Question

Soft tactics and hard tactics are used to influence.

Give and example of a situation where you would use or you did use either tactic to influence and affect change in another person or people. What was the tactic and why do you think it worked.

Answer 1

The tactic I have used was a soft tactic. A soft tactic is defined as the one that involves using personal appeal, ingratiation, rational, or inspiration appeal to influence someone and make them do something you want them to do.

I did use the same tactic on one of my team members. We were working on new product development. The task was to do market research and once product is prepared a sample testing. My colleague wanted to do sample testing as he did not want to go for market research. However, I wanted to go for sample testing only. So, I told him that market research is the first step in product development. If you master it, next time you can go for sample testing. But if you go for sample testing now, you will not be having that much idea about how it relates to the market research I have done before. I also told him about the benefits of market research. Finally, he agreed.

I used a soft tactic on him. I used rational and inspirational appeal. It worked because the fact I told him were genuine. It worked because I was able to convince him. If I had lied to him, it could still have worked but would have spoiled our bonding as a team.