Holiday Communications

 I am humbled and grateful to all of you for your consistent praise, support, interest, and requests for more. Even so, I have my own Holiday list things to do, so the next newsletter will be in the New Year. Pathfinder had a terriffic year and we are starting off January 2010 with a class starting on the 22nd (info here) and will be conducting corporate classes throughout 2010. Seems to grow faster than I can keep up. I will likely have a set of one-day workshops formulated that will be open to the public in the late spring. More on that next year. For now, I just want to express my gratitude. I am delighted that I can help so many achieve fantastic results by using these methods.

I have had the privelege of meeting many of you face-to-face over the years and am wishing ALL of you Happy Holidays. Be safe, enjoy your families, and think about a few things you'd are eager to improve in next year.


The holidays bring a number of face-to-face communication challenges for a lot of reasons. I think they are probably a little different for each of us, but still most of the people I know find them a little challenging. I’d like to think that those of you that take the time to read my articles, whether newspaper or online, have a leg up on others when it comes to better holiday communications.

I want you to think of just 2 elements of THE SCORE (our model for better relationships):

Empathy – Remember that when you are speaking to others during the holidays, that their side of the story is important. Remember that if you are going to share an understanding, YOU should start the sharing and you should start by listening to their story and taking the time and effort to understand it. Avoid jumping to conclusions, assuming facts that you really don’t know. Instead….listen and ask questions. Open questions that allow the other person to answer, not questions that lead them. Remember your purpose in this communication is to just to hear their side – that is all.

Respect – Be respectful of them. Remember that your judgments are yours whether or not you share them. It isn’t often constructive for you to try to change someone’s central belief system over a football game or dinner, no matter how well-intentioned you are.

As you show respect and empathy, you will find yourself learning things you didn’t know. Then you will know that the communication was successful.


Insist on great business results! Go to Pathfinder Communication

December 10, 2009 Speaking Engagement

I will be speaking to the San Diego chapter of  the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) on Thursday, December 10. This will be my last speaking engagement for the year, and it couldn't be for better bunch of business people. The meeting is free, but you MUST RSVP to attend. Get more information at http://www.sdincose.org/index.html

Note - there is a mention on the flyer that the speaking date is on November 19. Rest assured that the correct date is December 10. All the other information on the flyer is correct. I hope to see you there!
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Hurry for January Classes

To all of you that have already signed up, thanks. This is going to be an outstanding class.

To those of you that have not yet signed up and intend to have your employer pay for your "High Performance Communication" classes atarting in January, you may want to start talking to them about it! It is only 7 weeks away and you don't want to get shut out.

• If you want to pay by credit card or learn more before you sign up, do so at www.PathfinderCommunication.com/services.cfm . The shopping cart is about halfway down the page.
• If you want to pay by check, please write me at info@PathfinderCommunication.com and ask me to send an invoice.

  
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Moving from Advocacy to Collaboration

I have spent the last few articles talking about how the use of the “advocacy” model is difficult to apply in daily life because unless, special steps are taken to assure the ENTIRE model is preserved ( rules for the presentation of evidence, 3rd party mediation, objective evaluators of evidence) , it is easily manipulated and ceases to serve its purpose as a critical decision making activity. So, how do we drive advocacy into collaboration when we see it?


We ask questions about content. Questions about content, when asked with sincere curiosity and openness, will begin to turn the discussion immediately from an exercise in satisfying an agenda into one that seeks to test all perspectives until the best decision can be made with the information at hand. The more information, the better informed the decision will be. In order to get back on a collaborative track, begin by doing the following:

• Assure yourself that the discussion is important. Use your energy to solve the things you consider “time-worthy”.

• Make sure you understand what the controversy is about. To test this, see if you can express it in one or two simple sentences and get agreement with the other party. If you can’t, you need to work on defining it (with them) until you both agree on the basics of the controversy.

• Understand what the purpose of the discussion is for each of you. Find a mutual purpose – something you both wish to achieve by resolving the issue. If your purposes are not mutual (usually they are), then at least be able to articulate what each of you would see as an ideal outcome from the discussion.

• Seek to understand exactly what the other party’s perspective is. Be able to articulate it so that they can agree that you understand it.

• Exercise empathy to understand why the other party may feel the way they do. Recognize that you may NEVER agree with their point of view, but understanding it, understanding why they hold it, and understanding that they have the right to hold it will help you see each other as respectful and reasonable. All of us are more willing to continue trying to reach an agreement with someone that we feel is respectful and reasonable than someone we feel is not.

• Be humble enough to recognize that your own view may be flawed, and courageous enough to work through it with someone else to make a new, stronger perspective.

• Welcome those moments in which you find errors in proposed path forward; the sooner you find the defects in the logic, the sooner you can strengthen it.

• Be aware of changes in the discussion that signal a move from discussion to distance. Reduce the distance between you and your counterpart by making sure that they know that you are committed to working things through with them and achieving your mutual purpose.

You can invoke this point of view at anytime in any discussion. You can control the degree of collaborative activity in the discussion. This is communication for the strong; the weak would prefer to manipulate. As your skills improve, so will your results. I will speak in detail of some collaborative approaches in the next newsletter.

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Advocacy and Inference

When a statement is made in a discussion, it may raise a question from the other side. For example, if I say that the decline in my company’s stock price is due to our decline in sales, my sales manager might say “Where do you come off saying THAT!? You can’t blame the nose dive in the stock price on sales! The entire ECONOMY is tanking!”

It may not be clear to you, but the sales manager has just asked you for evidence – what is your evidence to back up the claim you made about the declining stock price being due to sales.

When evidence is presented in a discussion whether by collaborators or advocates, the evidence is expected to connect to the claim it is intended to back. That connection is called the “inference”. In my example, I would need to use some evidence and an inference of Cause to explain why flagging sales CAUSED the drop in stock price. I might use statistics to show that our stock price tracks sales and that when they drop, so does the stock price. The other side might say several things, all of which would hurt my case:

• Just because they track, doesn’t mean one causes the other. Maybe the stock drop causes people not to BUY our product.

• There are other things going on when the stock price drops; it’s not just sales

• There are other things going on that causes sales AND the stock price to drop!

Notice that the sales manager didn’t say my EVIDENCE was wrong; they said I came to the wrong conclusion or misinterpreted it. This is a very effective way to dismiss good evidence, so you must be VERY good in developing good inference

There are six types of inference of which I have listed four in the table above. When an inference is made, you should determine which of these four types it is. You should be able to describe why it works (if you are making it) and why it doesn’t (if your opposing advocate is making it).

Of course, as you know, I don’t support the general form of advocacy in a business setting and prefer collaboration in almost every case.

