Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice, and most of all, love of what you’re doing or learning to do”
In the previous blog, we took you into a different world of success. We looked at what success means and how different it is from person to person. When you ask men if they want to succeed in life, the chances of getting a no would be like getting stuck by a bolt of lightning, which is very rare. Thus, all of us are dreamers. Our dreams may range from small things like getting a task done for a day or even as big owning a private jet. Our dreams are highly subjective and every day we are working to move an inch closer towards that. My aim with the previous blog was to make you think of a different perspective on success. But by the end, I assume most of you would have asked yourself,
“But how do we become successful?”
I’ve got you covered. This blog introduces you to a new way of achieving success. The more known but less travelled path.
We all must have watched that YouTuber saying speeches for hours on success. We might have read several articles regarding success and how to achieve it. Keeping the theoretical concepts apart, most of us are unaware of a lot of important concepts and strategies for success. We are constrained in the old search for thoughts that we rarely think outside the box. Being successful is no easy thing. It involves a lot of effort, planning and dedication. But going the old way might make it a little difficult for you to get things done. So, why don’t we try a new way in our journey to success?
The PIP way to success.
The word PIP can be expanded into Presence, Influence and Persuasion. By presence, we don’t mean mere presence but executive presence. All these three constructs are equally important in our journey to success. But how do we connect them? These constructs are nee areas most of us never even thought of. But with the right understanding, strategies and actions, a person can easily achieve what they want. Let us take a look at what each of these constructs means.
Presences elaborated into executive presence are the primary factor in personal development.No matter what we plan or articulate in our vision, the absence of presence can surely make things complicated. But here, by presence, we just don’t restrict ourselves to physical or mental presence. Here we focus on executive presence. It is relatively a recent topic that evolves to meet the current requirements. In simple words, executive presence is your ability to inspire others and boost their confidence. With executive presence, you not only inspire your subordinates to take up action but also your superiors showing up your abilities and potential for achievement.
The concept of executive presence can help you not only in your professional life but also in your personal life. From inspiring your team to finish that work with maximum efficiency to show your potential and capabilities for your personal growth, executive presence is irreplaceable. According to Sylvia Ann Hewlett, three pillars include Gravitas, the personality and the confidence you endure, Communication skills appearance, and not misleading but personality is very essential.
The next construct that takes up in PIP is Influence. For being an effective and good leader, influencing others is mandatory. Influencing others can work wonders both in good times as well as bad times. Defining influence in technical terms can be the ability to affect the behaviour of others in a particular direction, leveraging key tactics that involve, connect, and inspire them.
Effective leadership is not just about commanding what to do but influencing them in your way. By influencing others, you don’t force them to do things that you want them to do, but you create that urge from within and that’s really important as that definitely makes a bigger difference. Through this, the employees or the coworkers feel more satisfied with that they experience.
Mastering the skills of influence isn’t that easy but not impossible. Developing the 7 skills which include attitude, value, listening, passion, openness, time management and knowledge can help you achieve the skill easier.
Last but not the least, the final construct, Persuasion. Persuasion and Manipulation are two words often used interchangeably but have very different meanings. While persuasion is a process in which one person attempts to influence the actions, ideas, beliefs, and behaviours of other people. Manipulation is generally a harmful influence on other people and most likely in an unfair manner. But, Persuasion can indeed be a very helpful tool and a skill in a variety of situations.
Persuasion and influence work hand in hand. Individuals who are Persuasive are able to influence others also and create a mindset. By persuading, we are not sticking to the old principle of getting things done by others, but we start to look at a broader picture here. By persuasion, we also mean to ensure support of what so ever the new venture is.
The development of persuasion comes with a series of steps, some of which include
- Maintaining and trusting relationships
- Encouraging connections
- Emphasising support of others.
With this, we are clear that, though all these might seem to be individual constructs, these work together in an area to bring you the maximum benefit. Also, though this might seem like factors among the several thousand factors contributing to success, you can’t deny the importance of these in both your personal and professional life.
Now, this brings us to the conclusion that irrespective of any other factor influencing success, these three play a significant role. My aim with this blog was to introduce you to these concepts of PIP. In the following blogs of this PIP series, we will look into each of these concepts separately so that you get a better understanding of what each of these means and how to apply this to your life.
“Believe in yourself and the world will be at your feet.”
-Swami Vivekananda
Key takeaways
- Success is a significant factor in one’s life and everyone desires to achieve success in one way or the other
- A way that can make your journey to success comfortable is PIP way to success
- PIP stands for Executive Presence, Influence, and Persuasion
- Executive presence of the ability to inspire others and boost their confidence.
- Influence is the strategic technique used to influence others which can be beneficial for both employers, employees and coworkers.
- Persuasion is the ability to put the seed of your ideas, thoughts and perspective in others in more of a positive way to get on board with the plans.
- These three constructs when correctly followed and adjusted can surely accelerate your rate of success in your journey.