The five co-authors of Change Anything: An interview by Bob Morris

Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, David Maxfield, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler are assoviates in the VitalSmarts firm, “An innovator in corporate training and organizational performance, VitalSmarts helps teams and organizations achieve the results they care about most.” They have also collaborated on four business bestsellers: Crucial Conversations, Crucial Confrontations, Influencer, and most recently Change Anything.

Here are mini-bios:

Kerry Patterson is a co-founder of VitalSmarts who has co-authored three New York Times bestselling books as well as designed the company’s line of award-winning training programs. He received the prestigious 2004 BYU Marriott School of Management Dyer Award for outstanding contribution in organizational behavior. He also did his doctoral work in organizational behavior at Stanford University.

 

Joseph Grenny is an acclaimed keynote speaker, three-time New York Times bestselling author, and co-founder of VitalSmarts. A consultant to the Fortune 500, he has designed and implemented major corporate change initiatives on every major continent for the past 20 years.

 

 

David Maxfield is a leading researcher and frequent conference speaker on topics ranging from dialogue skills to performance improvement. The author of the immediate New York Times bestseller, Influencer he did doctoral work in psychology at Stanford University, where he studied personality theory and interpersonal-skill development.

 

 

Ron McMillan is a three-time New York Times bestselling author and a sought-after speaker and leadership consultant. As the co-founder of VitalSmarts, he has consulted with leaders ranging from first-level managers to corporate executives on topics such as leadership and team development.

 

 

Al Switzler is a renowned consultant and world-class speaker who has directed training and management initiatives with dozens of Fortune 500 companies worldwide. In addition to his consulting work, he co-founded VitalSmarts and authored three immediate New York Times bestselling books.

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Morris: Before discussing Change Anything, a few general questions. When and why did you and your co-founders start VitalSmarts?

Ron McMillan: My co-founders and I came together in 1990 – so we’ve been together over 20 years. Our mission at VitalSmarts is to increase humanity’s capacity to change for good. We believe that practical application of good social science can enable organizations to be substantially more effective at adding value to the world, can make workplaces more humane, and can empower individuals to achieve much more of what they want from life. That’s what VitalSmarts is trying to accomplish.

Morris: Please explain the process by which you began to collaborate on a series of four books. Also, how has the division of labor been determined?

Kerry Patterson: Like most authors, we didn’t start as authors. In our case, we initially formed a partnership aimed at delivering corporate consulting and training offerings.

After forming the team and developing our training products we finally decided to write a book. As you might guess, five authors offers the blessings of synergy and division of task, as well as the possible nightmare of not being able to agree on the content or create a common voice.

Here’s how we encourage the one and reduce the other. After we’ve studied and developed the content of our training products, we sit down and create a detailed writing outline for the upcoming book. We then assign out chapters, write them, pass them back and forth, give them an overall edit to ensure voice continuity, and send the first draft to our editors. We then make more changes, pass it around again, retouch for voice and continue this process until we decide the product is finished.

Morris: For those who have not yet read Change Anything, what is “the new science of personal success”? In which respects is it scientific?

David Maxfield: I lead our research team at VitalSmarts and the Change Anything Labs. We work with the very best of current social scientists – people like Albert Bandura, who was my advisor from Stanford, Dean Karlan at Yale, Toni Yancey at UCLA medical school, Brian Wansink from Cornell, and many others. Before writing Change Anything, we studied the change attempts of more than 5,000 people—focusing on those we label “Changers”. These Changers are individuals who once faced enormous personal challenges, but wrestled them to the ground and have remained successful for at least three years. From our study of the Changers and decades of social science research, we discovered willpower has very little to do with one’s ability to change. There are actually six sources of influence that shape our actions and those who develop strategies within all six sources are ten times more likely to change.

Morris: Were there any head-snapping revelations while completing research and then the manuscript? Please explain.

