Management Communication

Class 7

Positive Influence (Part 2)

Agenda
Creating a powerful argument: the role of logic
Influencing through powerful story telling Role of body language in effective persuasion: insights from corporate theatre (Ms. Sol Abyad) Principles underlying positive influence Feed-forward exercise on positive influence (if we have time)

Conger: The Necessary Art of Persuasion'

Conger: The Necessary Art of Persuasion'

Four Essential Steps:
1. Establish credibility (expertise and relationship) 2. Find common ground with those you intend to persuade - know your audience - identify shared benefits 3. Reinforce your position using vivid language (e.g. analogies, powerful vocabulary, contrast) and compelling evidence

4. Connect emotionally with your audience - match your emotional appeal to what your audience is feeling

Cialdini: Harnessing the Science of Persuasion'

Persuasion is governed by 6 basic principles:

Cialdini: Harnessing the Science of Persuasion'

Persuasion is governed by 6 basic principles:
1. Liking: people like those who like them (use similarities and praise) 2. Reciprocity: people repay in kind (give gift or display behavior that you want to elicit) 3. Social evidence: people follow the lead of similar others 4. Consistency: people will stick to their commitments if these are public and voluntary 5. Authority: people defer to experts (yourself or bring an expert) 6. Scarcity: people want more of what is limited

Williams and Miller: Change the Way you Persuade

Tannen: The Power of Talk

Williams and Miller: Change the Way you Persuade

Adapt your persuasion to the audience (decision maker)

Tannen: The Power of Talk

- Analyze your linguistic style - Analyze your response to the social dynamics of language (do you respond to power dynamic or the rapport dynamic)? - Analyze your conversation rituals

Feed forward exercise

Take a few minutes to make a prioritized list of 5 to 10 principles of effective influencing. What principles are important to you individually?

 Take 20 minutes, in groups (country report teams): By consensus make a list of 5 to 10 principles of effective persuasion.

 Take a few minutes to evaluate yourself against your individual list of principles of effective influencing. - How did you do in terms of persuading others? - Did you apply the principles that are important to you to influence the team?

 Take a few minutes with a partner to discuss your performance in the teams in terms of influencing. - Explain to him/her if you were able to influence the team to include your selected principles in the team list? - What did you say to influence others? - What do you wish you had done?
What is your take-away from your own self-analysis? Identify one thing that you want to get better at.

 Take 15 minutes to collect advice: feed forward - each person selects one thing they want to get better at when they influence others (the outcome of your self-analysis) - take 15 minutes to interview as many people as possible to get their advice on how you can improve on your selected item - find a partner, briefly state the one thing you want to work on, and ask for advice what you can do; ask for concrete, specific, useable advice; thank the partner and invite him/her to share the one thing he/she wants to work on; then offer advice It is not a dialogue or discussion it is collecting advice - go and find another partner and repeat the process
Make a personal action plan for yourself: what is the one thing you will work on and how. Make a smart improvement plan.

 Share your personal plan with us in class. We will evaluate it against the measurable and observable criteria.

Optional exercise due no later than in class 8

Practice by persuading someone to do something they were initially resistant to (instructor, colleague, wife, husband, friend, classmate, mother-in-law)
Write up a short summary of your persuasion effort (max. 1 double-spaced page) referring to the principles listed in the required readings. For example, I persuaded my wife to spend Christmas vacations at my parents house - explain who you persuaded and about what - explain the background (why was the person resistant to your idea?) - explain how you did it - state clearly what persuasion principles/classmate advice you used to persuade Hand in a paper copy of your write up to me no later than last class