Leading Geeks GoToAssist Influencing Business People White Paper

Leading Geeks
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A Geek Leaders Guide to Influence
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A Geek Leaders Guide to Influencing Business People

By PAUL GLEN and MARIA MCMANUS
One of the most poorly kept secrets of technology leadership is that we geek leaders tend to lack influence in our organizations, especially IT Leaders. Youve probably noticed that few really seem to have the clout that you would think comes with their lofty titles, and a plausible explanation for this phenomenon is not apparent. But if youre interested in climbing the ladder, and being effective once you arrive at a higher rung, you need a useful framework for understanding why this might be happening and what you can do about, so you can take your place in the inner circle of the organization. In this paper, were going to look in depth at: What influence is. Why its especially challenging for geek leaders. Specific skills you need to become more influential.
In This Paper
WHY WE LACK INFLUENCE
Influence vs. power The preconditions of influence Facts arent enough 3 4 5
A GEEK-FRIENDLY APPROACH
Reduce our resistance: Become willing Reduce their resistance: Foster openness 7 10
SOFT SKILLS FOR INFLUENCE

Skill #1: Listen for whats important Skill # 2: Describe a rosy future Skill # 3: Expose your desire Skill #4: Translate facts into stories Skill #5: Restore Trust 15 21 23 25 28
Both the explanation and the skills that we highlight are geared specifically toward people with technical backgrounds, because a lot of the generic approaches have not served us well.
Leading Geeks is an education and consulting firm dedicated to unlocking the value of technical people. By shining light on the different worldviews of technical and non-technical people, we help solve age-old problems in new ways and uncover untapped potential for productivity, creativity and innovation. To explore how we might help you, contact us at info@leadinggeeks.com.
Copyright 2013, Leading Geeks Company. | www.leadinggeeks.com | 310-694-0450
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Is it really that bad?

Unfortunately, it is. At all levels of IT management, from top to bottom, leaders struggle to influence people in their organizations. You have probably experienced firsthand the frustration of not being able to get through to your colleagues, or wondered why your seat at the table seems to come with its own sound-cancelling force field. Its puzzling since they hire us because were the experts, and yet we wonder why:
They make decisions without consulting us. They dont listen when they do consult us.
We end up feeling confused, frustrated and disrespected, and we wonder, whats wrong with them? Or worse, whats wrong with me? The pain of disrespect is bad enough, coupled with the confusion of why its happening and what to do about it is almost debilitating. You are not alone in this experience. Every few years, theres a new study accompanied by a flurry of headlines reminding us about IT leaders persistent lack of influence. Here are a few samples generated by a recent Gartner study:
The confusion of why its happening and what to do about it is almost debilitating.
CIOs dismissed as techies without business savvy by CEOs Computerworld UK April 12, 2012 Why CIOs Are Last Among Equals Sloan Management Review May 20, 2012 Most CIOs on the board but have little business influence Computerworld UK July 20, 2012
Whats been tried to fix this?

As geek leaders, we are not ones to leave a problem unsolved. We have been diligently working on this problem for a generation. We have invested countless hours learning to speak the language of the business with the assumption that if we speak their language we will be heard and our influence embraced. Weve gotten MBAs and other advanced degrees hoping that the credentials will bolster our stature as authorities, which in turn will make people listen more. We have devised ingenious metrics to measure and prove our worth, with the assumption that when people understand how important we are to the mission of the organization, they will listen. But year after year, very little changes.
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Why we lack influence

Perhaps nothing changes because we havent grasped the underlying reasons for why we have lacked influence for so long. These reasons have been hiding in places where geeks tend not to look in the realm of human relationships, trust and empathy. In our work exploring the worldview differences between geeks and non-geeks, we have uncovered unexpected insights about why IT professionals tend to lack influence. The primary reasons include:
We dont know the difference between influence and power. We fail to cultivate the preconditions for being influential. We try to use techniques that are more suited to sales people than geeks.
Influence vs. power

The biggest reason that we dont have much influence is that we fundamentally misunderstand what it is. We have trouble, as most people do, distinguishing between influence and power. When we lead discussions with senior IT leaders or groups of CIOs and ask them to describe the difference between influence and power, they quickly become flustered and confused by their lack of clarity. They usually assert that both are a means of getting people to do what you want. And in this model, influence becomes a kind of watered down version of power, a kind of power-lite. With power, you just tell people what to do and they do it because you control the consequences of their compliance. With influence, you ask, cajole, or convince them to do it instead. But that model is incorrect. Power and influence are not different means for achieving the same end. They are quite distinct from one another, and if you want to expand your ability to influence people, you need to understand the difference:
Influence is the ability to affect another persons inner state .
Power is the ability to affect another persons observable behavior. If Im wielding

power, I have the means and will to coerce you to do what I want. I may do it through authority, control of rewards or threats of punishment, but regardless, it is coercive.
Influence is the ability to affect another persons inner state what they think, feel and believe. If Im exerting influence, Im trying to change your inner experience, how you
think or feel about something. Perhaps you may do something differently because of your internal change, but its not because I made you do it.
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Lets look at an everyday example of the difference between power and influence. You pick up your mail and you see that you have been summoned to jury duty. You know that according to the laws in your state if you dont show up you could be fined or even jailed. And you know that the state, with their well-funded police force, could nab you the next time you run a stop sign and the consequences could be severe. So despite the huge inconvenience, you show up at jury duty, grumbling all the way. And the police and judge really couldnt care less what your inner state might be, whether youre happy to serve or not. All they care about is your compliance. Lets say you were picked to sit on that jury. Now you are listening to the lawyers present their case, trying to sway your opinion toward their side in whatever way they can. But these lawyers have no power over you. All they can do is influence how you view the facts, how you feel about the defendants, and what principles of right and wrong you should apply. As you can see, the targets are completely different. With power, your inner state is irrelevant. With influence, your inner state is everything.
The preconditions of influence