David Maxfield: People often talk about how long it takes to change. A head-snapping revelation we discovered is that “time” is not the variable that matters. Change is not about time; it’s about the number of influences working for or against you. Imagine you are on the losing side of a tug of war—if it’s just you and your willpower on one side and all six sources of influence lined up against you, then more time won’t help.

On the positive side, once you’ve taken the blinders off, seen the influences that are currently keeping you stuck, and brought all six sources of influence over to your side, then dramatic changes happen quickly.

Morris: What is the “Willpower Trap”? How best to avoid it or escape from it?

Al Switzler: The Willpower Trap is the false assumption that our ability to make good choices stems from nothing more than our willpower. As soon as our willpower runs thin, we shop trying to change altogether. We have a lot less control over our behavior than we think we do; however, we do have great control over the things that influence us. Successful changers spend less time trying to “gut it out” and more time wisely aligning the six sources of influence that control their behavior.

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To read the complete interview, please click here.

You are cordially invited to check out the resources at these websites:

VitalSmarts

http://www.vitalsmarts.com/

Joseph Grenny

http://www.josephgrenny.com/

David Maxfield

http://www.davidmaxfield.com/

Ron McMillan

http://www.ronmcmillan.net/

Al Switzler

http://www.alswitzler.com/

How to Change Bad Habits

Here’s an article written by Leslie Brokaw and featured online by MIT Sloan Management Review. To check out all the resources, sign up for free email alerts, and obtain subscription information, please click here.

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Want to change a bad habit that you have — or that your organization has developed?

In their new book Change Anything, authors Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, David Maxfield, Ron McMillan and Al Switzler, all affiliated with the consulting firm VitalSmarts, present research and insights about how to change bad personal habits.

One interesting point the authors make: Multiple “sources of influence” affect behavior. In turn, if you employ multiple ”sources of influence” when attempting to change behavior, you are more likely to be successful.

Readers of MIT Sloan Management Review may recognize this finding from an article called  “How to Have Influence,” which was written by Grenny and Maxfield, along with Andrew Shimberg, and published in the Fall 2008 issue of MIT Sloan Managment Review.

In that article, which won MIT SMR’s Richard Beckhard Memorial Prize, Grenny, Maxfield and Shimberg reported that executives who used a combination of four or more different influence strategies to try to change a “nagging organizational problem” were “10 times more likely to succeed than those who relied on a single source of influence” in their change attempts.

Here are the six sources of organizational influence that the authors identified in that article — in case you’re seeking to bring about change within your organization:

1. Linking to mission and values
2. Overinvesting in skill building
3. Harnessing peer pressure
4. Creating social support
5. Aligning rewards and ensuring accountability
6. Changing the environment.

To learn more about these six sources of influence within organizations, read “How to Have Influence.”  To learn more tips about changing personal bad habits, here’s more information about the book Change Anything.

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Leslie Brokaw is a contributing editor to MIT Sloan Management Review. She has been writing and editing for the publication and website since 2008. She served as editor-in-chief of Leader, a 1-million circulation publication for adult volunteers of Girl Scouts of the USA, from 2007 to 2009, and has written about business and the creative arts for The Boston Globe, Livestrong Quarterly and 360 (Merrill Lynch) in recent years. She started her business journalism career at Inc., where she was a writer for over 10 years and then editor-in-chief of Inc. Online. Leslie teaches graduate courses in magazine journalism at Emerson College and co-authors the annual guidebook Frommer’s Montréal & Québec City.

Most Valuable Business Insights: 16-20

After having read and reviewed so many business books, I now share brief comments about what I consider to be the 25 most valuable business insights and the books in which they are either introduced or (one man’s opinion) best explained. Here are 16-20.

16. PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT: First, determine which tasks are most important. Then, make performance expectations crystal clear to each of those whose performance will be measured.  Next, co-determine with them what the metrics for measurement will be. Third and finally, review measurement data after 45-60 days and revise (if necessary) (a) performance expectations and/or (b) the criteria by which performance is measured.

