Influence...From the Mouths of Babes

Since my oldest daughter was three, I have always worked from my home. While my children perceived this to be a wonderful benefit, it did present a minor complication when it was “Take Your Daughter to Work Day”.

On one of these annual occasions, when my daughter, Emma was about 7 or 8, she remarked how unfair it was to have a mom who worked at home and she did not really understand what I did anyway! So, I set out to explain the complicated world of training and development and my role within it. (Being a lawyer or doctor would have been so much easier!). Emma wanted to know what I actually “trained” so I started to explain how often I train courses on “Influence” Skills.

“What’s that?” she replied.

“Well, it involves teaching people how to use a set of behaviors that will help them achieve results in their jobs and build relationships with their co-workers”. And as if this would make sense to a 7-year old, I then went on to describe some of these tactics and behaviors such as expressing needs, offering reasons, coming up with incentives, listening to others, asking good questions, drawing others out and getting others excited about your idea.

She looked puzzled as I continued my explanation and cried out, “Wait a minute, you teach adults, right?”

“Yes that’s right”, I answered.

“Well then why do you need to teach grown-ups about that? You’re teaching them how to get their own way, and kids already know how to do it. I don’t get it!” Emma exclaimed.

Well, from the mouths of babes….

I often reflect on this exchange. On one level, she was right. Children know how to go after what they want and they are persistent, goal-focused, and unrelenting at times. They pay close attention to the interpersonal clues and environment and can figure out how to navigate their way through the intricacies of their needs and the barriers standing in their way. They often know how to read a situation, ask lots of questions with no apologies to get information they need to make their case, and they are willing to show their vulnerabilities as well. And with all of this, they are also quite ADORABLE and CUTE!

So, what happens as we mature? How come we lose our confidence to go after what we want, speaking directly in an unabashed way? I suspect many of us have paid the price for directly communicating about our needs. Or perhaps, when we have tried, we have forgotten how to take the situational cues into account when pleading our cause. Maintaining behavioral flexibility and understanding context is key to our success as adults in achieving what we want to accomplish. Let’s not forget what we knew how to do so well in childhood. (And never mind about being adorable).

Written by Lauren Powers, Eastern Regional Director

Want to know more about influence skills and being more effective at getting things done? Visit our website at: www.barnesconti.com to learn about Exercising Influence - the world's most widely used influence skills program.

Where in the world is Kim Barnes...

Vilnius, Lituania
This is the first in a series of posts from our CEO Kim Barnes. Kim, the author of Exercising Influence: A Guide for Making Things Happen at Work, at Home, and in Your Community (Pfeiffer, 2007), has the opportunity to travel frequently to present our courses throughout the world.

In February, Kim visited Vilnius, Lituania to present a session of Exercising Influence: Building Relationships and Getting Results. Below is her account of the trip and the training session.


The Exercising Influence workshop was very successful here. The 11 participants included several experienced consultants, managers from real estate and finance, and a senior executive from a Finnish company operating in Lithuania. Interestingly, most senior executives here are in their early to mid-thirties, at the most – those who were about to or just graduated from universities when the Soviet Era ended. There was great chemistry, and the learning was very powerful.

Beyond the workshop, I enjoyed my visit to Vilnius. Over the weekend, the whole town turned out for the festival of St. Casimir – an occasion for feasting, drinking, singing, and selling all manner of food and handcrafts. There were hundreds of booths and thousands of people milling through the streets. I also had the opportunity to visit an exhibit of “micro-miniatures.” I expected it to be rather a joke, but instead it was an astonishing exhibition of the work of one artist, who uses tools you can only see under a magnifying lens – the same is true of the art works. The pieces were exquisite – there was a “fox and grapes” scene and seven camels carved to fit inside the eye of a needle. Yes, all you biblical scholars out there! I was truly knocked out – but the resulting eyestrain had to be relieved by a lovely meal and a little good red wine. Finally, I was taken to the Amber Museum. I learned that there are actually amber mines – you don’t have to wait for it to wash up on the beach. The usual captured insects were prominent and magnified, and the shop! Well, there is a lot of amber here, they sell it everywhere, but if you are a jewelry maven, there is only one place to buy it. Outstanding!