Saturday, July 25, 2009

Persuasion and Emotion

In the last few weeks, the topic has been persuasion and how to be more persuasive. We have identified a few of the prime factors as:


  • Credibility – The elements by which we project trustworthiness

  • Mutual Purpose – Describing the common ground and shared benefits of a perspective

  • Laws of Persuasion – Robert Cialdini’s six “laws” that form a strategic persuasion checklist



This week, we’ll be talking about the importance of “Connecting Emotionally” with our counterpart.

Emotions play a huge role in the decision making process. This role is made more important because many of us view the best decision making as done in a “purely logical” fashion. Most business decisions are a mix of logic and emotion, which is why we can all look at the same set of facts and derive different solutions. We have different preferences due to our personal beliefs and values, which influence our emotions.

In fact, according to research first done by Neuroscientist Antonio Damasio, our decision making capability is significantly impaired if we do not use emotions. He studied people who had received brain injuries that had affected them in just one way – they damaged the part of the brain where emotions are generated. In all other respects, his subjects seemed normal - they simply could no longer feel emotions.

His remarkable finding was that their ability to make decisions was seriously disrupted. They could logically describe what they should be doing, but in practice had GREAT difficulty making decisions about when to set an appointment, where to live, what to eat, etc. It seemed that those decisions that have pros and cons on both sides are ultimately sorted out by preferences, which are emotionally grounded.

The nature of business decisions are that that typically the set of facts from which we work are incomplete and they frequently have pros and cons on both sides. Therefore we NEED to understand how emotion affects decisions if we are to be persuasive.

First, the way we feel can distort our view. For example, when one is in a bad mood, one is more likely to recall negative events (Bower, 1981) and overestimate the likelihood of unfortunate occurrences (Johnson and Tversky, 1983). When one is in a good mood, we are more likely to remember positive events (Bower, 1982) and be more optimistic about their future occurrence (Wright and Bower, 1992). The implication of these findings is that if one solicits recollection or probability estimates from a person, the response is likely to be distorted by the current emotional state. It is important then to collect responses from multiple people and to compare them with any data on hand. If there are differences between the general finding and a specific finding, discuss it with the respondent. I have found that MANY times, they will modify their response to bring it more in to line with the general finding. This is consistent with Cialdini’s findings as well.

Second, we strongly consider what emotions we will feel after the decision is made as we evaluate our preferences. For instance, when faced with buying a car we may be trapped between a fast, sexy car or a plain (but very safe) car. We are trapped because the one car appeals ot our sense of adventure and the second to sense of responsibility (to our family perhaps). A primary driver of this decision will be “How will I FEEL about myself?” after I choose either car. It is important that we help people see that future state as desirable and comfortable for them if we wish to persuade them there.

We need to realize that just because WE know this, it doesn’t mean that others do. They have their own preferences in decision making and (according to Cialdini) we want to be seen as “on the same page”. This thinking also relates back to my newsletters on “THE SCORE”, but bears repeating in the context of persuasion.

  • Be aware that you’re communicating both CONTENT and FEELINGS and both are important.

  • Be calm and reasonable. It is not imperative that you reach a decision in one conversation.

  • Be brief and concise; not clipped and rushed, but respectful of your counterparts’ time. Don’t ramble.

  • Be intellectually critical and objective; not impersonal and unfriendly.

  • Accept decisions that may not be based on facts. Present feelings and emotions as additional facts to be weighed in a decision.

  • Listen. Demonstrate empathy by listening to their perspective and the impact on them. Let them talk.

  • Discuss the areas in which you agree. They can help you understand the areas in which you disagree.

  • Describe how the idea will affect people and what people’s reaction would be.


Insist on great business results! Go to Pathfinder Communication

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Persuasion, part 3

In this series on persuasion, we have so far covered that:
1 - Credibility is king. Build your credibility by:
-Establishing a track record for being knowledgeable in key areas and well-informed.
-Being diligent in developing supporting information for your position.
-Being open to discussing alternative perspectives.
-Being able to present your perspective in an easy-to-follow way.

