If a person is struggling to meet any of the deficiency needs, then there is no way anything you do to tap into the growth needs will even register on his or her radar.
Just think about it. If someone is struggling financially and is facing the loss of their house or is not able to afford enough food for their family, do you really think they are going to care about how safe they are when trying to meet those needs? Consider the quandary of someone stealing food to feed his family.
The person knows stealing is wrong, but he is willing to risk his safety in order to provide the basic need of food for his family and him.
If someone is always struggling financially, there is no room for focusing on cognitive needs. If people’s children suffer, do you really think they care about exploring new paths of knowledge and enlightenment or ways to make a difference in their community? But it is amazingly quick how each of the hierarchical needs is accessed when the need below it has been met.
You don’t have to be smarter than most people in any way. You don’t have to be more passionate or more motivated, although you will become as such with efficiency, there are some concepts that help focus your energy.
SAFETY NEEDS
Control
We all want to have more control in our lives as we age. We want more control over the direction of our lives and over the outcomes of what we do. Of course, a big part of life is also learning to let go of a lot of control. Almost all religious and spiritual practices promote the release of control. They encourage people to let go of their need to control everything all the time, because no one can have that much control. In fact, there are only a few things in life that you truly control.
When it comes to a situation in which you want to have influence, think about what you have to offer, explain or give, that provides the person with a greater degree of control in their life. It is as simple as that.
The idea that they are in greater control of their lives is empowering. What is your message to the people you are trying to influence? How can you offer them a greater degree of control in their life? You can find the answers to these questions by asking how, when explaining what you have to offer, you can give them even more control of their situation/daily life. This is one of the most powerful questions you can ask. It makes you bend your brain because most of the time your first answer is, “I don’t know.”
When I go into a negotiation with a co-negotiator, I always ask how we can give those with whom we are negotiating a greater degree of control in the negotiation. Why? We need to know what they want, because if we can make them feel that they have a greater degree of control over us or with us, they are more likely to collaborate with us.
Intimacy
Showing vulnerability will make the other person feel at ease, will make his reptilian brain / intuition say, ok, this is a friend not a foe. Keep in mind there are many people who go by default in a defensive - war state of mind. Showing vulnerability is tied to actually being in sync with your emotions, its something i wouldnt recommend faking as the human intuition is very strong, and you run a high risk of being find out, but thats besides the point, the point is you CAN and feel positively about the interaction, How can you present yourself in a way that allows them to care for you? You can say, “I feel really cared for when you do these things.” That type of terminology, that tactic, is powerful when it comes to influence. The question is, are you willing to think that way?
to have a high quality of relationship, we have to be honest with each other, we have to honor each other. We have to care about each other’s happiness.
ESTEEM NEEDS
Competence
Our desire to understand and master our world and to know how to do things and how to be competent in situations is incredibly important. Remember that almost every time you are trying to influence others, they feel that they don’t know something. If you can increase their level of knowledge, their skills, or their ability in any given area, you will increase your ability to influence them.
How can you help the person you are trying to influence feel more competent? The more knowledge, information, and insight you give about your perspective or related to the context in which you are operating, the more competent the person feels in that area and the more likely he or she is to work with you and collaborate with you to get what you want.
Congruence
We all want to feel congruent with the identity that we have established for ourselves and the way in which we perceive or believe we should be interacting with the world. A good example of when you don’t have congruence is if you feel like a lion internally, but every time you interact with the world you act like a mouse. When this happens, you will feel miserable because your identity is not line with your interactions. You think you are a lion, but you act and play small.
Congruence is so important to us. Our intellect, our mind, our heart, and our soul tells us to do what we know we should do; be who we know we should be. We have an identity for ourselves and our job is to determine how we can, in any negotiation or situation of influence, interact with a person in a way that honors his or her identity.
If others see themselves as generous and giving, how can we use our words to appreciate them, to acknowledge them as generous and giving, even if it is not true? We have to assume that every person does have a healthy level of narcissism that says he or she is a good person. So you need to honor that good nature. Always honor the person/ group you are speaking with in the first five minutes of any interaction. Honor the people together by recognizing them as hard-working, smart, giving, passionate, and achieving people because everyone wants to see themselves that way. You have to honor that desire in them.
