MusingsWithTime

Last month, I read the book – Influence by Robert Cialdini. It’s been on my reading list for a while so I was keen to get started on it.

I usually aim to read two book chapters a day but some of the chapters in the book are quite long so I opted for a chapter a day instead. Having said that, I didn’t find it to be tedious reading because the writing style is quite conversational which Cialdini acknowledges in the preface was intentional.

Interestingly, I found some correlations to the concepts in Daniel Kahneman’s book, “Thinking fast and slow” which by the way, I thoroughly enjoyed reading also although it took me several months to complete but that’s a blog for another day.  I enjoy finding these connections between books as it reinforces those concepts for me.

For instance, the automatic (click, run) shortcut response behaviour pattern of human beings identified by Cialdini as the main reason for much of the compliance process can be also be explained by System 1 thinking as described in Daniel Kahneman’s book. Our human tendency to want to avoid hard work and take shortcuts where thinking is concerned is due to our System 1 thinking which is fast and emotional.

I saw a lot of similarities in the concepts in both books; some of the levers of influence could be understood a lot better with a greater insight into the way we think as detailed by Daniel Kahneman. I love it when ideas come together like this from different books I’ve read as it reinforces the knowledge gained for me and secondly makes the assertions in the books more valid in my opinion.

In general, I found it to be an interesting read and would recommend it to others. Having just finished reading “Thinking fast and slow” before reading “Influence” made it a more thought-provoking read for me because I could see how the way we think relates to the way we influence others.

I won’t spoil the book for anyone who hasn’t read it but don’t be put off by its size (it’s over 400 pages!). You’ll definitely learn a lot about yourself. More importantly, it will certainly leave you questioning whether some of your ‘independent’ decisions were truly independent as you thought or were indeed influenced by the so-called compliance professionals described in Cialdini’s book…

Happy reading!