Manipulation

Manipulation by Michael Beale

Manipulation infers influence without conscious awareness; it can be considered good or bad depending on the context. In a way a baby manipulates his or her parents by crying at night; the baby wouldn’t survive very long if she or he didn’t. In fact we both communicate and manipulate all the time.

Most (but not all) people who learn how to use influencing skills use them to help people. The reason is straightforward; if I manipulate you to do something that’s not in your interest and you find out you are likely to want to get your own back; which is not in my interest. I’m therefore much more likely to lead you in a direction that is useful to you.

If I use my skills to help you think through what you want and then influence you to achieve what you want more easily, you are unlikely to accuse me of manipulation.

Learning influence skills is a bit like learning to dance; you learn how you like to be influenced yourself at the same time you learn to influence others. I choose not to train or accredit people who are only interested in influencing others without understanding how they are influenced themselves as I believe they are more likely to influence others in a less useful way.

If you’re concerned about being manipulated the key defense is to be clear about your own objectives; when your focused on your own objectives you tend to ‘delete’ influence from other people that isn’t aligned to what you want to achieve.

If you find yourself in deep rapport with someone you are more likely to be able to influence or manipulate each other more easily for good or bad; again the main defense is to be clear about your own objectives; then you can at least make the decision to change or not change course.

If people use unhelpful manipulation they normally do so because they get a ‘pay off’ in some way. It is therefore often necessary to confront them and interrupt their ‘pay off’ if you want to influence them to change their behaviour.

Michael Beale 's profile on the 'Executive and Business Coaching Network'