Cartoonist Gary Larson once drew a man talking to his dog like the canine understood. The next frame was captioned "What the dog hears" and the bubble coming out of the man's mouth contained the words, "Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah."
Perhaps like me you have felt like the dog in this cartoon especially when someone has failed miserably to make a persuasive presentation to you. Or, more frighteningly, perhaps this is how others receive your well-intentioned verbal monologues.
Verbal communication is such an important part of business success and yet it is often done poorly. Whether or not you are in sales, you're probably selling an idea to an employee or a fellow team member, and that makes effective communication vital.
Persuasion: Past and present
It may come as a surprise, but those who are truly effective and persuasive speakers are using principles that were taught 2,400 years ago in ancient Greece. Greek philosophers Socrates, Plato and Aristiotle taught rhetoric, which is the art of persuasion. Their techniques are widely used today especially in film, advertising and TV news. Aristotle taught that an audience is persuaded by the speaker's character (ethos), by reasoning of their argument (logos) and by the speaker's passion (pathos). Or to put it another way, being persuasive is really about speaking from your heart, your head and your soul.
Author Alfred Korzybski wrote a book called Science and Sanity in which he introduced the terms "neuro-linguistics" and "neuro-semantics" which describes how language affects our physiology and psychology. Korzybski's work greatly influenced the founders of the Neuro Linguistic Programming, particularly his statement that "the map is not the territory".
"The map is not the territory" is a key principle in effective communication. It reminds us that each person responds to a piece of communication according to his or her own mental map. This brings us to the second principle that the meaning of communication is the response. When this principle is understood it creates a paradigm shift in the way we communicate. We'll then spend less energy thinking about we want to say and more on how our message will be received.
Persuasion 101
Language is a series of written or auditory symbols for thoughts and feelings. The language we use is a just a code for the rich internal movies we play in our mind. Think about the happiest moment in your life, like the first time you held your firstborn. Now think about trying to communicate exactly what was happening to make you happy and all the thoughts and feeling you were having. Even if you're the world's most renowned poet, you'll find that words are just insufficient to truly convey the experience. If we don't supply enough detail and yet detail is only half of the experience, the other half comes from our state of mind when going through the experience - that's the reason some speakers get misunderstood.
When communication is just a facsimile of the experience, we need to consider the level of detail and abstraction that we use so that our audience has enough data to re-construct the experience in their minds. Remember, too much detail bores audiences while too abstract ideas may put them into a trance. Consider the following:
Abstract corporate speak
"Of course we all agree that we need to increase our market share and to do that will require a paradigm shift in our thinking and communication, you all know what needs to be done, so let's get back in the trenches and win the battle."
This monologue may be highly inspirational (if you like a military metaphor) but it is so vague that it's rendered useless. The sentence starts with a mind read that the audience all ‘know' they need to increase market share. They may not ‘know' and what will be the result if they do? And what specifically is a paradigm shift in thinking and communication? It is unclearer where they were shifting from and where they are headed. Who is communicating what and to whom? How will we know if we are making the change? And what is it that needs to be done specifically? The sentence provided too many questions with too few answers.
A persuasive communicator need to have flexibility so they can communicate the detail yet paint the big picture when necessary.
Make it about them
With one to one communication, the strategy is to get the detail first by asking questions and then be persuasive by connecting your idea or product with what they value. For group persuasion you need to do your research. A good sales person uses this three-step technique.
1) Gather information about the requirements: When my wife and I moved to Singapore, the real estate agent was not using the first step and was showing us apartments that did not meet our needs, to save me valuable time I shared with her how to ask what I'm looking for, my criteria and budget. Later, the realtor was able to chunk down to the movie I was playing in my mind about the perfect apartment.
2) Chunk up the frame of mind: For example, here's another conversation between my real estate agent and I.
Andrew: "I want enough room to have a large home office with a door that closes."
Realtor: Repeats what I said and asks, "How is that important to you?"
Andrew: "It's important because I need to work from home and yet I need to be able to shut the work out when I'm done."
Realtor: "And, how is that important to you?"
Andrew: "Well that's important because I want to keep a good relationship with my wife."
In just two questions the realtor has two of my values which she can then use in step three to be persuasive.
3) Connect the audience's frame of mind with your idea or product: For example, my closing conversation with my realtor.
Realtor: "I've found an apartment that may just suit you. It has a fantastic office which will enable you to be really productive and build a harmonious relationship with your wife."
Now let's take this rather simple example and apply it to being persuasive with a group.
Group Persuasion
Step 1: Detail the problem
Step 2: Highlight the values of the audience
Step 3: Connect the audience values to your solution.
When planning your presentation organise it in this format and you will have the logos that Aristotle spoke about. When presenting you need to consider ethos and pathos. Ethos is your character; this may be tacit or explicit. Your position or rank may make what you say persuasive as we are conditioned to pay more attention to authority. If you are perceived to be of high integrity and truly concerned for the needs of your audience, it'll add weight to your influence.
Pathos or passion is the antidote to blah blah blah communication. We communicate with passion when the message means something to us and that meaning has got into our heart, it has become neuro-semantic. Sometimes I am asked, "How can I be passionate about delivering this routine report?" Well you can be passionate about doing the best job possible and highly value the system about which the report presents.
When we have passion it affects out nervous system and our non-verbal communication and tonality carrys the message and induces the audience to play a rich and full movie inside their head.
Andrew Bryant, director, Institute of Neuro-Semantics
Self Leadership International
www.selfleadership.com.au
Case Study: Orbis
Orbis is an Asia Pacific marketing management software company that recognised that although the company was using a strategic selling methodology, this tool needed his team to own the persuasion skills to implement it.
In order to address the issue, they took on soft-skills training and coaching on an ongoing basis with the objectives to win more customers and larger revenues, reduce sales cycles and improve communication effectiveness within the management team.
Using a similar persuasion model outlined in this article, a two-day intensive training programme was conducted. The focus was on building rapport, managing mind-body-state, precision questioning and values elicitation. Following the training, the team agreed to practice together for one hour per week, using the communication patterns taught at the workshop. The group practice was to be lead by each member of the team on a rotation basis. Half-day follow-up trainings were presented approximately monthly over the next 10 months and then quarterly. Key executives on the team received individual coaching on their communication and life skills.
The result of this training and coaching was an immediate improvement in rapport building with clients and the ability to quickly identify the client's values. Communication between team members improved and meetings became more productive, as the chief executive officer (CEO) and team members sought clarification when someone communicated in either too much detail or with too much abstraction.
"The past two years has seen our and sales and marketing people improve their communication skills dramatically. Working with Self Leadership, we have been able to focus on incremental knowledge and skill gains in areas that most make a difference. The results speak for themselves: we consistently are chosen to be the partner of the best customers (the most profitable customers) because we are able to elicit what the customers most value and align our solutions to this," said Grant Halloran, CEO, Orbis.