2- In order to persuade someone, you need to articulate the benefit extended to them by adopting your perspective. Be able to articulate a concrete mutual objective and be able to demonstrate that your perspective is sufficient to achieve it. BE OPEN to modifying it as good ideas are presented by other parties. The idea is NOT to implement your idea without modification – the idea is to achieve an objective. The mutual objective you choose should be as concrete as possible and still be MUTUAL.

This week, I will talk a little about Robert Cialdini’s 6 laws of persuasion.

Reciprocation - When relationships are out of balance (like when one party does a favor for another), the parties tend to restore the balance to a neutral point. This is expressed many different ways, but I think you get it. If you do me a favor, I will re-pay it if I can; if you concede a few points to me in a negotiation, I’ll do the same – maybe in this negotiation, maybe in another.

Commitment and Consistency – When a person makes a commitment in some formal way (i.e., verbally, in writing, in public) they are more likely to honor that commitment. People don’t like to be seen as inconsistent, so by pointing out inconsistency (“you said you would, but now you are saying you won’t!?”) we can sometimes persuade someone to re-think a change of heart.

Social Proof – Social proof is doing something because someone else is. People will do things that they see other people are doing. If people are doing it already, then it seems less risky – just because someone else is.

Authority - People will tend to obey authority figures. This includes everything from accepting the word of someone without question because they work in management to taking endorsements from celebrities as meaningful. It doesn’t mean they are automatically right or wrong; it just means the claims need to be weighed on their own merit.

Liking - People are easily persuaded by other people that they like. They also tend to be persuaded by people that they would like to BE like.

Scarcity – People are more likely to do something if they feel that some factor out of their control may prevent them from being able to do it later. For instance, if there is a deadline to decide which option to take, people will rush to pick an option rather that considering whether they want to participate at all. If people believe that “supplies are limited” they will hurry to order something (even something they don’t really need) rather than lose the choice of having it all together when the supplies are gone.

Insist on great business results! Go to Pathfinder Communication

Monday, July 13, 2009

Persuasion - Mutual Purpose

Last time, we covered a primary component of persuasion and that is Credibility. It is hard to take someone seriously unless they are credible. Once you pass the credibility test, there is still more to do if you want your counterpart to deeply and seriously consider your perspective. This week we will talk about Creating a Mutual Purpose.

It seems obvious to say, but it is very important that you and your counterpart have a CLEAR understanding of what you hope to accomplish with your proposed perspectives. If you aren’t, it is typical that you will “imagine” what each other’s purposes are and if you get it wrong, you will likely be unable to be persuasive (or persuaded) because you will be suspicious of each other’s motives. The best way to address that is to explicitly state what your purpose is.

It is a fact of life that if you are both interested in achieving the SAME result, then you are more likely to work together than if you are out to accomplish different (or even opposite) outcomes. Let’s look at an example.

The company you at which you work is seeking to increase profits. You manage the Operations Group and your two counterparts (in this example) manage the Sales Group and the Engineering group. When the discussion turns to ways to achieve this, the Sales guy might say “We can only sell more products if we can cut the cost. Operations needs to make it cheaper.” You, the Operations guy, say “We have made just about all the improvements we can. If you want to make it significantly cheaper, we need a new design.” The Engineering guy might say “The sales guys need to be more creative in finding new markets for our existing products”.

There is a mutual purpose at the beginning of the scenario – to increase profits. This is pretty general, though, and doesn't provide much direction. We want our purpose to be as SPECIFIC AS POSSIBLE and still remain mutually supported. Each of the parties, however, has announced individual agendas that simplistically put the responsibility on other groups. These are TOO specific and in framing them in this way, have set themselves up to be suspicious and wary rather than open and excited in this activity. Let’s see how we can drive the process to keep things focused on mutual benefit at the optimum level of resolution.

When Sales says “operations needs to make it cheaper”, we can ask a question (refer to other newsletters about the Inquiry method) to clarify this like: “So what you are saying is we need to find a way to reduce the cost for each product sold?” Note that this is NOT the same as “operations making it cheaper”. There are MANY ways to reduce the cost per product. What if we were able to reach more customers per sales person? That would reduce the cost too. Our mutual purpose is now to reduce cost per product sold, and each of the three organizations can contribute to that.

