Extraordinary Influence summary

If you want to compliment someone, it’s helpful to know a little about them – after all, everyone loves being praised for things that matter to them. If you’re crazy about fashion, for example, you’ll be pleased if a colleague tells you they love your new shirt. If you don’t much care about the latest sartorial trends, however, the compliment will fall flat. 

The same goes for affirmation. The best way to communicate your support for a team member is to focus on what they really care about – their strengths. Let’s see how that works. 

There’s been a great deal of philosophical debate over the millennia about what defines a person’s core. Some have claimed it’s the mind; others have argued that it’s the heart while others still have suggested it’s the soul. The jury is still out on that question, but here’s something we do know: wherever the core is, it’s where our deepest values reside. 

That’s something effective communicators know. When they seek to affirm others, they speak to their most cherished values. But before we take a look at how they do that, let’s pause for a second and ask how such values are formed in the first place. 

When the author’s wife Anne was a kid, she took an art class at a local preschool playgroup. There she was told to follow certain rules – houses, for example, should be square, the sun a circle and treetops wavy. But that’s not how Anne wanted to paint. Instead, she splattered colors across her canvas at random. 

Anne’s teacher Ms. Caldwell wasn’t pleased and told the whole class to gather around and look at the “mess” this precious would-be Jackson Pollock had made. It was a humiliation Anne remembers to this day. 

Positive leadership and affirmation are crucial in times of crisis. That’s something Eric Pillmore knows all about. In 2002, he was appointed vice president of corporate governance at Tyco International, a security-system manufacturer. 

Pillmore had his work cut out for him. The former CEO had siphoned hundreds of millions of dollars out of the company’s accounts, and Tyco looked like it might go bust at any moment. Pillmore’s job: turning things around. 

Ask the average employee what they think of their annual performance review and the two words you’ll hear most often are “uncomfortable” and “stressful.” Why? Well, two issues stand out. First off, reviews often lead to misunderstandings between workers and their bosses. More importantly, employees end up feeling like their contributions over the last year haven’t been fairly assessed. 

Luckily, change is afoot in the corporate world. Take the old-school approach of rating employee performance on a scale from one to nine using abstract and complex metrics. Today, top companies like Microsoft, Dell, Goldman Sachs and New York Life have abandoned the attempt to put a number on their workers’ efforts. 

Abusive coaching, parenting and teaching are all too common. In some areas of life, like athletics, yelling and harsh criticism are even celebrated as the best way of getting kids to fulfill their potential. But here’s the truth: shouting at children just isn’t very helpful if you want them to go far in life. 

So why do people do it? As the social psychologist Barbara Fredrickson points out, folks tend to assume it works because of its short-term effects: when you yell at kids, you get their attention, and they do as you say.