Best Sources:

Transforming Performance Measurement
Dean Spitzer

Analytics at Work
Thomas H. Davenport, Jeanne G. Harris, and Robert Morison

17. PERSUASION: This is the art and science of convincing another person or persons to agree with what they are asked to think, believe, or do. The basic requirements include eloquence, conviction, logic, and clarity as well as sufficient information to justify the given proposition or action. The most persuasive people respond effectively to a question that may only be implicit: “What’s in it for me?” One of the most effective persuasion strategies is to appeal to enlightened self-interest.

Best Sources:

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion
Robert B. Cialdini

Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High
Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, Al Switzler

18. POWER: This is probably one of the most difficult terms to define because it has both positive and negative connotations and can be experienced in so many different dimensions (i.e. mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual). As Thoreau, Ghandi, and then Martin Luther King, Jr. suggest, non-violent resistance can have great power; we also know what other forms of power can do in response to that resistance.

Best Sources:

Power: Why Some People Have It and Others Don’t
Jeffrey Pfeffer

The Elements of Power: Lessons on Leadership and Influence
Terry R. Bacon

19. PRODUCTIVITY: Get the most and best results from the least consumption resources (e.g. time, energy, materials). It is imperative to know what those desired results are, first. Otherwise, Peter Drucker’s observation applies: “There is surely nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency what should not be done at all.” Experts recommend that, in meetings and conversations, focus on discussion of what must be done, not on what to discuss.

Best Sources:

Mastering the Rockefeller Habits: What You Must Do to Increase the Value of Your Growing Firm
Verne Harnish

Now…Build a Great Business! 7 Ways to Maximize Your Profits in Any Market
Mark Thompson and Brian Tracy

20. SELLING usually requires these components: a seller, a buyer, and a product and/or service of some kind. The term is also used with regard to convincing people (getting their “buy-in”) such as during change initiatives or during a negotiation (“I’ll buy that”).  Whatever the situation, the challenge to anyone selling is to possess the right information (i.e. accurate, sufficient, relevant, and verifiable) and present it effectively (i.e. convincingly).

Best Sources:

SPIN Selling
Neil Rackham’s

Selling to the C-Suite: What Every Executive Wants You to Know About Successfully Selling to the Top
Nicholas-A.C.-Read and Stephen J. Bistritz

The Keys to Effective Change Management

Here is an excerpt from an article from the “Productivity@Work” series featured by Inc. magazine’s website. To read the complete article and check out other resources, please click here.

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Change is an ever-present component of business ownership.

The ability for business owners to effectively manage change lays the groundwork for growth and helps build the foundation for the development of a positive corporate culture. Unfortunately, the vast majority of business change initiatives fail—an estimated 80 percent to 85 percent, according to the authors of The New York Times best-selling book Influencer and the forthcoming Change Anything. The good news is, you can reverse those odds by focusing on a few key points in your own approach to change management.

The authors are the four cofounders of VitalSmarts, a corporate training and organizational performance consulting firm that developed a model honored by Sloan Management Review as the Change Management Approach of the Year in 2009. They claim, and their research backs it up, that companies that focus on four of six specific “influence sources” in combination increase their chances of corporate change success tenfold. The six sources of their Influencer model include:

1. Love what you hate (i.e., learn to disarm your impulses and make the right choices pleasurable).

2. Do what you can’t. Recognize the important role skills play in creating and managing change, then acquire the skills you lack.

3. Eliminate the bad habits and choices that undermine your change efforts and the people (accomplices) who abet your bad decisions.

4. Cultivate those who support your efforts to start and sustain good change habits (friends). “Eliminate a few accomplices, and add as few as two new friends to your influence strategy, and your odds of success increase as much as 40 percent,” says Joseph Grenny, cofounder and cochairman of VitalSmarts.

5. Invert the economy. “Reverse incentives by bribing yourself to change. It works,” Grenny says. “You can also reverse costs by raising the price of bad behavior.”

