If You Want to Influence Anyone, Mind Your Language!

Last night, the flight back from Budapest was an interesting experience. British Airways is not known for in-flight services. On a three-hour flight in the evening, they will only serve you cold sandwich for dinner. If you ask for a second round of drinks, as usually happens on BA flights, you will be waiting indefinitely, and it will generally not come, unless you ask again.

Something similar happened last night. Quite a few fellow passengers asked for beer and wine after first round of drinks and sandwiches were served. My neighbour, an elderly gentleman, very politely asked for his second drink with “I would love another beer please”. Half an hour later, the drink did not arrive. He was not alone – there were several others around us who were also waiting, and no sign of the drinks! The cabin crew could be seen walking up and down the aisle, and I guess my fellow passengers were too polite to ask a second time.

I was a curious onlooker watching my frustrated neighbour. I hadn’t until then asked for a second glass of wine. Then as a flight attendant was walking past me, I looked at her and asked in a slow voice, “Excuse me…..(pause), can I get a glass of red wine?”. “Sure”, and she disappeared. After about five minutes, she appeared with my glass of wine. Although this did not surprise me, my co-passenger was definitely surprised. Of course it did give him a chance to ask for his beer again which he eventually got, although he was mystified by how I got mine in five minutes.

I did something which I have now learnt to do when I seriously want someone to respond positively to me. Here is what I did on the BA flight:

Excuse me (in a slow voice)…….: This got me her full attention.

A slight pause: She was now trying hard to listen to what I had to say.

Can I get a glass of wine?: Now when I began my sentence with a question (can I), this obviously needed an answer from her. Note that I did not purposely include the word ‘please’ in my request – a bit impolite, I admit, but it works…..! When you add ‘please’ the message when conveyed to the listener gets transformed to ‘could you please’, rather than ‘can I’. Now, there is a plot behind this syntax: when you say ‘can I’ to someone, suddenly the other person gets the message that he/she has power over what you want. But when you polish your request with a more courteous ‘please’, the meaning of the request changes to a very polite command. Now what difference does this make? Simple – my ‘can I’ (I am at her ‘mercy’) obliges her to at least give me an answer: most normally wired people will find it hard to say ‘NO’ when you make a ‘reasonable’ request (if I had made the same request just when the aircraft was landing, I would not expect her to give an affirmative answer as this would be a very unreasonable request). But when I make a seemingly courteous request with the so-called magic word ‘please’, her mind does not hear it that ‘polite’ – it comes across more as a command (‘will you?’). Worse still, when it is a command, the recipient may choose to remain silent (no ‘yes or no’) – it does not automatically require an answer. Only in time you will figure out whether or not your ‘command‘ has elicited an action. In my case, when I heard her say ‘sure’, I knew I would get my wine as she has made a commitment!

Try this next time when you want someone to comply with your reasonable request. Although I must add the caveat that human minds don’t work exactly as machines – so don’t be surprised if you do not succeed in every case.

And do write about your experience if you use this trick! Leave your comments on my blog at: http://resultsachievers.com