Given that influence is about affecting someones inner state, we can now see how the requirements for exercising influence is very different than simply having a carrot or a stick. There are three basic preconditions that must be met by you and the people you want to influence:
They must be open to being influenced by you. You must be willing to change their inner state. You must be able to move them to think, feel and/or believe differently.
The hard truth is that many of us technical leaders lack influence because we dont meet the preconditions of influence. We rarely consider whether or not people are open to us. And since we have an aversion meddling with peoples inner lives, we are neither willing nor particularly capable of doing it well. Why? Because we prefer to believe that facts should be influential, not people.
Facts arent enough

Early in Pauls consulting career he had a painful lesson in which facts, logic and reason completely failed him. Heres his story: A CIO hired me to fix his department's software development process problems. Specifically, he wanted me to analyze why, despite having implemented elaborate processes, the projects were still late, over budget, or failing altogether.
They must be open, you must be willing and able.
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So, I did my analysis and felt good about my conclusions. I wrote a detailed, and logically organized presentation, and walked the CIO through it. As I presented it, he seemed engaged, receptive and pleased. He asked good questions and constantly nodded in agreement with key points. In short, he agreed with the facts. He agreed with principles. He agreed with absolutely everything I said until I got to the recommendations. When I started to recommend specific changes, including some behavioral adjustments for him, his demeanor completely changed. With a scowl on his face he said, Im not doing any of that. I was totally shocked. Hadnt I laid out a rational, reasonable case supported by credible evidence, and hadnt he agreed with every premise and every fact? Yes, he had. So what went wrong?
In retrospect, I realized I hadnt prepared him emotionally to accept that what he thought were process problems were really people problems, in which he played an important role. I made the mistake of assuming that the indisputable facts would lead to the obvious conclusion and compel him to take action. But I failed to move him in the direction of making a personal change and nothing got better. This is not a unique experience. When we tell this story at workshops and presentations, heads nod in recognition, it is an almost universal experience among geek leaders although we may have masterful command over the facts, we often fail to influence the people, even when it is for their own good.
Hadnt he agreed with every premise and every fact? Yes, he had. So what went wrong?
Ill-fitting advice
Geeks tend to overemphasize the importance of facts, overlooking the importance of cultivating emotional openness. However, experts on influence tend to overemphasize the importance of persuasive techniques, overlooking the importance of overcoming resistance to even using these techniques. Many useful and widely read books have been written on influence and persuasion, and what they tend to have in common is that they focus on skills and techniques. Weve observed that blindly following this type of advice rarely leads to influence, at least for technical people. Those who try to use these formulaic approaches seem wooden and inauthentic, odd and off-putting. Many of the techniques are about overwhelming other peoples resistance to your will, or treating others like unwitting victims of your savvy manipulation. While this may be fine for a salesperson trying to close a single deal, its not the kind of approach most of us can adopt.
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We geeks are generally not interested in dominating others. We want to be respected and included, not feared and obeyed. Nor are we interested in manipulating how people feel. Many geek leaders strongly adhere to principles of respect for another persons intelligence, transparency of information and intent, and rational decision making based on good facts. So telling us to simply adopt persuasive techniques without addressing our aversion to persuading other people wont help us much.
We need to address our aversion to persuading other people.
A geek-friendly approach to influence

So what geek leaders need is an approach that is:
Focused on building influence rather than power Consistent with our goals and personalities Suited for us and for those we would like to influence
What weve observed is that rather than following the conventional advice, a more effective approach is to think about influence as a two stage process for meeting the preconditions for influence:
First reduce resistance Then use techniques of influence to change others inner state
Now, lets look at the preconditions for influence and note that this approach addresses all three and raises the probability of success.
First reduce resistance
Then improve technique
Become more willing
Foster their openness
Adapt our approaches
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Reduce our resistance: Become willing to move people

The first source of resistance isnt theirs, but ours. We hate the whole idea of influence, once we understand what it really means. You might be saying to yourself, Dont be absurd, of course Im willing to influence people, I wouldnt be reading about it if I werent. But dont be so sure.
Our beliefs undermine our willingness

If you are like many people in technology, you probably hold some firmly held beliefs that get in the way of your willingness to move people. Weve identified two beliefs that are real obstacles. 1. Peoples decisions should be based on logic and objectively verifiable facts rather than subjective experience. Most geeks believe that how people feel on the inside, their subjective reality, is not a good basis for decision-making. Its irrelevant at best and destructive at worst. We love working with technology because, unlike people, it behaves predictably and consistently (usually). In our heart of hearts, we dearly wish that people would behave this way, too. What we really wish is that influence was unnecessary and that we would all look at the same set of facts and independently come to the same conclusion. That human beings dont behave this way seems to us like a design flaw. So we carry around the sense that humans who dont operate on pure reason are flawed (and annoying). 2. Manipulating other peoples inner experience is wrong. We dont want to take advantage of a design flaw. We dont want to appeal to how people feel on the inside, because it seems disrespectful, like pointing out that someone has something stuck in their teeth. We have a negative emotional reaction to the whole idea of appealing to emotions, since we hate it when people appeal to ours. It is a weird irony that our reputation for being mechanical and robotic is based on our most empathetic impulse. We dont appeal to emotions because it makes us cringe to have our emotions appealed to, and we really dont want to do that to other people. These beliefs, which may be so important to developing great technology, undermine our influence, because as we will see, many if not most of our colleagues rely on their emotions to understand the world and make decisions. Our unwillingness to try to change others emotions is at the heart of why we lack influence. Copyright 2013, Leading Geeks Company. | www.leadinggeeks.com | 310-694-0450
We hate the whole idea of influence.
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Decisions are based on emotions

