Power and Persuasion: How to Command Success in Business and Your Personal Life

by Michael Masterson, Agora

It takes a rare combination of openness and resolution, toughness and compassion, cooperation and competition to become successful in life. In Power and Persuasion, Michael Masterson challenges many of today’s popular notions about success. The leadership, personal growth, and management techniques set forth in Power and Persuasion are effective for anyone who is interested in getting on the fast track to success.

According to Masterson, publisher of the Early to Rise www.earlytorise.com daily e-newsletter, truly successful people must be willing to do the hard thinking, make the tough decisions, and get the job done. They must seek the help of the best people available, without shirking their individual responsibility, to create a compelling vision of what can be and then sell that vision to their employees, their investors, and their customers. Knowing how persuade others that your ideas are worthy is the single most effective way to achieve power. And putting lots of power behind your best ideas, Masterson says, is the fastest and surest way to succeed in life.

The good news is that persuasion, like so many other important skills (communication, negotiation, and analytical thinking), can be learned. In Power and Persuasion, you’ll discover how to develop great ideas and convince other people to value them.

Based on his own experience as a successful businessman and his observations of other, Power and Persuasion will help you identify the essential qualities needed to be successful in your business, social, and personal life. This powerful guide will also show you how to become a more influential person through example and by practicing the most effective techniques of persuasion.

Power and Persuasion breaks new ground in decoding what it takes to be successful by providing examples of leaders who…

Don’t manipulate better performances out of people

Don’t become therapists for their employees

Understand proper teamwork

Listen as well as talk

Don’t try to control everything

Create a culture of accountability

Attach deadlines to their goals

Know when NOT to be competitive

Understand how to follow

Do NOT “Look out for Number One”

Filled with in-depth insight and expert advice, Power and Persuasion introduces you a new way of understanding success along with powerful and proven techniques for accomplishing everything you want to in life.

Genres: Business, Leadership

256 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2005

Reviews

[Russ]

Not a bad book for first time managers and leaders. There is practical and applicable advice to the inexperienced and those looking to improve their skills. Although part of the title, this isn't the Cialdini type persuasion.

[Daniel Taylor]

This is a practical, no BS guide to effective business leadership. The job of a leader is to come up with a vision, communicate that vision to his followers and inspire them to make it real.

[Angelo Perone]

This one book lays the groundwork for being a successful manager, owner, boss, entrepreneur.

It is packed with foundational practices that, when put into place, will lead anyone to success.

I feel this book digs 1-2 layers deep on all subjects. It doesn’t go too deep in any single subject but rather it is a broad take on being “good” or “above average” in every single aspect.

[Brian]

Lots of good advice broken out into various topics. I liked his other books a lot better than this one, though.