6. Control your space. Learn to use distance, cues, and tools in your favor to take control of your environment.

Matthew McCreight, managing partner at Schaffer Consulting, which specializes in the development and practice of organizational and cultural change, says the key to successful change management is building capacity and capability into the company’s culture and human resources. In 50 years of studying change in organizations, the firm has identified “immense hidden potential for better performance right now” in most of them, he says. “The challenge is how to tap into that resource, and how to get people growing and keep them growing.”

It is important to structure change management plans so they have short-term consequences, no matter how long-term the ultimate goal might be. “You almost have to reverse engineer it,” he says. “If your goal is to increase sales by a certain amount or cut production times by x percent 18 months from now, what do you have to accomplish by the three-month mark, by the six-month mark, etc., to get there?

The toughest thing is getting started. It’s your job as a leader of the organization to build a vision of the future, figure out how to tap the tremendous potential within your business, and then drive toward that vision.”

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Please click here for easy access to a collection of useful tools and articles compiled by Schaffer Consulting especially for Productivity@Work readers.

To learn more about change management best practices, visit the Prosci Change Management Learning Center. Once you register—it’s free of charge—you’ll find links to a wide range of change management articles, white papers, and tutorials, all available at no cost.

Most Valuable Business Insights: 6-10

After having read and reviewed so many business books, I now share brief comments about what I consider to be the 25 most valuable  business insights and the books in which they are either introduced or (one man’s opinion) best explained. Here are second five:

6. Customer Evangelism: Satisfaction is determined per transaction; loyalty is determined by sustainable satisfaction; zealotry occurs only when customers say “Yes!” to this question posed by Fred Reicheld: “Would you strongly recommend us to a friend, neighbor, or colleague?”

Best Sources: Fred Reichheld’s The Ultimate Question: Driving Good Profits and True Growth and Creating Customer Evangelists: How Loyal Customers Become a Volunteer Sales Force co-authored by Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba.

7. EDNA: This is an acronym I devised long ago when I began to teach English at Kent School in Connecticut.

Exposition (i.e. expose, reveal, open up, reveal) explains with information.
Description makes vivid with compelling images.
Narration explains a sequence and/or tells a story
Argumentation convinces with logic and/or evidence

Effective communication relies on mastery of one or more of these four.

Best Sources: Robert B. Cialdini’s Influence: Science and Practice (5th Edition) and Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High co-authored by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler

8. Employee Engagement: Recent research indicates that, on average, less than 30% of a workforce in the U.S. is actively and positively engaged. The others are either passively engaged (i.e. mailing it in) or actively disengaged (subversive and toxic). Increase active and positive engagement by (a) convincing workers that they and what they do are appreciated, (b) making crystal clear what expectations of them are and how their performance will be measured, (c) earning and sustaining their trust and respect by setting an with what you say (both verbally and non-verbally) and with what you do.

Best Sources: Freedom, Inc.: Free Your Employees and Let Them Lead Your Business to Higher Productivity, Profits, and Growth co-authored by Brian M. Carney and Isaac Getz, Simon Sinek’s Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action, Edward M. Hallowell’s Shine: Using Brain Science to Get the Best from Your People, and The Why of Work: How Great Leaders Build Abundant Organizations That Win co-authored by Dave Ulrich and Wendy Ulrich.

9. Innovation: In essence, innovation achieves improvement of what already exists and that could include almost anything (e.g. an idea, assumption, theory and strategy as well as a product, process, or behavior). Almost anything can be improved and almost anyone can do that by embracing that challenge and pursuing that opportunity.

