November 30, 2007
Why is it that some of the best ideas are never considered and idiotic concepts that we know will fail are? How did AT&T decide to focus on the picture phone and sell off the rights to the cellular telephone? Research clearly showed that the number-one reason people placed a phone call instead of showing up in person was speed and convenience. The number-two reason was they did not want to be face-to-face with the person they were calling. If you are at home on the phone in your underwear, do you really want people to see you? (OK, some of you do, and you know who you are, but let’s move on.) Why did it take so long to get squeeze-bottle ketchup? Squeeze-bottle mustard was on the market 20 years earlier! Were there really people who believed that ketchup in a glass bottle was sacred and could never sink to the lows of seemingly misguided mustard?
The issue is that some of us are just much better at getting people to agree with us than others. It’s why it took so long for people to wear seat belts and yet pet rocks sold instantly. We interviewed some of the most persuasive people in the Wynn Solutions top-performers research pool and found some interesting information about getting people to see things your way regardless of how ineffective your ideas may be:
- Find out what people value most before you start talking. People are much more likely to listen to your ideas if you can prove you know what’s important to them first (agreeing that it’s important will also help a lot).
- Make sure your ideas are clear. It does not matter how smart you are if no one knows what you’re talking about. You may need to have your top expert teach their concepts to your top presenter. A lot of great ideas are not considered because people don’t want to admit they don’t get it.
- Make sure you can explain the basic value in about 20 seconds. People buy into what they can understand quickly. “The longer it takes you to explain value, the more people think you don’t have any.” Show how it will make the person(s) you are talking with look good personally. What’s in it for them?
- Show the similarities first and differences second. The main reason people don’t want to change is that nobody wants to be a “senior beginner.” When things change, people are afraid their expertise will have less value-they may not be as important to the organization as they used to be. Show how the new way is similar to the old way first, and then the new way feels more valuable.
Our research showed that ideas have to be more than great. They have to get supported by humans as they make their way toward implementation. Some pretty weak agendas get moved forward because they are presented 10 times better than an agenda that was …well … 10 times better.
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change, Communication, Marketing, sales | Tagged: business ideas, communicating ideas, effective presentations, gaining agreement, getting people to listen, influencing people, Marketing, negotiation skills, persuasion, selling ideas to companies | 
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Posted by Ginger Dailey Wynn
November 29, 2007
I know that listening is important but it can be very difficult when you don’t care about what the other person is talking about. We want to care; we have compassion for people and their problems (OK, some of us do practice pathological leadership) but something about what they are saying is losing us at about 5 seconds in. Sometimes it’s the topic: when my wife talks about Yoga I just stop caring. I saw her in front of the TV doing a headstand while wearing a neck brace. Could Yoga be the problem and not the solution? Sometimes we don’t have the time for a low priority issue right before that important conference call. But every now and then it’s the person who is talking. Some people are just boring! Its not their fault I guess; maybe the were raised by boring parents in a boring environment. Our research at Wynn Solutions shows that making sure people feel heard is the foundation of trust. But what I have noticed over the years and what we now teach our clients, is that if you focus on how someone feels (happy, mad, glad, sad or freaked out) while you are listening to them (not just what they say) you are able to hang in their with the people that would normally send you to snoozeville. Also, you retain much more information (regardless of your poor listening skills) and believe it or not, you start to care more about what they are saying. It’s amazing and I highly recommend you try it.
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2 Comments | Customer Service, Success Qualities, Leadership, sales, Communication, management | Tagged: Customer Service, Leadership, leadership skills, listening skills, communication skills, yoga, learning to listen, boring people, making people feel important, developing trust, client relations | Permalink
Posted by Ginger Dailey Wynn
November 20, 2007
With all the information out their on leadership/management, I think it’s interesting that we still keep asking ourselves “How do I get my people to actually think”. Knowing “it” and doing “it” seem to have very little in common these days. You can teach people what to do, but is it possible to teach them how to make good decisions? Our interviews with leaders around the world (no, it’s not just an American problem) indicate that we either have a bumper-crop of idiots taking over the globe or we have forgotten how to set effective examples. I think we get so busy and focused on doing more with less (I personally would prefer to do less with much more) that we forget to show our people how to think strategically, anticipate problems, prepare for change and prioritize. If you have the skills you want your people to possess make sure they see you using them. It’s more than leadership by example. It’s setting the pace and explaining your thinking along the way. However, if you totally suck at the skills your people need to have, you need a talented person to do it for you. You often hear “you don’t need superstars, you just need team players (that’s advice from people who may have lacked talent themselves)”. Get yourself some superstars and the rest of the team will get a lot better, fight their way to the middle or quit. A team full of people who don’t think well on their feet will often stumble (we did not need any research to come up with that one).
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Leave a Comment » | change, Leadership, management | Tagged: change management, employee change, hiring talent, Leadership, leadership skills, management, management skills, organizational change, strategic thinking, teaching employees to think, team buiding | Permalink
Posted by Ginger Dailey Wynn
