Persuasion Fundamentals - Credibility and Alignment with Values

Last week, I started a new series – this one on Persuasion. I wrote about two categories of elements for persuasion (Logical and Emotional) and this week, we’ll talk about a few of the emotional elements because those are the ones that most of us have the trouble with.

The emotional elements of an argument are the ones that are beyond the facts of the issue; they are the ones that make things “ring true”, seem right, and cause us to adopt ideas beyond (and sometimes even in spite of) plain data.

The first element of persuasion that reaches past the data is the speaker’s credibility. Credibility is so vital to all forms of business communication that I write about it often. Regular readers of this newsletter have heard me cover it many times. You can search this blog for the word “credibility” or just go here to refresh your memory.

The second element of persuasion has to do with creating an argument that aligns with your counterpart’s values, if possible. I see this as the fundamental persuasive skill because it is very difficult to persuade someone to take a course that runs counter to an existing and deeply held value. Persuading someone to do so is seldom possible unless there is no alternative, or by violating the one value in order to support one that is even more important. It becomes critical to us then to present our perspective in a way that aligns with the values of the other person. This means we must make a deeper effort to understand their interest, position, and underlying values concerning the topic. This takes practice with listening, but is not difficult.

Let’s define some terms here.

• By “interest”, I mean what you (or your counterpart) want to happen.
• By position, I mean how you want to accomplish it.
• By underlying value, I mean the personal principle that guides your thinking.

I can best show you by example:

Pete, the Director of Quality and my boss, bursts into my office and says “You are going to have fire Jason, the software tester. That guy has totally screwed us up with XYZ, Incorporated! He passed software that had bugs in it and now they are threatening to cancel our contract.”

So far, Pete has:

1. Clearly identified his position – He wants to solve the problem by firing Jason.

2. Implied his interest – He wants to prevent this from happening again.

3. Implied the underlying value guiding his thinking – He values protecting our business.

Being a persuasive guy, I know I need to understand just what Pete is after a lot better than I do, and I think he needs to understand the more about the situation too, so I ask questions. (Note - If you are a new subscriber, start reading the blog starting in May of 2010 to catch up on how we work through this kind of conversation).

I say “Pete, clearly you’re upset and in order to help, I need to understand a little better. You are saying that some defective software was shipped to XYZ, Inc and they want to cancel the contract. Have we spoken to them about how to make it right?”

Pete says “The program manager is on the phone with them now. All I know is that we are on thin ice with them. If they don’t want to cancel the contract now, they will next time.”

I can see from this that Pete had “imagined” some of what was happening, and had been overly dramatic, maybe to make a point. Sometimes this is very persuasive, but not the way Pete just did it. I’ll talk to him about it later, but not now. Not until we hear from the program manager and know where we stand with the customer.

I need to understand what Pete wants to have done. I think I know what Pete really wants. He really wants me to assure that this doesn’t happen again. Initially, firing Jason might have seemed like a way to do that. I believe he also wants to make things right with the customer. So I will ask him about his interest.

I say “Before we hear back from the program manager, I want you to know that I am with you. I know we can’t be successful without satisfying our customers.” Pete answers “Happy customers are important, and my boss needs to know he can count on us to do our part in assuring we have them.” I say “You’re right. The bosses have to know we are capable and serious about keeping the customer satisfied.”

So Pete has two interests; happy customers, and having the trust of his boss. And I feel his underlying principle might be trust. He wants to be trusted by his customers and his boss, and he wants to know he can trust his employees.

I did a little investigating of my own and found that Jason performed the test procedure properly, but we had used a newer operating system than the customer uses. The program manager reported that the customer is indeed upset about receiving a bad shipment, and said that they need a fully corrected version ASAP. After the technical team came to understand just what the bugs were, we committed to doing it within five days, and the customer said that was fine. They never said anything about cancelling the contract.

I met with Pete and told him that the problem wasn’t one with Jason – that Jason had performed well and that the questionable part of the process was in how we selected the test platform. I told him that I would review just how the customer’s operating system was missed when selecting the test platform, and start making the necessary procedural adjustments. I also assured him that the new version would be revised and retested on an appropriate test platform. Pete didn’t bring up the idea of firing Jason again.

Summary

Until I knew what Pete’s Interest and Values were, I didn’t try to persuade him to take a different position. Why? Because if I make him defend his position, it will be harder to get him to change it later. The more staunchly a person defends a position, the more difficult it is for them to change it because it makes them appear inconsistent. So I didn’t make him tell me that firing Jason was the right thing to do over and over. I didn’t really say anything about it until I understood what had happened, understood that Pete’s saw this as a trust issue, and could advise him that we were fixing it from a “trust” perspective – that is until I could show him that he could trust Jason. I also showed him that he could NOT trust the current process, and took responsibility for “repairing” its trustworthiness. If I am credible in Pete's eyes, this should make him feel like the issue is being fully addressed

By addressing the issue from the perspective of Pete’s “interests”, he can accept that we have taken the right approach. If we had done exactly the same things without acknowledging that it was a trust problem, he may never have fully accepted that the issue was resolved in a way that was “good for him”. That’s the importance of aligning values.

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