One of the surprising shortcuts to influence is to construct or articulate what you want to happen in terms that relate to a powerful person and how they believe they are powerful.
If you can show them that by saying yes to you, they will become more powerful, aka more influential – then you are on to a winner. Provided you have credibility and you can deliver.
Now some might say, “Well shouldn’t you be working on making yourself more powerful?”
Well that’s fine. However, everybody’s got to start somewhere and if you are at the moment lower down in the power pecking order, you need to be doing something active to build alliances, to build relationships. To be frank, if you want to acquire more power you have to be seen to be making other people more powerful. At some stage, you’ll get a return on your investment.
The other thing is that to help other people, perhaps more senior people to become more powerful, you’ve got to study power. You’ve got to understand how power works. And what’s really going on in their world which requires you to listen, to understand, to engage with them in a different way.
This will help put you in an even better place to be able to change the language that you use, change the arguments that you prepare, so that you can become even more compelling. Because you really do understand where they’re coming from.
The funny thing is, it will also alert you to all of the reasons why they could say no. So you can start working on them ahead of time.
All in all, if you are aiming to influence somebody, try to work out how you can position your request so that it will make them feel more powerful.