Influencing Skills and Synergistic in Decision Making

The dynamic marketing and organizational environments require individuals to accomplish a variety of goals by relying on their skills. In this context, influential and interpersonal skills are considered to be valuable for further development and success. Therefore, these skills are often applied within groups to create a synergetic effect. Additionally, different styles of influence (push and pull) may be incorporated to fulfil the purpose. To facilitate a decision making process it is essential to understand the roles of every aspect that is involved and be able to apply them in practice.

Influencing Skills and Synergistic in Decision Making

Presently, people often encounter a situation when they have to make a decision that concerns big organizations, institutions, and other important establishments. The need to impact others in order to reach a consensus is a significant attribute that helps to achieve success. Thus, influencing skills are considered to be an art. The roots of these skills are founded in “the ability to change the course of somebody else’s actions, beliefs or opinions” (Leadership Directions, 2017). The art of influencing skills is created by a vision that implies best possibilities and includes methods of their realization. Usually, these skills motivate people and change their views by means of persuasion.

Decision making is focused on results. Here, influencing skills encompass an ability to illustrate how an interested party can benefit from certain choices. It should be noted that influencing skills are a characteristic of a leader. It is a task of the leader to ensure that a decision has lasting and satisfactory outcomes. Moreover, it is important for the leader with influencing skills to be able to create a proper environment for the employees who work together and participate in the decision making process. The skills help to improve the process by incorporating the principles of synergy. Thus, decision making is often based on synergetic models that require combined efforts of a group of people. Furthermore, these efforts add effectiveness and multiply productivity of each person.

Synergetic in decision making is an effective strategy that is aimed at increasing efficiency, for instance, by organizing individuals to exchange information via influencing skills. The basic foundation on the synergistic effects is that participants can combine forces and “achieve more collectively than they could individually” (Randall, 2015). It may be suggested that group efforts are more advanced and rational than choices and decisions made by each member separately. However, to make such a decision, it is important to have a person who is capable of influencing others by adopting a proper attitude and improve general thinking patterns. Therefore, influencing skills and synergetic approach contribute to implementing the vision of a leader and ideas of a group into reality.

Interpersonal Skills: Active Listening and Supporting

The notion of synergistic in decision making is related to interpersonal skills. According to Janasz, Dowd and Schneider (2014), interpersonal skills may define the entry-level success. In addition, these skills are regarded to as “soft skills” because they are responsible for managing different people and helping them to be productive and effective while cooperating with each other, or individually. It is emphasized that it is not enough to be a qualified professional to build a career; however, interpersonal skills may be useful in achieving this purpose and getting a promotion, for instance, (Janasz, Dowd, & Schneider, 2014). Scholars recognize interpersonal skills as an integral part of the global marketplace that applies advanced service-oriented practices. Moreover, interpersonal skills assist in implementing solutions and finding resources regardless of the hierarchy of involved employees, because people tend to respond to soft skills better than to authority. Therefore, interpersonal skills are critical for synergistic of decision making and are valued in different organizations.

Interpersonal skills are partially formed by such components as active listening and supporting. In some cases, one may fail to make a right decision because they do not listen to other opinions and do not explore contrasting options. Instead of sharing various ideas, people try to repeat their thoughts in order to be heard by everyone. Synergetic in decision making requires cooperation that may be promoted and developed with the help of active listening. Within this framework, active listening is a process of hearing, understanding and discussing questions. A leader with good interpersonal skills should be able to anticipate possible conflicts. Additionally, he can prevent disagreements by reviewing the information that was shared and summarizing main advantages and disadvantages related to it in an acceptable form. Interpersonal skills allow a group of people to concentrate on an objective and evaluate contributions of others in a calm and respectable manner.

When several individuals are gathered to discuss an issue, they can facilitate decision making with the assistance of the person with interpersonal skills. Apart from active listening, he/she can use support as a factor that creates a synergetic effect. When one’s achievements are recognized, they receive support that helps to accomplish more in terms of risk taking, problem solving, and conflict resolution (Randall, 2015). Thus, support is crucial in decision making since it allows people to implement a variety of ideas on the basis of personal recognition and understanding. Additionally, support is useful for establishing a feel-good atmosphere where creative ideas are shared.

The Rational Skills in Deciding on Rational Process

Decisions, collective work, and skills of an individual may vary in its nature and implications. In the context of a rational process, rational skills are valued as they provide an opportunity to achieve certain objectives by using precise information and its analysis. Unlike influencing and interpersonal skills, rational skills are characterized by a more thoughtful approach that enables an individual to use logic and rules while making a decision. Here, rational thinking helps to justify a decision by applying available data and facts. The most important rational skills include learning. Hence, during a process of decision-making or problem solving, a person can rationally analyze information, learn from previous mistakes, anticipate possible challenges, and construct a proper strategy to succeed. A careful methodological approach is a part of rational process and is employed to recognize, understand and assess all the main aspects of a matter.

Rational skills may also be used to create a shared view of an issue and build an effective model for further actions. Besides, rational skills exert their influence on employee relations because they incorporate social and economic factors within a decision and facilitate the rational process. Moreover, these skills can have positive effect on decision making by discussing precise information that is related to an objective. It should be noted that rational skills can be developed and are assets to a leader in different situations (for example, while managing groups). It is more productive when these skills are combined with influencing and interpersonal skills as they produce a synergetic effect and help to make important decisions.

Push Influencers and Pull Influencers

Influencing skills and other personal traits define the influencing style that is adopted by individuals or even an organization. Two main styles that are push influencers and pull influencers are distinguished from others. The former may be regarded to as convincing, persuading, asserting and inspiring. The defining aspects of pull influencers are linking, inquiring, involving and disclosing. The two styles can be used in combination to obtain positive results.

Push influencers may be convincing when they apply reasoning and logic to convey ideas. The means of persuasion are also implemented when a person focuses on advantages of a certain choice and tries to demonstrate its positive aspects. An asserting style of influencing involves reasoning combined with leadership attitude that demands attention and utilizes facts. In addition, there is an inspirational appeal in push influencers when they associate a desirable outcome with a particular decision and set values that are shared among others. Push influencers are able to “put needs… across in the most appealing, convincing and assertive manner that will get… the best possible result” (Leadership Directions, 2017). The work of push influencers may be complemented by pull influencers.

Pull influencers work on different principles. They attempt to impact a decision by uniting other people and engaging them in the process of decision making; therefore, they link individuals for a common purpose. Furthermore, pull influencers can be inquiring when they draw attention of people to a matter by posing questions that emphasize the benefits of the proposed decision. It is also important to involve participant into the process, for example, by listening to feedbacks and presenting arguments. Another aspect is disclosing based on revealing opinions that are shared and discussed publically.

Conclusion

A decision making process incorporates different skills of individuals that are used to create an environment where choices are examined, analyzed, and made. Here, influencing skills, interpersonal skills, and synergetic principles play a significant role. Influencing skills allow persuading people to cooperate together and consider different opinions. Moreover, this result is achieved by applying interpersonal skills that help people to find compromises and evaluate important aspects of a matter. Active listening and supporting are the part of a synergetic effect that is responsible for productive outcomes and contributes to positive results. Additionally, rational skills may be practiced to assess a situation and provide informational support. The latter may also be regulated by influencers that employ various element to affect their followers. For example, there are push influencers that concentrate on convincing, persuading, asserting, and inspiring; pull influencers work to link, inquire, involve and dissolve. It should be noted that skills and styles of influence may and should be developed as they are essential for the decision making process.

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