The Neuroscience of Influence

As a speaker, corporate trainer, and executive coach, one of the questions I hear over and over from my clients and participants in my seminars is “How can I be more influential with others?” That makes sense because in order to be successful in pretty much any aspect of life, we must be able to engage others in a way that they hear what we say as valuable. Unfortunately, when we try to convince someone of the righteousness of our perspective (or worse, confront them about something they are doing that is wrong), they will almost always resist us or resent us, or both.

The reason for this has to do with how the brain processes information. For those of you who follow my “Life from the Top of the Mind” philosophy, you know that the brain is basically divided into three parts. The lower brain is called the brainstem, and is responsible for regulating our breathing, muscle tension, heart rate, etc., as well as our fight-or-flight responses. The middle brain is called the limbic system, and acts as a scanner, mini processor, and router. In other words, it scans the environment for data, and either routes it down to the brainstem or up to the upper 80% of the brain called the neocortex (what I call the top of the mind).

Unfortunately, the part of the brain that is responsible for whether we access the resistant brain (the brainstem) or the receptive brain (the neocortex) has what’s called a “negativity bias.” This means it tends to pay more attention to negative data (experiences, input) than positive. Therefore, when someone perceives us as confronting them or trying to convince them of the righteousness of our perspective, their limbic system interprets this as a threat and sends them to the resistant brain, where they hear little to none of what we are saying. Examples of this are performance reviews where the person hearing negative feedback argues with the reviewer, or when a parent is telling a child how they have done something wrong.

Therefore, if our goal is to be influential with others, we first must frame our communication to them in a way that they will hear as valuable. To do this, we must first have a clear sense of what is important to them (and/or what they are concerned about) and how our solution (what we are wanting them to do) will be good for them! This is why so many books and communication methods start with listening. Until we know what’s important to them, all we can do is try to convince them that we are right, which we now know will rarely succeed.

Teaching individuals and organizations how to understand the neuroscience of communication is what I do. I have the pleasure of going around the world showing CEO’s, managers, supervisors, and parents the way to engage others so that they truly hear and understand what we want them to know by understanding how the brain works. If you would like to learn this vital information, I suggest you contact me, because until we are able to get others to shift from their resistant brain to their receptive brain, they will never truly hear and understand what we are wanting them to know.