Next week, I will close on the topic of advocacy by showing how to change (even fiercely) advocative discussion into collaborative ones.


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January Classes

There is still room in the public workshop being held starting January 22. This will be the only workshop planned for 2010 that will be open to the public so, unless your company intends to host a workshop in 2010, this is your shot.

You can learn all about the workshop series and sign up (via PayPal) here.

Don't be left out. If you prefer to pay by check, write me at

gregg.oliver@pfcomm.net

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Attacking Evidence

We have been talking about advocacy and, as one good friend and past student remarked to me last week, “Just because it isn’t the preferred way to communicate doesn’t mean you shouldn’t teach it.” And of course, she is right. We need to know how deal with things as they come to us. This week, as promised, I’ll cover how you attack a case. Next week, we’ll talk a bit about how to convert Advocacy discussions into Collaborative discussions (which IS the preferred way to communicate).


First, recall that there are three parts to the SPIRAL model; 1) the claim, 2) the Evidence to support the claim and, 3) the Inference that connects the evidence to the claim. The best way to attack advocacy positions is to attack either the evidence presented, or the inference.

There are three kinds of evidence; 1) the presenter’s credibility, 2) Objective evidence (evidence that can be independently examined and reviewed) and, 3) Social Knowledge (common knowledge, stipulation, or other things that “we all know” and “go without saying”). Effective attacks can be made against any of these.

First, we can attack the presenter’s credibility. The first run should NOT be personal. We can for instance, raise doubt as to whether the presenter really has any expertise in the subject at hand, or whether they actually have any first hand access to information, or if they are simply speculating. If we choose, we can make it more personal and describe their sketchy track record of being right on the subject, or their background and training is too lightweight for them really to grasp the subject under discussion thoroughly.

You can attack Objective evidence in several ways. First, if it is statistical, it is usually easy to show that it was not gathered properly. You can find more on that here. Other kinds of objective evidence can be dismissed if you can show that the evidence could also be attributed to something else. For instance, I was once in a discussion in which an opponent mentioned that “children with low birth weights tend not to attend college”. I pointed out that there are many of reasons that certain groups tend not to attend college. One of those groups is the poor, which is also a pretty good reason for having low birth rates. I finished by saying that if they had done any research at all they would have seen how incomplete their logic was and never had made the statement. So, even though they were correct, it appeared that they hadn’t thought out their position.

Common knowledge is easy to disrupt too. You can point out other things that are supposedly common knowledge that are untrue (cashew nuts are not nuts, for instance), or things that have ONCE been common knowledge (the Earth as the center of the Universe, for instance) and describe that just because we accept certain things as true today, doesn’t make them true. Finally you can point out counterexamples in order to dismiss ideas. For instance, if someone points out a certain team is a great team and claims it is because the individuals on it possess great individual talent, you can point out teams that contain no stellar individuals but still function well as a team, OR you could point out teams populated by superstars that don’t live up to potential of the individuals because they don’t work as a team. In other words, it is usually easy to find exceptions to generalizations and most common knowledge is based on generalization.

Next time, we’ll attack a position based on inferences.


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Presenting your case - in that twisted Advocacy Style

Last week, we spoke about ways to lead (or mislead) an audience using the Advocacy model of communication by presenting certain kinds of evidence in a biased way. This week, I will continue with this.

Exaggerated graphs – An easy way to shade information to support your perspective is to create graphs with exaggerated scales. Let’s say that I have the following productivity data for a given operation:

Let’s say I want to paint the picture that our productivity has been consistent. I would scale the graph so the three lines land in about the same place. Mathematical proof of consistency

What if I wanted to point out how inconsistent we are, using the same data? I only need to change the scale.

This operation needs help – they are all over the place! Same data, different scale.

“All” and “Some” - The words “All” and “Some” are tricky to use, and you should avoid them when you can. If the OTHER side uses them, try to exploit their use. For example, you shouldn’t say “All of our customers are happy with our new product.” The other side only needs to find one or two that are willing to say an unflattering thing and, if they present it strongly enough, you will lose your credibility. If you use the word “Some” in the same way ( “Some of our customers are happy with our new product”) your statement invites criticism. If the other side uses it, you would CERTAINLY say “I hope we aren’t trying to build a business by making just SOME customers happy!!!” It’s best to not use “All” or “Some” and let the OTHER side make that mistake.

Slopes and Heaps – at sometime in your career, you will hear someone talk about how “first you allow this, then you accept that, and soon you will have all KINDS of trouble!” These statements are referred to as “Slippery Slopes” or “Heaps”. If your opponent uses the argument that once we allow certain things to happen, then we will be powerless to stop it, think about what they are saying. Is there REALLY no way to give a one-time allowance on something that is a small concession and good for the business? Why can’t we make an exception if it is the right thing to do? Why can’t we reserve the right to say “no” next time if THAT is appropriate? There are few slippery slopes that can’t be addressed with common sense, and there is no rule that says we can’t de-prioritize consistency if it makes sense for the business. By the way, a “Slippery Slope” is one on which once you start climbing down, you may not be able to climb back up to where you began.

The use of the word “Heap” comes from a problem of defining a Heap. For instance, if you put one grain of sand on the floor, is it a heap? Most would say no. Two grains make a heap? Again, no. 100,000 grains make a heap? You bet – and a big one. Ok, so how many grains exactly did it take to make the heap? In other words, at which exact number would one less be NOT a heap and one more BECOME a heap? This is a pretty common approach to dealing with arguments like “At what point does my attendance become significant”, “At what point does a cell cluster become a fetus”, or “At what point is a man considered bald”?

Continuum “The Golden Mean” - When faced with presenting a somewhat extreme position, it is best to find a way to make it seem more moderate. For instance, let’s say you favored prison time for first time shoplifters (I HOPE you can see that as an extreme position!). You might present it as “Some people want to just let these law breakers off with a little probation, and others want to institute capital punishment for them. I favor the more moderate position of incarceration. This is a serious problem, but those other approaches are excessive and extreme”. All you have to do is find one nut that thinks we ought to institute capital punishment for shop lifters, and you will have presented the moderate view. People LOVE the moderate view.

Next week, I'll post a few final thoughts about PRESENTING your case, and start into some ways to ATTACK the OTHER guy's case!


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Job Postings on Pathfinder Communicators

I have added some job links to the Pathfinder Communicator newsfeed. Just go here and check out the communication news from Harvard or select the "Jobs" tab and visit some San Diego job boards.
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Using the Advocacy Model to Present Evidence

As I have described before, the Advocacy model is what is used when a work discussion is viewed as a contest and one side is trying to “win”. I feel an obligation to insert the following statement: I think the advocacy model is what is wrong with business communication and I only bring it up here because it is as important for business people to be able to identify what is wrong as what is right. The advocacy model should almost never be used in business, but it frequently is, just because the inquiry model is not well understood by most business people. The Pathfinder Mission is to help change that.

