John C. Maxwell - How to Influence People: Make a Difference in Your World

HOW

TO

INFLUENCE

PEOPLE

2013 by Maxwell Motivation, Inc., a California Corporation

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or otherexcept for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

Abridged from Becoming a Person of Influence. Copyright 1997 by Maxwell Motivation, Inc., a California Corporation.

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Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Maxwell, John C., 1947

How to influence people : make a difference in your world / John C. Maxwell, Jim Dornan.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-1-4002-0474-8

1. Influence (Psychology) 2. SuccessPsychological aspects. I. Dornan, Jim. II. Title.

BF774.M383 2013

158.2dc23

2012043050

Printed in the United States of America

13 14 15 16 17 RRD 6 5 4 3 2 1

To all those who have been people of influence in our lives, and especially to Eric Dornan, whose life, experiences, and attitude have contributed more significantly than anything else to Jim and Nancys ability to positively influence people.

CONTENTS

W hen you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up? Did you dream about being a famous actor or singer? How about president of the United States? We all have dreams and ambitions. Undoubtedly, youve accomplished some of yours. But no matter how successful you are now, you still have goals that are waiting to be fulfilled. And our desire is to help you realize the dreams, to help you realize your potential.

Lets start by doing a little experiment. Take a look at the following list of people. See if you can figure out what they all have in common.

John Grisham

George Gallup

Robert E. Lee

Nolamukong Suh

James Dobson

Brian Williams

Madonna

Alex Rodriguez

Jerry and Patty Beaumont

Rich Devos

Mother Teresa

Beth Meyers

Pablo Picasso

Adolf Hitler

Tiger Woods

Anthony Bonacoursi

Alanis Morrisette

Glenn Leatherwood

Bill Clinton

John Wesley

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Have you figured it out? Some of the people are famous, and you probably recognize their names. But you have undoubtedly never heard of others.

The answer is that every one of them is a person of influence.

EVERYONE HAS INFLUENCE

We created this list almost at random, selecting well-known people as well as ones from our lives. You could just as easily do the same thing. We did it to make a point: Everyone is an influencer of other people. It doesnt matter who you are or what your occupation is. A politician, such as the president of the United States, has tremendous influence on hundreds of millions of people, not only in his own country but around the globe. And entertainers often influence an entire generation of people in one or more cultures. A teacher, such as Glenn Leatherwood, who instructed John and hundreds of other boys in Sunday school, touches the lives of his own students and also indirectly influences all the people those boys grow up to influence.

But you dont have to be in a high-profile occupation to be a person of influence. In fact, if your life in any way connects with other people, you are an influencer. Everything you do at home, at church, in your job, or on the ball field has an impact on the lives of other people.

If your desire is to be successful or to make a positive impact on your world, you need to become a person of influence. Without influence, there is no success. For example, if youre a salesperson wanting to sell more of your product, you need to be able to influence your customers. If youre a manager, your success depends on your ability to influence your employees. If youre a pastor, your ability to reach people and grow your church depends on your influence within your congregation. If you want to raise a strong, healthy family, you have to be able to influence your children positively. No matter what your goals are, you can achieve them faster, you can be more effective, and the contribution you make can be longer lasting if you learn how to become a person of influence.

An amusing story about the impact of influence comes from the administration of President Calvin Coolidge. An overnight guest at the White House was having breakfast with Coolidge one morning, and he wanted to make a good impression on the president. He noticed that Coolidge, having been served his coffee, took the coffee cup, poured some of its contents into a deep saucer, and leisurely added a little bit of sugar and cream. Not wanting to breach any rules of etiquette, the visitor followed the commander in chiefs lead, and he poured some of his coffee into his saucer and added sugar and cream. Then he waited for the presidents next move. He was horrified to see him place the saucer on the floor for the cat. No one reported what the visitor did next.

YOUR INFLUENCE IS NOT EQUAL WITH ALL PEOPLE

You may not have thought much about it, but you probably know instinctively which people you have great influence with and which ones you dont. For example, think of four or five people you work with. When you present an idea to them or make a suggestion, do they all respond in the same way? Of course not. One person may think all your ideas are inspired. Another may view everything you say with skepticism. Yet that same skeptical person may love every single idea presented by your boss or one of your colleagues. That just shows your influence with her may not be as strong as that of someone else.

Once you start paying closer attention to peoples responses to yourself and others, youll see that people respond to one another according to their level of influence. And youll quickly recognize how much influence you have with various people in your life.

STAGES OF INFLUENCE AND THEIR IMPACT

If youve read Johns The 5 Levels of Leadership, then you probably remember the description of the five levels of leadership and how influence grows in stages. Visually, it looks like the diagram on the following page.

Leadership (which is a specific application of influence) is at its lowest level when it is based on position only. It grows and goes to a higher level as you develop relationships with others. Thats when they give you permission to lead beyond the limits of your job description. As you and your followers become more productive together in your work, then your leadership can go to level 3. And when you begin to develop people and help them reach their potential, your leadership moves up to

level 4. Only a few people reach level 5 because it requires a person to spend a lifetime developing others to their highest potential.

Influence functions in a similar way. It grows by stages. Lets consider each level: