Artful Persuasion: How to Command Consideration, Adjust Minds, and Influence Individuals (The New Psychology of Influence)

2 Responses to Artful Persuasion: How to Command Consideration, Adjust Minds, and Influence Individuals (The New Psychology of Influence)

1. Karl says:

   November 28, 2011 at 10:08 pm

   146 of 153 people found the following review helpful:

   One for the Trivia Collectors, March 15, 2002

   By Karl (England, Great Britain) –

   This review is from: Artful Persuasion: How to Command Attention, Change Minds, and Influence People (Paperback)

   There is a common misconception that “knowledge is power”.It isn’t.Just ‘having’ knowledge merely qualifies you to play Trivial Pursuit.Knowledge only translates into power, or in this case “persuasion”, IF you know how to USE that knowledge effectively.This book leans heavily on the “knowledge=power” misconception for it’s appeal.It is a typical example of what I call “sweeper” writing. That is to say, though it claims to be offering to tell you “how” to do something (in this case, “How to command attention, change minds, and influence people”) it actually only tells you “what” to do. It covers the gap with a stream of brief stories of the “Wow, I never knew that!” variety, “swept up” from a whole slew of books on more or less the same subject.It is my perception that *anybody* who has read the same set of source books, and has a reasonable grasp of written English, could have produced this book, regardless of whether they had any prior knowledge or experience of the subject.For beginners (in any subject), especially those who set more store by what they “know” rather than by what they can actually “do”, this “canned knowledge” approach can be very attractive. Indeed, it may well lead them to assume that the book itself is of some value.For the more discerning reader – one who wishes to be able to put their knowledge to work – this favourable impression lasts just about as long as it takes them to find a more pragmatically-oriented text.If you *really* want to be well-informed about “the new psychology of influence” I’d recommend Robert Cialdini’s classic “Influence”, and for an introductory handbook on the effective and responsible use of influence/persuasion, Andrew Bradbury’s “Develop Your NLP Skills”.Both books are well-written (that is, easy to read) yet contain far more *practical* information than “Artful Persuasion”.

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2. Daniel Norris says:

   November 28, 2011 at 10:44 pm

   34 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

   Better off buying books by Robert Cialdini, October 17, 2001

   By Daniel Norris (Converse, Texas USA) –

   This review is from: Artful Persuasion: How to Command Attention, Change Minds, and Influence People (Paperback)

   This book clearly speaks to some interesting research concerning persuasion and influence, however, it appeared to me that anyone with exposure to Dr. Cialdini’s research would find this repetitive and more focused on training those who would wish to become “black market” persuaders. I might also argue that the more interesting parts of Mr. Mills book appeared to be a re-write of Cialdini’s work.While it is an o.k. book for those with no background in persuasion or social psychology, I would recommend reading “Influence-Science and Practice” and/or “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion” by Dr. Cialdini. Many of the points made in Mr. Mills books relates to the research studied in both of these books. However, Dr. Cialdini’s books are more enjoyable to read, more informative and instructive, and clearly speaks to the ethics of persuasion with sincere eloquence.

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