As much as we wish it werent so, human emotions are essential to decision making. Reason, facts and logic are just not enough. At a very basic level ,a human organism determines what to do next by distinguishing what feels good from what feels bad. And the experience of good and bad, rewarding and punishing, is a function of how we process simple emotional responses. When emotional processing is damaged, people become paralyzed with indecision. Some of the most compelling evidence of this comes from the work of a neuroscientist named Antonio Damasio. He studied a number of patients with damage to part of the orbitofrontal cortex and portion of the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain associated with emotional processing. He noticed that these patients not only became emotionless and devoid of wants and desires, but they also became utterly unable to make decisions. One day, one of his emotionless patients, whom the psychology world knows as Eliot, tried to make a simple decision about when to set up his next appointment with the researcher. This is how Damasio describes it: For the better part of half an hour, the patient enumerated reasons for and against each of the two dates: previous engagements, proximity to other engagements, possible meteorological conditions, virtually anything that one could reasonably think about concerning a simple date. [It was] a fruitless comparison of options and possible consequences. It took enormous discipline to listen to all of this without pounding on the table and telling him to stop. Numerous other studies are shedding light on how simple affective experience enables cognition. But lets look at a very simple model for how this works, because accepting the role of emotions in decision making is essential for becoming more willing to move people toward good decisions.
A geek-compatible approach to appealing to emotions
Emotions are hard to understand and deal with. They seem infinitely complex, unpredictable and inherently ambiguous. But there is one rule of thumb that we have found to be extremely useful for concrete thinkers who want to up their emotional game. Simply put: People choose things that make them feel good or not feel bad.
What makes you feel good does not necessarily make someone else feel good.
With this rule of thumb, you can adjust your approach to influencing someone based on what makes them feel good. And the first step toward doing so is to recognize this important truth: What makes you feel good does not necessarily make someone else feel good.
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This seems like its almost too obvious to bother saying, but you would be surprised how often we lose sight of this basic fact, especially at work. And in our exploration of the differences between geeks and non-geeks, weve identified a fundamental difference in what geeks find rewarding compared to most of the rest of the work world. This difference is marked by how deeply rewarding it is for geeks to align themselves with Truth. Objectively verifiable truth. For many of us this is our primary means of connecting with other people. By sharing agreement on what is known to be true, we feel a sense of belonging to a community greater than ourselves. So geeks, ironically, have a very emotional attachment to facts and logic, because if feels good. Its no accident that Mr. Spock is by far the most popular Star Trek character of all time among geeks. Other people are not necessarily motived by objectivity in the same way. Lets look at some differences: Objectivity makes geeks feel good Facts Logic Evidence Analysis Right answers Non-geeks gravitate to the subjective and social Belonging Status Harmony Self-expression Winning
While it is not in our scope to describe the entirety of possible human motivations, we are highlighting some that you will likely see at work. And as commonplace as these social and subjective motivations are, we find that many geeks refuse to accept their validity as motives. To geeks, the desire for selfexpression seems indulgent. Statusseeking seems craven, belonging seems trivial, harmony seems pathetically Pollyanna-ish, and winning seems evil.
The golden rule is fundamentally flawed.
Since these alternative motivations seem so wrong, appealing to them feels even worse. Many geek leaders are unwilling to do so, and this is at the heart of why we lack influence. Because we arent willing to extend ourselves, stretch our worldviews and meet people where they are at. One could look at this tendency negatively, and label it stubbornness and inflexibility, but we prefer to recognize that this tendency is rooted in strong principled behavior and a special geek brand of empathy. Geeks are simply following the golden rule here. Treating others as they would like to be treated. But the golden rule is fundamentally flawed, because it doesnt account for real, deep, divisive differences in what people find rewarding.
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Reduce their resistance: Foster openness

The second source of resistance is theirs rather than ours. No matter how willing we are to change someone elses inner experience, they must be open to allow us to do that. You cant overpower someone to change how they feel. You cant grab your project sponsor by the shirt, stare into her eyes and say, You care about this project now. So we need to understand what makes a person open to being influenced by someone else? Its rather simple really. For them to be open to your influence they need to believe two things:
You are competent enough to help me in this domain. You are on my side.
Overemphasizing competence
Just as we overemphasize facts, we geeks also tend to overemphasize competence. We believe that if we are knowledgeable in this area and smart, than they should be open to our influence. In other words, If I know what Im talking about, you should heed my advice. Thats why we spend so much time and effort demonstrating, validating and expanding our competence. We love advanced degrees, learning new skills, getting certified in new languages or project management approaches. Not only are these fun and satisfying for us, we believe that these are the things that should matter most when others consider whether to be open to our influence. If an objective third party deems me competent, than so should you. But this single-minded focus on competence has disastrous results. Because, in truth, if someone doesnt think that youre on their side, it doesnt matter what they think of your competence. In fact, if they think that your allegiance lies elsewhere and they think you are competent, they become even less open. Competent enemies are much more threatening than incompetent ones. So were not going to focus on competence here, since thats not our challenge. Lets focus on the second criteria because in general, we are terrible at creating the feeling in others that we are on their side. Thats absurd, you say. How could they doubt my commitment? Dont they know how many hours I put in? While theyre home watching a football game, my team and I are here launching services for them. Well, actually, they dont know the number of hours that you put in, and even if they did, thats not how people evaluate whether or not you are on their side.
Competent enemies are much more threatening than incompetent ones.
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How do people evaluate same-sidedness?

