Push vs. pull

- Now, there's a model of influencing called Push and Pull. I really like this. I think it's a really important idea to have in your head from now on, that you've got a choice of whether you use push influencing or pull influencing. And the idea is that with push influencing, you just push someone into doing something, you don't need to know what's in their mind. You just make them do it somehow. Whereas pull influencing, you pull them towards you. You actually change what's in their mind. You actually make the donkey want to plow the field rather than forcing the donkey to plow the field. So if you think about this, what method the bosses normally use to get people to do things. And they're probably going to either force you to do it by saying, "It's the rules." And if you don't do it, you'll be fired." That's push. Or they'll say, "If you do it, I'll pay you extra." And you may think that's pull, but actually paying people extra is also push because push makes you do it for the money, but it doesn't make you feel any different about actually doing it. So if I said to you, "Drive to Scotland and back, I'll give you £1,000." You'd probably do it, but it doesn't make you feel any different about Scotland. You don't really care about where you're going. I haven't changed what's in your mind about Scotland at all. You're just doing it for the money. Pull would be to show you pictures of Scotland, convince you how fantastically beautiful it is how great the people are with their sense of humor, the food, all that lovely haggis you can have when you're there. And then you start thinking, "Actually, Scotland sounds good. Yeah, I'd like to go there." Now, that's what pull would be. So bosses usually use push and why would they do that? And the answer is, because push is easier. With push you just say, "Do it and I'll pay you a bonus. Do it or I'll fire you." You don't have to get involved with understanding each person and what their particular resistance might be. Whereas with pull you're into different types of people and all sorts of stuff. So push you just have one blanket rule and that's what you do. So it's easier and it's quicker. So why would we not use push all the time? Well, one of the problems with push is that the effect stops as soon as you stop pushing. So if you say, "I'm not going to pay you this time for your trip to Scotland." The person's going to say, "Well, I'm not going to go then." So as soon as you stop pushing, the effect stops. Whereas with pull, if you can actually change their mind about Scotland, you've done that forever. Perhaps a better example would be speeding. So if you look at what methods are there to stop somebody driving too fast, the push methods are things like cameras and speed traps and getting fined if you're caught speeding. But if somebody is naturally wanting to speed and they know that there are no police on that motorway, they'll go back to their old ways and speed. They'll only slow down if there's a camera or a police car. Whereas the pull method would be advertising and videos and showing them the effect of how much worse it is if you hit a pedestrian when you're speeding. And once people understand the danger of speeding, then you've changed their view forever. And even if there are no policemen or no cameras, they'll still drive sensibly because they understand the implications. So pull is much more effective longer term, but it's more effort in the short term. Now, I've already mentioned stick and carrot. And a lot of people think that stick is push and carrot is pull, but actually they're both push. Using bribery, using carrots or money is still a push technique, because it doesn't change how you feel about it. So money will make people do something, but it won't make them want to do that thing. So they'll do it to get the money. And you could say, "They want to do it 'cause they want to get the money." But it doesn't actually change how they feel about it. So if you give carrots to a donkey to make it go forward, to plow the field, it doesn't really even understand the plowing of the field. It certainly doesn't feel any different about the planning of the field. So bribery doesn't make people care and it doesn't make them believe in what they're doing. And if you want to get someone to do a good job, really, they have to care about it. They have to believe. And that has to be done using pull influencing. So we're going to look at pull on this course. How do you really get somebody to care? How do you change what's in their mind? And I think that's really the essence of what influencing and persuading are all about, changing what's in their head. So often I get into debates on management courses about, is money a motivator? And the answer is yes, but is a push motivator. It just makes people do it. So let me use a slightly bizarre example. Suppose I want everyone to wear the company hat. All the employees are going to wear the company hat. What choices have I got of how to make people do it? Well, I could use push influencing. And I could say, "Wear the hat and I'll pay you extra." And yeah, people would wear the hat, but they wouldn't understand or care. They would just do it. I could say, "Wear the hat or you're fired." And they'd all have to wear the hats except when I'm not around. And then they'd probably take the hats off. I could say, "Do it because I've told you. It's the rules or it's a legal requirement." And those are really variations of do it or you'll be fired. So those would be the push methods and yes, people would wear the hat, but only when I'm around and they wouldn't really believe in the hat. They probably tried to find ways round wearing the hat if they could. But what about pull methods of getting people to wear a hat? Well, the first one would be to say to them, "This is why it's a good idea. Wearing a hat is more hygienic or we're all going to look more professional and we will sell more, and therefore we'll all be more secure in our jobs or it protects your hair." So if there's a good reason for wearing the hat, I've now changed how you feel about it. So that would be pull. Another pull method is everyone else is doing it. And we are surprisingly influenced by what everyone else does. And you may say, "No, no, I'm very independent minded." I'm not influenced by other people." But I bet you are. I bet you're wearing clothes that are a little bit fashionable. So for example, back in the 1970s, we used to tuck our t-shirts in and then suddenly t-shirts were untucked. And I don't like having an untucked t-shirt 'cause I have a draft that goes up there. If the weather is at all cold, I don't like having my t-shirt untucked and I quite like to tuck it in but I'm under massive pressure from my wife and my kids to untuck my t-shirt. They actually pull it out because that's what everyone else does. Ooh, everyone else has got theirs untucked, you've got to have yours untucked. And you've only got to look at the trend of jeans. What type of jeans people are wearing. We are hugely influenced by what everyone else does. So that's another pull technique is everyone else is doing it. Another technique you could use to get everyone to wear the hat will be to let them choose the details. If you ask the team to choose what sort of hat, the exact design of hat, they would then buy in to the whole thing and have some ownership. And that's another pull technique. Now we're going to look more detail at all these things later, but I just want to give you an idea of what pull is like compared to push. So another one would be, if you could persuade people they look cool wearing the hat. Then they would want to wear the hat, even when you weren't around, We've got many more pull ideas is coming up. But I think you can see that if you can take the time and effort to understand people, work out what their resistance is, and overcome that and show them that actually what you're suggesting is good for them and that everybody wins. Then you're much more likely to get people to do what you want and they're going to do it better. They're going to care about it and they're going to believe in it. And that's really the essence of good influencing.