by Timothy Ijala

Created on: July 01, 2008   Last Updated: July 03, 2008

I believe pursuading someone to do something for you has to take into consideration a number of factors.
For example what relationship exists between you and this person? Is it parent, child, friend,workmate or colleague at work? The way you would approach persuasion would be different in all these cases.
However there are general rules that can help. For one how you relate to other people is very important and will go a long way when it comes to pursuading them to do something for you. Are you bossy, care only for yourself, never really go out of your way to do things for others? Believe me that will backfire when it comes to pursuading others to do things for you. So it is something you can prepare long in advance for. Be ready to do things for people. Be nice to people. Be approachable, give a listening ear when someone wants to talk, be cooperative with people and generally learn to get along well with people.Even if its your own child. Then when you have to ask them to do something for you, however difficult it might be to them, it won't take alot of pursuasion. They may resent it at first but if they think of letting you down and more so when they know how good you are to them, they may more easily give in to being pursuaded to do it for you.

Its also very important how you communicate to people. One dictionary defines to pursuade as being able to 'influence by arguement, etc'. So how you influence people to do something for you is very important. If you reason with them and show them to what advantage it is to them or to all of you that that something gets done(if there are any advantages at all), then you may get an audience willing to be pursuaded. But if you use threats or authority(parent,boss,Manager) to pursuade someone to do something for you, well it might work in the short term but never in the long term. For example as a parent you may have a child who hates making the bed in the morning. You could use your authority as a parent to order him or her to get that bed made or those pots and pans washed after dinner. But that might cause resentment on the part of the child and he may even come to hate the chore. But suppose you were to reason with your child. Tell him for example how much you also hated making the bed when you were his age but realised it was always to your benefit to come home in the evening to a room with a bed well made other than doing it that evening when you were tired and just wanted to sleep. And maybe telling him how much it makes mum and dad happy when you do something for them like making the bed!That reasoning might just work because you put yourself in the same level as your child, you show him you understand how he feels and you also show him the benefits. So the way you communicate is very important.

Another method is offer to do something for that person in exchange for their getting what you want them to do done. It may not be the best way in the long run but it does work in the short term especially if its someone you don't have to deal with all the time.

To what extent you can pursuade somebody to do something for you at the end of the day really depends on your interpersonal skills and personality.

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