The source of the feeling of same-sidedness is primal, even biological, and is sensed by people based on a number of cues that we geeks rarely attend to. This is because the feeling of being on your side is rooted in our nature as social animals. We evolved as tribal creatures, and determining who was in and out of our circle of support was critical to survival. As animals we needed to know:
Who will help us survive and deserves to be helped by us Who will harm us and deserves to be killed, enslaved or avoided
Its an instinctive feeling, not a rational calculation. And its a feeling thats primarily triggered by empathy.
Empathy is the key to openness

Our human physiology bears evidence to the importance of determining who is on our side and who is not. In the late 1990s brain scientists discovered that a considerable portion of the human brain was composed of what they now call mirror neurons, whose function is to recognize and reproduce in us the experience of other people. Before that, it was assumed that the brain had three major functions: memory, cognition and autonomic control.
But it became clear that there was more. It now seems that another major function of the brain is the ability to put yourself in someone elses shoes. When we see other people do things like reach for a peanut or get poked with a stick, the corresponding neurons in our own brains become activated, as if we ourselves were experiencing those sensations, or executing that action.
Same-sidedness is sensed by people based on a number of cues that we geeks rarely attend to.
Any time you watch someone doing something, the neurons that your brain would use to do the same thing become active as if you yourself were doing it, explains neuroscientist V.S.. Ramachandran. This capacity benefits us in many ways, allowing us to: Imitate others seamlessly, enabling easy transmission of knowledge and culture. If he hits a rock like that against another rock, and a spark jumps out, then I can do that very same thing. In fact, Im already doing it in my mind, so I think Ill make myself some fire.
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Predict intentions of other people, allowing us to recognize and advance their goals. If I were looking longingly at those grapes hanging from a vine just beyond my reach, as I see you doing now, I know instinctively that you want those grapes. And if I give you a boost, youll reach them, and be gratified and grateful to me, and maybe even share them. Learn language. If mom puts her lips that way, and I put my lips that way, Im going to make a sound like she makes, and look! Im doing it and it makes her happy! And our mirror neurons dont fire equally for just anyone. Research is beginning to indicate that the closer the affiliation between people, the more strongly their mirror neurons fire. So the closer you feel to someone, the more intensely you feel their pain and want to avoid causing it. And the more we detect that someone else resonates with our emotions, the more we trust that they are on our side. In short we look for cues of empathetic feelings as a sign that it is safe to be open to someones influence.
Empathy is constantly being reassessed

Oh no, you might be thinking. If I wanted a job where empathy mattered, I would have become a social worker or a salesman. Now you tell me that to create good technology I have to show people that I care about them? Actually, yes. Sorry. But wait. It gets worse. Not only is empathy required, but its not a onetime thing.
Cues of empathetic feelings are a sign that it is safe to be open to someones influence.
Same-sidedness is something that we constantly monitor and reassess. They may feel that Im on your side today and feel completely differently tomorrow based on your subconscious assessment of my empathy. This collides with another of our geek cultural biases. We tend to see the world through the lens of problems and solutions. And once a problem is solved, it stays solved. The idea that the right answer to a question can change from day to day is profoundly disturbing. We would assume that once someone believes that we are on their side, the question is settled and we can move on to other things. But if we want to be influential, we need to recognize that this is not a problem that can be solved but a situation to be managed. The question of whether they trust that we are on their side is always open.
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How we inadvertently close them off

When we encounter resistance to our influence, we have our own natural emotional response to their resistance. We know that we are on their side, why dont they? Theres little more maddening than being treated like an enemy when you know that you are a friend. On its face, it is deeply upsetting. Humans tend to resent people who upset them. In addition, when our influence is spurned, we assume that our competence is being called into question. Since we geeks value competence so highly, we get insulted. And a common response to being insulted by another person is to feel contempt for them. Well, maybe so, you say. But I am very careful to treat everyone I work with respectfully. I would never treat anyone with contempt. And for that we applaud you. A commitment to respect is a powerful character strength, and essential to fostering influence. But you should know that contemptuous thoughts can rarely be hidden. For as much as people need to be hit across the side of head with evidence that you share their concerns, they are incredibly sensitive to any sign that someone views them negatively. And contempt is very difficult to conceal. Sometimes the very attempt to conceal it, flat voice and stony face, is exactly what betrays its presence. Their mirror neurons pick up our contempt whether we like it or not. And when they sense contempt rather than empathy, they become convinced that were not on their side and resist us even more. Martin Luther King is quoted as saying You can have no influence over those for whom you have underlying contempt. To reduce contempt, we need to catch it in the act. The clue that youre falling into this trap is when you hear yourself thinking about another person and the word SHOULD comes to mind. They SHOULD do this. Or, they SHOULDNT believe something like that. Grumbling about what they should or shouldnt be doing is a sure sign that youre in danger of slipping into contempt. It indicates that you feel that theres a right and wrong way to approach something and youre going to judge the idiots who do it wrong.
Contemptuous thoughts can rarely be hidden.
This is the greatest temptation of principled people, judging and rejecting people who violate our principles. But if we want to influence and contribute to people who are different than us, we must accept that they see the world differently and behave differently in it. Grandma had a useful saying, It takes all kinds.
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Empathy paves the way

