Lessons

Lesson Info

Influencing

We want to have impact, we want to be the person, we want to have really have more influence and be more effective in our influencing. 'Cause we really want to, even if it's just we want someone to feel warmer and more passionate in their career, that's a form of influencing. I think that that's gonna really make you more successful and more fulfilled. I would like to influence you to be warmer and more passionate and driven in your career. That's a great thing to influence people on right. But some people you have the best intentions, but you don't quite have access to, it doesn't resonate. So what is it going to take? So we're gonna do a little game to kick off okay. And I'll let you do this from your seats so it's a little less, a little less intense. We're gonna have you influence the group on something without any training. How would you influence us okay? So the idea is you wanna influence us to reschedule a regular meeting. There's a regular meeting that's happening weekly at a ...

certain time, a certain day. And you're trying to influence the owner of that meeting to change the time and day ongoing for some reason. To benefit you, probably 'cause for some reason it can be better. It's a bit of an improv or play 'cause it's not necessarily real for you. But think about, you can use anything in your mind, or anything in your tool belt to influence us, right. You can make something up. Convince us, try to make it so we can't say no. And you can kind of be outrageous, whatever it is, it's totally fine, okay. So I want one of you to be first in influencing us, and we'll see if we're convinced or not. Who's willing to give that a shot? I'm the owner talk to me, okay Adriano talk to us. So I can't participate I have a conflict in schedule, but I think that the meeting is super valuable and I like to be in the meeting. So I was wondering if we can try to find a different time that I can, works for everyone and I can keep going. Cool. So what were some things that he used to influence us? Did you notice? What was his approach or his tactic? He made it known that it was important to him to be there. Yes. I think he valued to be at the meeting. Yes. That yes. He like, I'm with you on this, this is really important. He's really likable wasn't he? Yes very likable. He was so kind and open, collaborative, let's work together, smile on his face. It was like, if it's good cop bad cop, that was good cop. Maybe bad cop's coming later we don't know, but he started with good cop right? Right. Great. Would someone else be willing to try it a different way? Their own way? Yes. So there's like a meeting like end of Friday then I would be like, hey this is time where people are thinking about like happy hours, and they just are not focused enough, and maybe it's like something that's benefiting me because I might want to leave early on a Friday. So I be like, hey you know people are not as focused, can we move this on a Thursday? Great so what is the tactic there? She's telling us, people won't be as focused on Friday. We shouldn't do it now, we should do it another day, maybe like a Thursday. What is she using you think? Deflecting the needs. She's kind of using like social proof. Like hey other people, it's a whole group thing right. And maybe a little bit of data. People aren't as focused. That's like a, even if it's a flimsy fact, it's like a fact she's trying to introduce right? Cool. So we saw two different approaches to influencing. There's different ways to do it. So what we want to do is think about, there's different ways to influence. We have sort of the push side and the pull side. So I would say, Suma you were more on the push side, and Adriano you were more on the pull side, okay. So push side is we state expectations, and as we move towards pull it's a convince with logic, it's a little bit more pull. And negotiate, win win. Trying to find a win win which is kind of what you did right you were looking like how can we do this together. And all the way on pull is painting a verbal picture. Neither of you went all the way to kind of like that verbal picture kind of vision place. But that's the full side. So what's different about these? Well stating expectations takes less time. You can see how fast hers was right. She just get right to it. It was like let me convince you here's my sell okay. It's more around compliance. And it's a little less flexible. It's sort of like this isn't gonna work out Friday, let's do it on Thursday or maybe another day. And she's less open, she already gave us an option, right. 'Cause Adriano was a little bit more, what could we do? He didn't even propose a solution yet right. That takes a little more time, it's maybe has a little bit more commitment built in from the other person more buy in. And maybe it's a little more flexible, right. So you want to think about in different situations, when do we want to be one versus the other? When do we want to connect more versus when do we want to really sell and convince people 'kay. So here's some tips on influencing. Be likable. Oh my god if I could give you one tip, don't be afraid to be super likable. People like to help people they're friends with. People are friends with people they like. People like or are friends with people who make them feel good or feel like are like them, okay. So being likable is actually a super power, and it shows that also you care and are paying attention. It doesn't mean giving up who you are, it just means trying to be the most likable version of yourself with that person given the situation. Adriano I was like kind of in on, I was like alright I wanna help this guy, so likable. Use people's names, state their name. People they say and how to win friends and influencing people. The favorite sound for any person in any language is the sound of the own name being said to them. And it's really true. Cory, Cory, Cory, I love it. We all love it, so don't be afraid to use that. Now this is really important, tailor your message to what they care about to them. Come up with your key, like top three keys. So if you were trying to convince me, do you know that I care