Asking the Right Questions II

Leading questions and Rhetorical questions are also tools to activate audience self persuasion.

Leading questions influence how your listeners interpret facts and what they remember.  They help plant specific information in your listeners' minds.  For instance, suppose you're conducting a market study in which participants are viewing photos of a new product.  You want them to notice and remember a particular feature of the product--for example, a special instant-replay button.  If you ask, "How do you like the instant-replay button? rather than "Do you see an instant-replay button?"  your participants will be far more likely to remember the button after the study.

Rhetorical questions enable you to give the answer after asking the question.  These kinds of questions help push the listener into accepting a clearly defined proposition.  Thus it's best to use them as you're summarizing your presentation or argument.

Suppose you're seeking to persuade your subordinates to adopt a new way of processing orders.  They've used the existing process for a long time, and some are skeptical about the proposed change.  You present your case, and then you say something like "We all know that order-processing errors have increased in the last two quarters.  how else will we eliminate them if we don't overhaul the way we process orders?"

ACTION POINT:  Use leading and rhetorical questions to activate audience self persuasion triggers.

Asking the Right Questions

By asking questions, you control the content, pace, tone, and direction of the persuasion situation. 

Persuaders also use questions to engage audiences in a dialogue about their proposals.  In fact, questioning counts among persuaders' most effective tools.  Why?  many people enjoy answering questions.  Having someone care about what they think makes them feel important.   But the urge to answer questions also springs from the fear that others will look down on them if they avoid or can't answer a question.  By asking questions, you control the content, pace, tone, and direction of the persuasion situation.  You also determine which issues do--and don't--get discussed.

What kinds of questions best activate a listener's self-persuasion mechanism?  There are several types you can employ:

Disturbing questions get at the heart of your listeners' greatest concerns or problems.  for example, suppose you're selling a parcel-tracking software system to a courier firm that's experiencing problems with lost and delayed parcels.  You might ask your potential customer questions such as these:

"How much unproductive time does your staff spend locating lost parcels?"

"What effect is this problem having on your reputation with your clients?"

"Could this problem slow down your proposed expansion into new markets?"

These queries increase the magnitude of the lost-parcel problem in ;the customer's mind.  They make the solution you're proposing more attractive and make the listener more willing to pay a premium to solve the problem. 

ACTION POINT:  Use disturbing questions to get at the heart of your listeners greatest concerns.

Using Visualization

Persuaders help audiences visualize the potential benefits of their proposals.

Persuaders help audiences visualize the potential benefits of their proposals.  For example, researcher posing as salespeople went door-to-door "selling" cable TV subscriptions.  Some potential customers received a straight pitch stressing cable TV benefits.  

Others were invited to image how cable TV would provide them with broader entertainment. The results? Among people who received the straight pitch, only 19.5 percent signed up.  Among those who imagined using the service, a whopping 47.4 percent decided to subscribe to cable TV.

ACTION POINT: Encourage your listeners to imagine the results of the ideas you are presenting.

Activating Audience Self Persuasion

What is audience self-persuasion?

In mastering the art and science of persuasion, you have a wide range of strategies at your disposal..  These include establishing your credibility, understanding your audience, and capturing listeners' minds and hearts-- as well as overcoming resistance and activating persuasion triggers.  But there's another even more powerful technique: audience self-persuasion.

What is audience self-persuasion?  It's a process in which you actively involve listeners in discovering the logic of your argument--in effect, getting them to persuade themselves. Persuaders use the following three techniques to transform listeners from passive recipients of a pitch to active participants in a dialogue:

Visualization

Questioning

Active listening

ACTION POINT: Use the strategies above as well as visualization, questioning and active listening to master the art and science of persuasion.  

Persuasion Triggers - Commitment and Consistency, Authority and Scarcity

Commitment and Consistency. People are more likely to embrace a proposal if they've made a voluntary, public, and written commitment to doing so. For example, 92 percent of residents of an apartment complex who signed a petition supporting a new recreation center later donated money to the cause.