Later in Pauls career, after having learned the limitations of the fact-only approach to influence, he had an opportunity to use empathy as an explicit strategy to build influence with a client. It resulted in saving the client millions of dollars. Heres the story: A CIO of a midsize manufacturing firm hired me to figure out what to do with a botched ERP implementation. Among the many detractors of this system the most vociferous were the manufacturing operations people, whose angry cries to have it replaced immediately were deafening even though they were 1000 miles away from headquarters. After a couple of weeks of analysis, it became clear that replacing the system didnt make sense. It would cost more than $3 million and offer no business value over fixing the one already in place. But how could I build consensus around this decision when so many of the stakeholders were collecting pitchforks for a march on the corporate office? In my younger days, I would have put together a cogent, logically structured, well-organized presentation to convince them to support my recommendations. But this time I knew better. Instead, I planned a four-day trip to the manufacturing facility with the only goal being to meet their preconditions for influence, to reduce their resistance to me and my recommendations. I needed them to know that I was on their side, that I understood their needs and cared about them as people and colleagues. And since I was presumed to be tainted by my association with the hated system, I Cues that I am on your side also needed them to accept that I was competent to help. So I made sure we So what were the cues of same-sidedness that I offered had enough face time, scheduling two in in those meetings at the manufacturing site? Heres what I did: hours with each of the key managers. In meetings I emphasized that I had no Took lots of notes so he could see me writing down personal agenda, explaining that I had what they said. no opinion about the right course of Looked directly at them without avoidance or shame action until I had consulted with them. I created an opportunity for empa Nodded my understanding thetic listening by asking a single open Mirrored their body language, leaning in when they -ended question about their experidid, leaning back when they didnt. ence of the implementation and Didnt interrupt or defend working with the product. At each stakeholder meeting, a tidal wave of anger and complaints crashed down on me. I didnt attempt to refute anything they said, only listened patiently, took notes, and asked clarifying questions. I let myself be moved by magnitude of what they had
Asked clarifying questions Commented on their emotions, that mustve been really frustrating.
In this case, a little bit of empathy went a long way to foster their openness to influence.
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suffered, and sincerely offered sympathetic statements like, that sounds awful, or I can see why youd be so angry about that. At the end of each meeting, I explained that I would go back and complete my analysis and return in a few weeks with a proposed course of action. And I assured them that whatever I recommended that I was committed to making sure their needs were met this time. This trip was not about gathering information. I got a pretty good picture of the facts of the situation in the first half day, and then spent 3 days listening to the same stories over and over. But by the end of the four days, a remarkable transformation had happened. The manufacturing team still despised the system, but they were no longer intensely resistant to me, my boss, and everything we had to say. I hadnt fully convinced them that I was on their side, but I had shifted their stance from outright hostility to guarded optimism. Two weeks later when I returned and gave them the logical structured presentation that I could have given on the first visit, they accepted that it was the best course of action and they agreed to support it. They werent overjoyed about the conclusion, but were open to accepting it because they trusted that my analysis was done with their needs and objectives in mind. Without that first trip to meet their preconditions for openness, I have no doubt that they would not have accepted the recommendations and likely wouldve thrown me out of the building. Those few days of listening, where very little was done and very little was learned, resulted in the company saving millions of dollars.
Soft Skills for Influence

Now that you understand why we lack influence, and how to reduce resistance, we are finally ready to look at the five essential skills that you need to become more influential. Were finally ready to talk about the techniques you can use that will create for other people the experience of being open to you and trusting of your input:
1. Listen for what is important to people 2. Describe a rosy future 3. Expose your desire 4. Express commitment 5. Translate facts into stories
Will explore each one in more detail and explain both why it is important and what you need to do to enhance your abilities.
Skill #1: Listen for whats important to people

This is the single most important technique for reducing resistance to your influence. If youre only going to focus your energy on developing one skill for influence, this is it. So were going to invest more time with this one than with the others.
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What is listening for whats important ? and why it matters

Everyone has their own worldview, their own inner sense of whats more important and whats less. It guides what they pay attention to. It drives their actions. And it colors their interpretation of the meaning of facts, events and relationships. You can think of it as a set of axioms undergirding their inner universe. Since its so central to their inner experience, and the goal of influence is to change their inner experience, theres nothing more powerful you can do to influence someone than to understand whats important to them. And theres little more destructive to influence than ignoring or rejecting their sense of whats important in any given situation. But understanding whats important to people isnt as simple as listening to what they say. Few people are even conscious of what they care about most. Its just there. Its such an ever present companion, like water to a fish, that they dont try to examine or articulate anything about its nature. But dont make the mistake of thinking that because its invisible that its not essential. Peoples responses to feeling understood or misunderstood are intense and visceral. Even if they cant state clearly whats important to them, they surely know when someone else neither understands nor shares their sense of whats important. The feeling that comes with not being understood can be intense and painful. And similarly, the feeling that comes with being understood can be highly pleasurable. Think about how this feels to you. Think about a time when someone really got something important you were trying to tell them. You were struggling for words to say something complex, and your listener paraphrased it in exactly the right way. How did you feel when you realized that they understood? Relieved? Satisfied? Safe? Encouraged? Now think back to when someone simply wouldnt or couldnt understand something important to you. You tried again and again to get them to see why it was worth caring about, but their puzzled expression made it clear they just never would. How did you feel at that moment? Frustrated? Impatient? Isolated? On guard?
Peoples responses to feeling understood or misunderstood are intense and visceral.
Now consider which of these people you would rather be influenced by, the one who understands whats important to you or the one who is either unable or unwilling? Your job is to detect what problems they care most about solving. Doing so moves them both rationally and emotionally. Heres what its like for them.
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If I know that you know what is important to me Reason Emotion I can more confidently predict that Ill get what I want, even if I have difficulty articulating it. Ill trust that you are supporting me personally, that you are on my side, not just buying into my objectives.
In short, people trust you if they feel that you understand what is important to them, even if you dont entirely agree with them. They dont trust you if they feel that you dont understand. And they feel contempt for you if they think you dont care enough to try to understand.
Not quite the same as active listening