When Engineering says “sales needs to find new markets” we can again clarify this to say “So what you are saying is that we need to sell more product?” Note that this is NOT the same as “sales finding new markets”. There are MANY ways to sell more products. What if we were to design in new features that our customer’s liked more? Or we were willing to hold stock for our customers in exchange for a slightly higher price, or for high volume customers? Those would increase our sales too. Our mutual purpose is now to increase sales, and each of the three organizations can contribute to that.

If your counterpart sees that you are working hard to find ways to accomplish the SAME GOAL AS THEY ARE, they are for more likely to work with you than if they feel you are working on something that doesn’t achieve the same goal or is even working against you. It is critical that you keep in tune so that all parties understand the MUTUAL PURPOSE.
When framing a mutual purpose, focus on a) things that you counterpart will gain that they currently lack and b) things that your counterpart can avoid losing. The second of these is especially powerful. People are far more persuaded to do things that prevent them from losing what they already have than to obtain new things that they don’t yet have.

Having a CLEAR MUTUAL PURPOSE upon which all parties agree, and weighing proposals based on how well they support that purpose makes persuasion much easier.

Insist on great business results! Go to Pathfinder Communication

Monday, July 6, 2009

Persuasion

I recently wrote a newspaper article in which I made the point that the most important factor in being persuasive is your personal credibility. Those of you subscribing to this newsletter for a while know that I speak of the importance of credibility often and I will just recap it here. Over the next few newsletters I will discuss the OTHER components of persuasion.

Credibility is about two things - THE PERSON (you or someone you are listening to) and THE MESSAGE. As a skilled persuader, you need to be able to separate the two and offer them for analysis so that they are easy to understand and accept. As a listener, you need to be able to decompose your counterpart’s perspective into these two categories and analyze them as to their clarity and weight.

THE PERSON
- Does the persuader have a track record for being knowledgeable and well-informed? Make sure that if you are trying to persuade someone, you make it easy for them to feel at ease with your track record. Let them know in a humble manner of your credentials, your familiarity, your history, and your access to the information that supports what you are saying.
-Is the persuader sincere? By sincere, I mean that they have put in the required diligence to arrive at their position. If they have not put in what seems like a reasonable effort, it is unlikely that the effort is deserving of much weight.
- Is the persuader open to discussing other possible perspectives? A person that is not open to being persuaded is easily cast as “argumentative” or “closed-minded” and is NOT considered as persuasive as one that openly listens to other perspectives and then can still supply facts that support their point of view. Secondly, someone that is closed-off to other’s viewpoints but can’t refute them is often viewed as having a “personal agenda” and therefore NOT supportive of a mutual goal.

Consider a statement something like this:

“I have been working with a really great team on this project for a number of months. We feel that this analysis is as complete and accurate as we can provide and feel confident in our conclusion. We were fortunate to have access to critical information that allowed us to develop such a complete analysis. I know that the work the team has done and our willingness to stand behind it will reflect well on all of our reputations.”

The statement speaks to confidence, but not to the degree of skill with which the work was done. I might ask “How was the analysis performed? Is that how it is typically done? What has been your success in the past using that method? Who on the team has done this work before? Were there a lot of unique issues on this project, or was it more ‘run-of-the-mill’? What was special about the information you needed and how did you get access?” These kinds of questions probe at the “knowledge-ability” and diligence of the speaker. How these are answered reflects a great deal on the persuasiveness of the speaker.

THE MESSAGE
- Is there sufficient evidence to support the message presented?

In order to determine sufficiency, consider the following:
*Is it easy to follow the reasoning, step by step, or does it seem convoluted or overly complex? Even the reasoning for complicated technical issues can be reduced to simple steps in most cases.
*Is there enough evidence and is it from reputable sources? Evidence is most persuasive if it is gathered firsthand, has some expert backing, and can be independently verified.

Consider that you are proposing a new customer service process, for instance. It is persuasive if you can point to a simple experiment that you conducted to prove it out in principle and get a few endorsements regarding the results from some people that are known for having expertise in customer service.

Credibility is one of four components of persuasiveness. Next time, we’ll talk about another – Demonstrating Common Ground

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