To activate the commitment and consistency trigger, make others' commitments voluntary, public, and documented. Suppose for instance, that you want to persuade an employee to submit reports on time. To inspire this behavior, make a link between the commitment and the person's values (mention its benefits for team spirit). Get that understanding in writing (a memo). And make the commitment public (mention your colleagues agreement with the memo).

Authority. Many people are trained form childhood to automatically obey the requests of authority figures such as parent, doctors, and police. Authority comes from a combination of a position and its associated credentials. For example, your authority as a manager in a drug company will be enhanced if you possess medical as well as business qualifications.

Appropriate clothes or other trappings of authority can also increase the chances of successful persuasion. A businessperson who "power dresses" for an important presentation improves the odds that the pitch will be successful.

To activate the authority trigger, make sure that the people you want to persuade are aware of the source of your authority. Also leverage appropriate clothing and other trappings of authority.

Scarcity. When something is in scarce supply--such as information, opportunities, and resources--people value it more. For instance, in one experiment, wholesale beef buyers were told that they were the only ones who had received information on a possible beef shortage. The orders jumped 600 percent.

To activate the scarcity trigger, use exclusive information to persuade. For example, capture key decision makers' attention by saying something like, "I just got this information today. It won't be distributed until next week."

Be sure that the information is truly exclusive; otherwise it could hinder your credibility.

ACTION POINT: Recognize when to use commitment, authority or scarcity to assist in persuading others.

Persuasion Triggers - Reciprocity, Social Proof

...the rule is to give before you ask

Reciprocity. People feel a deep urge to repay favors in kind. This drive to reciprocate exists in all societies. For instance when, when fund-raisers enclose a small, seemingly insignificant gift in an envelope to potential donors, the volume of donations increases markedly.

To active the reciprocity trigger, the rule is to give before you ask. A small favor such as lending a fellow manager one of your staff members for a few days might be repaid fivefold when you later ask for that manager's support on an important project. In considering what to give, look for solutions that meet other individuals' interests and needs as well as your own.

Social proof. Individuals are more likely to follow another person's lead if what they are advocating is popular, standard practice, or part of a trend. A person who dresses or speaks much differently from her immediate colleagues or who comes from a markedly different culture usually starts with a persuasion handicap.

How do you activate the social proof trigger? Remember the power of association: make a connection (yourself, your company, or your product) to individuals and organizations your audience admires. Use peer power to influence horizontally, and not vertically. For instance, if you're trying to convince a group of resistant people of the merits of anew project, ask a respected company colleague who supports the initiative to speak up for it in a team meeting. you'll stand a better chance of persuading your colleagues with this person's testimony.

ACTION POINT: Give before you receive and recognize when to use the power of peers as persuasion triggers.

Persuasion Triggers - Contrast, Liking

"Flattery will get you anywhere" - Jane Russell

Contrast. Judgment is always relative. So when people make decisions, they often look for a benchmark to base their decisions on. For instance, suppose the first candidate you interview for a marketing manager position seems far too expensive when she asks for a starting salary of $89,000. Her request starts to look much more reasonable when you contrast her against the only other suitable candidate, who wants $110,000.

To activate the contrast trigger, start by creating a benchmark to anchor the judgments of the person you need to persuade. many salespeople do this by first showing you the most expensive item in a product line. This makes a mid priced item seem that much more affordable.

Liking. Human beings tend to accept the ideas of people they like. Liking, in turn arises when people fee liked by another person and when they share something in common with him. For example, at direct sales engagements (where products are sold by a company representative in a person's home), invited guests (usually friends and neighbors of the host) buy more if they have a fondness for their host and feel that they share a bond with him.

