360 Degrees of Influence: Get Everyone to Follow Your Lead on Your Way to the Top

CHAPTER 3Breaking Through Resistance: The Major Barriers to Influencing Others

The 28th president of the United States was certainly not the first leader to observe, “If you want to make enemies, try to change something.” Undoubtedly Woodrow Wilson drew this conclusion from extensive firsthand experience in people management, having held a leadership post at Princeton University as its president and the governorship of New Jersey before ascending to the White House. Wilson knew what managers at every organization—from the newly formed start-up to the nonprofit to the multinational conglomerate—learn eventually, sometimes painfully; people typically prefer the status quo and reject the notion of change.

In fact, we have such a strong bias toward ...