Before I took Management 250 with Dr. Lindsay McManus I always thought of persuasion as being the door to door sales man convincing me to by his new ground-breaking product.  Dr. McManus quickly changed my mind about this when our class was assigned to read an article in the Harvard Business Review titled, Harnessing the Science of Persuasion by Robert B. Cialdni.

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In Cialdni’s article he explains that the art of persuasion is not something everyone is born with.  Cialdni states that a very select few of individuals are given the ability to capture an audience, sway the audience, and convert the opposition.  To me this was very interesting because I have always seen a large majority of people trying to convince me of things.  It all made sense though because very few people have been able to make me do something that I hadn’t already had in mind.  Although very few people are born with the art of persuasion, Cialdni was able to help me learn two principles of persuasion very well. The two principles of persuasion from Cialdni that really resonate with me are social proof and consistency. 

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After reading Cialdni’s article Social Proof to me is having evidence of a lot of people doing something.  Once other people see a lot of people doing something the individuals not partaking will choose to join in.  An example of this is something that I see everyday in my daily life.  When I arrive to class early other students will not enter the classroom until a group of students does so.  Whether or not the classroom is full or empty it doesn’t matter, students (including myself) want the social proof of other students entering the classroom.  With that being said, I was able to discover social proof is crucial for convincing people to believe you or participate in what you are doing.  In addition to learning to incorporate the principle of social proof into my daily routine, Cialdni taught me about the principle of consistency.

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When I first read that the principle of consistency was a principle of persuasion I thought it was surprising.  When I think of consistency I think of something that everyone does daily.  Believe it or not, doing something daily can lead to making you do something else.  Cialdni explained this best by showing the results of a survey.  In a survey conducted by Israeli researchers they discovered that 92% of people who originally agreed to add a recreation center for the handicap went on to donate money toward the recreation center they had agreed for.  This opened my eyes to something that I realized I had been doing throughout my time as a resident mentor.  As a resident mentor I encouraged my residents to have an open door, so they can interact with one another.  Having my residents have an open door made it easier for my residents to go from room to room and connect with one another.  Just like the survey conducted by Israeli said if someone is already doing something, it makes it easier for them to do and additional task correlated with the one they are already doing.  Now that I had learned something new about the art of persuasion, the next step was to demonstrate it through writing an assignment for MGMT 250.

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Dr. McManus assigned three prompts where I had to write persuasive emails to three different audiences.  One prompt that has had a very lasting impact on me is Persuading employees not to download and share files (from Locker, 2013).  This prompt had a lasting impact on me because of the presence of leadership.  In this prompt I had to write an email to my company asking that the employees not use the company computer to download and share photos and videos.  To convince my employees not to continue this behavior anymore I was able to utilize the principle of social proof and the principle of consistency. 

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The principle of social proof was very important in this situation.  If my employees would have thought that they were the only ones doing it, they would think they were contributing to the problem.  Therefore, I made sure to indicate there were multiple instances taking place.  I did this by saying, “Our IT department thinks one of the causes may be an increase in digital downloads.  These digital downloads have, as I previously stated, started to slow down the network and have left the system vulnerable to viruses.”  By bringing to the attention of the employees that multiple people were doing this it shows them that they’re not the only ones.  This makes it more likely for them to stop their behavior.  Additionally, I tied the principle of consistency to social proof to make it more convincing for them to stop.

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Consistency tied in very well with social proof.  In conjunction with the principle of social proof I used the principle of consistency in a way they couldn’t resist.  I start off my email by stating “I want to start off by saying I’m impressed by all of you.  Last quarter we have put up some of the best numbers to date.  Although last quarter was one of the best this company has seen, I noticed our numbers starting to slide.”  When I began the email this way it gave my employees the idea that they are doing some of the best work the company has ever seen and that it has been an on-going trend.  This makes them think that they need to continue doing everything the way they have been in the past.  Which then allows me to persuade them into not downloading the files anymore.  Although this was a made-up scenario, I was able to carry over the principle of persuasion and principle of consistency to my role as a resident mentor.

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One of the main roles of being a Resident Mentor is making sure residents interact with one another.  To make your residents interact with one another you need to able to convince your residents that social interaction is good.  This is certainly not an easy task, but I was able to execute by using the principles of persuasion I learned in MGMT 250. 

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The principle of consistency was critical to having success with connecting with my residents with one another.  I made sure that at the beginning of the year my residents would keep their doors open.  This would allow students to be able to flow room to room with one another and get used to the idea of keeping their doors open if they did it every day.  Just like the Israeli researchers discovered, I came to realize that my residents who kept their doors open were more likely to have more friends on the hall.  Having more friends on the hall meant they came to social events as a group and were more active around campus.  Learning this in my first year as a Resident Mentor gave me the opportunity to carry it into my second year as a Resident Mentor and have more success.  In my first year as a Resident Mentor, I was able to use the principle of social proof as well.

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Social proof was not as easy to instill in my role as a Resident Mentor, however it was crucial to my success as a Resident Mentor.  One way I tried to incorporate social proof was by holding my community gatherings in a place where my residents walked by.  By doing this I showed my residents who weren’t at the community gathering that they were one of the few who weren’t coming. This made more of my residents show up and as a result have a more close-knit hall.  Incorporating social proof and the principle of consistency was not an easy task, but accomplish this feat made me grow as a Resident Mentor.

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Having a close-knit community and active hall as a Resident Mentor was not easy and took time for me to be able to get it done.  A lot of my fellow resident mentors struggled with this because they didn’t know how to approach the situation.  Thanks to my MGMT 250 class with Dr. McManus I was able to learn about the principles of persuasion.  Learning these principles not only helped me succeed in Dr. McManus’s class they helped me with my role as a Resident Mentor.  With that being said, the principles of persuasion have become a critical part of my life as a leader and I continue to use them on a daily basis.