In July 2009 a young mother was driving down a suburban street in Milwaukee in the United States with her two young children strapped in the back. She lost control, the car hit a tree, flipped over, trapping the young family inside, and burst into flames.

A crowd quickly gathered around the burning vehicle, but everyone was scared and no one knew what to do amid the chaos. Then brothers Joel and John Rechlitz pushed to the front of the crowd. Sizing up the situation, the two off-duty firefighters grabbed a couple of pipes lying by the side of the road, smashed the windshield and pulled the mother and her two-year-old daughter to safety.

But the four-year-old boy was still trapped in the blazing car, which threatened to explode at any moment. Joel and John tried to reach the boy through the windshield but couldn't free him. They knew they couldn't rescue him alone, so they shouted instructions to the crowd.

Joel asked for a knife so he could cut the boy free from his seatbelt. John called for a nearby hose. The crowd swung into action.

Even though their own lives were at risk, the brothers galvanised the onlookers into action. They freed the boy with seconds to spare before the fuel tank exploded, engulfing the car in an inferno.

America embraced John and Joel as heroes, but the brothers acknowledged they could not have pulled off the rescue without the help of strangers.

What John and Joel did that day was heroic, but they also used a power we all possess — the power of influence. They influenced a group of people to risk their lives and extend themselves in a crisis.

What is influence today?

Essentially influence is about creating a shift, getting things done through other people. In leadership, influence means getting people who turn up to turn on. Influence is like gravity: without it so much of your effort floats out into space. When you choose to influence, you exert a positive force like gravity that pulls success into your orbit.

Aperian Global reviewed a 2012 survey by the Corporate Leadership Council (CLC) of 11 500 leaders in 35 companies across a range of industries and countries. Among its findings were the following:

Influence emerged as the top-ranked competency of high-performing global leaders — it was more strongly correlated with successful global leadership performance than capabilities traditionally seen as key elements of a leader's job such as vision, decision-making, delegation, creativity, resource allocation or holding employees accountable …

But does the world really need another book on influence? When motivational speaker and author Zig Ziglar was once told motivation didn't matter because it didn't last, he replied, ‘Neither does bathing, which is why we recommend it daily'.

Influence, like motivation, is a daily choice. Life usually lets you choose whether to influence others or to be influenced by them. If you choose to be an influencer, this book is for you. It gives you the tools and mindsets you'll need as an influencer in the 21st century.

Do you remember Brody's (Roy Scheider's) reaction in Jaws when he first saw just how big the great white shark was?

‘You're gonna need a bigger boat.'

Most leaders recognise they are going to need a bigger influence boat to successfully navigate the shark-infested challenges of the modern workplace. And that is what Power Play offers — it is your bigger boat.

How is this book different?

You have probably read so many books on influence that the idea has become almost a cliché. How is this book different?

Recently I was walking near my home and saw something that made me pause. I spotted a man in a suit in a public phone booth using the pay phone! I wanted to press my nose against the glass and ask, ‘What's wrong? Where's your mobile?' The image struck me as almost shockingly old fashioned and out of place in a modern context.

Of course you can still do business from a public pay phone, but how effective, agile and competitive would you be against an opponent who always carries a mobile?

This book explores the mobile phone equivalent of contemporary influence.

Influence versus power

In The Elements of Power: Lessons on leadership and influence, Terry R. Bacon differentiates influence as the application of power to accomplish a specific purpose. He identifies 11 sources of power: five in the personal realm (knowledge, expressiveness, history, attraction and character), five organisational sources (role, resources, information, network and reputation), and one meta-source (will).

Every year Time magazine produces a special edition dedicated to the world's 100 most influential people. Introducing the list in April 2014, Time's managing editor, Nancy Gibbs, wrote, ‘The TIME 100 is a list of the world's most influential men and women, not its most powerful … Power is a tool, influence is a skill; one is a fist, the other a fingertip'.

