Who Should I Listen To? Who Should Listen To Me?

From the time we were little, we’ve been faced with the same question: Who should I listen to? Who can help me navigate?

It’s hard when you’re very young because your main exposure to influence or credibility — where it comes from, its components, what it’s based on, how to tell the good from the bad — is mostly from people in your sphere: parents, siblings, teachers and coaches. The confusion is compounded by the fact that you haven’t had much experience with influencing others.

As you increase your exposure to other people and media, and you begin to see both sides of who-listens-to-whom, the picture begins to fill in.

What are the components of influence?

Authenticity. As defined by Merriam-Webster, authentic means “worthy of acceptance or belief as conforming to or based on fact.” It’s not necessarily authentic just because the person’s been designated as credible by an external source. Just as nobody will follow you just because you’ve been dubbed a Leader, you can’t expect people to listen to you because someone decided to call you an Influencer.

Credibility and influence are earned over time. But how do people prove to others they ought to pay attention in a fast-paced environment? Sometimes they adopt short-cuts:

One way is to imitate. They wear the uniform of popular influencers. In years past, that might have been a three-piece suit and slicked-back hair. That seems laughable now, but I wonder how we’ll feel a few years from now about today’s Credibility Uniform of 3-day stubble, tee shirt, jeans and Vans. They adopt the common-speak of the era: “Wait for it.” “Hack.” “Growth.” “I didn’t see that coming.” Starting sentences with “So…” The assumption here is that there is a culturally right way to think and talk and do, and this person’s got it.

A second way is “ditto-ing” someone who already has credibility. You’ve seen this in social media. Someone Likes the post of a famous person for the sole purpose of hitching a ride on their influence.

Another alternative is to purposely adopt different dress or language. The idea is to appear so far out of the mainstream that others will assume you know something worthwhile nobody else knows about yet.

But although they work sometimes, these short-cuts shouldn’t be a substitute for the real thing. To be authentic, it has to hold up to the scrutiny of objective evaluation.

Personal usefulness.  Authenticity in the abstract is no guarantee that it’s going to be helpful or of any value to another person. And just because one person finds it helpful doesn’t mean anyone else will.

Seen in this way, a simple test begins to emerge:

1. Is it authentic? In the abstract, does what is being said hold up to objective scrutiny against the applicable facts?
2. When applied to my personal situation, is it — or does it have the potential to be — useful? Given what I’m doing right now or expect to be doing in the near future, does this have any applicability? Does it appear helpful, based on your own personal evaluation? Sometimes it takes a sample to convince us. At others, we’re willing to go with our gut, based on our experiences.

With more and more information hitting us every day, it’s critical to have your own system to test for authenticity and personal usability. It’s equally important to keep these questions in mind as we seek to influence others. That doesn’t mean applying some cumbersome decision model. It can be as simple as the two questions above.