In the advocacy model, the general rule for presenting evidence is: only present evidence that supports your position OR that undermines the opposing position. This makes perfect sense if you are viewing the discussion as a contest. So if there is evidence that would undermine your own position, you would NOT present it in an advocacy discussion, but you WOULD in a collaborative discussion because you would want to build a perspective with the least downside, so you have to include the downside in the “information pool”.

One kind of evidence that is normally presented in a discussion is statistical information. The first attribute of statistical information that you should be ready to discuss is its source. For your perspective, you should try to use information from a well-known source OR one that you can describe as a generally accepted source. Conversely, if your counterpart presents statistical information, attack the validity of the source.

You can ask questions about was the data taken from a suitable range of samples, or were the samples taken randomly. If they answer in the negative or that they don’t know, you can be dismissive of the data because it is not well-developed. Be advised that even among professional statisticians, there is disagreement upon what constitutes an adequately random sample. If they answer in the affirmative, then you can ask them how they know that because that information is rarely supplied with the data. If they prepared the data themselves, then ask if they are a degreed statistician. If they say yes, then ask them if they are a professional statistician.

You get the idea.

Another attribute of statistical data is the notion of the “Average” value. The idea of an “Average” value actually can apply to any one of three different concepts: the “arithmetic mean” (what most of us think of when we say average), the mode (the number that occurs mostly frequently in a group of numbers), and the median (the number from which half the numbers are larger and half the numbers are smaller).

Let’s say you gave the following set of numbers: 19, 25, 25, 30, 60, 80, and 95. The Mean is 47. The Mode is 25. The Median is 30. The minimum is “as few as 19”. The maximum is “as many as 95”. Which number best supports your position?

If the opposing position makes claims based on the "average", ask questions about the data set and use the answers to show how they are trying to be deceptive.

You go into an electronics store that is selling a toaster, normally priced at $30 but this week is $15. You see a television in the same store that sells in other stores for $1000. In this store it is in the same ball park at $985. Let’s say you want to advocate that store to someone. Certainly you could say “I went to the XYZ store and saw a toaster for half off. I also saw a TV at similar savings.” Certainly the $15 off the TV is similar to the $15 dollars off the toaster, right?

The key question to ask is what do they mean by similar savings: percentage-wise or dollar value? You can make differences seem smaller or larger than they really are just by expressing them as percentages or as values.

Next week, I will present more on how the advocacy model twists evidence and how to deal with it.


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Advocacy and getting people on your side

As promised, this week is about the communication style known as “Advocacy” (as opposed to “Inquiry”). Advocacy in this context is taken to mean a communication “contest” in which one side tries to cause their perspective to be adopted, sometimes by whatever means necessary, and not the act of acting as someone’s advocate. Obviously, one can act as an advocate in a very noble way. Advocacy as a communication style can be performed in a productive way as well, but is often not. It can often involve 1) Logical fallacy that is intended to mislead, 2) incomplete or exaggerated evidence that is meant to, in the words of Socrates, “make the weak appear strong and the strong appear weak” and, 3) use rhetoric to lead others to conclusions that are not supported by logic or evidence.

Why am I talking about this? Well, because it often practiced in the workplace just as I have described above. It is important that we recognize it and know how to compete. That is, to know when the logic is flawed and how to get it back on track; to know how to weigh and judge evidence; and to know when rhetoric is being used instead of facts and be able to steer things back to less biased state.

As I mentioned last week, Advocacy concentrates on three areas:
1) Presenting a perspective
2) Attacking a competing perspective
3) Defending your perspective

Let’s talk about presenting your perspective. Make sure you state your perspective (or that your counterpart states their perspective) in a way that can be CLEARLY evaluated. For instance, let’s say your counterpart says that “When we do things that disappoint the customer, it makes us look bad. We should try not to do those things”. You need to respond that OBVIOUSLY it is in our best interest not to disappoint the customer. The statement isn’t specific enough for us to really even discuss. What do we MEAN by disappoint? What kind of things specifically are we talking about?

If you are in the Advocacy mode and wish to stay there, then you may want to say something that implies your counterpart is a bit naïve, and that “while they seem to have a grasp on the obvious, they should think a little more about their position before bringing up something so broad.” If you wish to get out of the advocacy mode and move into inquiry (which I will always recommend), you would want to ask them questions like “What makes you think so? Tell me more about… How do you know that? Is there any data you can share?”

It is common for an Advocacy argument to start with an ‘emotional appeal’. Now, these are seldom useful if stated in some overwrought fashion, so they are generally stated as if they are common knowledge, and as such they are accepted without question. THIS IS THE MOST COMMON WAY TO GET PEOPLE ON YOUR SIDE IN AN ADVOCACY SITUATION. There are about 20 such appeals. Here are a few types:
Appeal to consequences – “If we don’t lower prices, we are going to lose customers”
Appeal to fear – “And if we stop driving SUV’s, then the terrorists have already won.”
Appeal to flattery – "Surely a man as smart as you can see this is a brilliant proposal."
Appeal to tradition – “We have always done it this way”
Appeal to novelty – “Let me show you how people are doing it now. This is the latest way to do it”
Appeal to popularity – “This is how EVERYONE is doing it”
Appeal to authority – “This is how experts do it”

You can learn more about them here.

For instance, if I wanted to use an Appeal to Consequences, my statement could be that “our customers frequently get angry when we ship late to them, and they call us to complain and threaten to find other suppliers.” This strikes most of us believable; many in the room would accept it and move to finding ways to improvement shipment performance. But is it TRUE? Does it really happen as I stated? Have there been late shipments? Have there been calls from THOSE customers? How many? When?

If you are in the Advocacy mode and wish to stay there, then you may want to counter an emotional appeal in a way that 1) undermines your opposition and 2) shows that the thing they call a problem is really a symptom of something desirable. For example, if your counterpart uses an appeal to consequences that says “if we don’t improve our shipment performance, our customers will all leave”, then you counter it with a BIGGER appeal to consequence and use it as the reason that we MUST not worry about shipping performance. You might say “If you had done your homework, you’d know that the reason for the slight delay in shipments is the result of the HUGELY SUCCESSFUL COST CUTTING PROGRAM we recently implemented. While causing minor inconvenience to a few customers, we have increased profits dramatically, without adding people or capital equipment! The profits will help fund more research and development to get MORE customers than ever. This glitch in shipments is a small price to pay for what this means to our future!” This is very much like the response that salesmen give when you say “I can’t afford it” and they say “you can’t afford NOT to have it!”