Power and influence, the tool and the skill: you need both to succeed in business. Both allow you to lead where others will follow. Even if you don't have the formal position or mandate of leader, influence will mean your voice is heard, your idea implemented or the client signs up with you, not your competitor.

Influence is often the means by which someone achieves power. Influence and power are like the chicken and egg. Traditionally it was impossible to have influence without positional power, but today we know the paradigms have shifted. The internet and social media have given sole activists a voice and influence far beyond the traditional power bases of the corporate behemoths they take on.

We can see influence and power as two sides of the same coin. Influence will give you more power, but power will not always give you more influence.

What is power play?

CEB Global's talent report of 2014 focused on high-potential individuals and programs, and what motivates achievement in an executive position. A key finding was that high-potential individuals are driven by power: ‘they want the opportunity to exercise, influence and shape how things are done'.

Simply stated, this is what power and influence can do: they can help you effect the change you want in your world. Trying to succeed without power and influence is like trying to get to your destination in a car with no fuel. You may as well walk.

Power play hinges on your decision to play the game to turbocharge your influence. So you can create the change you want as a leader, in your relationships, in your organisation or business, and in the world. This book not only fills your car with fuel — it gives you a better engine management system, a well-tuned exhaust, a sexy spoiler and better handling alloy wheels, to deliver high performance in every arena in your business and life.

Power play positions influence as the key to thriving and succeeding in business and life. Yet I will show that influence does not have to be onerous, hard to do well or especially challenging. Like any skill, it can be taught and learned, and we can all get better at it.

And play is the energy you need to bring to the game of influence. Often influence strategies are implemented with unnecessary gravitas — ‘It is serious business, this influence' — yet to be successful requires a playful energy. You need to take risks, to do your best, to learn from your mistakes and to celebrate your successes. Keep your touch light, build bridges and make friends as you seek to grow your influence power. To be a power player, use the strategies in this book, yet do so with a playful energy, and see your influence take a quantum leap forward.

This book will help you become a power player whose tank of influence never runs empty.

In this book we explore many forms of influence, from hard power (coercion) to soft power (consulting, collaborating) and story power (connecting, inspiring). On the way we track the progress of approaches to influence from yell to tell to sell to compel.

We also examine influence tools you may not have consciously considered before, such as message mastery, context power, the power of empathy, love, humour, co-creation and positioning, fierce power (the power inherent in you) and the power of cause leadership.

We identify the weaknesses and strengths of each of these influence tools and offer you practical tips so you can create a seismic shift in your influence while maintaining authenticity and integrity.

Does the world need influencers?

We might also ask that other eternal question: does the world need leaders? The answer in both cases is a resounding yes.

Influencers generate change in the world. (Of course change might be for good or evil, but this book is concerned primarily with positive change.) Influencers are the movers and shakers — perhaps even the rock stars — of our world. We not only need influencers, but we need more of them.

Every word we speak and every act we perform is an opportunity to influence and create an impact or shift.

A recent study revealed that on average we speak around 16 000 words a day. Many of us spend most of our waking moments in company talking. We don't so much sleep talk as wake talk! But talking isn't always communicating. Much of our talk is white noise, unless we choose differently.

When he was CEO of NAB, one of Australia's top four banks, John Stewart was surprised to learn that he spent more than 75 per cent of his time ‘communicating'. Like most CEOs and leaders, a large part of your role and your success in it depends on your ability to influence people, opinions and outcomes. It is about crafting a message that resonates and communicating it effectively to inspire others to act.

Influence can make the difference between achieving results and falling short, keeping clients or losing them, winning that pitch or blowing it.

Our success in exerting influence can determine our wellbeing and happiness in our personal lives too.

My friend Jen divides the world into two sorts of people: those who keep their petrol tank full and those who let it run dry. Her husband falls into the latter category.

