Unlocking the Power of Persuasion in Your Nursing Career

 

So you’ve aced IV and catheter insertions, but you’re still not feeling “ready” for your first nursing role? You’re not alone. Many new nursing graduates report having less confidence with so-called “soft skills” such as communication, teamwork, and collaboration than they do in the physical aspects of the job.

And yet, such skills are not merely “nice to have.” They underpin and enable all other tasks. The ability to build trust with patients and families, advocate for your team, lead nursing reforms, request resources for your unit and so much more hinges on being able to influence and persuade.

Emory School of Nursing and Nurse.org have teamed up to host a series of podcasts on the often overlooked skills that nursing schools may not teach, but that are crucial for practice success. Foremost among these is the art of persuasion.

Understanding persuasive communication

Think about the task of explaining a treatment plan to a patient and their care partners and convincing them to actually follow that plan. This is persuasive communication.

“Persuasion is a form of communication in which one person tries to influence another person or group to adopt an action or belief,” says Sharron M. Close, PhD, a pediatric clinician and scientist and clinical professor at the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing at Emory University in Atlanta. “It involves nonverbal, verbal, written, and visual cues. In nursing, we rely on persuasion to influence patients to do or not do something that affects their health.”

The ability to persuade is valuable not only at the bedside, but also in non-clinical settings.

“It’s especially important when you are out in the community doing educational training,” says Roxana Chicas, PhD, RN, FAAN, assistant professor at Emory School of Nursing and a nurse scientist who works to improve the living and working conditions of farmworker communities. “It’s also a part of our commitment to the communities we serve that we are out there advocating with and persuading policymakers.”

Here are seven must-know tips to help you influence and persuade in your nursing career.

Tip 1: Know your audience

The first rule of communication is to understand your audience. This involves recognizing the ability or inability of people to receive your message. What is the reading level of the people or groups you are trying to reach? Their health literacy level? Their readiness for change? Meet them where they are.

Listen to the podcast episode for pro tips on how to tailor a message to your audience. For further reading on concise and clear communication, explore resource pages from the World Health Organization and the Americans with Disabilities Act Accessibility Standards.

Tip 2: Listen

As important as it is to articulate and communicate, effective persuasion relies on active listening. Listening first is one essential way for nurses to amplify the voices of individual patients as well as communities. “That means really listening to the community and then taking to stakeholders the message exactly the way the community is giving it,” says Dr. Chicas.

Nurses are ideally situated to listen, notes Melissa Mills, MHA, BSN, RN, host of Nurse.org’s Nurse Converse podcast and a clinician with extensive experience in long-term care, home care, and hospice settings. “Nurses are the ones at the bedside after everyone else—the doctor, the social worker, the therapist—has left,” she says. “The nurse is the one to whom that patient often really confides those deep, dark secrets, things that are on their heart or things that they are worried about.”

Reflecting your patient’s words back to them when they need to hear them is one of the most powerful gifts that nurses have.

Tip 3: Embrace silence

The most effective communication also allows time for silence. In these spaces, nurses and patients can observe each other closely, consider what has been said, and allow feelings to settle out.

Sofi Igyan, BSN, RN, is a recent graduate from the Emory School of Nursing and an influencer who uses her social media presence to share nursing best practices. She treasures the experience she had in nursing school of developing the skill of “holding the silence, knowing that you don't always have to have a response.”

When you allow the other person to break that silence by speaking first, “we are able to learn even more about their story,” Igyan says.

Tip 4: Organize your message

Your communication can be more effective if you present information in a way people can easily digest. One handy tool is using the power of three. As Dr. Close explains, the human brain can easily grasp and process concepts when they are grouped together. “If we give three examples, we're more likely to remember it.”

Tip 5: Use data strategically

Providing a concrete and compelling number or statistic can help convey credibility and expertise, as long as you do not confuse people.

“In high-stakes persuasion, such as helping a patient decide on a difficult treatment plan or convincing an NIH review panel to fund a grant, it's useful to back up your message with data,” Dr. Close says. It is important, however, not to lose the narrative or human elements of your message. Keep data simple and easy to understand.

Tip 6: Offer a gift

When you offer something of value to your listener, it can invite a deeper level of engagement. This can be as simple as a kind word or a gesture of respect, such as thanking them for sharing their time with you. “That may compel the listener to tune into your message as a way of returning the favor,” Dr. Close explains.

Tip 7: Lean into storytelling

Persuasion is a muscle that gets stronger with practice, says Mills. Storytelling in particular might take practice for some people. But it can be one of the most powerful tools in your persuasion toolkit. “Facts are hard to remember, but simple facts wrapped in a story stay with you,” Mills says.

A well-told story can even shift public perception. Consider, for example, the AIDS Memorial Quilt, the world’s largest community art project. This quilt is composed of hand-made squares, each representing the story of a person who has died from HIV or AIDS. These real-life stories have helped to humanize an epidemic.

Parting thoughts: Studying persuasion for life

Learning persuasive communication often starts with tuning into the work of colleagues.

“For new nurses, I think they can do well by observing how other nurses communicate, whether they do it well or whether they do it poorly,” says Dr. Close. And then: “Practice, practice, practice. Persuasion is a skill that is ever unfolding and it requires intentional practice to be good at it.”

🤔Nurses, how has persuasive communication helped you in patient care? Share your thoughts in the discussion forum below!