Getting to why
Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA
President and CEO, Society of Physician Entrepreneurs, another lousy golfer, terrible cook, friction fixer
Persuasion and negotiation often gets a bad rap, like you are manipulating people. . Yet many businesspeople misunderstand persuasion, and more still underutilize it. The reason? Persuasion is widely perceived as a skill reserved for selling products and closing deals. It is also commonly seen as just another form of manipulation—devious and to be avoided.?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.?
The Greeks called it ethos, pathos and logos. Ethos is about establishing your authority to speak on the subject, logos is your?logical argument?for your point and pathos is your attempt to sway an audience emotionally.
However, the skill seems to be in demand, at least according to that gold standard of employment trends, Linkedin.
In their classic book on negotiation and persuasion, Fisher and Ury outline the steps to get to yes.
Separate the people from the problem
The purpose of this step is to recognise that emotions and egos can become entangled with the problem in negotiations, and that this will adversely affect your ability to see the other party's position clearly. This results in adversarial rather than cooperative interactions. This step involves:
Focus on interests, not positions
In this step there is exploration of the true interests underlying the positions of each side, rather than a focus on the superficial positions with which parties come to the table. The initial positions presented may obscure what the parties really want. It is therefore essential to:
Generate options for mutual gain
In this step time is for parties to set aside time together to generate alternative candidate solutions. The idea is that parties contribute together creatively to generate possibilities for?mutual gain?i.e. a?Win-Win?agreement. This step involves:
Insist on using objective criteria
The final step is to use mutually agreed and objective criteria for evaluating the candidate solutions. During this stage they encourage openness and surrender to principle not pressure. This step involves:
However, before you even get to that stage of trying to negotiate with people about how and whether to initiate a change initiative, the more important issue is how to get to why. Almost all change strategies follow the basic unfreeze-change-refreeze model. So, to get people to do something other than what they are doing now, you have to create a sense of urgency and give them good reasons why they need to change. like quitting smoking or innovating.
Here are Kotter's steps in leading change
In his book, “A Sense of Urgency” John Kotter explained that a true sense of urgency is rare; mainly because “it is not the natural state of affairs. It has to be created and recreated.” So the task of leading a team of people in a transformation at any level will often require an ability to create an atmosphere of urgency that can be embraced, and in turn bring about an atmosphere of achievement.
Kotter offered four fundamental tactics to establish a sense of urgency in any environment:
1. Bring the outside in
A “we know best” culture reduces urgency; so help people see external opportunities.
2. Behave with urgency every day
Managers and leaders need to walk the talk and lead by example.
3. Find opportunity in crises
A well leveraged crisis can be a valuable tool to break through complacency.
4. Deal with the NoNos
Other tactics include:
7. Show, don't tell, people who are being impacted and suffering the consequences of inaction and the status quo
?Reaching for the insight to see beyond the problem at hand is a different way of looking at problem solving. Rather than fighting tooth and nail to find the “correct” solution to the problem in front of you, sometimes it’s worth the risk of looking foolish to ask: Why are we even trying to solve this problem, anyway?
Whether you are raising money, trying to address social inequity or stop the spread of the Corona virus, you need to start with the why.
British Columbia’s provincial health officer, Dr. Bonnie Henry, has won praise for minimizing the impact of Covid-19 on the province. She notes,
For most change initiatives, be they corporate or social, the why should come before the what and the how. Sometimes, though, particularly if you have ever been stuck at an offsite retreat, getting to why can take a very long time.
Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA is the President and CEO of the Society of Physician Entrepreneurs and Co-editor of Digital Health Entrepreneurship