“Ah, it’s not for you. It’s more of a Shelbyville idea.”

Hi. I’m Chris Logan. You may remember me from such pages as the cover and the title page. The chapter you will read today is about social influence, or how to get other people to do your bidding.

If you want to get people to do something you want them to do, and they may not necessarily want to, you have two powerful sources of influence: the power of groups and the power of interpersonal influence tactics. The power of numbers lies in the fact that we are a social species and take some of our identities from the groups to which we belong. We have a strong desire to feel connected to our groups and the effective influence tactician can take advantage of this. We also attach ourselves so closely to our groups that we feel good when our groups look good and we distance ourselves from our groups that are underperforming. Just look at sales of shirts and hats for sports teams that are doing well versus those that are doing poorly.

The interpersonal tactics work a little differently. These are the psychological tools you can use in one-on-one situations to get people to do what you want them to do. These tactics do not necessarily require the presence of group pressures to work, but often rely on norms or appeals to larger numbers of people, even if those numbers are not physically present. By taking  …