I was invited to lead a half day workshop for marketers and lawyers at LawNet recently on this topic. We covered a lot of ground – some of which I have written about in previous blogs (see links below), particularly the 7P buy in model and toolbox.
However, there were a couple of strands that were of particular interest in this session (effective communication and the psychology of persuasion) – primarily as it provided a framework around which to “hang” many of the other ideas:
How are we persuaded? (Zimbardo):
- Who (the communicator)
- What (the message)
- Whom (the audience)
- Effect (the desired outcome)
The six characteristics of effective communication (Heath):
- Simple, brief, profound
- Unexpected, surprising
- Concrete, real experiences
- Credible, trustworthy
- Emotional – feel as well as think
- Tell a story
Conformity
Both informational (where there is uncertainty) and normative (where we want to make a good impression) conformity were discussed as well as the importance of in-group bias and social identity theory in the context of a law practice.
Recommended reading
There were a number of references provided for further reading although my personal favourite, and the one strongly recommend as it’s written by a psychologist, is “Influence – the psychology of persuasion” by Robert B Cialdini. His six strategies have served me very well over the years. Although John P Kotter’s work on both buy-in and persuasion/attack strategies was also referenced.
Favourite persuasion tips
I always ask about delegates’ main takeaways from a session, and this is what they said:
- Visioning exercise
- Understanding comfort zones
- Deliver what you have promised and developing trust
- Communicate in a different way
- Be sensitive and adapt to different personality, cognitive and learning styles
- Use drawing as a tool
- Consider “one page” summary diagrams, storyboards or schematics
- Strategies for dealing with different types of “difficult” behaviour
- Regular meetings to both review progress/successes and motivate next short term actions
- Physically sitting near and working with those you want to influence
- Avoid labelling and “reframing” behaviours positively
- Changing your own attitude and perspective
Related blogs:
http://kimtasso.com/two-big-guns-of-communication-face-time-and-reframe
http://kimtasso.com/getting-it-past-the-partners-all-about-buy-in
http://kimtasso.com/reflections-on-managing-change-and-leadership
http://kimtasso.com/6-top-tips-for-change-management
http://kimtasso.com/what-is-nlp-neuro-linguistic-programming
http://kimtasso.com/10-tips-to-increase-your-resilience
http://kimtasso.com/personality-assessment-as-part-of-the-coaching-and-development-process
