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Leadership by Persuasion
As a leader, your success depends upon
your ability to get things done: up, down and across all lines.
Today’s organizations
are politically complex and fluid, which blurs lines of formal
authority. Colleagues continually question and challenge authority.
The flattening of organizations has created informal power networks
that render the old command-and-control style of leadership obsolete.
To survive and succeed, you must learn to persuade people: to
convince them to take action on your behalf and under your direction,
often without formal authority. Even when you do have formal authority,
you may be hesitant to use it.
Work is generally completed by cross-functional
teams of peers, with a mix of baby boomers and Gen-Xers who show
little tolerance for authority. Electronic
communication and globalization have further eroded the traditional
hierarchy. People who perform work don’t just ask “what should I do?” but “why
should I do it?”
Leaders must answer the “why” question effectively.
Persuasion is widely perceived
as a skill reserved for sales and negotiation. Now, it’s
an essential proficiency for all leaders.
Defining Our Terms
“Effective persuasion becomes a negotiating and learning
process through which a persuader leads colleagues to a problem’s
shared solution.”
—Jay A. Conger, PhD
Professor of organizational behavior, London Business School
Author, Winning ’Em Over: A New Model for Management in the
Age of Persuasion
Persuasion
involves leading people to take a position they don’t
currently hold—a skill for success in both personal and business
relationships. You must not only make a rational argument, but
also position your information, ideas, approaches and/or solutions
in ways that appeal to basic human emotions.
Persuasion blends art (establishing trust) and science (collecting
and analyzing information, understanding human behavior, developing
communication skills). It takes preparation and planning, which
cover four key elements:
1. Credibility
2. Understanding your audience
3. A solid argument
4. Competent communication
Effective
persuasion may prove difficult and time-consuming, but it is
ultimately the most powerful style of managing people. As
Larry Bossidy, former chairman of the board of Honeywell International
Inc., once explained: “Today you have to appeal to [people]
by helping them see how they can get from here to there, by establishing
some credibility, and by giving them some reason and help to get
there. Do all those things, and they’ll knock down doors.”
Dr. Conger
describes the traditional view of persuasion: “First,
you strongly state your position. Second, you outline the supporting
arguments, followed by a highly assertive, data-based exposition. Finally,
you enter the deal-making stage and work toward a close.”
Discovery, Preparation, Dialogue
Any attempt to persuade may provoke colleagues to oppose and polarize.
If, according to Dr. Conger, persuasion is a learning and negotiating
process, then it must include three phases: discovery, preparation
and dialogue.
Before you even begin to speak, you must consider your position
from every angle. Getting ready to present your ideas may take
weeks or months of planning, as you learn about your audience and
prepare your arguments.
Dialogue occurs both before and during the persuasion process.
You must invite people to discuss solutions, debate the merits
of your position, offer honest feedback and suggest alternatives.
To effectively
persuade, you must test and revise ideas to reflect your colleagues’ concerns and needs. Top
leaders listen to others, integrating their perspectives into
a shared solution. Success depends on being open-minded and willing
to incorporate compromises. When colleagues see that you’re
eager to hear their views and make changes that encompass their
needs and concerns, they respond positively. Simply put, they
trust you more. This is such a powerful dynamic that the best
persuaders often enter the process with judicious compromises
in mind.
Four Steps to Successful Persuasion
Leading through persuasion requires you to follow four essential
steps:
1. Establish credibility.
2. Understand your audience, framing your goals in a way that identifies
common ground.
3. Reinforce your positions with vivid language and compelling
evidence.
4. Connect emotionally with your audience.
To avoid failure, your strategy for persuasion must be as compelling
as your arguments.
The Importance of Credibility
Credibility develops from two sources: expertise and relationships.
You demonstrate trustworthiness and integrity when you have a solid
track record of sound judgment and prove to be knowledgeable about
your proposals.
To build trust, you must encourage
colleagues to explore ideas with you. Listen
carefully to their suggestions, and establish an environment
in which they know their opinions are valued. Prepare by collecting
data and information that both support and contradict your arguments—a step that sheds light on your position’s
strengths and weaknesses.
As for relationships, credible leaders
consistently demonstrate they will listen intently and work toward
everyone’s best
interests. They exhibit a strong
character and the utmost integrity by being honest, steady and
reliable. When relationships are genuine, leaders will more likely
enjoy the benefit of the doubt. Place others’ best interests first so you can validate that you
truly care about the team’s well-being.
Frame for Common Ground
Even with established credibility,
you still must appeal strongly to those you’re trying to
persuade. You must be adept at describing your positions in ways
that illuminate their advantages.