Best Sources: Tom Kelley’s The Idea of Innovation and The Ten Faces of Innovation (both co-authored with Jonathan Littman) as well as Steve Johnson’s Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation and Henry Chesbrough’s Open Innovation: The New Imperative for Creating and Profiting from Technology

10. Lean: The concept of “less is more” can be dated back at least to ancient Greece. In a business context, its core concept is elimination of whatever is wasteful such as a production process that consumes too much time and effort as well as raw materials, one that results in omissions, duplications, redundancies, and flaws. Albert Einstein probably said it best: “Make everything as simple as possible…but no simpler.”

Best Sources: James Womack’s Lean Thinking: Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Corporation, Revised and Updated and Lean Solutions: How Companies and Customers Can Create Value and Wealth Together, both co-authored with Daniel T. Jones

Note: You may also wish to check out Most Valuable Business Insights: 1-5.

Suggested readings for leadership development in 2011

Awaiting you....

Randy Mayeux has already shared his choices and all are eminently worthy, to which I presume to add a few others.

Please keep in mind that this list is (as are Randy and I) a work in progress.

The Right Values
True North by Bill George and Peter Sims

MY ADDITIONS:
The Executive’s Compass by James O’Toole
The Highest Goal by Michael Ray
The Heart Aroused by David Whyte

The Right Strategy
The Opposable Mind by Roger L. Martin
Mastering the Rockefeller Habits by Verne Harnish

MY ADDITIONS:
The Art of War by Sun Tzu
Unstoppable by Chris Zook
Enterprise Architecture as Strategy by Jeanne Ross, Peter Weill, and David Robertson

Effective Leadership
Fierce Leadership by Susan Scott
Encouraging the Heart by James Kouzes and Barry Posner

MY ADDITIONS:
Maestro by Roger Nierenberg
True North by Bill George and Peter Sims

Effective Communication
Words that Work by Frank Luntz
Made to Stick by Chip Heath and Dan Heath

MY ADDITIONS:
Influence by Robert Cialdini
The Back of the Napkin and Unfolding the Napkin by Dan Roam
Crucial Conversations by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler

Functional & Effective Teamwork
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni

MY ADDITIONS:
Organizing Genius by Warren Bennis and Patricia Ward Biederman
Collaboration by Morten Hansen
Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin

Cultivating Creativity and Innovation
The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp
Where Good Ideas Come From by Steven Johnson

MY ADDITIONS:
Freedom, Inc. by Brian M. Carney and Isaac Getz
The Idea of Innovation and The Ten Faces of Innovation by Thomas Kelley
Six Thinking Hats by Edward De Bono
Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind by Guy Claxton

Successful Execution
Execution by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan

MY ADDITIONS:
Reality Check by Guy Kawasaki
The Other Side of Innovation by Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble
Open Innovation and Open Business Models by Henry Chesbrough

Plus two additional categories:

Leadership Development

MY RECOMMENDATIONS:
Handbook of Leadership Theory and Practice co-edited by Nitin Nohria and Rakesh Khurana
The Talent Masters by Bill Conaty and Ram Charan
The Center for Creative Leadership Handbook of Leadership Development co-edited by Ellen Van Velsor, Cynthia D. McCauley, and Marian N. Ruderman
Extraordinary Leadership co-edited by Kerry Bunker, Douglas T. Hall, and Kathy E. Kram

Employee Engagement & Talent Management

MY RECOMMENDATIONS:
A Sense of Urgency and Buy-In by John Kotter
The Art of Engagement by Jim Haudan
Engaging the Hearts and Minds of All Your Employees by Lee J. Colan
Growing Great Employees by Erika Andersen

Q #174: On which workers should a formal mentoring program primarily concentrate?

In this series, Bob Morris poses a key question and then responds to it with material from one or more of the business books he has reviewed for Amazon and Borders.

First, a distinction must be made between a formal mentoring program in which someone is assigned (or retained) to work with one or more associates and an informal mentoring program that involves on-the-job assistance. Formal mentoring has specific objectives, scheduled interaction, and evaluation; informal mentoring can occur anywhere, anytime, for whatever reason, on an as-needed basis.

