How do you get what you want?

How do you get what you want?

There’s a whole spectrum of influence tactics that leaders and governments can use to achieve compliance in behaviour:
Force, compel, coerce, convince, persuade, ask, motivate, inspire.

I was reading about how Austria will soon making vaccination mandatory, and I wondered how the citizens will react. I think it won’t go down too well.

And so I had an interesting debate with Husband about this.
He is outraged that the choice will be taken away from the citizens to decide.
I am more interested in how the Austrian government came to this decision, to enact this draconian law; and whether they’d be as effective as a more authoritarian government in getting the outcome they want.

Culture around power distance as well as trust in government and other factors definitely makes a huge difference in this matter.

The pandemic has opened up so many discussions and debates about what to do, how to
– contain the virus spread
– treat the ailing
– stop the healthy from getting sick
– protect the health services
– keep up with the rapidly mutating virus from turning it into a deadly game of cat and mouse
… so it is no wonder that governments have invested heavily in finding solutions that address one or more of the above.

They do need cooperation from the public to get some headway, but much of the controversy has been centred around the “How”.

How do you get compliance?

The ethics debate is also utterly fascinating – for example, is bribery and manipulation any better than coercion?
Is there a sliding scale of Badness in this whole equation?

Learning how to influence ethically is an important part of life, and I am keen to impart these lessons onto my kids.

Personally, I rely on my winning smile and amazing charm to get my way. 😁
That’s option (C) but I didn’t have enough space to illustrate that.
And if it doesn’t, the 🍩 in option (B) is absolutely a viable one!!

#OnThePeiroll