One day she left a note on his alarm clock saying, ‘Fill the tank please. Love you! Jen'. He replied via email with an image of an empty tank and the words ‘Chances — grim'. She decided she had to influence him in some other way, so the next morning she left him a different note: ‘Fill the tanky for some hanky panky tonight.' Her tank has been full ever since!

Influence is the key to personal and professional success. Influencing others isn't a dark art; it isn't about luck or magic. It is a skill that, when applied wisely, will help you to dramatically increase your impact and success. But you can, and should, wield it with authenticity, compassion and integrity.

Beyoncé featured on Time's March 2014 cover as the most influential person on the planet, after sell-out world tours and shocking the music industry by releasing an album directly through social media.

You've heard of monologue and dialogue. Welcome a new word to the English language — Beyoncelogue. Actress Nina Millin created a YouTube sensation by weaving lyrics from Beyoncé's songs into a dramatic monologue. It's probably only a matter of time before we're all speaking in Beyoncelogue!

According to Time, Beyoncé doesn't just sit at the table, she builds better tables. And that is what power play can do for you. It can help you build better relationships, businesses, sales, clients — and a better life.

What makes me an expert?

My journey with the power of influence began at age 10 when my teacher, Miss Asha, asked our class to write a sentence according to these rules: it had to make sense and use 10 words only, and each word had to consist of just two letters.

We tried and tried, but came up with nothing. My teacher then wrote on the board, ‘If it is to be, it is up to me'.

That day Miss Asha influenced a classroom of children to think and behave differently — not just in that moment, but for the rest of their lives. It was my first lesson in influence, and I was hooked!

So much so that many years later, in 2005, I co-founded a company that did just one thing: it specialised in storytelling, the oldest form of influence.

To put this in context, I am an economist by training, but decided I really wanted to be a storyteller.

Reading Steve Denning's The Leader's Guide to Storytelling, a seminal work on business storytelling, I had a lightbulb moment: I realised that for a leader and influencer this was the missing link. Data on its own was not enough; my spreadsheets needed stories.

I was so excited when I made this decision. I told my mother, ‘I'm going to become a storyteller'. And like any good Indian mother, she replied, ‘Is that a job? Why can't you choose IT or be a doctor? Storytelling? You do that on weekends'.

Today my mother is my proudest supporter and introduces me as an ‘economist turned storyteller’.

How to use this book

Hmm, my first answer would be, ‘Read it from cover to cover, word for word, then follow up with a five-star review on Amazon, thank you'. Of course I might be biased!

How do you read? Are you a scanner (flipping through headings, summaries), a dipper (dipping into chapters that grab your attention) or a deep diver (reading the whole book, or at least the parts that interest you) or a combination of these? This book works for all reading styles.

If the thought of reading the whole book sequentially from start to finish makes your hair curl, start by reading Part I as that will give you a frame of reference for the book. Scan the ‘at a glance' summaries in Part II for a snapshot of each chapter, then dive deep into the strategies that interest you.

You might love a slow buildup or prefer to cut to the chase from the get-go. No matter your preference, each chapter finishes with a gift for every reader, providing a power play tip that will propel you into an accelerated start.

The 1999 movie The Hurricane was based on the true story of middleweight boxer Rubin ‘Hurricane' Carter, who served nearly 20 years in prison based on a controversial murder conviction. In the movie, his character says, ‘He who bemoans the lack of opportunity forgets that small doors many times open up into large rooms'.

Think of the end-of-chapter power play tips as small doors that will open into large rooms. Where information is concerned, we are often spoilt for choice. These tips are designed to help you pick out just one technique from each chapter and make a start. Action precedes clarity.

If you're looking for a quick fix, or ways to manipulate others, then this book is not for you. But if you're looking to grow as a person and as a leader, to influence for good, to make your world and the world a better place, then I extend a warm welcome to you.

Let's salute influence as a timeless skill, but recognise it as a skill whose modes have changed to reflect the times we live in. Welcome to the new way to influence for success and results in the 21st century. More power play to you.

Now let's begin our journey.