If you wish to get out of the Advocacy mode and move into inquiry (which I will always recommend), you would want to ask them questions like “What makes you think so? Tell me more about… How do you know that? Is there any data you can share?”

To move to the collaborative, “inquiry” mode all you ever need to do is to counter these emotional appeals with logical appeals – asking for and testing facts. A logical appeal, done persistently and with skill, will usually make an emotional appeal look a bit hysterical and draw support to find the facts.

We are just scratching the surface on the subject of advocacy. I will talk more about the Presenting your case. This time we talked about sizing your perspective and getting people on your side. Next time, I will talk a little about 1) Presenting facts and 2) Presenting a Strong Conclusion.

Insist on great business results! Go to Pathfinder Communication

January Classes

Don't forget to sign up for the Next High Performance Communication class starting January 22, 2010 More information on THAT here and here. Call for more information - 858-245-9802.


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Practicing Advocacy

I have said many times on these pages that there are TWO types of conflict to handle during a critical discussion; Affective conflict (i.e. personality clashes or cultural conflict) and Cognitive conflict (disagreement about a topic). For example, let’s say you are involved in a discussion with someone about which sport is superior – baseball or football. You go back and forth, explaining your position on YOUR favorite sport and the other person does the same.

IF you find yourself disagreeing based on the EVIDENCE that is presented, then you are likely engaged in a COGNITIVE disagreement – that is, you are unpersuaded by the facts under discussion. If, however, you are in one of those situations in which can’t be persuaded by ANYTHING the other side says because you don’t like or can’t trust them, you are experiencing an AFFECTIVE disagreement. Your inability to accept the other point of view is based on the PRESENTER and not the facts.

You will certainly find yourself dealing with both kinds of conflict, and mastering them both is important to being a good communicator. I have dedicated many of the articles I have written to dealing with AFFECTIVE conflict, and have developed and published the model that I call THE SCORE in order to help you deal with it. There are TWO models for COGNITIVE conflict. One is a collaborative model that I call Inductive Inquiry (or “SPIRAL” model). One that I have NOT shared is a model for conducting ADVOCACY.

I have spent a lot of time writing about Advocacy vs. Collaboration, and have said that Advocacy is the model with which we are most familiar. That is one reason that I have concentrated on teaching the COLLABORATIVE model – the fact that it isn’t generally understood. The other reason is that, between the two models, the COLLABORATIVE model is generally the most appropriate in business. It is the best one for developing solutions and getting answers when the information to base good decisions on are hard to find or not well vetted.

There ARE good times to use an Advocacy model, though, and I am going to dedicate the next few newsletters to discussing them.

Advocacy means just what you think it does. You ADVOCATE a given perspective over any competing perspectives. This means you are ready to persuade people to adopt this perspective over other perspectives, and defend it from competing perspectives. It also means you will publically demonstrate that competing perspectives to be inferior in some important characteristics. This CAN be done collaboratively, but it generally is not – it is generally done as contest to see what idea gets adopted.

When would we use such a model?

- In a command and control situation when we must all conform to a given course of action and “buy-in” isn’t a big consideration.

- When there is one “expert” on the topic and other opinions are not really competitive because they are not credible (they lack expertise).

-In an emergency when something must be done immediately and there is a single person in charge.

Like I said, these situations indicate suboptimal business conditions, but I know for a fact that the Advocacy model is used frequently. Fortunately, once you are trained a little, you will be far better equipped to participate in these discussions than many who feel that Advocacy is the best model to use. In fact, students that become competent in Advocacy generally find that others are very willing to begin collaborating with them rather than just get shut down!

Over the next few weeks, I will cover all of the elements of the Advocacy model. For this week, I will describe them.

1) Presenting a perspective
     - Developing a strong perspective
     - Getting others on your side
     - Presenting facts
     - Presenting a Strong Conclusion

2) Attacking a competing perspective
     - Gauging the opinions of others in order to create a productive attack
     - Attacking the evidence
     - Attacking the conclusion

3) Defending your perspective
     - Defending evidence
     - Defending your conclusion
     - Going in for the kill
     - Saving face

As we move through the elements above over the next few weeks, you will learn how to make your perspective look like the only logical choice and expose weaknesses in any opposition. In the event that you are attacked, you learn to defend. In the case that you are overcome by a competing perspective, you will learn to save face.


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Pathfinder's LinkedIn Group

Don't forget to join our LinkedIn group Pathfinder Communicators. We have a steady stream of articles from the Harvard Business Review, a great source of information about communication and leadership.



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Keep it Safe

Creating safety in a conversation is critical. Once we lose safety, we need to immediately stop and try to regain it. How do we know when the safety is draining away, and how do we go about establishing it again.

One big clue is when a participant in the conversation starts to talk about something other than the TOPIC of the conversation. For instance, imagine you are talking about the difficulty in correctly scheduling resources for a given project. Your counterpart says “I don’t know what your problem is. Why do you feel the need to control every little detail?”

We aren’t talking about the project anymore, are we? We are talking about YOU.

There are several ways you can respond here. I want you to think about some that you may have heard:

- “Controlling every little detail is called ‘doing the job’. Maybe if you tried it, you wouldn’t have so many failed projects!”
- “What’s MY problem?? What’s YOUR problem?!”
- “Wow – are YOU ever defensive!”

Let’s say you responded with this:

“I hear you saying that you think I might be controlling insignificant aspects of the project. Is that what you’re saying? How do you see me doing that?”

-By NOT responding to what could obviously be interpreted as a challenge, you give the benefit of the doubt.
- By asking if you understood properly instead of reacting, you are showing that you are interested in understanding their point of view
- By asking for more information, you show that you value them.

At this point, most people will feel safe again – enough to continue to talk about the TOPIC. This is how you will learn what they see, and add it to your own perspective. Or, you could also give them one of the OTHER responses we talked about. We both know that won’t help.

Learning THE SCORE and integrating that perspective into your communication style will change the way you are perceived by others. You will be “safe to talk to”. That way, you will be recognized as someone who helps others get all the information out on the table so we can make better decisions.

That’s who you want to be. That's what you want to make happen.


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Speaking Engagement Alert

Please note that I will be speaking at the Society for Software Quality on September 22, 2009. The subject will be "THE SCORE" and a little about "Inductive Inquiry".

September Meeting Announcement Society for Software Quality

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Result-Killing Biases

When I talk about “mastering conflict” (as opposed to avoiding it), a lot of people are initially confused by my meaning. This week I’ll explain this a little further.

