Creating "we-ness" to get results

I write a lot about the intersection of persuasion and procurement, and I’m going to explore the concept of “we-ness” that provides a useful illustration.

For the avoidance of doubt, don’t get this confused with part of your anatomy – the “weenus”. It's a term I’ve only recently come across; slang for that flappy bit of skin at the joint of one’s elbow (which is known formally as olecranal skin. Who knew, eh?)

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Note: may contain traces of humour.

One of Dr Robert Cialdini’s principles of influence is unity. It’s incredibly powerful.

The point of this article is to get you to think how you could use unity and we-ness for your benefit.

Simply described, it’s the blurring of the boundaries between “self” and “others”.

People tend to say “yes” to people who belong to the same group or community, people who are of us.

So how could you use this principle in a business context?

One component of creating a sense of unity is through the process of co-creation. This means jointly working with your customer, supplier, stakeholder or whomever, to solve a problem.

Let me give you a Procurement example.

Back when I was buying machinery, like many Procurement practitioners my primary KPI was P&L cost savings (I’m not going to debate the rights and wrongs of this here, but any enlightened Procurement pro will certainly have a view!)

At the time, I had a boss who was small-in-stature but huge-in-power, where at every monthly one-to-one meeting, I was always expecting to be fired! Not that he ever explicitly threatened me – it was just the subtext that I’d created in my mind.

You might know this kind of boss – they don’t need to say anything to get you quaking or even to get your body to involuntarily tremble, too. They’re masters of intimidating body language and other non-verbals.

Back to the example. Some of you may know that savings on the price of Capex machinery primarily benefits the balance sheet and not the profit and loss account (P&L). It's a finance thing.

So, to generate the kind of P&L savings to hit my KPI, and keep myself in employment, was going to be a little tricky to say the least.

Added to that, the supply market was heavily consolidated with just 2 suppliers occupying the category, capacity was tight, and the machinery price was “as per list”.

Relying on facts, data and cold logic wasn’t going to deliver the results I needed. Persuasion skills were required.

If I could get the suppliers to think in the context of a shared problem, I might have a chance of finding a creative solution.

Harnessing the principle of unity, and using the co-creation approach, I met with my long-term suppliers, with whom I’d cultivated the relationship , and explained “our” problem. I wanted them to have some skin in the game (probably a bit more skin than a weenus!)

“The company has an enormous cost reduction target to achieve because it wants to reinvest the savings into the growth of a new business division.

?As long-term partners and collaborators, what solutions can we think of to contribute to our mutual success?”

The results were as surprising as they were my salvation.

The total machinery acquisition cost has two components:

1.?????? The machinery price (impacting the balance sheet and cash flow)

2.?????? Ancillary items such as spare parts, maintenance and training (which are operational expense, therefore impacting the P&L)

The suppliers came up with an idea. They got busy working on cost reduction on these ancillary items. Savings on which would benefit the P&L!!?

They fully bought into the principle of unity, delivering the savings that both parties needed for mutual prosperity, spectacularly.

Over to you. Think about how you can harness this principle of unity and “we-ness” in your business.

• Do you have the right relationships with your important customers or suppliers, or your team – are they collaborators rather than entities with whom you simply have a transaction?
• Do you try to foster trust and share information with them?
• Do you seek their views on how you could work together to solve your challenges?
• What could you jointly achieve for both parties if the conditions were right?

I'd be delighted to hear your views.

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