What I’ve Learned From The Art of Persuasion
I came across a brilliant journal discussing about persuasion. It was titled The Necessary Art of Persuasion by Jay A. Conger from Harvard Business Review.
What I’ve learned was wonderful, hopefully you can find this useful as well.
So when we are faced to present a proposal or discussing about a new project or any kinds of ideas that need to have your boss’s approval, often we are told to do the dilligent work in acquiring a vast amount of calculated and valid number of datas. But, often it always end up with a hard ‘No’ at the end of the day.
The reason why this happened is because we are lacking the due diligent of understanding our boss, this is a fundamental mistake we often make. The most important thing to get a ‘Yes’ is to study the decision maker inside-out first before going to crunch the numbers on your spreadsheets.
Persuasion is an art, it involves discovery, preparation, dialogue and time. Successful persuasion often takes weeks or months of planning as you learn about your audience and the position you intend to argue.
These are 4 steps of effective persuaders:
- Establish credibility
- Frame your goals to match with your audience’s goals.
- Reinvonce your positions using vivid language and compelling evidence.
- Connect emotionally with your audience, build trust.
Research strongly suggests that most managers are in the habit of overestimating their own credibility — often considerably.
A persuader should make a concerted effort to meet one-on-one with all the key people he or she plans to persuade.
In some situations, no shared advantages are readily apparent. In these cases, effective persuaders adjust their positions.
Numbers do not make an emotional impact, but stories and vivid language do. A persuader must match his or her emotional fervor to the audience’s ability to receive the message.
It’s important for people to understand persuasion for what it is — not convincing and selling but learning and negotiating. Furthermore, it must be seen as an art form that requires commitment and practice, especially as today’s business contingencies make persuasion more necessary than ever.