Patrick Lencioni’s landmark book “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team” presents a hierarchy of conditions that must be met prior to achieving results. After establishing safety and trust, Lencioni’s hierarchy addresses mastering conflict. This is not AVOIDING conflict, but managing it so that it is productive. We get all of the good ideas out in the open where we can examine and compare them. If in the course of deciding on an action, the collaborators can air their differences in an honest and meaningful way, there is a good chance that they will be able to make a commitment that is meaningful.

Sometimes we avoid conflict by just “going along” with a decision, even when we think it won’t work. Projects that are dependent on too many of these kinds of “commitments” have a low likelihood of success, just because the important information that would have allowed us to make a better decision isn’t shared. It isn’t that we don’t KNOW what to do; we just don’t feel comfortable in sharing it. As you all know, that’s why Pathfinder Communication was founded; in order to teach principles necessary to help us make better decisions.

When we study the nature of decision making errors, we see that avoiding conflict is high on the list. Conflict is how we test each other’s ideas before we implement them. This testing is very easy and inexpensive at the “talking” stages of a project and gets much more difficult as we move through it. I have mentioned several times that the biggest reason that we don’t collaborate is that some of us fear that we will look weak by doing so, or that it will end badly with someone getting irreparably upset. So we are concerned about how someone will behave if we disagree.

As I have written about before, our behaviors are a product of our values and beliefs. Personality inventory tests (like Myers-Briggs for example) ask you about your behaviors and from that will derive your values and beliefs.

Below are some beliefs and values that you may encounter when you are collaborating. It is important to recognize them for what they are and understand that you need to question them if you recognize them in your statements or in the statements of others:

1 – Overconfidence bias. Sometimes, we believe we can do something just because we believe that we SHOULD be able to or because we NEED to or we WANT to. That doesn’t mean we can, and when we find ourselves projecting that we will be successful at something, we should question why we think so and assure that there is some reason to believe it.

2 – Sunk Cost effect. Sometimes, after we have put money or time or effort into an activity, it starts to become apparent that we may not succeed; that maybe we shouldn’t have started it in the first place. We may make a decision to continue to pour effort into the task even when it becomes unlikely that there will be a reasonable return. This difficulty to stop on a task we are invested in, this desire to throw “good money after bad”, is called the sunk cost effect. Remember that if during the course of a project information is revealed that indicates the project is unlikely to produce a reasonable, you need to be responsible enough to shut it down. It is a bad idea to try to “will the project” into becoming productive.

3 – Recency effect. Sometimes, when we look at data, we tend to emphasize recent events over more distant events. Sometimes this is appropriate and sometimes it isn’t. It is always appropriate to question why we think that recent patterns will continue and justify why past patterns won’t repeat.

4 – Confirmation bias. Sometimes when we conduct research, especially when we are hopeful that we will arrive at a given conclusion, we tend to gather or give undue weight to data that tends to confirm the conclusion we want. It is appropriate to gather data that is representative of the range of data available and not just that which supports our position.

5 – Anchoring bias. Sometimes when we negotiate a price may be mentioned by the other party, and we begin to think in terms of that price (instead of the value of the item to us). For instance, a car dealer would like for you to look at the manufacturer’s recommended price and negotiate in terms of that price (“I would like a 15% discount from that price” for instance). The recommended price has become the “anchor” upon which you will base the negotiation. It is appropriate to question the validity of any such anchor.

6 – Illusory Correlation. Sometimes, people represent that there are strong connections (correlations) between events for which there is actually little evidence. For instance, several books have been written about the so-called “Zero Effect” relating to the fact that every US president from 1860 to 1960 that was elected in a year ending in zero (1860, 1880, 1900, 1920, 1940, 1960) died in office. These books offer “reasons” for this pattern, but since Reagan (1980) and Bush (2000) failed to conform, it is clear that whatever reasons were given were illusory. You may laugh at this, but wait till next time someone tells you what stocks to buy based on the outcome of the Superbowl.

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Curiosity

When another person is presenting an idea, maintaining your curiosity sends a number of messages.

1) Genuine curiosity shows a willingness to learn from someone, and that prompts the other person to explain their perspective as fully as they can, because they can SENSE that if they do it well, they will be fully understood. We human beings work hard to be understood and will give it all we’ve got if we feel the chances are good.

2) Curiosity implies to the other person that their perspective is valued, even if it is not adopted. We appreciate being listened to, and it makes us grateful and engaged.

3) Curiosity shows the other person that our mind is not yet made up – that we are open to being influenced.

These three things create a bond between us. They make us feel safe to exchange ideas. That is the power of curiosity. So how do we show we are curious? There are lots of ways.

1. We speak about our own idea tentatively, to show that we haven’t made up our mind yet.
2. We listen to what the other person says. We fight the urge to compare their idea to ours, and just listen.
3. We listen with empathy. Sometimes, if we try to understand the other party’s point of view, we can see their justification for their idea right away.
4. We help them find better justification for their idea (while remaining authentic).
5. We see if we can become open to favoring their idea.
6. We ask questions that help us get just the amount of information we need to understand their perspective.
7. We ask how their idea fits with long term goals.
8. We ask if they feel their idea addresses the cause of the problem or the symptoms.
9. We try to form a hybrid idea, a new idea that combines elements of different ideas into a new one.
10. We ask ourselves “what would be harmed if we went with their idea”?

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Exposing Hidden Agendas

When we think of the term “Hidden Agenda”, our minds tend to run to something nefarious or manipulative. A hidden agenda may be that, but it may not. A situation that I am asked about over and over again usually deals with one party having trouble with a counterpart over something that was never said. In other words, one party assumes that they understand something and move forward AS IF they are fully informed. Unfortunately, they may not be.

In many cases (most) this yields no trouble. In other cases it can be disastrous. We have all done this – been sure that we knew what the other person was saying and then suddenly find ourselves in a two person pileup!

We need to learn some prevention and some correction for these instances:

Recognize that it is difficult to know just what the other person is feels or means except in very simple circumstances. Usually it doesn’t matter, and so we may get complacent in our “seek first to understand” listening skills. If your counterpart is exhibiting signs of frustration or impatience, these are EARLY WARNINGS that you have already begun to demonstrate to them that you aren’t hearing them. If they are raising their voice or withdrawing from the conversation with clipped answers, you are likely headed for the RED zone. STOP AND CHECK to make sure you are on the same page. ASK QUESTIONS and be READY to “RE-UNDERSTAND” what may have been meant. CHECK YOUR EGO and make sure you are OPEN to hearing them as if for the first time.

