B. Kim Barnes (reprinted from “The Influence Guru”)

You’ve thought through how to approach your boss, your colleague, your partner. You have put together a solid and logical case that should meet their decision criteria. You have made an effort to understand their needs and believe you can show them that your idea will meet those needs beautifully. Somehow, though, your case falls flat. They give you a polite excuse, a rational-sounding rebuttal, an angry dismissal, or simply avoid responding at all. You’re puzzled and disappointed. It’s tempting to assume that they are simply resistant to change or to believe that they are being unreasonable. Of course, that often leads to a sense of futility, to giving up on that idea or that person’s potential support.

A few years ago, author Connie Cass cited an Associated Press poll showing that nearly two-thirds of the Americans in their sample had low trust in others – compared to only one-third in a similar poll forty years earlier. It’s easy to blame this on increasing urbanization, on the media’s “if it bleeds, it leads” approach to informing us about the world, on greater use of the internet with fewer face-to-face social interactions, or perhaps the increasing rancor of our politics has “tribalized” our society and set us against one another.

In my previous post [Ed. Note: see “How to Build Trust in a Low-Trust Era”], I suggested that trust was a key factor in helping people work more effectively and efficiently on teams. As formal or informal leaders, it’s our responsibility to help team members focus and move toward action in order to achieve a desired outcome. There are three basic ways that we can accomplish this: through the use of direct power, through manipulation, and by using interpersonal influence.

Workplace relationships are often different from relationships outside of the office. Work cultures vary, but in many organizations, you might act more reserved than you would in an informal setting or choose your behavior in light of the other’s positional …

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