has shaped your thinking?

Well, I'll say there's one that really I love because of what we also talked about, one small change that makes a difference.

Yeah.

It was a study done by the Harvard psychologist in a library and in front of a library copying machine where she had a research assistant go to the front of the line and say to the first person, "Excuse me, I have 8 pages. Could I butt ahead of you in line?" And under those circumstances, she was successful 60% of the time. In another condition, she went and said to the first person in line, "Excuse me, I have 8 pages. Can I move ahead of you because I'm in a rush?" And now she got 94% compliance. So it seemed like the reason "I'm in a rush" made the difference. But she had a third condition that showed that wasn't the case. Third condition: "Excuse me, I have 8 pages. Could I butt ahead of you in line because I have to make some copies?" Now, that's not a real reason.

Right. We all have to make copies.

93%.

Yeah.

It was the word "because." We are programmed to respond to the word "because" as if it leads into a genuine reason. And people automatically responded to it rather than to the genuine merits of the reason. So what I love about that is it just shows you how much of this is psychology rather than the merits of the thing. We have to train ourselves to know as much about the psychology of what goes before the offer as we do the merits of what's in the offer. Offer in order to protect ourselves properly.

Well said. Thank you. And could you name one favorite book?

Favorite is a tough one for me, but I'll give you the one that was most formative to me, the most impactful to me. I read it at 12 years old. It was the book The Hidden Persuaders by a guy named Vance Packard, who showed the hidden cues inside advertising that trigger psychological reactions in us. And it opened for me the idea that, wait a minute, it's not just what's in front of you, even at 12 years old, not what's being presented to you on the surface. It's what's underneath the surface that's often driving our behavior.

And a favorite tool, something you use to be awesome at your job.

I would say Zoom is terrific and Google Scholar.

Oh yeah.

Where I could get the research reports of people. All I have to do is type in their names or a concept or a title of an article and suddenly I don't have to be a library unto myself in my office with all my journals and books and stuff. No, it's right there.

That's good. Yeah. And then I'm sure you've got your full text access. I use that, I get, I get the tease that I'm like, where's the rest?

Yeah, right.

That's the kind of dork I am. And how about a favorite habit?

I do an exercise workout every morning, and then I brew myself a cup of coffee that I leisurely sip and savor sip by sip, which allows me, first of all, to celebrate and reward the fact that I've just done a workout, but also It gives me the calm to plan my day.

And so as you savor the sips, do you have a notepad in hand as you're writing the plan, or how's that go?

I often don't. Okay. I just order in my mind which things I need to prioritize once I'm finished with that cup of coffee. What's the first thing I need to do that's not just there, but important for me to do. So inside that time of thinking about my day, I prioritize.

Lovely. And you share a lot of wisdom, but is there a particular nugget you say that seems to connect and resonate, get Kindle book highlighted, retweeted more than others?

Yeah, I would say, and this has to do with the influence process again, and what I will I say that gets retweeted a lot is, when the science is available, why use anything else? Yeah.

I've always talked about like authority. It's like the ladder of authority. Like, yeah, double-blind controlled, thousands of participants stuff is excellent. Right. Well, tell us if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Our website, influenceatwork.com. Okay.

And you have a finale challenge or call to action. Specifically for professionals looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Go into every new situation thinking the best of the people who are there.

Mm-hmm.

That will allow you to be generous with them, which will cause them to reciprocally be generous with you and to like you for it. And now you've got two people who who like each other and are giving each other grace.

That is lovely. Bob, thank you. This has been a treat. It is no exaggeration to say it's literally been a dream come true for me to have this conversation. So thank you so much, and I wish you much luck with the latest edition of Influence and all your adventures.

Thank you. I've enjoyed myself with our interaction.

What I love so much about Bob is he's done the work over decades and has synthesized it so engagingly and funnily. I've read multiple versions of his book and I'm enjoying the latest edition here. So much good stuff and how just the tiniest changes like the word because or I'm a student here too makes tremendous impact on how persuasive we are and a commitment to be an ethical I think this is one worth listening to again, maybe quarterly, annually, to be refreshed and say, hey, you know what, I could be integrating some more of these principles to be more persuasive in my messaging. And why not? It's even of service, of value, and helpful to others when I do so the right way. So again, those show notes, transcript, and links to items we've referenced are at awesomeatyourjob.com/ep664. Hope to catch you next time.

Liberty Mutual customizes your car and home insurance, and now we're customizing this Rush Hour ad to keep you calm, which could help your driving. And science says therapy is great for a healthy mindset, so enjoy this 14-second session on us. I think you've done everything right and absolutely nothing wrong. In fact, anything that hasn't gone your way could probably be blamed on your father not being emotionally available because his father wasn't emotionally available, and so on. And now that you're calm and healing. You're probably driving better too.

Liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty, and peace.

Thanks for listening. To get the most out of the show, we recommend two key things. First, check out the extra resources at awesomeatyourjob.com. You can find this episode's transcript and links, as well as the perfect episode for your situation. You can search the full text transcripts of hundreds of episodes or explore episodes tagged by topic and competency covered. Second, subscribe to the podcast and get future episodes automatically. You can subscribe by telling Siri and several other smartphones and speakers, "Subscribe to the How to Be Awesome at Your Job Podcast," or by tapping subscribe in your podcast player of choice. If you'd like some extra help figuring out podcasts and how subscriptions work, visit awesomeatyourjob.com. Awesomeatyourjob.com/subscribe for guidance. Hope to catch you on the next episode of How to Be Awesome at Your Job.

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