This is the last post chronicling the reading of the book Influence by Dr. Robert Cialdini. The first was an introduction and question of influence vs. persuasion, and the next covered the first four “weapons of influence”: contrast, reciprocation, commitment plus consistency, and social proof. Continuing on, here we cover liking, authority, and scarcity. Chapter 5: Liking It is better to be liked than not liked. Surprise! But what types of liking are there?...
Previously I shared a post Staff Engineer Resources that included a collection of books, podcasts, and blogs I found helpful. That list was a snapshot in time, but I wanted to create a living page to track my reading. Both improving my writing and increasing my book reading are personal improvement goals of mine. I like the “Reading,” “Read,” and “To Read” sections in Goodreads, but wanted a book list that fit the look and feel of the site more than their embedded widget....
Influence by Dr. Robert Cialdini covers some useful and intriguing psychological constructs that shape how we act in society. As I mentioned in my previous post, one must take care in applying ethics to the situation and analyzing which subset of tactics is acceptable. Below I walk through the book by chapter highlighting topics and examples that I found interesting. Chapter 1: Weapons of Influence One theme this book exposes is the subconscious things we would be surprised influence us but actually do....
I was given the book Influence by a coworker to help me work on leadership skills. She warned me that the book bordered on the social engineering side of influence. Boy, was that correct! The book goes into our natural instincts and reactions to others’ behavior and how those patterns can be leveraged. One thing I thought was interesting and underscored the real-life applications of these theories were the studies referenced in the book....
Last weekend I was painting the boys’ room and signed up for an Audible trial for some longer-form content than my typical podcasts. I’m not the fastest painter, clocking about 5 hours for cleaning, taping, and clean up and 6 for painting. By the end, the room looked great and the boys were very happy. As mentioned in a previous post, I’ll listen to Will Larson’s StaffEng podcast while driving to work....
Lately, I have been fascinated with researching the behaviors of Staff Engineers. They focus on having the highest possible impact on the organization. Generally, this means enabling and leveling up others around them over just concentrating on their personal contributions. As a Senior engineer, I still do a lot of designing and implementing instead of being primarily others-focused. However, I still try to pick up these behaviors and use them on the side when fitting....
I went out on a limb and signed up for a book club , hoping to glean some useful concepts and see what interesting people I might meet at discussion time. As a side note, this was the first time I had heard about Chatham House Rule . It lays a groundwork for an open discussion of ideas and kind of reminds me of open-source software licenses. 😃 When a meeting, or part thereof, is held under the Chatham House Rule, participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other participant, may be revealed....