Once you understand – REALLY understand – their perspective, you can ask them all about why they feel the way they do. Until you understand it, recognize that by incorrectly telling them what they REALLY mean, you are only demonstrating to them that you haven’t been listening. If you start off by stating that you need some help understanding their perspective, you will be better off UNLESS they are already frustrated. So catch them BEFORE they are “too far gone” by watching for warning signs.

These are great for “accidently hidden” agendas, but what about “deliberately hidden” agendas?

Recognize that the purpose of a deliberately hidden agenda is to manipulate you (or someone else, using you). If you suspect that this is the case, you can start using Inductive Inquiry techniques to work through these. I did a series on Inductive Inquiry last year (starting here). You can also learn them by attending the High Performance Communication class in January 2010. More information on THAT here and here.


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Re-thinking Communication

I want to thank you all for writing in with requests for newsletter topics. I will do it more in the future; it was really fun to see how much everyone gets out of the newsletter. A little humbling, actually.

I've included a poll at the bottom of the post. It's just one question.

One subscriber wanted to know about the application of this material to sales. Clearly, when we think of salesmen, we think of someone that persuades you. Sometimes we think of salesmen in a negative light, as someone that may try to persuade you to do something that may not be in your best interest, just to make a sale (gasp!).

At a speaking engagement I had a couple of weeks ago, an astute listener asked about using the High-Performance Communication (HPC) skills to deal with hidden agendas. I view those as a form of the insincerity or information hiding that is associated with Advocacy (as opposed to Collaboration). Sales is a widely-accepted example of a profession in which some practitioners are seeking a given outcome, even if it occurs at the expense of another – the very definition of advocacy.

I see this topic as a great opportunity to describe how to start using the material in the High Performance Communication newsletter to its fullest extent. I have been talking all along about how we can change our own perspective, and by talking to people as if they too understand this material, guide them through conversations so that we end up in a win-win situation most of the time. This week, we will think about selling interactions in a new context – as the same kind of face-to-face interactions we have at work every day.

I’ll play the part of the salesman and say I view selling as a collaborative effort and not adversarial. For the sake of this discussion, it isn’t a contest in which you ‘lose’ if you buy what I am selling and you win if resist buying. It is a collaborative effort in which we are both engaged in trying to fix some perceived issue that you are having. Maybe you need to increase your production, or cut your costs, or raise your quality – whatever it is, you have a need and I am there to help you with it.

That change in perspective alone should have you talking to me, the salesman, differently than you would if you perceived this as a contest. You now see me as a resource that should have a mutual purpose in which you and I want to accomplish the same thing. Not coincident purposes, in which what I want to accomplish and what you want to accomplish are different but mutually beneficial, but a true mutual purpose. I ONLY want to sell you something that helps you accomplish your objectives. If I don’t believe it will, then I will tell you so. For your part, you ONLY want find the best way to accomplish your objective. If you don’t believe in me to help you, you must say so.

You must examine my credibility (track record, knowledge, openness, sincerity, curiosity, etc.) to see if I can act as a resource in solving the issue. In this way, you view the salesperson as a CONSULTANT. So you can feel free to discuss this with other resources, or to discuss other resources with me because we are after the same thing and I want to be connected to a knowledgeable partner in this. One that knows what they want. That makes it much easier to match you with the right solution.

Sales is generally viewed as a four-step process:

1. Prospecting (or qualifying) potential customers. This step is about finding someone that may already use the widget you are selling, or may have an issue for which your widget is a candidate solution.
2. Interviewing qualified customers. This is where a salesperson finds out all about the important who, what, when, why, where, and how’s regarding the issues you are facing. It is also when they work though the acceptable solutions.
3. Presenting a solution. This is where they present their recommendations for your issue.
4. Closing the deal. This is where they negotiate through any differences between your desired solution and their proposed solution.

Think how easy closing would be if you had each been collaborating through the process! Then think of how you could guide this with High-Performance Communication (HPC) skills, whether you were the customer OR the salesman. Finally think that, if you WERE the salesman, how appreciative your customer would be for you acting in this way. Not just now, but in the future as well.

Remember that just because the other person has a vested interest in the outcome, doesn’t by itself mean that they are honest or dishonest. They could be either. Using HPC techniques, you will collaboratively ask for and evaluate the evidence they use to support their claims. You will evaluate their perspective based on the strength of the information, add that with what you know, and develop the best solution you can.

When I start my conversations with salespeople, I tell them (using the components of THE SCORE) that I am not sure if I need their product; I need a solution to a specific problem and while I think that their product MAY be a solution, I need their help in determining if it is the best one. I ask them if they feel they are capable of using their expertise and objectively help me find a solution. Many say yes, and as i guide them through the process, I begin to find that some really aren't that credible. Their solutions may turn out to be what I need later, but they aren't really right to help me evaluate the issues.

This is the way to approach a problem solving dialog. Viewing an interaction with a salesperson as a problem-solving session is a way to leverage HPC skills into those conversations. Basically, you are converting Advocacy into Collaboration, treating your counterpart with respect, making decisions based on facts, evidence, and sound principles – and building great business relationships. All of this promotes better communication, better decisions, better results!



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Persuasive Words – Phrasing and Credibility

This is the last article for this series on Persuasion. Even though I could write lots more on this subject, there are other subjects that are just as important and I want to get what you feel you need. After this installment, I am going to move into another topic. If you have something in particular you would like to cover regarding face-to-face communication in business, email me. This blog is about learning skills to help you influence your company to get better results, so let me know if there is something specific you are grappling with.

Checkout the Pathfinder Communicatotrs LinkedIn group (http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=1958793) to see great NEWS articles from HarvardBusiness.org. Also, come see me at the September 22nd meeting of the Society for Software Quality. Go to (http://www.ssq.org/sd/) for meeting details.

Now on to the newsletter....

When engaged in persuasion, you can tell the winners from the losers pretty quickly. The losers are insincere, make claims they can’t back up, shade the truth to make their stories sound better, and generally lead the organization down a path. If you enter into a persuasion and someone is doing this to you, you need to ask them questions – the important questions – which we have covered in the last few weeks on this series. What evidence do they have? How do they know? Isn’t there a downside?

Listen for these words when others speak: free, proven, guaranteed, easy, or risk-free. These are very persuasive when they are true. If others are using them, ASK THEM TO EXPLAIN THE REASONING behind their use. If these words go unquestioned, and they are accepted by the listeners, you will have a HARD time changing their minds. Sometimes, we want to believe that one or more of those words apply to the software package being recommended by a colleague. If we wait to question them, even just to wait until we can ask them in private, the decision makers in the room can be swayed and could make decisions that will be hard for them to take back without losing face. It is important to plant seeds of doubt in the group if doubt is appropriate. And remember, if you question the magic words and the speaker has the right information prepared to prove their point, it goes a long way towards cementing the decision. So use these words yourself AND BE PREPARED TO DEFEND THEM with sound logic and easy-to-understand reasoning.

