Chapter 4 – Building relationship

Two Behavior styles – Push (your point of view

onto others) and Pull (pull people to your point
of view)
Pull – Soft in tone and execution. Prominent in
Early stages of relationship. Listening is much more
difficult than speaking even though our listening
instruments are more efficient than vocals.
Influences listen more than they talk and listen
effectively. Use smart summaries to clarify. Four Pull Behaviors: (FEWR)
Fishing – Fishing for common ground. I.e. background, interests, job. Small Talk. If you stop fishing relationship aborts. It is
easier to influence when you have things in common. Mediation can be described as sophisticated fishing. Influences take interest
in people they meet and fish for opportunities to make connections. Beware of interrogating someone on the first meet.
Enthusing – Next step – if a subject is identified in fishing – follow up further. (Do not be overly enthusiastic just in case it is
something they are indifferent to). To succeed you need to convey a sense of excitement in your manners.
Wallowing – engaging in empathetic probing of incidents, problems, moods and doubts. It is counterintuitive to influencing –
many think it is gossip and a waste of time. Those who allow wallowing are better influences. Effective sellers do not jump in
with instant answers to problems. Recounting memories induces powerful emotions from the last time person experienced it.
Sharing the memories and feelings strengthen relationships in influencing.
Revealing - Discreetly revealing “intimate” and confidential matters and personal feelings. Takes time and correct circumstances
and is mutual, proportionate and balanced. It is not about confessions nor it need to include them. A main criterion is something
that is revealed about you is not something that is revealed to others. Each person lets the other in their private territory. It is not
gossip but what is intentionally revealed.
PUSH BEHAVIORS – Unlikely to be successful where parties are strangers. Relationships can be weakened or totally destroyed
by applying push behaviors in a fragile relationship. Using push behaviors without relationships you will come across as
arrogant, presumptuous, threatening and unbalanced. Need to use pull behaviors is a precondition before using push behaviors.
Pull influencers earn “right” to use push behaviors. Using these behaviors inappropriately leads to counter-productive and some
people resent and react to careless use of these behaviors. Some (Usually females) manages do not feel comfortable when using
these behaviors and feel self conscious.
Four Pull Behaviors (RSAC)
Reasoning – Using logic and rational argument s to point to the required decision.
Suggesting – Making general recommendations. ‘Softest” of the push behaviors. It is different from advice as anyone can offer
advise where as in influencing suggestion presumes a relationship. Suggestion is not an offer of impersonal and disinterested
advice as influences we have direct interest in the outcome and our suggestion is usually geared to achieve the outcome we favor.
It is a push behavior because it is a determination of what we think should be done by others and not what we jointly agree might
be best.
Asserting – using assertions to identify the “correct” decision. A complex relationship is implied by the fact that assertion is
made. Assertive behavior is not meant to be ambiguous. As in tit-for-tat you know where you are with assertive people therefore
the language they use is clear and to the point. In appraisal behavior it is necessary to be assertive otherwise there is a less chance
of the behavior being corrected because people are not sure of what they have to do.
Coercing – using pressure to compel someone to take a course of action. Influences put pressure on the target to act in a certain
specific way or manner in pursuit of his or her goals. Difference between asserting and coercion is that asserting is direct advise
(you must stand firm) and coercion is a direct command (you will stand firm or else) Use of coercion indicates some form of
power over the target. It is a complex behavior similar to bullying and intimidations.
EPILOGUE
Linear presentation necessarily gives a misleading impression of the linkages between relationship behaviors. While
it is true that we can speak of pull behaviors as being associated with the early, more tentative and fragile stages of a
growing relationship and push behaviors as being associated with mature and more robust stages of a relationship,
this is not to suggest that there is a strict linear one-way
Progression from fishing to coercion. You will combine and sequence the behaviors throughout a relationship to suit
circumstances – sometimes fishing, sometimes suggesting and sometimes coercing. You are unlikely to exhaust the
incidence of the repetition and elaboration of mutual revelations. As for wallowing, variants of it will be exercised
sometimes with enthusiasm and sometimes in sadness (at the content). Exhibit 4.4 shows the linkages between the
behaviors as crisscrossing the linear layout,
which corresponds more accurately to how they are related in practice. The eight behaviors discussed in this module
are main headings with many subtle variations. They can be combined in many ways too. The key is to recognize
how to behave to achieve the results you seek from the relationship. Concomitantly, it is necessary to know how not
to behave when the circumstances dictate that certain behaviors are not appropriate. There is, for instance, nothing to
be gained from push behavior when pull is called for, or from pull behavior when a more direct push behavior is
required.
Chapter 4 – Building relationship