Don’t be afraid to call others out when they are not being congruent. This is another powerful strategy for influence. Make them aware of their incongruence. Tell them, “I know you see yourself as this, but you are not being that way.” This is also a powerful negotiation tool. People need to be congruent in what they say, in who they think they are, and in how they should behave in the world. If there is any way you can amplify that, you will have more influence.
COGNITIVE NEEDS
Change
The human species is driven to grow and to evolve due to our biology and genetics, but that progress comes from change. We can’t progress without change. Not all good change is progress, but we can’t have progress without change. Our drive for change gives us a better future.
If you aren’t crafting a better future for them in which they are experiencing a better and more fulfilling life, then you are not really playing the highest level of influence that you can.
Challenge
We all want to be challenged, but at what level? If you want a great negotiation with someone, then let go of your expectations of the other person. Let’s challenge ourselves to find the highest and greatest opportunity between us, so we will all be happy. Consider what the highest and greatest solution is that you can come up with that will make the two of you happy and will actually serve others around you and in the world. I don’t want to simply resolve this so we are “happy” and “we get what we need.” I want to take it further than that.
How can we think that big? Let’s challenge ourselves to make this amazing, even when it comes to the smaller interactions we have in our day-to-day lives. For example, when you are interacting with your spouse, you can say, “Honey, let’s challenge ourselves to figure out this conflict and be twice as intimate as we are right now.”
Presenting a challenge activates people in different ways and gives you a greater level of influence. One can argue that people in any situation who challenge others to move toward positive events are able to see the bigger picture.
SELF-ACTUALIZATION NEEDS
Creativity
We all have the drive of creative expression. The idea that we can express our uniqueness creatively is what makes us all artists and this is the reason we love design.
We all want to enjoy creativity and creative expression in our lives. This is what makes us feel more actualized, if you will. For example, when in a negotiation, how can the two of you come to a creative resolution in which both of you have had the opportunity to express your uniqueness so you both feel that your identity and your relationship is respected and honored?
Solutions in situations of influence and negotiation have to come from a creative place. Ask this question during any negotiation: How can we be more creative about this? And the number one answer to this question will be “I don’t know.” This is the moment when you know your chance for making a breakthrough is identified. It is on the other side of “I don’t know” that growth comes. If you don’t know, that’s great; that’s what makes the brain stretch. This is when you can think about it creatively. How can we solve this? How can we do something?
Contribution
We have to make sure that we approach a situation with another person or group of people in a way in which they feel they are contributing to the resolution, that they are involved in the process, but also involved in the resolution that ultimately results. The key to influencing them is to allow them to contribute more.
If you feel in any situation that you are bringing the full force of your ability to contribute and the other people are bringing the full force of their ability to contribute to it, you will feel the magic.
SELF-TRANSCENDENCE NEEDS
Consciousness
We all want to have an elevated experience in life; we want to connect to something higher. We want to connect to God, the universe, or even connect to our highest self, the greatest person we can be, the activation of our full potential. This is about our consciousness, either thought consciousness or transcendent consciousness. Thought consciousness is the ability to control our thoughts, feelings, emotions, and behaviors so we can become our higher selves. Transcendent consciousness is being able to connect to something higher, to transcend our own human limitations.
The greatest movements in our history came from those levels of consciousness, from a drive that someone activated in our greater consciousness, a drive to be a better human being.
Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. believed we could all be better human beings by honoring one another. The entire civil rights movement came from a drive to have a higher consciousness. Most religious movements have started from the belief that we can be higher people;
How can you do that? How can you elevate the relationship you have with others above the conflict or above the context of your situation so that you serve more and become more?
When you ask questions that force you to say, “I don’t know,” “I better figure it out,” “I need to come up with that,” “I had better ask this person,” or “I had better challenge myself,” thats the moment to take advantage of.
Reflection: Consider a specific situation in which you have successfully influenced someone. Think carefully about why you had such influence. Did you tap into that person’s motivation somehow? Did you meet that person’s essential needs? Can you determine what that motivation or those needs were in hindsight? Now consider a situation in which you have not successfully had influence over a person. Think about it and try to determine what motivators and needs the person might have, motivators and needs you can work with.