Maximum Influence: The 12 Universal Laws of Power Persuasion: Get What You Want When You Want and Win Friends for Life

Peter A. Schneider (College of St Elizabeth, Morristown, New Jersey, USA)

Journal of Consumer Marketing

ISSN: 0736-3761

Article publication date: 1 October 2005

373

Keywords

Citation

Schneider, P.A. (2005), "Maximum Influence: The 12 Universal Laws of Power Persuasion: Get What You Want When You Want and Win Friends for Life", Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol. 22 No. 6, pp. 359-359. https://doi.org/10.1108/jcm.2005.22.6.359.3

Publisher

:

Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2005, Emerald Group Publishing Limited


I was most anxious to study this book after reading its title and subtitle. If Kurt Mortensen had truly found the 12 universal laws regarding power persuasion, then it would only be a matter of time before I obtained a promotion as well as a date with the beautiful blonde at work who hitherto did not even know I existed. My hopes rose even further after reading the foreword by the “influential investment advisor” and coauthor of One‐Minute Millionaire, Robert G Allen, who claims he made millions by applying these very same laws. It would only be a matter of time before I would be driving a Mercedes and flying first class! Perhaps, I would run for a seat in the state assembly. I was even more impressed after reading the introduction, in which Mortensen (p. 1) states that the book contains “thousands of hours worth of academic and scientific research with hands‐on models and examples”. However, what sealed the deal for me was the author's remark that the principles and laws described in his book are founded on the principles presented by no less a figure than Aristotle himself!

Sarcasm aside, the 12 “laws” are at best 12 rules of thumb accompanied by references to a smorgasbord of articles in the business and social science literature to support their veracity. The problem with this approach is that the amount of literature is so vast that you can come up with enough empirical evidence to support just about any proposition, especially one that is vaguely written or comes with numerous qualifications.

For example, in the “The law of expectations” Mortensen gives an example of how the expectations of a teacher can affect the performance of the children. If you believe a child is “helpful”, then he is on his way to medical school. If you believe he is a “troublemaker”, then he is on his way to prison. However, one should be careful about claiming a cause‐and‐effect relationship in education and then establishing a law of nature that is applicable to business. At least you should consider whether the expectations of the teacher affected the children directly or first affected her own commitment and dedication to teaching the children. Even if such a relationship could be established, how would you account for the numerous situations in which people were told that they would never be successful (e.g. Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, Jackie Robinson, etc.) and then went on to become stars in their professions? Also, there are numerous examples from history and literature of children who failed to live up to the high expectations of their parents. How would Mortensen's “law” account for that? On a personal note, a grade school teacher designated my older brother as being below normal in intelligence. Fortunately, that diagnosis did not hinder him from later earning a PhD in physics!

In come cases, I did not even know where to begin critiquing some of the “laws”. For example, in the “Law of Dissonance”, the author manages to combine Leon Festinger's Cognitive Dissonance Theory with bait‐and‐switch tactics and the old foot‐in‐the‐door technique as well as brand loyalty. All this time, I though Festinger was a social psychologist and was unaware of his expertise in retailing, selling, and brand management. In the “Law of Obligation” the author describes how you can get anyone to do a favor for you by first giving gifts or doing favors, thereby creating an obligation. Personally, I suspect that books could be written filled with numerous examples of ingratitude. Fortunately, the author does warn us not to use this law to “manipulate” anyone. What is even more troublesome is Mortensen's failure to adequately distinguish between personal and mass communication. It would be highly unlikely that any law would apply equally to mass advertising as well as to interpersonal word‐of‐mouth communications. Even Newton's Laws of Motion break down as one approaches the speed of light or subatomic sizes.

I found Mortensen's use of quotes at the beginning of each chapter to be particularly annoying. I am not opposed to this practice, in principle, if it helps illustrate what the chapter is about. Unfortunately, the author never tell us where these quotations come from and, worse, uses quotes from people who are less than household names Who are Zig Ziglar, Jim Rohn, or Bob Conklin, and why should I care what they have say about a particular topic?

Finally, what bothered me most was finding a number of glaring errors. For example, Mortensen (p. 10) claims that: “It was Aristotle who first introduced persuasion as a skill that could be learned”. Wrong. Long before Aristotle was born, Socrates was denouncing the sophists for teaching the art of persuasion instead of seeking the truth. At about the same time, Isocrates opened up a school in Athens that taught rhetoric, but differed from the sophists by providing a much broader education. Later, Mortensen describes (p. 126) Winston Churchill as “one of the greatest masters in dealing with people”. Unfortunately, Churchill's inability to get along with three prime ministers left him in the political wilderness during the 1930s. Despite his magnificent speeches and articles, his warnings about Germany's intentions were largely ignored, and he was considered a political has‐been until events proved him to have been correct. Also, the author misquotes Churchill's most famous line as: “blood, sweat, and tears”, whereas the correct citation reads: “blood, toil, tears and sweat”. Whenever I see errors in a book about topics I am familiar with I begin to wonder what errors might exist in topics with which I am less familiar.

The best that I can say about this book is that it has a breezy style, contains lots of interesting anecdotes, and is nice to have with you on the flight from New York to Los Angeles.

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