Persuasive language is always more persuasive when it is simple to understand. Persuasion is often telling a story in which the listener can imagine themselves involved as a character. You lead them from point to point, and by the time you reach the end, you share the same perspective – they are persuaded. It is often just explaining something in a way that is easily understood and credible. Simplicity extends to numbers as well; that is it is usually unnecessary to say that “sales were up 9.815% this year” when you could say “sales were up nearly 10%”.

Wordy sentences make listeners feel uneasy, as if you are trying to carefully craft a partial truth. Those of you that have attended classes or have read this newsletter for very long will remember that the “S” in THE SCORE is about simplicity and sincerity. They are important independently, and together have a dramatic impact on your perceived credibility. If you say “At various points throughout the fiscal reporting period, production figures were unpredictable and at other times quite steady, ending in a negative position versus forecast overall” you may sound like you are trying to avoid saying that “Production was down last year”. This can even be embarrassing when someone a listener asks “Did all of that you just said add up to production was down?” and you have to answer “Yes”. Even though you weren’t trying to hide anything, it feels as if you MIGHT have been, or that you felt you could fool the audience, or that you didn’t think anyone would notice – and that attacks your credibility.

Finally speak in a way that is positive, confident, cooperative, and credible. Be careful not to wander into arrogance or insincerity. Instead of saying “If we accept this proposal”, say “When we accept this proposal”; instead of “I guess we will need a consultant during phase 2 of the project”, say “I believe we will need a consultant during phase 2 of the project”; instead of “Your idea won’t work”, say “Let’s talk though your idea so that I understand it better”.

Give me your ideas for the next series. Otherwise, next week I will be left to my own devices.

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Persuasive Words - Describing Benefits

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Occasionally, some of my students will want me to utter some series of magic words that will hypnotize whomever I am speaking to and cause them to be putty in my hands. Yeah, right. Persuasive words don’t work like that. Manipulation sometimes does, but we don’t deal in that because it is neither a long term nor constructive strategy. I will take some time and talk about how to phrase things to make them helpful in motivating others to take action on what you are discussing if you have followed the other parts of this series.

We have talked about credibility, creating a mutual purpose, developing evidence, using emotion, and good presentation structures. Here are some thoughts for framing what we say.

Remember that the mutual purpose is something specific that we can agree that we both want, and we try to make it as concrete (as opposed to abstract) as we can. Working together “for the good of the company” or “in the interest of justice” is fine, but they are each a little abstract. “For the good of the company” is made a little more concrete and is still mutually attractive when expressed as “to be more profitable”. It becomes more concrete (but maybe not as mutual) when it becomes “to cut expenses” and VERY concrete and not mutually purposeful AT ALL when it becomes “reducing your wages”! We want to pick the most concrete purpose we can (because it is the most galvanizing) that is still mutually agreeable. This tends to be more difficult as the number of people involved gets bigger, just because finding something that a large group is each interested in is more difficult than finding a common thread amongst a smaller group.

If we can arrive at a truly interesting and functional Mutual Purpose, we then should define its benefits. When you think of benefits, think about what desirable result will accrue to your counterpart from the Mutual Purpose. As an analogy, if someone tells you the new laptop computer you are buying has a Pentium Dual Core 2 GHz processor, you have a vague idea that it is perhaps faster or more powerful than your current machine. That is not a benefit, but a feature. To express the benefit, you must express what it does for YOU. “It will start twice as fast as your current computer, handle 3 times the number of concurrent applications, and will allow your computer to download files as fast as your connection will allow” is a statement of benefit. “It will let you do more work in much less time” is another statement of benefit. A car with a small engine may not sound good, but if it is framed as a big increase in gas savings, then that benefit may outweigh an “unnoticeable” reduction in power and help persuade you to pick the car.

NOTE – I am not advocating that you EVER withhold the downside of a perspective. I am suggesting (stating, really) that describing the BENEFITS of something (like a mutual purpose) is FAR more persuasive than framing just the features.

Understanding the tangible benefits of a perspective is important to all of us when we make a decision. Recognizing that we BOTH value those benefits makes us appear more aligned and increases the likelihood that we won’t disappoint each other in our journey to attaining them. Developing a track record of persuading people to do things that in turn provide them benefits is a great way to get them to listen to you the next time.

More on persuasive words next time.

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Persuasive Evidence

Last time we spoke about the various structures of persuasive presentations. These structures described how you may want to present your perspective and the ‘evidence’ or ‘backing’ that supports it. Long time readers of this newsletter have heard me speak of Advocacy vs. Inquiry as the primary methods of business communication before. Advocacy is the style in which the participants pick a perspective and maintain it throughout the evaluation. This is how trials are conducted; each side may have different perspectives regarding the degree of guilt of the defendant, and they argue those sides by presenting evidence. There are strict rules for conducting advocacy (precisely why it is usually unsuitable for work) and many of those rules extend to the introduction of evidence.

What constitutes persuasive evidence in a collaborative work environment? Let’s talk about that:
There are three types of evidence: Objective Evidence, Social Consensus, and the speaker’s Credibility are types of evidence.

Good objective evidence is not necessarily tangible, but it is verifiable. Certainly well-prepared statistics, photographs and video, interviews or testimony all serve as objective evidence.

Social Consensus are things like common knowledge, things that we are willing to stipulate as true without further discussion, and any agreements that were previously reached using an acceptable method.

When presenting evidence it is necessary to do it in a way that is most accessible by those listening. 75% of people understand things better if presented visually, so graphs are good. Keep things simple; fight the desire to complicate a chart by showing too much (or different types) of information on it. Use simple numbers (round them off). Strive to make the perspective seem simple and clear, without oversimplifying. You would know if you oversimplified if your counterparts aren’t sure how the proposal fits with the issue at hand. When it comes to being authentic, simple, and direct consider things deeply - remember that what is said is not as important as what is heard and remembered.

If the speaker is credible, their evidence is more persuasive. Seems simple enough, but what makes us credible? I say it here again because I can’t say ENOUGH how important your own credibility is to your communication: Competence, Trustworthiness, Good Will, Dynamism (speakers that move and appear to possess energy and enthusiasm are more persuasive than those that aren’t), Eyewitness access to information, Background and Training, a good track record for being right.