Chances are that youve heard of a technique called active listening. It involves patiently hearing out what someone is saying and paraphrasing what you heard back to them. Its a very useful technique because not only do you confirm the information, but the person youre talking to registers that you understood. Listening for whats important to other people is similar, but extends the approach even further. Here, you are not only listening for what they say, but more importantly listening for what they mean. Youre listening for:
What they say What they dont say What they dont know how to say
People dont often come right out and declare what they care about. It is your responsibility to tease it out and reflect back to them what you understood to be important to them. Once you understand, you can validate its importance to you.
Why we resist
We geeks often deliberately reject this type of listening, especially when it comes to getting requirements from non-technical stakeholders. Its because we hold certain beliefs, derived from the development and support processes that weve been taught. We believe:
They should know what they want. They should articulate whats important to them. They should translate whats important to them into technology requests. What they tell us should be precisely and literally true.
Notice all the shoulds in these beliefs. We serve the needs of our stakeholders and they should be the source of requirements and requests. Unfortunately, real people dont always work that way. To master the skill of listening for what is important, you must allow that people frequently fall short of these ideals. They often:
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Dont know exactly what they want. For many people this becomes clear to them in the course of a conversation. Avoid actually stating what they really care about, and instead make specific requests which they presume will best address the issue. In short, they ask for solution to an unarticulated problem. Lack sufficient knowledge about technology to make informed requests without help. Speak imprecisely. They dont express themselves fully debugged Java. People frequently use metaphors, guesses and half-truths.
How to find whats important to people

You might be wondering, If people wont or cant say what they care about, how the heck am I supposed to know? The secret is to look for signs of emotion. Heres a simple rule: Where there is emotion, there is importance. People dont have feelings about unimportant things, so if you follow the feelings, youll find what they care about. Once you notice the emotions in their statements, intonation or language, you can use all of your powers of deductive and inductive reasoning to make your best guess about what underlies their feelings. Here are four essential elements for this skill.
Observe
Signs of emotion are easy to spot if you remind yourself that you should be looking for them. The basic expressions of human emotion are instinctive and common, so its just a matter of paying attention to something we typically consider unimportant or even inappropriate at work. So when you are listening, look for signs of: Positive affect Excitement and Enthusiasm - High energy, Big smile, Emphatic gestures Interest - Sly grin, Questions, Returning to same point Negative affect Anger - Pursed lips, Furrowed brow Frustration Sigh, Clenched teeth Stubbornness -- Not listening Irrationality -- (your confusion) Copyright 2013, Leading Geeks Company. | www.leadinggeeks.com | 310-694-0450
Where there is emotion, there is importance.
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The key is knowing that the emotions may not be directly related to what they are saying at the time they display it. An especially good cue is when the intensity of emotion they display does not fit with the content of what theyre saying. If someone is red in the face, screaming and upset about some minor issue, chances are that what theyre complaining about isnt really whats bothering them. Youll need to dig deeper to find out what it really is. Once you see the emotions, you have several options for how to figure out what important things are eliciting these emotions.
Ask
There is absolutely no harm in asking someone what they care about. These types of questions are usually welcomed. People are often glad to be asked to talk about what is important to them.
There is absolutely no harm in asking someone what they care about.
Try asking some very simple questions like the following.
What is most important to you about this project? What will make you feel like this has really worked? What worries you about the plans?
Notice that this is very different than asking about goals or objective project success criteria. We geeks often ask them to rank their priorities (features, budget, schedule, quality). But the brain circuits that give you access to what you care about are not the same brain circuits that allow you to rank things in relative order. Its like the difference between Hows your sons robot project coming along? And How many hours have you spent on your sons robot project? One is open ended and invites excitement and pride. Open-ended questions make room for people to talk about their subjective experience. The other taps into the calculating parts of the brain, and is not likely to engender an emotional response. Both types of questions have their place, but when asking about importance, you want to stay in the realm of emotions.
Postpone objections
While you are listening to someone talk about what they want or what they are interested in, you might be tempted to voice your concerns about the plausibility and risks. You might even be tempted to test the validity of the request by exploring exceptions and edge cases, right then and there. As problem
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solvers, we do this all the time. But this form of analysis is destructive to influence when done at the wrong time. There are two reasons for this:
They hear our problem-solving as resistance and negativity. Rather than experiencing our questions and analysis as a form of support they hear it as judgment of their competence. It interrupts their flow of thought, which feels bad and disrespectful. When they are struggling to articulate whats important to them, interruptions can be disruptive and even painful. Its a similar experience to the one we have when we get interrupted in the middle of writing code. How long does it take you to get back to where you were and become productive again? Thats what its like for someone who is trying to explain their vision for a product, or imagine the features they need, and you interrupt them.
Before you start to question their request, make sure youve confirmed that you understand whats important about it. Once they know that youre looking to understand before evaluating, they can participate in the evaluation with you rather than feeling judged and belittled. A surefire approach to postponing objections is to always have paper and pen handy. You can jot your thought down and come back to it after you have made sure that they have been heard.
They hear our problemsolving as resistance and negativity.
Reflect & confirm

