ABSTRACT
High performance is necessary for advancement and promotion, but it is certainly not sufficient. Cultivating the right image is also essential. But by far, the most important factor is exposure: that is, who knows about you and what they know about you. Hence the PIE (Performance, Image, Exposure) model. This chapter demonstrates how empathic influencing helps develop both image and exposure, in addition to performance. The chapter also reveals a fundamental paradox in human behaviour: we want to be treated fairly and rewarded on merit; yet we choose our friends and colleagues by selecting people like ourselves or from our own ‘group’. In other words, the desire to minimise threat leads to unconscious bias. By practising empathic influencing in a job interview, you can overcome the unconscious bias of your interviewers – or, if you are sitting on the other side of the table, find the very best person to fill the vacancy in your team.