The idea of how access to information is acquired is an important one. Does the persuader have primary access (eyewitness, for example) evidence? Is the source of the evidence reliable? Is the access secondary (hearsay or worse)? Many “conspiracy theories” gain a startling amount of traction with NO evidence!

When we are considering opinions as evidence (which we frequently do in business) we need to consider the source. Is the source of the opinion an expert? Are they a layperson? Make sure your expert is qualified as an expert in the subject at hand. A marketing expert’s opinion on advertising deserves more weight than their design opinions (unless that is another area of expertise).

Finally, different kinds of evidence carry different weight based on how they are developed and by whom. A rule of thumb regarding the relative weight of evidence that is accepted in many circles is as follows:
1. Assertion (in my opinion…)
2. Common Knowledge or Stipulation
3. Lay Opinion (if a reasoned conclusion)
4. Expert Opinion or Consensus of Lay Opinion
5. An Empirical Study or Consensus of Expert Opinion
6. Consensus of Studies

Note that an opinion that is not a “reasoned conclusion” is listed as an assertion – a kind of “trust me” statement. Next is common knowledge precisely because we only SOMETIMES correctly identify certain knowledge as common. Frequently, what we think is common knowledge is not held by other people in our organization. A lay opinion for which there is a demonstrated logical basis is at number three. From there, it becomes a matter of experts, well prepared studies, and consensus that raises the probability that the evidence is correct. This knowledge will give you a great advantage in preparing and critiquing persuasive perspectives.

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Preparation

Over the past month I wrote a series on the elements of persuasion. A brief recap:

1) The persuader’s credibility and reputation gives them standing, making them a voice worth listening to.
2) The persuader’s ability to show a mutual purpose and benefit to the person being persuaded and thereby giving a basis for the parties to agree to become interdependent and work together in each other’s interest.
3) The persuader’s ability to create an “emotional acceptance” of the content of the perspective being presented. That is, presenting a perspective that is ‘likeable’ OR presenting alternatives that are somehow more ‘unpleasant’, leaving the persuader’s perspective as the most desirable course of action in achieving the mutual purpose. Cialdini’s six laws of persuasion help show how to attach an emotional element.

In closing on persuasion, I will begin a discussion of the last element – content. The content of your perspective consist of several parts:

1) The way you structure your presentation of your perspective (this week)
2) Your conclusions and justification (next week)
3) The benefits provided by your perspective (in two weeks)
4) The WAY you say things (in three weeks)

Structure - Learn a few ways to describe perspectives, and you are well on your way to being MUCH more persuasive than you are today. Experiment with these structures:

Problem and solution – Describe a problem, and then its solution. Sounds simple, but to be much more successful that you currently are, remember to help the listener make a negative emotional connection with the material. One way is to remind them of how difficult this problem makes it for them to succeed. Another is to explain what the consequences of doing nothing are. There are many other examples of making the listener ‘feel real dislike’ for the problem, too many to list. Next, describe the solution. Be realistic and truthful – you always want to maintain and protect your credibility. Help the listener ‘like’ the solution. Be vivid in your description and help the listener see themselves as not only benefitting from the solution, but benefitting by being part of its successful implementation. Their help on the team will be invaluable and you should help them imagine how grateful everyone will be. This is a good structure when the listener has not already developed an opinion.

Present both sides – In a case where there is already a controversy, it is useful present both sides. Present the opponent’s side first. You want to make sure that at the end of that part of the presentation, you have their agreement that you have presented their perspective accurately and that you have described the evidence they have to justify their perspective (statistics, facts, etc). This is key in establishing your credibility, showing your understanding of the issue, and will help them be more receptive to listening to the other perspective. When presenting the other perspective, concentrate on challenging their justifications – the facts are not as they think, or the evidence is either inaccurate or somehow suspect. Please refer to the blog posts from November 2008 for a more info on this activity. I will cover it in detail next week (conclusions and justifications). Obviously, this structure assumes that the discussion is taking place after competing perspectives have been developed.

Cause and Effect – Describe the problem, its cause, and any contributing factors. Describe how your solution fixes the problem by mitigating or removing the causes and contributors. This structure is useful when all parties agree that the best outcome is to return to some status quo and you are merely trying to agree on the means to do so, rather than changing the status quo.

Call to Action – Use this structure when most people tend to support your perspective. Start by describing a pressing common need, and describe how your perspective will satisfy that need. Make it clear how we ALL experience the need – this is a galvanizing description of a mutual purpose. You are describing what we are changing from AND why we MUST. Next, provide a clear and positive vision of the future state. After we implement this perspective, we will have tangible benefits. I will cover describing benefits in two weeks. Close this presentation with specific actions to be taken, and who will take them. Be grateful for their support.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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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Excerpt from High Performance Communication workshop guide

The Workshop guide that goes along with the Public Workshop starting on July 10 is all new and really very good. It captures the important aspects from each of the subjects taught throughout the 3 day course in Outline form, as Summaries, and as full text which will be forever useful as a reference.

In the section on relationships, I explain the details of the perspective we need to adopt in order to develop really great relationships. Then, just before I give instruction on all the skills required to create amazing business relationships, I summarize the perspective we adopt towards our collaborators as follows:

In summary, our perspective in collaborating within our workgroup is:
The people with whom we collaborate are capable people with ideas about things that deserve to be heard. We are eager to understand their perspective fully. We believe that they want to hear our perspective as well and are willing to consider it if we present it in a factual manner, with a minimum of interpretation. We believe that the interpretation of the facts is best done collaboratively.

We recognize that blame is generally far less important than understanding the contribution system that leads up to a given outcome. Some systems MAY have a single point of failure with no other contributing factors, but these are rare and usually so simple that they don’t warrant much discussion. We know that other's will feel less defensive if we all can express our contribution to an outcome.

We know that the differences in our perspectives comes as a natural result of our diversity and that this is the great strength of our workgroup – that our diversity allows us to blend the best parts of our different perspectives and develop solutions that are better than any one of us would have developed alone. We have learned how to draw upon those differences and get the information out into the open and we practice it regularly.

We recognize that how we feel about ourselves and how others feel about themselves can come into question as we collaborate and we will practice methods to keep us open to all options and not “close off” into bifurcated (either/ or) thinking. We recognize that some of the ideas we hold about ourselves and others can be wrong, and that we can reconsider them at anytime using the tools we have learned.

We know that relationships are important to doing good work and that all relationships (and good decisions) have an emotional component. If feelings become an issue, we recognize that we will talk about them just as we would any other part of a problem.

We recognize that all of this takes training and practice in the methods that underlie these outcomes.

The book goes on to describe a collection of tools that make ALL of our business relationships as deep and powerful as the VERY BEST TEAMS you have been on.
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