The Pareto Principle (i.e. “80-20”) seems to have almost unlimited applications in the business world. In most organizations, approximately 20% of the workers receive about 80% of their supervisors’ attention. Most of the issues involve unsatisfactory performance and/or poor attitude and/or inappropriate behavior. One result is that other workers who are conscientious and productive often feel neglected, resent it, and usually leave for a position elsewhere. Given that, several experts believe that that the primary focus of a formal mentoring program should be on them, on high-performance, high-potential people.

Of course, everything begins with recruiting, interviewing, and hiring. Organizations could avoid many (most) “people problems” if they were to hire only those with impeccable character, compatible values, natural talent, and relevant experience. If there are position-specific skills that need be strengthened, provide training. When looking for people to hire, here’s Warren Buffett’s advice: “You look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence, and energy. And if you don’t have the first, the other two will kill you.”

Key Points

1. Understand the differences between formal and informal mentoring.

2. Hire only those who possess impeccable character, compatible values, natural talent, and relevant experience.

3. Use formal mentoring to “grow” high-performance, high-potential workers.

4. Meanwhile, encourage and support informal learning at all levels and in all areas throughout the organization.This will also help to identify candidates for formal mentoring.

Suggested Readings:

Growing Great Employees: Turning Ordinary People into Extraordinary Performers
Erika Anderson

What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful
Marshall Goldsmith with Mark Reiter

Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High
Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler

Comments, questions, requests, or suggestions? Please share them. They will be most welcome and I thank you for them. Best regards, Bob

Q #151: What is “win-win feedback” and how best to provide it?

In this series, Bob Morris poses a key question and then responds to it with material from one or more of the business books he has reviewed for Amazon and Borders.

Presumably supervisors have specific expectations re the performance of each person for whom they are responsible. And presumably each of those persons also has expectations that include but are not limited to performance in their current situation. In my opinion, here are the key points to keep in mind:

1. Ken Blanchard characterizes feedback as being “the breakfast food of champions” and I agree. It should always be honest and based on fact, not opinion, offered as praise that is deserved or criticism that is constructive. It should also be conveyed within a continuous, two-way flow of information. Feedback is “win-win” when it is of substantial benefit both to the provider and the recipient.

2. That said, it is essential to exchange Indeed, between and among individuals, indeed throughout an entire organization, trust is the “glue” that sustains relationships. Without mutual trust and respect, communication is (at best) minimal and tentative. Feedback is “win-win” when provider and the recipient trust and respect each other, even when – and especially when — if they do not agree.

3. In fact, feedback can be “win-win-win”: of substantial to the provider, to the recipient, and to the organization of which they are a part. That is the assumption of 360º feedback programs: supervisors and their direct-reports evaluate each other to determine which attitude and behavior adjustments are needed to improve performance of both individuals and of groups. Leaders whom Jean Lipman-Blumen characterizes as “toxic” discourage and even punish dissent whereas the most effective leaders welcome it.

Recommended Readings:

Transparency: How Leaders Create a Culture of Candor
Warren Bennis, Daniel Goleman, James O’Toole, and Patricia Ward Biederman

The Allure of Toxic Leaders: Why We Follow Destructive Bosses and Corrupt Politicians–and How We Can Survive Them
Jean Lipman-Blumen

Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High
Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler

For contrarian, counterintuitive opinions about feedback check out:

Management Rewired: Why Feedback Doesn’t Work and Other Surprising Lessons from the Latest Brain Science
Charles S. Jacobs

Comments, questions, requests, or suggestions? Please share them. They will be most welcome and I thank you for them. Best regards, Bob

Q #143: What are the benefits of “creative confrontation”?

In this series, Bob Morris poses a key question and then responds to it with material from one or more of the business books he has reviewed for Amazon and Borders.

There can be several significant benefits if (huge IF) it occurs within what is generally described as a “culture of candor,” one in which principled dissent is strongly encouraged, those involved share mutual respect and trust (especially when engaged in disagreement), and the ultimate objective is to solve an especially important problem, answer an especially important question, achieve an especially important objective, etc.