How might you activate the liking trigger? Create bonds with peers, supervisors, and subordinates by informally discovering common interests--whether it's a shared Alma mater, a passion for white-water rafting, or a love of cooking. Demonstrate your liking for others by expressing genuine compliments and making positive statements about their ideas, solutions, abilities, and qualities.

ACTION POINT: Use contrast and an appreciation of others as persuasion triggers.

Understanding and Using Persuasion Triggers

"The advantage of emotions is that they can lead us astray."  Oscar Wilde

People respond to persuasion in two ways: consciously and unconsciously. If someone's in a conscious mode, he might respond thoughtfully to a proposal, weighing its pros and cons and attending carefully to the logic and content of the message.

In an ideal world, everyone would make decisions in this way.  But in reality, many people don't have the time, information, or motivation to do so.  Therefore, they switch their decision making to an unconscious mode, and this means that they spend less time processing information.  They make decisions based more on instinct than on reason.  And they resort to persuasion triggers, or mental shortcuts, to decide how to respond to a proposal.

For example, Joe, a manager, might choose to accept a deal offered by Sue, a supplier's representative, instead of an idea offered by Bob--even though Sue's proposal is inferior to Bob's.  Why? Joe likes Sue, and she once did him a favor.

You can further erode any resistance to your ideas by using persuasion triggers strategically. 

Researchers have identified seven persuasion triggers:

1. Contrast

2. Liking

3. Reciprocity

4. Social proof

5. Commitment and consistency

6. Authority

7. Scarcity

ACTION POINT: Learn the seven persuasion triggers to erode resistance to your ideas.

Acknowledging Resisters' Viewpoints

When possible, show how you've incorporated resisters' ideas, interests, values, and concerns into your solution.

If you suspect ahead of time that you'll encounter resistance from listeners., prepare a two-sided argument: theirs and yours.  During your presentation, acknowledge your resisters' arguments first.  You'll disarm these individuals by removing the opportunity for them to oppose you. Deprived of this opportunity, they'll be more open to discuss and may want to participate in solving the problem at hand.

Next, present your argument, clearly showing how it provides a more powerful solution than your opponents' argument does.  When possible, show how you've incorporated resisters' ideas, interests, values, and concerns into your solution.

ACTION POINT: Understand where resistance may come from and prepare for it.

Aligning Your Verbal and Nonverbal Messages

Check that your body language, tone of voice, and other aspects of nonverbal communication reinforce the spoken part of your message.

The following techniques can help:

Paraphrase: Mirror the resister’s points. For example, “So you’re saying that you think I’m just advancing the party line. Is that right?’ Paraphrasing prompts you listener to respond with comments such as, “Well, yeah—I do.” By getting the person to agree with you—even in this small way—you establish common ground, which can make the individual more receptive to your ideas.

Clarify the issues: Identify the resister’s primary concerns. For instance, “So what I hear you saying is that you have two main problems with my proposal. The first one you mentioned is probably the most important, right?’ Again you’ve established a level of understanding and agreement. You’ve also shown that you’re capable of sorting out the vital issues.

Check that your body language, tone of voice, and other aspects of nonverbal communication reinforce the spoke part of your message. If they don’t, you resisters may view you as not credible or as conflicted about your position—two things that can stiffen their resistance.

For example, to telegraph confidence in your position, check that your posture is upright, your gestures, assertive, your gaze direct, and your voice loud enough to be heard—but not so loud as to intimidate or annoy listeners.

Many successful persuaders rehears nonverbal behaviors just as much as spoke presentations. Effective persuaders also recognize when they are becoming overly emotional or angry—two behaviors that are inappropriate in many persuasion situations. They recover by openly acknowledging and apologizing for such behaviors. Having the courage to publicly admit a mistake in this way can help further establish trust and credibility.

ACTION POINT: Reinforce the verbal techniques of paraphrasing and clarifying the issues with the appropriate body language.

