This is the third time I’ve listened to Cialdini’s lecture on influence.
I have a system: before any significant negotiation, I revisit three books. Chris Voss’s Never Split the Difference — though I’ll admit it’s built for aggressive negotiators, and I’m naturally more accommodating, which puts me at a disadvantage against that type. Joule and Beauvois’s Gra w manipulację — for self-defense, to recognize when someone is running a play on me. And Cialdini — because it’s the foundation.
I’m currently working through Getting to Yes by Fisher and Ury, trying to expand my toolkit for principled negotiation.
The Research Behind It
Cialdini did something rare. He left academia and spent roughly three years in the field — observing salespeople, recruiters, fundraisers, anyone whose job was to get others to say yes. He wanted to see what actually worked, not just what theory predicted.
Three things surprised him:
- There are only six principles that drive most of human compliance.
- Not everyone who uses them gets the full effect — most people underutilize what they have.
- The best influencers spend far more time preparing the ground than perfecting their pitch. The moment of asking is almost an afterthought.
That last point stuck with me. It reframes influence as agriculture, not performance.
Three Types of People
Cialdini describes three kinds of practitioners:
- Bunglers — they don’t know the rules, so they fumble through interactions and often sabotage themselves.
- Smugglers — they know the rules but use them to exploit. Short-term wins, long-term reputation damage.
- Detectives — they look for moments of power, opportunities to act in ways that benefit both sides. They understand influence as alignment, not extraction.
That framing helped me. I’ve always been uncomfortable with “persuasion” as a concept — it felt manipulative. But detectives aren’t manipulating. They’re noticing when influence can create a win-win, and acting on it.
The Story That Changed Me
Years ago, Cialdini told a story about one of his course participants — an IT company owner who flew his best people to Australia to help a partner through a critical system failure. They fixed it. The director of the Australian company thanked him personally, genuinely moved by the effort.
And then he blew it.
He started downplaying: “Oh, it was nothing. I love any excuse to visit Sydney.” He lied — minimized his own commitment, waved off the sacrifice his team made.
He had a moment of power — genuine gratitude, offered freely — and instead of receiving it cleanly, he deflected. He could have said: “This is what good partners do for each other.” Instead, he made himself smaller.
That story hit me hard. I recognized myself in it. The instinct to downplay, to avoid seeming like you expect something in return. But that instinct backfires. It devalues your own effort and robs the other person of the chance to feel appropriately grateful.
Since hearing that story, I’ve caught myself dozens of times about to make the same mistake. And I stop.
The Six Principles
1. Reciprocity
Simple: when someone does something for us, we feel compelled to return the favor.
The waiter who leaves a mint with the bill gets a bigger tip. Two mints, even more. But if he walks away, then comes back and says “here, I brought an extra one just for you” — tips spike. It’s not the candy. It’s the gesture of personalized effort.
There’s a subtype here: reciprocity with concession. If someone asks for something big and you refuse, then they ask for something smaller, you’re far more likely to say yes — because they “gave ground,” and now you feel you should too.
Cialdini experienced this himself. A boy scout asked him to buy circus tickets. He said no. The boy, looking defeated, asked if he’d at least buy some chocolate bars. Cialdini bought them — and only later realized he’d been played.
This connects to the “door-in-the-face” technique I’d read about in Joule and Beauvois. They even reference Cialdini’s experiment: when people were first asked to mentor at-risk youth for a full year (most refused), and then asked to just take them to the zoo once — the yes rate jumped dramatically compared to asking about the zoo alone.
2. Scarcity
People fear loss more than they desire gain. If something is rare, or becoming unavailable, it’s instantly more valuable.
But scarcity alone isn’t enough. The real leverage comes when you add exclusive information — knowledge that few others have.
Cialdini’s doctoral student tested this with beef wholesalers. When salespeople simply called to offer beef, they got baseline orders. When they mentioned that supply might be limited due to weather in Australia, orders doubled. But when they said: “I have information from a contact in the Australian trade ministry that isn’t public yet — there’s going to be a shortage” — orders increased six times.
Scarcity + exclusive knowledge = maximum urgency.
3. Authority
We defer to experts. That’s not news. The question is: how do you establish authority when you’re the newcomer in the room?
Cialdini’s insight: when you can’t demonstrate expertise directly, lead with a weakness. Acknowledge a flaw, a limitation, something that’s honestly not in your favor. This builds trust — because who admits downsides unless they’re being straight with you?
Once trust is established, your strengths land harder. Marketers do this constantly: “We’re not the cheapest option — but here’s why we’re worth it.”
The sequence matters. Weakness first, then strength. Reverse it and you look like you’re making excuses.
4. Commitment and Consistency
Once someone takes a position — especially publicly, actively, and voluntarily — they’ll bend themselves into pretzels to stay consistent with it.
All three conditions matter:
- Active — they said it or wrote it, not just nodded.
- Public — others witnessed the commitment.
- Voluntary — no one forced them.
Get someone to commit to a small thing, and larger commitments in the same direction become almost automatic. They’re not agreeing with you. They’re agreeing with their past self.
5. Social Proof
The label “consensus” is a bad translation. What Cialdini means is: people look to others to determine what’s correct.
The hotel towel experiment is the cleanest example. Generic environmental appeals (“help save the planet”) had modest effect. But a sign saying “75% of guests who stayed in this room reused their towels” dramatically increased compliance. Same ask. Different framing — now it’s about what people like you actually do.
The terrifying version: when at least two of a teenager’s close friends smoke, the probability that they’ll smoke increases by 1000%. Not ten percent. One thousand.
Social proof is neutral. It can pull toward good decisions or disasters. The principle doesn’t care.
6. Liking
We say yes to people we like. And we like people who are similar to us, who compliment us genuinely, and who work alongside us toward shared goals.
Detectives of influence don’t fake this. They look for real reasons to like the person across the table. Real similarities. Real things to appreciate.
The asymmetry is powerful: when you find genuine reasons to like someone, they sense it — and start liking you back. It’s not a trick. It’s just attention, directed honestly.
Takeaway
Influence isn’t about scripts or manipulation. It’s about preparation, timing, and honest alignment.
The best practitioners spend more energy preparing fertile ground than rehearsing their pitch. They watch for moments of power — not to exploit, but to act when action can benefit both sides.
And they receive thanks without deflecting.
That’s where I’ve grown the most.