Connecting Organizational Structure and Richard Petty’s Persuasion

With one week left in my summer internship, I cannot believe the ground I have covered both in terms of my work as well as recognizing applicable leadership theories and topics within my work at Guidepoint. Picking up on previous blogs, especially related to the relatively informal organizational culture in terms of communication amongst team members, I thought this would be a good post to relate such structure to Richard Petty’s two main routes of persuasion: central route and peripheral route. We learned that the central route is a form of persuasion which is only done with careful deliberation, and especially when the issue is close to said individual who is trying to be persuaded. Peripheral route, however, is the change in opinion from quantity of arguments, rather than quality. I think there is a connection between Petty’s persuasion theory and Guidepoint’s informal organizational structure amongst teams- especially regarding Petty’s peripheral route.

Tom, my mentor throughout my summer internship, has undoubtedly been a key leader for me entire tenure. Whatever he says, I do and act upon religiously, and without question. But it has taken me some time to apply Petty’s peripheral route of persuasion to how Tom’s actions influence my day to day work and productivity. And I do believe his persuasion stems from the peripheral route, and not the central route, for I am not overly committed or invested in the information Tom is giving me. Rather, I already trust the work/ information he is giving me and I feel there is no reason to be critical of what he is telling me. I have such a willing commitment to Tom and his information exactly because of Guidepoint’s informal organizational structure. I take assignments from Tom, who I assume gets the work from our corporate team as well as what he needs personally. It is exactly because of the informal communication structure which exposes me so blatantly to the peripheral route of persuasion which helps me to blindly follow Tom and his orders. While such an insight is not necessarily harmful, it has taken me only until now to recognize such an insight. Making the connection between our loose organizational structure in the communication department, combined with Petty’s theory of persuasion, it becomes far more clear how I fall victim to the peripheral route of persuasion.

During my last week on the job, I have made it a point to be more critical of my assignments and what I am actually being asked to do. I am not going to just complete assignments because Tom gave them to me. I want to be more critical of the work I am putting in and challenge my previous mindset of falling for the peripheral route of persuasion. Especially since the work directly impacts myself and my day to day schedule. Maybe the input and output will be equivalent, but I do think challenging my prior lackadaisical ability to be persuaded will be an interesting goal to complete my summer internship.