Liking principle techniques you can say out loud

Liking is one of the principles of influence Robert Cialdini describes in his book Influence. Warmth becomes a technique, and then a trick, when it is produced to lower somebody's guard rather than to make the work go well. Six habits stay on the right side of that line.

What to take away

The test: could you say it to their face?

A technique passes when you would happily be caught doing it. The trained versions, connection-hunting and mirroring and agreement-first, work whether or not they are sincere, which is exactly why they fail. The honest ones lose nothing when somebody names them.

Say the sentence aloud before you use the move. "I asked where you grew up to find a hook" fails. "I asked about your deadline because it worries you" passes. The test works on the individual technique, so it applies the same way to a habit you picked up and one you were taught.

Habits that earn warmth through work

Being useful early is the plainest of the six. Answer the question, send the thing, solve the small problem. People warm to those who make their week easier, and this warmth is earned in the plain sense that you did something.

Remember what matters to them and act on it. Remembering a deadline someone is worried about, and asking about it later, is warmth with substance behind it. Done as a technique, the difference shows.

Be reliable in small things: turning up, replying, doing what you said. This produces liking slowly, and it is the only kind that survives a bad outcome, which is when you will need it.

Habits that earn warmth through candor

Say what you actually think, including when it costs you. Telling somebody the cheaper option is better than yours does more for a working relationship than any amount of rapport, and it is the one move that cannot be faked cheaply.

Find the real common ground, and let it be small. People do have things in common, and mentioning them is normal. The honest version is that you mention it because it pleased you, not because you went looking for a lever.

Make disagreement safe. Somebody who takes a correction well is easier to work with than somebody who is agreeable, and the difference compounds. This is warmth aimed at the work rather than at yourself.

Each trained technique has a slower honest sibling

The five trained moves are hunting for a connection, mirroring on purpose, agreeing first about something free, flattery aimed at a decision, and manufactured similarity. Each has an honest sibling, and the siblings are slower.

The siblings are real common ground instead of hunted or manufactured, natural rapport instead of trained mirroring, saying what you think instead of agreeing first, and praise given when deserved and out of earshot of any decision. The slowness is what you are buying: a relationship that does not have to be maintained by technique.

All five trained moves produce a signal that ordinarily means something. Warmth normally indicates that somebody likes working with you, which is why they belong on the same list as manufactured social proof rather than on a list of soft skills.

Influence that works by going around somebody's judgment rather than through it is the standard case discussed in the Stanford Encyclopedia entry on the ethics of manipulation.

A checklist before the conversation

Being liked and being trusted pull against each other more often than people admit. The fastest route to being liked is agreement, and the fastest route to being trusted is disagreement at the right moment. Run the list before the conversation, not during it.

The second attempt is where a pleasant conversation turns into pressure, and people remember which one they had. Confidence produces liking and calibrated uncertainty produces trust, and only one of them survives being checked. Each item makes you easier to verify, which is the underlying move.

Whether it is reasonable to rely on somebody at all has a large literature behind it, and the Stanford Encyclopedia entry on trust sets out why trust is not simply confidence that a person will behave well.

If you are the one being warmed up

The advice above is for the person doing the liking. The mechanism and the test for separating a person from their proposal sit under liking principle, and the tactics that depend on you not looking sit under manipulation resistance. Reading those from the receiving side changes which questions you ask.

Common questions

Is it manipulative to be deliberately pleasant?

No. Deciding to be good to deal with is a choice about your conduct. It turns when the pleasantness is produced to stop somebody examining an offer.

What about sales training that teaches these things?

Some of it teaches genuine service and some of it teaches signal production. If the trainee would be embarrassed to have the client read the script, that technique is on the wrong list.

Does declaring my interest actually help me?

It costs a little at the start and pays over any relationship that lasts. It also makes your recommendations worth more, because a recommendation from somebody with a stated interest can be weighed rather than discounted.

How do I disagree without damaging the relationship?

Disagree about the thing and be plain about it once. Most damage comes from repetition or from disagreement that arrives with an implication about the person, not from the disagreement itself.