Shanti’s Dispatches

Whenever I keep hearing about a book, from multiple trusted sources, it’s always a clear signal to me that I should check it out.

This was the case with Robert B. Cialdini’s Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion.

It appears on Joel’s Book Recommendations page as well as the newly revised Personal MBA list by Josh Kaufman.

After reading the first third of the book, I’ve developed a nauseating feeling… thinking back on all the times I’ve been unwittingly duped by psychological mind tricks. (whether the parties knew they were using these or not… most likely not)

… that, as well as noticing all the times where I’ve attempted to use such techniques, not fully knowing what I was doing at the time.

This generally relates to working with people, such as our Human Capital Investment Group, Menlo Park 2.0, the Niner Niner weblog network, and other various ventures that involve recruiting, building and championing a team.

More and more… especially after reading this book, I’ve realized that I don’t want to have to resort to any mind tricks. (consciously or not)

I just want to do a few things, and do them well. These are:

• Build Something That People Love
• Build Something That People Use Regularly and Willingly (duh!), and Love to Tell Their Friends About
• Keep Making It (the Something) Better and Better Over Time

There. No jedi mind tricks. Just a simple formula…

… that’s incredibly hard to achieve in practice.

Assert(Simple != Easy);

You can bookmark this, digg this or check the cosmos