Persuasion: getting your points across.

Leaders have many options and resources open to them when they try to motivate their followers. These include forcing, ordering, manipulating, cajoling, threatening, and persuading. Of all these options, perhaps the most useful and powerful is persuasion. Every effective leader persuades, even when other options are open and available. Leaders persuade as a means to getting the maximum commitment from their followers, in pursuit of the objectives of the organization or for personal objectives. Force, threat, and manipulation too often lead to follower involvement ("I'm here, but that's all") but rarely to a personal commitment. Yet motivation experts suggest that the most productive behavior results when employees are committed to the organization, its clients, customers, and goals. It's been suggested that the difference between "commitment" and "involvement" is the difference between a ham-and-eggs breakfast: a chicken was involved in your meal, but a pig was committed to it. We persuade to raise our employee's involvement in their jobs to some greater level of commitment. This article will examine some of the latest persuasion research and how it applies to better management. In doing so, we'll frequently use the jargon of persuasion, referring to the persuaders as "sellers," and those being persuaded as "buyers."