Positive influence examples: the patterns that repeat

Every example below comes in a pair. Both halves want the identical outcome, and both are things people actually do. One half works through what the other person can see and decide. The other needs them not to look too closely.

Pairing them is the point. Read alone, a concealing move usually looks like ordinary workplace skill. Only beside its honest twin does the difference become obvious.

What to take away

Six pairs

Getting a colleague to stop sending a broken report.

The concealed route. Mention in a group channel that some reports are causing rework downstream, so that the person recognizes themselves without being named and fixes it quietly. It usually works, and it teaches everyone present that public hints are how feedback is delivered here. The channel might be Slack or Microsoft Teams.

The disclosable route. Show that one person, privately, what the report looks like at the other end, with no commentary. The evidence does the work and nobody has been made an example of. You could describe exactly what you did to them, which you could not in the first version. For example, a Salesforce pipeline report in Excel.

Getting a decision out of somebody who keeps deferring.

The concealed route. Attach an implied urgency that does not exist, or mention that a senior person is asking about it when they are not. The tool might be an email thread or a Jira ticket.

The disclosable route. Shrink the request until it can be answered in one reply, attach the real cost of waiting, and give a date with a reason. "If I do not have this by Thursday, the build slot goes to another team, and the next one is in March." Every part of that can be checked. Typical range: 2 to 5 business days.

Getting a team to adopt a standard.

The concealed route. Announce that most teams have already adopted it, whether or not that is true. Everyone is sensitive to what others are doing, and social proof is a real and powerful lever. It is also the one most easily used as a claim nobody verifies. The standard might be SOC 2, ISO 27001, or PCI DSS.

The disclosable route. Do the conversion for the next round yourself, for the two teams that would have to change, and show the downstream result. The switching cost, which was the actual obstacle, has been paid by someone else, and no claim was made about anybody. Tools might be Vanta, Drata, or ServiceNow.

Getting a large commitment from someone.

The concealed route. Ask for something tiny that is hard to refuse, then a little more, then more again. The foot-in-the-door sequence works, and it works because each step is too small to argue about, which is exactly what makes it unsayable. The asks might arrive by email or DocuSign.

The disclosable route. Name the whole thing at the start and then propose a small first step as a trial, with an explicit off-ramp. "This is a six-month commitment if it goes well. Try two weeks and tell me if it is wrong for you." Same first step, opposite relationship to the truth. Typical trial: 2 to 4 weeks.

Getting a senior person to back your proposal.

The concealed route. Present a single option so that agreement is the only visible response, and keep the alternatives out of the pack. The pack might be a Google Slides deck or a PowerPoint file.

The disclosable route. Present two options you could both live with, say which you recommend and why, and name what you are uncertain about. A recommendation with visible alternatives is more persuasive than an unopposed one, because it demonstrates you looked. Use a one-page memo in Google Docs or Microsoft Word.

Getting someone to stop a behavior that is hurting the work.

The concealed route. Raise the standard for everybody, so that the change lands on one person without anyone having to say so. It is comfortable to do, it is legible to everyone, and it costs the whole team for one person's problem. The standard might be posted in Confluence or Microsoft Teams.

The disclosable route. Describe the specific event and its effect on the work, once, to that person: not "you are dismissive in meetings" but "twice this week you answered a question I asked by addressing someone else." The first is a claim about character and gets defended. The second is an event and can be discussed.

The event might be a Zoom call or a Microsoft Teams meeting. A typical follow-up is 5 to 10 minutes.

The pattern across the six

The middle column lists things that must remain unnoticed. The right-hand column lists costs, all paid by you, all in advance, none large.

That asymmetry is why the honest route loses so often. Its price is visible and immediate. The other route's price is deferred and lands on somebody else.

What each pair costs later

The concealed versions do not fail in the moment. They fail when the person reconstructs what happened, which they do eventually, usually while comparing notes with somebody else. At that point the cost is not the single incident. It is that every previous conversation gets re-read in the new light, and every subsequent one is discounted.

The disclosable versions have the opposite profile. They are harder now and they compound, because the person who was treated this way comes back with the next problem instead of going around you.

The test underneath all six pairs is set out in positive influence, and the definitional question of what "positive" is doing in the phrase is in positive influence meaning. Where you have nothing to compel with, the currency behind the honest routes is described in influence without authority.

From a position of authority the same moves land harder than intended, which is the subject of leadership influence. And the sixth pair is a conflict handled early rather than late; the fuller version is in conflict resolution.

Common questions

The concealed routes work. Why would anyone give up something that works?

Because they work once per person, and most of your working life is with the same people. The calculation changes completely between a stranger and a colleague you will see next quarter, and almost none of your influence is exercised on strangers.

Is mentioning that other teams adopted something always wrong?

Only when it is untrue or unverifiable. If four teams did adopt it and you can name them, that is information, and the person can check it. The failure is the vague claim that cannot be checked, which is doing the work of a fact without being one.

A small trial before a large commitment is exactly the concealed sequence.

The difference is whether the full size was named at the start. A trial with the eventual commitment stated, and a real way out, is honest. The same trial with the commitment concealed is the failing version, and the two are indistinguishable until you look at what was said in the first conversation.

Raising the standard for everyone seems fairer, not worse.

It is fairer only if the standard genuinely needed raising for everyone. Where it did not, the rest of the team pays a cost for a problem that belonged to one person, and they usually work out why, which damages your standing with the people who did nothing wrong.

What do I do when somebody uses the left-hand column on me?

Name the move as a question about the fact. Ask "Where does that date come from?" or "Which teams have adopted it?" Concealment-dependent moves stop working the moment they are described. Asking plainly costs you nothing even when the answer turns out to be legitimate.