that people aren't focused? Maybe you do, maybe you know that like what we're doing on Friday is like, I really want people to pay attention, and know exactly what's happening in the company so you can trigger me by saying, people aren't gonna really be listening fully. And I'd be like, oh really, when do we change it. But if I didn't care about that you might care more about attendance, I want maximum attendance. So you'd use that as your example, right. Your key point. What do they care about? Are they facts and numbers driven? Are they more relational driven? Do they care about efficiency, productivity, quality? What do they care about? Rule of three, have three things you want your audience to remember to take away after you talk to them, 'kay ahead of time. And spend time to connect on a personal level. Don't just launch right in, have that time where you really are synced up and then get into that. It doesn't have to be long, it could be like two sentences. How are you doing, how are you feeling? I can see like your haircut, whatever it is. Make the person feel like you see that they're a person over there. Not like an obstacle to an outcome you want, right? So leave time for that piece. Okay so now that's sort of like mindsets or approaches of influencing. Now here's some hardcore, or excuse me I should say some concrete tools of persuasion. One is reciprocation. If you offer someone something, they'll want to offer you something back. So if you can offer something first, someone might want to give you that same thing back. If it's understanding or flexibility, or whatever it is, give them something and they'll want to give it back. Second one is social proof. You kind of gave us light social proof. You could go even harder. I was talking to the directors of, the three leaders of the different departments, and they agree that their team has been giving them that feedback. So it's not just coming from me, it's coming from all these people, right. Or you could even say you know, our competitor's company has theirs on Thursday, right. Someone else outside is showing you that it works so they do it that way. So you rely on something outside of yourself. Commitment, if I've said in the past something, I'm gonna want to be consistent if I can. So if you know I've said, hey I want as much attendance, as much focus as possible in these meetings. I was in that meeting and I would just bang the table. Then you could spit that right back to me. Well I know we're focused on most attendance and most focus right. Then I'm gonna be like, you know what, I do think that's a good idea 'cause I said it before. So that's really a powerful one. So record every conversation that you're in. Just kidding. Authority. Is there an expert that you can rely on. If you're the expert can you lean into your expertise? And if you're not the expert is there an expert that you can bring in in some sort of form whether they're sharing their opinion as well, or you're sourcing it online or whatever it is. Someone of authority or expertise that agrees with you. Super powerful, this is why if you're a defense attorney you bring in your own blood expert, right. You don't rely on the other blood expert, I got my own. You're gonna believe him because he's an expert. She's an expert. The last is scarcity, it was a limited time offer, it's gonna end, we're gonna run out. Anything that is gonna end, or framed in a negative. Human beings are tuned to be more sensitive to what they're going to lose than what they're going to gain, okay. So if you can show them what they're gonna lose by not doing it your way, they might be more sensitive to want to do it. We're risk adverse. Going back to risk, one of our key values we talked about today. Okay, so with that in mind, I want you to think about an approach or a tool of persuasion you really want to use, and I want to hear a few more short ones. Influence us to change the meeting using some of the skills we just did. It would be really great if we could move the meeting since you guys are on the East coast and we're on the West coast. Because when we have to leave the floor to take that call it's during the best business that we get and our highest traffic volume hours. So if we can move that, even if it's an hour, even if it's a day, we'd greatly appreciate it on the West coast. Wow, super likable, super kind. She used some serious data there, right. And she probably guessing that I care about productivity and making money right? You hit me right where it hurt. Oh that's where we make the most money. Okay let's change it. I'll convince you, I'll be the last one, okay. So let's look at the one I want to use. So I'd really like if we can, I'd be like hi Adriano, thanks for taking the meeting, really appreciate it, how are you doing today? Very good, thank you. Good, thanks. Yeah man, so I just wanted to call the meeting so we can talk about the time of the all hands meeting that we have. You know, I've been hearing a lot from the other senior leaders in the product department, engineering, and in sales that their team's are really struggling to attend, and they'd really like to be there. And they really enjoy the content that you're putting together. You guys are spending a lot of time, and they're just having a hard time being there, and people are feeling like they're not as connected to the company. And there are things that we talk about and then they disappear we don't talk about them again. So if people are missing it, they're kind of getting disconnected from what's really important happening right now. So I want to just like start by saying, you know I think we can, my idea is we can find a time that works better for everyone and I wanted to really rely on you to maybe, 'cause you spend so much time thinking about this, there might be another time that you have that you'd suggest. So I wanted to just turn it over to you to say what do you think we might be able to do about this? Yeah we'll change it. Ah yes boom! So you can see I used some social proof, right. I used some likability, I used some scarcity there. Maybe even a little bit of authority, like other senior leaders right, cool.