Saturday, February 9, 2013

Terms-"Influence" and "Manipulation"



People differ, attitude differs, thought differs, and opinion differs. These are the terms I read in various newspaper, heard from some management thinkers and some friends. Technically speaking, these terms are absolutely true. Everything is in this world are different (Both tangible and intangible). They have certain unique things on their own. In this post I’m going to discuss about two terms 'Influence' and 'Manipulation'. Both are elusive terms.

When I was attending the Leadership training program in my company, the trainer he asked about what are the good traits of a Leader? When I was about to give an answer, someone in the hall already gave that same answer. In order to show my presence, suddenly I said "Leader should be a good manipulator". Everyone in the room started staring at me like I said an offensive word. Trainer asked me with his widely opened eyes, "Manipulator?” I said "Yes, sir". If you take the example of Adolf Hitler...He interrupted me and said "No, no. You are going out of topic."

Last night, I had a long discussion about these two terms with my friend. His opinion is both the terms are different. I asked him why? He tried to convince me by saying lots of thing but i wasn't convinced. We talked about sender's end and receiver's end. Sender is the guy who is manipulating or influencing. Receiver is the guy who gets manipulated or influenced. In the verge of discussion, he said "If the receiver is happy and feel proud of it then we can say he is influenced" and the vice verse "If the receiver is unhappy and not felling proud of it then we can say he is manipulated". Yeah, it makes sense. Some say 'influence' is a positive connotation and 'manipulation' is a negative connotation. This not at all making any sense to me because I’m saying both influence and manipulation are same in this present world.

When I posted I say 'Manipulation' and 'Influence' are same in Facebook. One of my friends commented like this "of course.. u can say anythin u want.. its fb n not xam paper..  Oh God, I don't know what to reply for this. Some friends said attitude differs. Some friends accepted my opinion.

I don't know which one is true. Is it same or different? In order to rationalize my statement “I say 'Manipulation' and 'Influence' are same” I have the following opinion

According to me nothing will come for free except parent's love. Influencing or manipulating other people means making other people to do something for them or to others or to himself or herself i.e., influencer or manipulator. Influence is same that of manipulation. Why do people influence someone to do something? Because they need some benefit out of it. If the people seek for benefit from others, that means they are manipulating others to do something. So, influence=manipulation. No one is going to waste their time to do something, if they are not getting anything out of it.


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