The primary goal is to identify tangible benefits to which your
targeted audience can relate. This requires multiple conversations,
meetings and dialogue to collect essential information by asking
thoughtful questions. This process will often prompt you to alter
your initial argument or include compromises.
Identify key decision makers, stakeholders
and the organization’s
network of influence. Who is supportive, unyielding or neutral?
Pinpoint their interests and how they view alternatives.
Provide Evidence
Once credibility and a frame for common ground are established,
persuasion comes down to presenting the evidence: strong data in
multiple forms (stories, graphs, images, metaphors and examples).
Make your position come alive by using vivid language that complements
graphics. People retain visual information and emotionally charged
stories.
In most cases, a rock-solid argument:
• Is logical and consistent with facts
and experience
• Favorably addresses your audience’s interests
• Eliminates or neutralizes competing alternatives
• Recognizes and deals with office politics
• Receives endorsements from objective, authoritative third parties
Connect Emotionally
Your connection to your audience must
demonstrate both intellectual and emotional commitment to your
position. Act too emotionally
and people may doubt your clear-headedness. Remain too reserved
and they’ll doubt your allegiance and
passion.
Successful persuaders also cultivate
an accurate sense of their audience’s emotional state, and they adjust their arguments’ tone
accordingly. This is called “emotional resonance,” and
proficient persuaders enjoy a definite advantage. Whatever your
position, you must match your emotional fervor to your audience’s
ability to receive your message.
In one study, the best persuaders canvassed
key individuals who had a good pulse on the overall audience’s
mood and emotional expectations. They actively gathered information
via informal conversations held in hallways or lunch areas.
No effort to persuade will succeed
without emotion, but showing too much is as unproductive as showing
too little. To overcome the obstacles,
you must match your emotions to your audience’s.
Virtual Teams
It’s even harder to persuade
when your relationships and connections are electronically based.
Without face-to-face meetings, you cannot gather critical nonverbal
cues that help you connect with others and build trust. If you
usually communicate by email, arrange frequent phone conferences
to interact on a more personal level. Virtual team members must
pay particular attention to achieving congruence. Although actual
meetings require travel expenses, they may be well worth the
cost.
You can use persuasion to pull people
together, move ideas forward, galvanize change and forge constructive
solutions. Mastering this skill
requires dedication and practice as part of an ongoing mission
to negotiate smoothly in lieu of “selling” your
ideas.
Four Ways to Fail at Persuasion
When trying to achieve their audience’s
buy-in, most leaders attempt to persuade through logic, persistence
and personal enthusiasm. In reality, this model is a setup for
failure. You will blunder when you:
| 1. |
Make your
case with a hard sell. You may be tempted to strongly state
your position at the outset, incorporating persistence, logic
and exuberance to force your ideas upon your audience. But
assailing colleagues with preconceived ideas from the get-go
gives potential opponents a clear target for battle. |
| 2. |
Resist compromise.
Too many leaders view compromise as surrender, but it is an
essential element in constructive persuasion. Before people
buy into your proposal, they want to see if you are flexible
enough to respond to their concerns. Compromises often lead
to more sustainable solutions. |
| 3. |
Think the secret of
persuasion lies in presenting great arguments. Great
arguments matter—no doubt about it. But your credibility—as
well as your ability to create a mutually beneficial framework,
connect on the right emotional level and communicate through
vivid language that makes arguments come alive—are equally
important. |
| 4. |
Assume persuasion is
a one-shot effort. Persuasion
is a process, not an event. It’s
rarely possible to arrive at a shared solution on the first
try. More often than not, persuasion involves listening to
people, testing a position, developing a new position that
reflects group input, testing yet again, incorporating compromises
and then trying once more. This may seem like an arduous process—and,
indeed, it is. But if you want to persuade and achieve lasting
results, it is most assuredly worth your time, energy and effort. |
Resources
Conger, J.A.
(May–June 1998) “The Necessary Art of
Persuasion.” Reprint 98304. Harvard Business Review. Boston
MA.
Conger, J.A.
(1998) Winning ’Em Over: A New Model for Management
in the Age of Persuasion. Simon & Schuster. New York NY.
Fisher, R. & Ury,
W. (1991) Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving
In. Second Ed. Penguin Books. New York NY.
Getting People On Board. (2005) The Results-Driven Manager Series.
Harvard Business School Press. Boston MA.
Power, Influence, and Persuasion: Sell
Your Ideas and Make Things Happen. (2005) Harvard Business Essentials.
Harvard Business School Press. Boston MA.
Working
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Dr. Maynard Brusman
Consulting Psychologist and Executive Coach
Trusted Advisor to Senior Leadership Teams
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