People can easily form positive and negative opinions of others, often based on very little facts. These prejudices are part of our automatic defensive system, hired wired into mind. As hunter and gathers, meeting a new tribe for the first time this automatic assessment process could possibly be a life saver, when recognizing a potential threat.
People’ initial opinions are created through their own experiences, and sometimes have little to do with our actual character. What is even stranger is that someone can tell another person their opinion, and that person, often without questioning this opinion will take on board this negative belief.
In the workplace, the job interview or even in your everyday life, these negative opinions can be damaging to your reputation, career success and happiness.
Today I will share with a technique to change a person negative opinion of you.
Let’s say, you may have a manager who has a negative opinion of you. Most people, when accused of anything become defensive which only makes them look guilty:
“hey Jones, you’re late”
“err no, yes, but it wasn't my fault”
What you need to do is re-frame the situation. “I wasn't late, I set off early today as I wanted to get a start on that report, but there was a car accident on the motorway and the traffic built up, delaying me” IE you’re not late, you were just delayed.
In an interview situation you may be told “so you worked at JPP everyone who works there is lazy and unprofessional” this is a real damning statement and a big generalization.
Again you need to reframe this belief, “I know,.... that’s why I want to work for a company likes yours with a good work ethic” ....always reframe negative comments.
Poor managers will often say negative generalizations that can damage the reputation that you are building up, one of my clients told me that their manger came in one day and said to her “everyone is saying that you’re not pulling your weight, you’re sitting in the office on your computer while everyone else is loading the vans”
When people use a generalization “everyone” ask for more detail “who’s everyone?” “well erm, Dave said it”
So you have gone from everyone to just one person - Dave
“ah Dave, he must of meant last Friday, that was the day when you asked me to prioritize that last minute report you required for your Monday morning meeting, would you have preferred me to load the vans and rush the report or prioritize the report before loading the vans?”
By turning the question around and getting specific means your manager has to agree or answer your question, ever way their old opinion has been challenged and because many opinions are made as a snap judgement they can be easily changed.
Chris Delaney is The Founder of www.employmentking.co.uk and the author of The 73 Rules for Influencing the Interview using Psychology, NLP and Hypnotic Persuasion techniques http://www.amazon.co.uk/Influencing-Interview-Psychology-Persuasion-Techniques/dp/1780922221/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1340984483&sr=8-1
I actually own Chris's book, and must tell you, this is the book to read BEFORE you go on your next interview. This book is your competitive advantage. Take it.
If you are connected to network marketing, I also recommend this book, as you will pick up some great ways of influencing your prospects. This book rocks!
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