Understanding Resisters’ Emotions and Listening to Their Concerns

“The golden Rule of Persuasion—listen to others as you would have them listen to you.” --Harry Mills

Most resistance springs from two emotions:

Fear: Your audience doesn’t like your idea because of its potential consequences. For instance, listeners may worry that a proposed restructuring will cost them their jobs.

Distrust: Your audience doesn’t like you or what you represent. For example, perhaps that R&D manager tends to view marketers as “artsy” and shortsighted.

By understanding the emotions driving resistance, you can take the next steps in addressing listeners’ fears (for example, how likely is it that the restructuring will end in lost jobs?) or addressing their objections to you as a person so as to improve the relationship.

One powerful way to improve relationships is to build trust by listening closely to resisters’ concerns. By listening, you demonstrate that you understand and value these individuals as well as their concerns and ideas. When people feel that they’ve been heard and that their ideas are valued, they become more open to considering your ideas.

ACTION POINT: Overcome fear and distrust by listening intently.

Identifying Resisters’ Interests

Don’t make your audience members guess your message.

Each person’s unique life experiences shape her views of the world and influence how she responds to other’s ideas. If you encounter resistance after presenting a proposal, avoid the temptation to keep pressing your case. Instead, think about what may be driving the person to disagree with you. Then adapt your response accordingly.

For example, suppose you want funding to conduct a study on the merits of entering a new market. The head of research and development opposes your plan. She is concerned that entering a new market might direct company resources away from a project she wants to pursue. In this case, you might want to address her fears in your presentation, providing information on how entering a promising new market may generate more revenues for the company, which could in turn fund a boarder range of new projects for the R&D group.

ACTION POINT: Draw conclusions for your listeners. Don’t make your audience members guess your message. Help them arrive at the conclusions you want them to arrive at.

Overcoming resistance from Listeners

Resistance can stem from several sources.

You’ve taken steps to win your audience’s minds and hearts—and yet you’re still encountering resistance from some listeners. What’s going on? The fact is that even the most carefully thought out and emotionally appealing proposal can meet with resistance. For any number of reasons, one or more of your listeners have made up their minds, and you simply can’t sway them.

Resistance can stem from several sources. One listener may have committed to s strong position that diametrically opposes yours. Another may disagree with your idea on technical grounds. Yet another may resist for philosophical reasons; for example, he believes that commercial development should be minimized in favor of preserving park lands.

Resistance also takes many different forms—from head shaking to silent disagreement to outright verbal attacks—none of which translates into action supporting your plan. How do you move resisters to your point of view? The key lies in understanding their positions and then presenting the benefits of your idea to them in terms of what they value. The following can help:

Identify resister’s interests.
Understand resister’s emotions.
Listen to resisters’ concerns
Ensure consistent verbal and nonverbal messages.
Present resister’s viewpoints before your own.

ACTION POINT: Use the five points above to identify and overcome resistance.

Broken Washroom Doors

Every business has its 'broken washroom doors; its misdirections, its policies, procedures and methods that emphasize and reward wrong behavior, penalize or inhibit right behavior."

There are a number of things a manager can do to minimize mishaps, bad policies, unsound methods, and habits that inhibit poor performance:

Make sure your best people are placed where they can make the greatest contributions. Put strength on strength.

Write down your priorities, but no more than two, and make sure that your people are also focused on the right priorities. Drucker asserted he never knew a manager who could handle more than two priorities at a time.

Maintain an outside-in perspective by ensuring that all mangers spend time with customers in the marketplace, the only place results exist.

Review systems, processes, and policies and abandon any that add to bureaucracy and diminish productivity.

Review compensations systems to make sure you are rewarding outcomes that can actually move the needle.

ACTION POINT: Pay attention to your people, priorities, customers perspective, policies, and processes to prevent broken washroom doors.

Broken Washroom Doors

Every business has its 'broken washroom doors; its misdirections, its policies, procedures and methods that emphasize and reward wrong behavior, penalize or inhibit right behavior."