Here are three of the most significant benefits of “creative confrontation”:

1. It clears the air. It allows those who disagree to “clear the air” by exchanging information, explaining different points of view, supporting different initiatives, and in other ways sustaining a transparent dialogue. In a “culture of candor,” hidden agendas, latent hostilities, and misconceptions as well as “politicians,” back-stabbers, and malcontents have (in the immortal words of Martha Reeves and the Vandellas) “Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.”

2. The results are better than they otherwise would be. More often than not, the discussion (if viewed as collaboration) requires those involved to use what Roger Martin calls integrative thinking, “the predisposition and the capacity to hold two [or more] diametrically opposed ideas” in his head and then “without panicking or simply settling for one alternative or the other,” was able to “produce a synthesis that is superior to either opposing idea.”

3. It nourishes a sense of community. It supports a core value that reasonable people can agree to disagree. Those involved in the healthiest organizations constantly use first-person PLURAL pronouns. They appreciate how much can be accomplished if no one cares about who gets the credit. As with Alexander Dumas pere’s Three Musketeers, their motto is “Unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno”: “One for all, all for one!”

Recommended Readings

The Opposable Mind: How Successful Leaders Win Through Integrative Thinking
Roger L. Martin

Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High
Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler

Transparency: How Leaders Create a Culture of Candor
Warren Bennis, Daniel Goleman, James O’Toole, and Patricia Ward Biederman

Comments, questions, requests, or suggestions? Please share them. They will be most welcome and I thank you for them. Best regards, Bob

Q #122: How to become more persuasive?

In this series, Bob Morris poses a key question and then responds to it with material from one or more of the business books he has reviewed for Amazon and Borders.

There are several outstanding books in which their authors provide a wealth of different perspectives, comments, and suggestions. However, they all agree that unless you are trusted and respected, you won’t be able to convince anyone of anything. Credibility is the foundation of persuasion. That said, here are brief excerpts from two of the eight articles in the Harvard Business Review on the Persuasive Leader:

From The Necessary Art of Persuasion: “Effective persuasion involves four distinct and essential steps. First, effective persuaders establish credibility. Second, they frame their goals in a way that identifies common ground with those they intend to persuade. Third, they reinforce their positions using vivid language and compelling evidence. And fourth, they connect emotionally with their audience. As one of the most effective executives in our research commented, `The most valuable lesson I’ve learned about persuasion over the years is that there’s just as much strategy in how you present your position as in the position itself. In fact, I’d say the strategy of presentation is the more critical.’” Jay A. Conger

From Change the Way You Persuade: “Charismatics (25% of all the executives we interviewed) are easily enthralled by new ideas. They can absorb large amounts of information rapidly, and they tend to process the world visually…Thinkers (11%) are the most difficult decision makers to understand and consequently the toughest to persuade…Skeptics (19%) are highly suspicious of every single data point, especially any information that challenges their world view…Followers (36%) make decisions on how they’ve made similar choices in the past or on how other trusted executives have made them…Controllers (9%) abhor uncertainty and ambiguity, and they will focus on the pure facts and analytics of an argument. They are both constrained and driven by their own fears and insecurities. To be sure, decision making is a complicated, multifaceted process that researchers may never fully unpick. That said, we strongly believe that executives tend to make important decisions in predictable ways. And knowing their preferences fir hearing or seeing types of information at specific stages in their decision-making process can substantially improve your ability to tip the outcome your way.” Gary A. Williams and Robert B. Miller

I also highly recommend Robert B. Cialdini’s Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, two books co-authored by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler (Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High and Crucial Confrontations: Tools for talking about broken promises, violated expectations, and bad behavior), and Marshall Goldsmith’s What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful.

Comments, questions, requests, or suggestions? Please share them. They will be most welcome and I thank you for them. Best regards, Bob