Sometimes, it's hard enough to get through the entire day. So I've research a number of psychological business 'life hacks' to help you accelerate the painful portions of your day and make them a little bit brighter. Always listen and find people's soft spots. Instead of being confrontational, be kind and also play those points. What they don't like, don't like to hear, what they like to eat, to do, to listen to. One minute of listening will open the gates to whatever you want to do with that person.
Compliment first. Sometimes I have conferences with parents and they come in on the defense. I find that complimenting them right away helps to ease into conversation and allows me to dominate more of the conversation. This helps in many other situations as well.
Get things done. Pretend you have a 5 minute deadline for just about anything. You'd be amazed what you can get done IN A HURRY. Shit that would have normally taken you a week.
Look good. If you praise someone to another person, that person is likely to attribute the positive qualities you mentioned to you. I remembered this one when my boss, during a performance evaluation, used the same 3 positive words to describe me that I'd used to describe a coworker a couple of months earlier.
Do you have a rival? Or just someone who seems to dislike you, ask them for a favor. It will completely overhaul their outlook. This is known as the Ben Franklin effect as he documented it quiet thoroughly with the delegate from Delaware.
Someone yelling at you? When someone is having a breakdown, even if they are targeting you and verbally attacking you, don't make yourself the victim. Listen to what they say, and speak to them calmly and rationally. Once they are calmed down, tell them how it made you feel and how they may have been in the wrong. When people are having a breakdown, their emotions have full control of them and you letting your emotions take over is only going to make things worse. Just remember, if someone is acting this way, its not to hurt you, its because they feel hurt. And they will be much more willing to admit it if you treat them as the victim and yourself as the offender. At least until they calm down.
Want to make friends? If you want someone to like you in any given situation try not to wholly disagree with their opinions. Instead, initially show some resistance to their statement(s) and as time progresses, begin to show them that you are coming around to their idea/ that perhaps you have changed your view. The fact that they believe they have changed you opinion something positive about your interaction that they won't forget.
Want to be attractive? Wear red. For women, the color red makes them exponentially more attractive. Research has shown that men will go to great lengths to do things for a woman in red that they would not do otherwise like give her money or even carry her across the street.
Interview body language. So something that we do that we don't realize is mirror the body language of people that we like, like our friends. If they sit crossed legged, we will. If they touch their face, we will. This goes back to the subconscious will to be more like the people that we respect. You can kind of "force" this though, say in an interview. Put a conscious effort into mirroring the body posture of your interviewer, but don't be obvious about it. Be nice and subtle. This will trick their mind into thinking they like you. After all, you are doing similar things with your body, why not!
Get them to talk about themselves. People are selfish and they love talking about what they do. Ask your interviewer as many questions about what they do for work and really listen. They will walk away from the interview in a good mood because they got to talk about themselves and they will then think that the interview went well.
Schedule meetings as early as possible. There's a ton of cognitive psychology research about the primacy effect which essentially states that items are more memorable if they are presented earlier. So if you're meeting with someone where the person will literally be in meetings all day, you will be more memorable if you go first. If you are unable to be first go last. Similarly, there is research about the recency effect, which states that items are also memorable if they are presented last, though the primacy effect is more reliable. Just try not to be stuck in the middle.
Are you debating a position? Don't give your stance first. Give your argument. In some self interest research that I did myself in my undergrad, I found that your persuasiveness is fragile and dependent on your social identity. For example, if you came out and say "I'm an atheist and this is what I believe," you are already seen as less persuasive and more biased because people already know why you are arguing what you're arguing; you have something to gain by convincing people. You're an atheist. What you should do is not say you're an atheist at all. Say "this is what I believe..." Because people don't have an assumption already in their mind, they will be more likely to view you as less biased. Bonus points if you're on the opposite side. For example, a conservative arguing for gay rights is going to be viewed as very persuasive and not biased at all because they literally have nothing to gain from holding that viewpoint while a homosexual arguing for gay rights does have something to gain and thus is seen as more biased.
Have to make or present an important choice? People will incline to chose the last choice presented to them. In her case, this worked because asking "Should I take a note (for said person) or will you call back yourself?" would lead people to calling back themselves much more often making her work easier. Now this doesn't work with all questions ("Do you want to go to Venice or Rome for holidays?") but it usually works with questions where the choice isn't that important. "Do you want to eat pizza or takeout Chinese?" is another good one. Put the choice you want them to take as the last one and pray they take the bait. Another protip: DON'T let them know you do this, or they may think you're putting your choice as the last one when that ain't necessarily true.
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Information for this article gathered from Reddit.
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