Compliance gaining is a concept referring to interactions in which an individual will endeavor to evoke another person to engage in behavior or carry out an activity that the second person may not have otherwise considered (Gass & Seiter, 2015). Compliance gaining is a frequent interaction in both personal and professional relationships that encompass work associates, friends, spouses, parents, children, teachers and students. In compliance gaining, the influencing person applies certain tactics aimed at convincing the other individual to comply to what they want. The person being influenced can also apply certain tactics to resist the influence attempts. This paper seeks to present a situational analysis based on a specific context of the strategies and tactics used both by those seeking to influence and by those seeking to resist influence attempts. The context used in this paper will be organizational compliance gaining.
Compliance gaining is related to persuasion, but the two concepts vary in meaning. The essence of persuasion is to change the attitudes and beliefs of a person, while compliance gaining attempts to change the behavior of an individual. In order to gain compliance from an individual, it is not necessary to change their attitude or belief (Gass & Seiter, 2015). The persuasion of an individual resulting in changes in their beliefs and attitudes does not necessarily cause them to comply to a desired behavior. There are various tactics and strategies that are used to ensure compliance to a desired behavior. In an organizational context, these strategies could be used by employers to ensure certain behavioral outcomes from employees.
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One of these tactics is promise, which is applied in many organizational contexts (Shaw, Dolan, Yurgalite, Walton & Underwood, 2017). An employer may use a reward system to employees if they comply to certain behavior such as arriving an hour earlier to work. If employees are promised an allowance for every time they arrive to work an hour earlier, then they will arrive earlier than the official time. Threat is also a compliance tactic applicable in organizational settings. The threat of losing jobs due to lateness will ensure that all employees arrive to work early in order to save their jobs. Ingratiation is another strategy that can be used to gain compliance from employees. It involves being friendly and kind toward a person with the intention of making them feel obligated to repay the kindness when called upon to execute a request (Dudzack, 2016). In an organizational scenario, an employee could be promoted and given a pay rise and then requested to work for longer hours. The employee will feel obligated to sacrifice more hours to the employer as they have also been promoted at work and also received an upgraded financial incentive.
Out of the many compliance gaining tactics that exist, they have been classified into five basic categories. The first category is the rewarding category which involves that individuals will benefit in a certain way if they comply with certain conditions. Under this category, employees could be urged to push the sales of certain products and receive a bonus once a minimum number of products sold have been reached. The punishing activity suggests that a person will suffer loss in one way or another, or regret their choices, if they do not act in a suggested way. In this category, employees may be punished by employers if they fail to comply with regulations. For instance, failure to report to work may be punished by a loss in the wages of that particular day.
The category of expertise in compliance handling leads an individual to think that they are experts or they have special knowledge that enables them to make the right decisions (Tedeschi, Schlenker & Lindskold, 2017). In an organizational context, this strategy can be applied by enabling individuals to have leadership over teams of people. Giving individuals the ability to make decisions makes them feel special hence making them susceptible to make decisions that are in compliance with the values of the leadership. The activation of personal commitments is a strategy that will provoke thoughts about the commitment of an individual to others, while reminding them of their responsibilities. An employee could be reminded of their responsibility to use their position to serve others. This strategy would best be used on professionals in the medical field as they are reminded that their role is to provide quality healthcare services to all.
There are various techniques that are also used in compliance gaining strategies. The Foot –in-the-door (FITD) technique aims to gain compliance by requesting something small at first, then later requesting something bigger and more complicated (Gass & Seiter, 2015). The more complicated task is usually the main reason as to why the smaller request was made, so as to create a good relationship that would create grounds for a new request. In an organizational set up, a person could be asked to complete a simple task, in preparation for a more challenging role at work. The need to remain consistent at work will make employees to have the urge to fulfill bigger requests when called upon. The FITD technique is more effective when a request is meant to serve a social cause as compared to when it is used for personal reasons. In an organizational context, this technique would be more effective when used by social workers when engaging in projects that help more people within the community.
The Door-in-the-face (DITF) technique works by presenting a very challenging request which has a higher likelihood of receiving a negative response. They then ask for a smaller request which is easier on the other person to accept. This technique works to induce guilt on a person such that they will be unable to reject a request twice (Dolinski, 2015). In an organizational set up, this technique can be used to by an employee to ask a favor from an employer. The employer may feel bad for not giving in to the first request, hence feel obliged to consent to the second request. In order for this technique to be effective, there has to be a very short gap in time between the first and second requests. Additionally, the technique is more effective if both requests are made by the same person, rather than by different people.
The Disrupt-then-reframe (DTR) technique is based on the reasoning that a person is more likely to comply with a request if the initial pitch is confusing, and a second pitch is reframed in a way that is easy to understand (Gass & Seiter, 2015). This technique is very effective in non-profit organizations which primarily engage in surveys. The techniques enable individuals to give responses to questions quickly by responding to what they understand first. This technique is most effective when applied in an organization that deals with sales of items. The sales people can apply this technique when selling the products to customers and making it seem like the customer is getting a deal, while in reality, the price has not changed.
The compliance gaining technique has many uses in daily life and can be used by different sets of people to achieve desired results. Doctors for instance can use the techniques and strategies of compliance gaining to ensure that patients take their medication on time and as prescribed, to avoid a relapse of a medical condition. Teachers could use the strategy to push their students to achieve better results in their academics. Parents could use the compliance gaining method to persuade their children to behave in more acceptable ways. Within the organizational context, both employees and employers can use compliance gaining to achieve desired outcomes at the workplace.
Different strategies and techniques of compliance gaining are applied in different organizational contexts. The strategies and techniques can be applied by employees toward the employers, employers toward the employees, or by the employees of an organization toward the customers so as to maximize on profits. Some of the compliance gaining strategies can be said to be unethical due to their nature as well as depending on the nature of requests that are made. However, some strategies are meant to enhance positive compliance that will not only lead to the well-being of the employee, but also of the organization.
References
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