In active listening, you reflect back the literal meaning of what you heard. In listening for whats important youll be reflecting a reasoned guess about what is important to them about what they were saying. You will be making assumptions about someone elses inner life. You will be forming hypothesis about whats important to them and respectfully asking if youre correct. And youll probably open your response with a simple phrase like:
It sounds like what you want is It seems to be really important to you that If I understand correctly, what matters here is I get that you really care about
If you miss the mark, they will have the opportunity to correct you, and it will prompt them to be explicit about what is important to them. If you hit it on the nose, they will be pleased and reassured. You might notice a smile, a shift toward a more relaxed posture, or eager head nodding. If you havent already had this experience with coworkers, you will find it very rewarding. Copyright 2013, Leading Geeks Company. | www.leadinggeeks.com | 310-694-0450
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It may be a bit uncomfortable at first, but once you get used to it, youll wonder why you didnt do this all along. Mastering the art of listening for whats important probably gets you 60% of the way to becoming more influential.
Skill # 2: Describe a rosy future

Influence is nearly always about the future, getting approval for a future course of action or building support for specific goals and approaches. Even when you are trying to influence someone to reinterpret the meaning of past events, its usually part of an attempt to build influence for the future. But, heres another aspect of geek culture frequently gets in the way, specifically our orientation toward problems and solutions. By their nature, problems are rooted in the here and now. A problem is about a deficiency in the present or an unexploited opportunity. We love a good problem and cant help engaging with a well-constructed, compelling question. But for most non-geeks, problems are uninspiring. They want to be enticed by the prospect of a better future, not to be repelled by a negative present.
Emphasize positive experiences set in the future.
What we mean by a rosy future

Imagine that you want to upgrade your companys email server with new, superfast solid-state storage because the current equipment is slow and will only get worse over time. Typically, we would go to get approval and explain the problem with a statement like: We need to buy this new storage because the current system is slow and will continue to get slower as our data volume grows. As our staff grows, this will only get worse. Heres the same request but describing a rosy future instead of a looming problem: We would like to buy this new storage in preparation for our staff expansion. We want people to get their email faster and more reliably today and position us to serve our expanding staff with the same high level of service. Notice the difference? The rosy future emphasizes positive experiences set in the future. The problem emphasizes a flaw in the present that needs to be fixed. Non-geeks are more likely to be moved by imagining the positive experiences the new reality will bring. Essentially, it is the difference between pain-relief and pleasure seeking. If you want to influence
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someone, you need to shift your approach toward what will motivate them, rather than what will motivate you. Describing a rosy future appeals both to their sense of reason and emotion. When I hear a compelling vision for the future Reason Emotion -- I am engaged, and start to consider the dependencies for how to get there I feel good about feeling good in the future, and feel good about you.
Why we resist
While shifting your approach to describe a positive experience in the future may seem like a fairly straight forward, easy thing to do, we have found that many of us geeks struggle with this skill. We have observed that we dont like to talk about the future because it feels like lying. No one really knows what the future will bring, so describing a future as if it were a certainty feels dishonest. And we loathe dishonesty. But as long as you realize youre describing a possible future and not promising a particular outcome, you can feel freer to describe a scenario without feeling disingenuous.
Describing a future as if it were a certainty feels dishonest.
How to reframe a problem into a rosy future

Heres an exercise to help you focus your imagination, not on the probable facts of the future, but on the experience and feelings of people in that future:
1. Describe a problem that youd like to fix at work. 2. Imagine a future where that problem is solved. 3. Imagine the experience of living in that future vividly. 4. Think of a colleague you would like to influence.
Write the rosy future for that problem in terms of what that colleague considers important. Once again, this may feel unnatural at first, but will become second nature in very short order. Youll be surprised at how much your business partners appreciate this. 5.
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Skill # 3: Expose your desire

