European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - April 5, 1986, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Saturday aprils 1986 the stars and stripes Page 17 mechanics of influence playground to boardroom by Daniel Goleman new York times w atch any childhood Battlefield. Som children Are fighting while others maybe just Orte May be trying to Settle it. The mediator not the combatant is Likely to develop and use the skills that will Lead to the exercise of influence and the Possession of Power in adult life. Such observations illustrate a new understanding of How and Why some people go through life getting their Way while others follow them. Now psychologists have begun to outline some of the specific skills that a great Many if not All persuasive people have had from Mohandas k. Gandhi to Martin Luther King or. To Franklin d. Roosevelt. People like Gandhi who Are extraordinarily successful in getting people to follow them in radically new undertakings have an underlying Core of talents that can be traced Back to Early childhood said or. Howard Gardner a psychologist at the Harvard school of education. The research which to some degree bears out some popular notions of How to win friends and influence people adds to these an understanding of the motives that underlie the ability the array of skills that this ability Calls upon and a sense of How these skills develop or fail to through childhood. One of the most important skills the research shows is seen in people who have a nearly unerring ability to understand the motives and desires of others regardless of what is being said or done on the surface. These people also seem to understand themselves. This empathy and self understanding the research suggests is often joined with self Confidence and a desire for Power. The result is a person who is Able to reconcile his motives with those of others to move toward a solution to a problem that has never really been stated. Such facility can be combined with a sense of who the truly important people Are in a situation. An example of this skill at work was offered by or. Lyle Spencer a psychologist at Mcbee and co., a business consulting firm in Boston. In a study we did of state department officials we found that one of the outstanding foreign service officers had been Able to go to a new assignment in a foreign capital and very quickly figure out that it was the prime minister s mistress s Nephew who really called the shots on Oil policy and How to get to this Nephew. One of the key competencies is an objectivity that allows you to see clearly the other person s feelings without your own getting in the Way. Another closely Erma Bombeck related ability is being Able to Monitor your own feelings moment to moment. But these skills go hand in hand with knowing How to use them to achieve your goals. In one of our tests people would watch a tape of a few minutes of conflict during a meeting and then say what the different people were feeling and what they would have to say to get them to make one decision or another. To do this Well you have to be Able to pick up people s Covert agendas. The Best executives we found do this  Gardner said while everyone has these abilities to some extent some people Are remarkably obtuse about the games being played right around them. And there Are people who know these things intellectually but cannot act on them  it is not enough to be Able to know what feelings and wishes Lurk behind what others do psychologists say. Along with these skills must go a social self Confidence the sense that one will succeed. People with what used to be called presence1 who Are naturally in control of any social situation Are very secure about themselves said or. Richard Boyatzis a psychologist and president of Mcbee. Furthermore psychologists say it takes a need for Power to mobilize these skills to influence others. Spencer said a High need for Power sets those who naturally take Over a group apart from say the gifted therapist. Such talents can have their costs. It s like playing interpersonal chess to see several implications of a Given action said or. George Klemp a psychologist at Charles River consulting in Boston. In a complicated organization it s a great Challenge because each gambit has Many calculated impacts and any of them May backfire. If the games you Are playing Are partly Covert it complicates things even further. And if your career depends on you being right most of the time there s a great Deal of  researchers at the Pennsylvania state University school of Medicine have found that executives who think in Complex ways about the Many ramifications of their decisions Are More prone to heart disease than Are those who read fewer implications into what they do. If you re the kind of person who naturally tracks All the Covert agendas going on around you at work there can be a personal Cost said Boyatzis. He cited executives who Are so caught up in their minds with what s happening at work that they barely notice what s happening in their families. People who Are attuned to these Covert personal Levels seem to spend lots of time mulling it Over. That s Why they often prefer hobbies where they Are alone like jogging cooking or fishing they get the time they need to think things through. But being the kind of person in a meeting who reads people s hidden motives and feelings along with whatever else is going on