How to Move Minds & Influence People
A Remarkable Way of Engaging & Persuading Others
By Iain Carruthers
Pearson Education
December 2003
ISBN: 0-273-66336-4
126 Pages, Illustrated, 5 ½" x 8 ½"
$34.95 paper original
If you are running a project, leading a team or trying to win a contract, think about the people you need to influence. What if you could get behind their scepticism or defences? What if they could see the world from your vantage, and enjoy the view? What if they could see just what was possible? This book has a simple aim: to help you influence people by firing their imaginations. Don’t argue with them. Don’t proposition them. Let a well chosen story or stories smuggle in what you need them to know.
You don’t need special skills or a silky smooth voice. You just need to take a few practical steps and soon the unlikeliest of people will be eating out of your hand. Inside you’ll discover:
Ideas and tools to help you influence others in your working life How to craft a story to an audience and their needs How to understand and tell your own story
This book will show you how to create a story to influence anybody, in any situation. Whether you are trying to influence a single person or a room full of expectant or cynical faces, discover how to make your point, change others’ minds, and carry people with you.
Contents
What happens next?
Act 1 Your difference
In this first section, we concentrate on the importance of story structure
as a way of understanding your life and purpose. We look at three protaganists
form major US films - Erin Brokovitvh, American Beauty and The Shawshank Redemption
- to understand the basics of being a protaganist. You are interesting to
yourself and of interest of others only when you are prepared to risk and
make choices in pursuit of a value bigger than you. Act 1 delivers a succession
of insights and tools to help you articulate your ‘active value’
Protagonists in action Erin Brokovitch Justice Lester Burnham Freedom Andy
Dufresne Survival How stories work How stories make sense of life The basic
structure of a story – plot, event, choice, consequence, truth The protagonist
You and your storyLiving your story The core elements What’s thickening your
plot? The story work out Act 2 What happens next? In Act 2 we look at the
way you create change through the use of story as a means of influence. We
review a number of stories that help create and sustain influence, ‘set piece’
stories that can help you in particular situations. We close with a reminder
of the difference you want to make, closing with a reprise of the stories
of great protaganists, and the essentially human qualities that make them
what they are. Stories you need A collection of examples and stories that
work Work outs The interview The proposal The pitch The appraisal The negotiation
And? Getting a response Curtain Making a difference
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