The art of successful persuasion: seven skills you need to get your point across effectively

Introduction

This article is about the art of successful persuasion. It identifies the seven skills an individual needs to get their point across effectively. It draws on the extensive body of theory and research that has been published on this topic. Its aim is to provide practical, evidence-based guidance on how to prepare and deliver a persuasive case, including how to deal effectively with challenges. It is relevant to everyone who is involved in persuading other people, as well as those involved in providing training and development in the skills of successful persuasion.

The seven skills that you need to get your point across effectively are to:

be clear about "who", "what" and "why";

target your case on the other person;

search for common ground;

keep it simple;

appeal to "head" and "heart";

be calm and confident; and

make it interactive.

Before going on to describe these seven skills more fully, it is useful to say something about how the ideas in this article are linked to the ideas in a previous article by author where it was argued that the art of successful influence depends on matching the strategies and style used to the context. In particular, I will provide a very brief summary of the ideas expressed in the earlier article, look at the relationship between "influence" and "persuasion", and distinguish between influence "strategies", "styles" and "skills". This initial discussion underpins the subject matter of this article describing the seven skills needed to get your point across effectively and succeed in persuading someone to accept your point of view.

The art of successful influence: matching the strategies and style to the context

In a previous article ([11] Manning, 2012), I examined the relationship between influencing behaviour and a wide range of contextual variables. Evidence was presented to show how, in practice, the use of particular strategies and styles tends to be linked to contrasting features of work contexts. The article explored the combination of personal, interpersonal and organisational reasons that lie behind the exercise of interpersonal influence. Its underlying theme was that an awareness of the research findings can help people at work, and those proving training and development in interpersonal influence, to understand the importance of a flexible approach to influence and...