is not necessarily stressful he added. It can also make things much More interesting and  studies at Tulane University have shown that the personality traits that Mark children As budding leaders include an ease at communicating a sense of humor and an ability to arbitrate with other children. While some intelligent children shared these traits intelligence itself was no guarantee of having them. Some studies found that intellectually gifted children were sometimes less popular than those of average intelligence because they offered advice to other children in an insensitive domineering manner. The development of what psychologists Call social intelligence has been studied since the 1930s. The elements of social intelligence fit Well with the observations reported by those who study the underpinnings of influence in adults. Among the aspects of social intelligence studied in depth have been children s abilities to recognize people s feelings by Reading their facial expressions to guess the motives behind what people do and to negotiate smoothly. In a study at Harvard Gardner and Tom Hatch Are observing children As Young As 3 to search for Early markers of what Gardner Calls personal  he sees this As one of seven major kinds of human intelligence others include logical and mathematical skills musical talents and the Mastery of the body exhibited by great dancers and athletes. Even at 4, some children Are Good mediators he said. They Are the ones on the playground who Settle disputes. Others Are talented caretakers they Comfort the upset kids. And some Are leaders who continually mobilize other kids to attain some  the capacity to negotiate Many psychologists say. Is one of the keys to social intelligence. This ability emerges in most children Between the Ages of 8 and 11, although they cannot describe the process until about age 13, according to research by or. Robert Selman a psychologist at Harvard medical school. The biggest Milestone in learning to negotiate is being Able to step out of an interaction and look simultaneously at both person s Point of View said Selman. It s not enough to do this mentally you need an emotional understanding of the need to be balanced in How you look at the  Selman found that women tended to be better at this sort of negotiation than men. The ability to negotiate Well is a crucial lesson of adolescent social life said Selman who has devised a treatment for teen agers who have trouble keeping friends. In work with colleagues at Harvard medical school teen agers who Are inept at negotiating Are paired up and see a therapist together. Using videotapes of the teen agers interactions the therapist is Able to pinpoint their problems and help them learn to collaborate better. Iwas waiting outside a hotel in new York recently trying to Hail a cab when a Long limousine pulled unto the curb in front of me. A few minutes later photographer asked me if i would mind stepping of Flo the Side As they were taking a picture. I hid behind a tired Evergreen while the camera clicked away at a Man with a dog on a Leash. They both hopped into the Limo and pulled off. The excitement Over i asked the Doorman who was that Man he shrugged Haven t the foggiest but the dog is Mike the Star of Down and out in Beverly Hills. I cannot believe he was t nominated for an Academy  Mike the dog was pictured in time a few weeks later and a few Days after that i read where he was putting his Paw prints in Cement in front of Mann s chinese theater in los Angeles. What kind of life is that for a dog it s All so predictable. He s already been on the cover of people Magazine and hell dance with Linda Evans on life styles of the Rich and famous. Before the end of the summer hell be doing commercials for super charged batteries breakfast Cereal and Gelatin. In the same week hell Cut an album to Benefit homeless strays and write a Book with a foreword by Bette Midler. A 30-City tour will put him at the top of the non fiction list. A videocassette on dog aerobics will follow and he will give lectures on How to keep stress at a minimum when you Check into the Beverly Wilshire without reservations. After his agent talks him into opening for Julio Iglesias in vegas he will forfeit any bit of privacy he Ever had. The supermarket tabloids will Jun stories of How Many men have bitten him and he will be linked romantically with Mary Lou Retton or. Ruth and Joan Collins. His line of clothes will be out in the fall and the Mike Board game will be out before next Christmas. I be seen it All happen before. I was at a movie one night in . When Benji was marched Down the aisle and Given a Center seat. Camera bulbs were flashing All about him. I think he nodded off and it was his own picture. Celebrity Dom takes its toll. On another occasion i did a Story with Morris the cat where we attended the musical cats in Boston. He had been running All Day being filmed for a to show giving Paw prints meeting with pet food distributors and posing for pictures with the cast. He kept falling Between the seat during the performance. We build celebrities in this country like we build cars. When they get a few Miles on them we Trade them in for new ones. I just got a fleeting glimpse of Mike before he hopped in the Limo. His eyes looked sorta longing at me like he d have liked to Trade places. On the other hand he could have been looking at the Evergreen. C 1986 los Angeles times Syndicate