Persuasion is something most of us have to embark upon at some point in our working lives, whether it’s encouraging colleagues to back our project or customers to buy our products.

Whereas in many other aspects of our life, we tend to over-estimate our abilities (the illusory superiority bias), when it comes to persuasion, we tend to under-estimate just how persuasive we can be.

Participants in the study were asked how many strangers they would need to ask before they would find one that would agree to complete a small task for them.

Each was then put to the test in the real world to see how accurate their predictions were.  Whilst they imagined that it would require ten failed attempts before a successful request, it turned out to only require five.

Our influence over others

In a social world it seems intuitive to appreciate that so much of what we do is influenced by other people, yet we appear to under-estimate just how much we influence those around us.

We cast doubt on our abilities to actually do things differently, to instigate change in our workplaces.  Researchers believe we do this as a result of what they regard as a failure of perspective.

In other words, we tend to look at the world through our own eyes and not from the perspective of others.  So when it comes to persuasion, we focus primarily on the cost involved for the other person to do our bidding for us.  What we overlook however is the cost involved in them saying no, especially when we make the request face to face.

Just as there is often awkwardness in asking for something, there is also awkwardness in turning such a request down.  It’s surprisingly common for people to agree to a request purely to avoid that uncomfortable sensation.

How to be persuasive

Our persuasive potential was underlined by a recent study from Chicago’s Booth School, which underlined that our words tend to be much more influential than our actions.

“The tendency to conform is pervasive and rooted in human psychology,” the authors say. “When people conform, they conform to what others like and to others’ attitudes. But in terms of what they do, they want to be different. So if you want to persuade people, you should talk about liking, not about having.”

There have also been studies suggesting that giving people a reason why they should comply with your request is a good way to achieve success.

Even if you don’t succeed the first time round, it seems sensible to keep trying until you do, as persistence has also been shown to be rather effective.

Next time you ask yourself how persuasive you are, maybe go a bit easier on yourself.