There are a number of things a manager can do to minimize mishaps, bad policies, unsound methods, and habits that inhibit poor performance:

Make sure your best people are placed where they can make the greatest contributions. Put strength on strength.

Write down your priorities, but no more than two, and make sure that your people are also focused on the right priorities. Drucker asserted he never knew a manager who could handle more than two priorities at a time.

Maintain an outside-in perspective by ensuring that all mangers spend time with customers in the marketplace, the only place results exist.

Review systems, processes, and policies and abandon any that add to bureaucracy and diminish productivity.

Review compensations systems to make sure you are rewarding outcomes that can actually move the needle.

ACTION POINT: Pay attention to your people, priorities, customers perspective, policies, and processes to prevent broken washroom doors.

Making Apt Analogies

Analogies also help people understand and therefore accept a new idea.

Analogies—comparisons between certain characteristics of things that otherwise are unalike—enable you to relate a new idea to one that’s already familiar to your audience. Analogies engender feelings of familiarity, which many people find reassuring. Analogies also help people understand and therefore accept a new idea.

Incongruous analogies and those that use humor are even more memorable. For example, when Benjamin Franklin once said, "Fish and visitors start to smell in three days," he delivered a vivid message of why people tire of visitors who outstay their welcome.

ACTION POINT: Use analogies to leave memorable impressions on your audience

Leveraging the Power of Metaphor

People reveal their organizing metaphors through the language they use when speaking about the issue at hand.


A metaphor is an imaginative way of describing something as something else—for example, "Time is money." Organizing metaphors are overarching worldviews that shape a person’s everyday actions—for instance, "Business is war."


People reveal their organizing metaphors through the language they use when speaking about the issue at hand. For example, a manager who sees business as war might say things like, "We can’t concede ground," "We’re being outflanked," or "We have to defend market share."


To change someone’s organizing metaphor, follow these steps:


Identify a compelling replacement metaphor—for example, "Business is partnership." This metaphor focuses a business’s efforts on building win-win relationships with key stakeholders rather than on defeating competitors.


Highlight the weaknesses of your audience’s worldview using their metaphor. For example, "By focusing on competitors instead of customer support, we’ve allowed our customer satisfaction levels to fall."


Provide examples of other companies that have achieved success using your replacement metaphor, as in "Company X’s sales have increased 18 percent since the company appointed account managers to collaborate with the sales team."


ACTION POINT: Replacing someone’s organizing metaphor is never easy; people cling tightly to their worldviews. But by providing powerful evidence of the flaws in an existing metaphor and the veracity of the new one, you can persuade others to at least consider a different outlook.

Tools for Capturing your Audiences Heart

Four tools can help you appeal to your listener’s feelings: vivid descriptions, metaphors, analogies, and stories.


In the most successful persuasive situations, people first accept the presenters’ proposal unconsciously, based on their emotional response. Then they justify their decision based on a logical assessment of the facts.


Four tools can help you appeal to your listener’s feelings: vivid descriptions, metaphors, analogies, and stories.

Vivid descriptions—words that paint evocative images in people’s minds—deeply tap in to listener’s emotions. For example, suppose you want to persuade your supervisor to approve a new policy that will enable some employees to telecommute several days each week. You anticipate that our supervisor will worry that telecommuting may reduce worker productivity.


To persuade him otherwise, you vividly describe team members working diligently from their home offices, free of the many distractions that crop up in the office on a typical workday. You contrast that picture with one of employees being frequently interrupted by well-meaning coworkers who stop by to chat. As you paint these images in your supervisors’ mind, he begins experiencing two emotions: a desire for a more focused, industrious staff, and an aversion to the disruptive reality you’ve described He agrees to consider telecommuting as a viable alternative.

ACTION POINT: Use vivid descriptions to paint evocative images in your audiences
minds.

Capturing Your Audiences Heart

Emotion tends to prompt behavioral changes more quickly than logical appeals do.

