Posts

How to Make the Two Primary Roles of Persuasion Work for You

in

To understand what persuasion can do for you and your career, you must understand the two fundamental roles of persuasion. 

The first involves getting someone to say “yes” to your offer or request — to buy your product, agree to your idea or take you up on your suggestion. Persuasion helps you get someone to willingly do something. You may want that person to:

  • Approve a higher headcount: “Will you sign off on my four new field sales positions?”
  • Enter into a business relationship: “Do we have a deal?”
  • Support your initiative: Will you back my proposal at the board meeting?”

The second role of persuasion — and one that many people overlook — is getting someone to not
do something, to dissuade them from taking action you feel might be harmful, such as using a particular supplier or launching a particular product. For example:   

  • Do not go ahead with a new business partnership: “That firm is just bouncing back from bankruptcy; do you think we should partner with it?”
  • Discontinue, or at least rethink, an existing initiative: “Our East Coast teams aren’t seeing much client interest.”
  • Change a decision, or at least continue due diligence: “Do you truly think he is the right person for the job? If we keep looking, we might be able to find a better fit.”

Law enforcement officers in some cities use the power of dissuasion very effectively. When bicycle thefts are widespread, for example, they employ a special task force to use GPS-tagged bait bikes to catch would-be thieves, which forces small-time criminals to ask themselves one significant question before they steal: Is this a bait bike? 

If you’re going to thrive in the eat-or-be-eaten contemporary workplace, you must be able to effectively use both roles. Doing so will provide you with a competitive advantage, because your competitors are more than likely not focusing on their own persuasion skills.

But you are.

Out-of-Office Dissuasion in Action: Please Don’t Leave a Message

in

I’m encountering an increasing number of auto-respond emails from intended recipients who are out of the office, claiming they will delete all emails sent to them while on vacation. This approach employs a warning system and is a less-than-subtle effort to persuade senders to hold that email until later — or maybe even reconsider whether the message needs to be sent in the first place.

It’s also an effective, if unconventional and arguably offensive, way to let people know you don’t want to be bothered. Which makes it a perfect example of dissuasion — the act or process of trying to persuade someone not to take a particular course of action.

I once worked with a woman who would leave out-of-office messages that sounded like an emergency drill had been activated: “This is a voicemail alert! This is a voicemail alert! I am out of the office and will not be returning calls or answering email until I return on August 1. This has been a voicemail alert.”

Let’s just say the first time you hear that it gets your attention.

Again, unconventional and arguably obnoxious. But it sure was effective at dissuading callers from leaving a message.

A third approach to out-of-office dissuasion is to be brutally honest with whoever deigns to call you when you’re not available: “Hey, this is Kim. If I don’t call you back, you’re the reason I screen my calls.”

Will you bother to be bothered this week?