In this interesting piece, Christine Porath looks at the effects of people being rude in the workplace and more importantly what we can do about it.

Incivility directly reduces our levels of influence with those we are rude to, regardless of whether we meant to be rude or not.

Robert Cialdini identified "Liking" as one of the key principles of influence in his original work in 1984.  We are far more likely to do things for people who we like and others are far more likely to do things for us if they like us. 

Incivility damages Liking.  We don't like people who we find rude. Every time we do something that someone finds rude we damage that Liking just a little bit.  Over time this can greatly reduce our ability to influence others.

In the modern world we're increasingly finding innovative ways to be rude to people, whether that's not replying to an email that specifically asks for a response, 'phubbing' someone or not giving someone the opportunity to speak. 

While some of this may sound like stating the obvious we're all guilty of this at times and we're all losing out on influence opportunities as a result.

There's a self-assessment test on Christine's website if you want to find out just how rude you are.

www.appliedinfluencegroup.com