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Check out Dale Carnegie's How to win friends and influence people. I was a skeptic at first, until I actually took the course. To get someone to do something,

by pawn 15y ago

Check out Dale Carnegie's How to win friends and influence people. I was a skeptic at first, until I actually took the course. To get someone to do something, you have to make them want to do it. That sounds pretty straightforward, but really, that's what it comes down to. Others have suggested that at work, being a manager is the most straightforward way to make someone do something. That's because you have the authority to fire them if they don't. You can influence people without being a manager though. Heard of the carrot and the stick? The carrot dictates that you can convince someone that something good will happen if they do something. "You might get promoted" or "I'll brag about you to the boss" or "I'll give you a cookie". An example of "the stick" would be if you threaten to complain about a peer to their boss that they're not doing their job. Outside of work it's a lot trickier. If people think you'll do the work for them and they can just benefit, they're only too happy to go that route. You can appeal to their sense of guilt. "Hey Bob, remember last week when you said you'd send me a file? Just wanted to remind you". Appealing to their sense of justice works in some instances. The easiest way is if you can manage to get someone genuinely excited and then get them involved while the iron's hot. If you get a chance, take the Dale Carnegie course. Read the book at least. http://www.amazon.com/How-Win-Friends-Influence-People/dp/0671723650 http://www.amazon.com/How-Win-Friends-Influence-People/dp/06...

diminium 15y ago
This reply isn't specifically to your post but the combined post to others who keep saying managers have the authority to do everything and thus get people to work. What happens if your a manager that can't fire someone (e.g. government, tenure, etc)? There's a lot of managers out there who cannot fire people for one reason or a another yet they too manage to get their people to do stuff. To be fair though, a lot of them also have workers who don't listen to them at all but some of them still manage to get workers to do what they say.

by pawn 15y ago

diminium 15y ago

This reply isn't specifically to your post but the combined post to others who keep saying managers have the authority to do everything and thus get people to work. What happens if your a manager that can't fire someone (e.g. government, tenure, etc)? There's a lot of managers out there who cannot fire people for one reason or a another yet they too manage to get their people to do stuff. To be fair though, a lot of them also have workers who don't listen to them at all but some of them still manage to get workers to do what they say.