The most logical argument won’t persuade people unless you’ve also connected with them on an emotional level. In fact, emotions play an even more powerful role in human decision making than facts, numbers, and rational assessment of a proposal’s benefits. Why? Here are several reasons:

Emotionally evocative presentations—such as gripping stories—are more interesting and memorable than statistics and facts.

Emotion tends to prompt behavioral changes more quickly than logical appeals do. Responding emotionally requires less effort on the part of listeners than logically weighing the pros and cons of a presentation.

Emotionally arousing arguments distract people from noticing the speaker’s intention to persuade.

ACTION POINT: Use emotion to convey your message.

Concentration

Concentration is necessary precisely because the executive faces so many tasks clamoring to be done.

If there is any “secret” of effectiveness, it is concentration. Effective executives do first things first and they do one thing at a time. There are always more important contributions to be made than there is time available to make them.

The more an executive focuses on upward contribution, the more will the person require fairly big continuous chunks of time. The more he or she switches from being busy to achieving results, the more will the person shift to sustained efforts. Similarly, the more an executive works at making strengths productive, the more will the executive become conscious of the need to concentrate the human strengths available on major opportunities. This is the only way to get results.

This is the “secret” of those people” who “do so many things” and apparently so many difficult things. The do only one at a time. As a result, they need much less time in the end than the rest of us. The people who get nothing done often work a great deal harder.

Effective executives do not race. They set an easy pace but keep going steadily. Effective executives know that they have to get many things done. Therefore, they concentrate on doing one thing at a time, and on doing first things first.

Concentration—that is, the courage to impose on time and events his or her own decision as to what really matters and comes first—is the executive’s only hope of becoming the master of time and events instead of their whipping boy.

ACTION POINT: Concentrate on one thing at a time and move deliberately, not frantically through your priorities.

Choosing the Right Words

As much as possible, avoid abstract, ambiguous, and wordy language.

The words you select can strongly determine whether your listeners consider your proposal. Whenever possible—and only when appropriate to your audience—sprinkle attention-grabbing words, such as easy, free, guaranteed, proven, and results, throughout your persuasion communication. Most of these are borrowed form sales, and, despite their heavy use, they’re an effective, tried-and-true tactic.

Vary your speaking pace to suit your purpose. Speaking fast helps you excite and energize your audience, whereas a slow pace creates a mood of anticipation. For most of your presentation, the best pace is slow enough for listeners to follow but quick enough to sustain their interest.

Use concrete language that is clear and to the point. As much as possible, avoid abstract, ambiguous, and wordy language. For example, it is more effective to say, “Sales dropped 10 percent this year” than to say, “At certain points in the year, sales numbers were up, then they were down, causing an overall negative impact on forecasted numbers.”

ACTION POINT: Choose the right words and use the appropriate pace and language to persuade your audience.

Steps for Defining a Unique Value Proposition

Why should your audience accept your proposal and not others’?

Brainstorm your proposition’s benefits.
Think about all the possible benefits of your proposition. Ask yourself what your audience would gain and what it would avoid losing by accepting your proposition. Research suggests that the fear of loss is a more powerful motivator than the prospect of gain

Prioritize the benefits based on your audience’s interests.
Review your responses to step 1. Of the benefits you’ve identified, which do you think your audience values most? Prioritize audience member’s interests based on what you know about them—your understanding of their current problems, concerns, and values.

Gather evidence showing that the high-priority benefits are real.
Collect compelling testimonials from credible sources showing that the benefits that matter the most to your audience members are within their reach if they accept your proposition. In addition, gather examples, statistics, and graphical representations that speak to the benefits of your proposition.

Decide what makes your proposal unique
Compare your idea against potential alternative propositions. Ask yourself what’s different, unusual, and superior about your idea. Why should your audience accept your proposal and not others’?

ACTION POINT: Be ready to explain in succinct, compelling terms what makes your proposal better than others.