How Tina influenced Tom
One of the topics that I’m often asked to support on in my coaching is how to influence people. It is a key leadership skill. The sort of situation commonly shared is where you need to sell your strategy to a person/organisation. Or where you need to influence someone to get behind a particular decision.
This example of how Tina influenced Tom is a brilliant one to learn from.
The challenge
Tina’s organisation have been developing their new strategy. It has been clear from quite early on in the process that the strategy is likely to involve a departure from their existing approach. And that it will have a significant impact on some of their stakeholders. Tom is the CEO of one of their key partners. Before the new strategy is finalised, and launched, it’s really important that Tina ensures that Tom and his organisation are fully behind it. Whilst she has been engaging with Tom throughout the process, Tina knows that she hasn’t yet fully sold the new approach to him. She’s got a meeting with Tom coming up next week, and wants to use this opportunity to get Tom over the line, and fully supporting the strategy. So in her prep, what does Tina need to be focusing on?
No. 1. Credibility
When trying to influence someone, you have to get that person to believe in what you are saying. This means that you have to establish your credibility. You might think that it’s obvious, but time up front highlighting why people should be listening to you, and your organisation, is key.
No. 2 Appealing to Reason
People make decisions using a combination of their rational and emotional brains. The rational brain is the one that wants stats, facts, evidence, and overall enough information to enable someone to agree with you at a rational level. They can really see your point, and see that it is backed up.
No. 3 Appealing to Emotion
The emotional brain is hugely powerful. Can you find the hook that is going to make me care? That hones in on a solution for me and my organisation. Can you describe this in a way that is going to make me understand the benefits in a powerful and visceral way? Can you use a story that really relates to my world? Can you use a visual image, or a metaphor or analogy, that’s going to enable me to really feel what you want me to feel. Can you convince me that there is a herd over there, and that if I don’t join, I will be missing out?
No. 4 Simple, Concrete, Tangible
Numbers 2 and 3 are best fulfilled with information that is simple, tangible and concrete.
What are the core concepts you want me to walk away with? Can you explain them in a simple way that will resonate with me? What concrete examples can you give me so that I have something tangible I can hold onto to help me understand?
So what did Tina do?
First of all, Tina spent some time distilling the new strategy down into very simple language. Language that was clear, and that she felt would resonate with Tom.
She then spent some time trying to imagine herself in Tom’s shoes. What did his day look like? What pressures did he face? What were his priorities? What were his key pain points? She spent time asking questions of people who she thought would be able to shed some light on this. She used this thinking and insight to decide upon the hook that she was going to deploy. In this instance, Tom’s key challenge was around ensuring repeat customers, so Tina decided to focus her messaging around this. She decided to use words like ‘sticky’ and phrases like ‘shaping the path’ as she felt they would really resonate.
Fortunately Tina had built in some extra prep time the day before, and this gave her the opportunity to actually create a one page visual that really demonstrated to Tom, in a tangible way, how her organisation’s new strategy was going to impact on Tom’s organisation and his customers.
She also stuck a post-it on the notepad that she was going to take into the meeting that said: WAIT. Why. Am. I. Talking. This had always served as a useful reminder to Tina that in these situations it’s really important to listen more than talk, and to make sure that much of her talking involved asking questions.
And the result: she nailed it!
For more on this or any aspect of leadership, with a healthy dose of mindset, sport, and I hope usefulness thrown in, do feel free to browse through all the articles in the Huddle, or get in touch with me directly on catherine@sportandbeyond.co.uk
For further reading on this topic in particular, two books that I would highly recommend are: Made to Stick by Dan and Chip Heath; and Influence, the Psychology of Persuasion by Robert B Cialdini. This piece from HBR is also a useful (and short) read https://hbr.org/2019/07/the-art-of-persuasion-hasnt-changed-in-2000-years