Weve looked at ways to detect and respond to the inner lives of the people you want to influence. This next skill is about exposing your own inner state, and telling your partners what it is thats important to you. At core, this technique is deceptively simple. All you have to do is start a few sentences with the phrase, I want. The advantages of this phrase are not obvious at first, and you are not likely to see this skill on anyone elses list of essential soft skills, but it is one of the easiest tools to adopt and one of the most overlooked by people with technical backgrounds.
Express commitment
Another phrase to add to your bag of tricks is, I am committed to This is especially important when talking about milestones and deadlines. It is beautiful because it expresses what you care about and are working toward without getting you into the morass of making a promise. A commitment is not the same as a promise. A promise is a guarantee of what will happen in the future and as we all know, no one really knows with complete certainty what will happen in the future. A commitment, on the other hand, is an expression of what you care about and what you feel determined to do. The beauty of a commitment is that, unlike a promise it does not guarantee an outcome. You dont risk having told a lie if that result isnt achieved. So many things happen outside of our control that it makes many of us uncomfortable to talk about the future with any degree of certainty. A commitment guarantees only one thing: that you will continue to work toward an outcome. You cant control what happens, but you can control what you are committed to. Notice the difference between these two statements: I we will finish the project by September 1. I am committed to finishing the project by September 1. The first statement might be hard for you to say, because you arent a fortune-teller. You dont really know that it will be done. The second statement is probably something you can say with confidence, especially if you have researched the issues and consider it to be a realistic goal. With a commitment, there is a lot more room for flexibility, while staying firmly rooted in achieving the outcome. Many times, non-technical people will be satisfied with the second statement. Not only will it be satisfying to them, they will also feel good about you.
Why it is important
There are two key reasons that this is so important. 1. Non-geeks are suspicious of people with no wants. Our business partners correctly assume that everyone has desires. And when you dont express yours, they assume that you made a conscious choice to conceal them. And then they become suspicious because people who conceal their desires often do so for devious reasons, as part of an attempt to gain advantage through concealment or deception. So when you hide your wants from them, they are less likely to trust you, and less open to your influence. They must consider that your advice is secretly self-serving rather than genuine and helpful. And when you do express your desires, they feel more confident in predicting your behavior because they understand your motivations.
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2. Its easier to come to agreement when everybody wants something. When no one is willing to express what they want, progress becomes difficult and conversations stilted. To get a feel for how important is to be able to express your desire when trying to influence people, lets look at what happens when desire isnt expressed. Heres an exchange we all might recognize: Where do you want to go for dinner? I dunno. Where do you want to go? Well, what are you in the mood for? Anythings good for me, I dont really care. How about Chinese? I guess, sure. Okay, then I guess well go to Chinese. And then our protagonists trudge off to have lackluster dim sum. No desire, no excitement, no shared objectives. They fall into a tenuous same-sidedness by default. But the dynamic changes radically when desires are expressed. Where do you want to go for dinner? Hmmm, Im feeling like something spicy. How about that new Szechwan place? That sounds great! Id love to go there! And now our protagonists bound off, both eager for the heat and spice of a great Chinese meal. Not only did they arrive at their conclusion faster, they can be assured that they are less likely to be deterred or distracted by some other option. Expressing their desire cements the fact that they are on the same side in this dinner-getting endeavor. When you say what you want, it exposes your inner life, reveals what is important to you, gives people a chance to want what you want, and builds trust. Heres how people experience it: If I know what you want Reason I can better predict your behavior. Its a shortcut to agreement. -- I feel good because we want the same thing and were on the same side. -- I feel relieved, and can put away my suspicions.
Emotion
Why we resist
Because we geeks are so devoted to rationality, logic and objective truth, we generally believe that subjective things like wants should have nothing to do with decisions at work. In fact, our analytical approach is designed specifically to remove emotional things like wanting from decision-making.
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And so over time, we develop an aversion to expressing our desires at work and even judge those who do as violating some of our common, but unstated assumptions. We assume that: Wanting is selfish. People who express their wants at work are self-centered. They prefer to get what they want rather than figure out whats right for everyone involved. Wanting should be irrelevant. Decisions should be made based on observable facts and logic to maximize the positive the outcome for the entire organization. What an individual wants should have nothing to do with decision-making. Wanting is too risky. And more subtly, expressing wants exposes us to ridicule, so we prefer to keep our private wants private.
How to improve your ability to say I want

When you do express wants at work, they need not be self-centered or selfish. In fact, you probably already do express your wants at work, but disguise them as objective needs rather than personal desires. Here are a few examples of personal wants that would be easy to express to your business partners:
I want this to be the smoothest launch youve ever experienced. I want this new software to make your life easier. I want to protect the students privacy. I want to give us a competitive advantage, not just keep up.
Experiment with this phrase in low-stakes situations, say at home with your spouse or kids. Our guess is that if you start to say I want with people who are not used to hearing you say it, you will notice slightly different, positive reactions from them.
Skill #4: Translate facts into stories

Why stories are important for influence
Humans are wired for narrative from heroic epics to sacred myths to Hollywood blockbusters to bedtime stories to gossip. The content may change from culture to culture but storytelling is universal. People generally need to relate to information narratively. Facts arent enough. Without a cast of motivated characters and a sequence of causal events, facts just float like dust in a spotlight, illuminated but meaningless. But we geeks dont value stories like others do. We tend to think more abstractly. Principles, rules and frameworks help us to organize facts and give them meaning. That relatively rare ability to think abstractly and manipulate symbols is part of what draws us to technical work in the first place. In our work, its not just an odd quirk, but also an essential element of success. But most people relate to information as if it were a character in a story.
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Some of the most successful IT leaders have a habit of anthropomorphizing various aspects of their technology so that non-technical people can get their minds around it. Heres an example from early in Marias career:
I was planning the feature set for a web product, and the tech lead kept saying that certain features I requested were expensive. I asked what he meant by that, and he explained without really changing his metaphor, When you submit that query it taxes the system. I listened carefully but never really understood that how important it was. And my choices for that product lead to our creating something that was, indeed, deathly slow. Later, the situation was explained to me differently by a tech lead who went on to become a Director. He said, When you submit the query, you are telling it to run through the whole database and look in every row and every column asking, are you there? Thats why, the more data in your data base, the more your query has to run around looking under every rock, and it slows the system down. Its very draining. As soon as I could picture the story of a query, I could appreciate the significance of the cost to the system, and I was able to much more easily let go of or modify problematic requirements. Without the story of how the query worked, I heard the information but not the meaning, and didnt change my thinking. With the story, I got the meaning and adjusted my approach. I was influenced by the able tech lead and glad of it. To become more influential at work, youll need to hone your ability to translate your native tongue of concept into story. If I hear your facts in the context of a story or metaphor I can actually understand what you are saying -- I can relate to the meaning of your facts, and be stirred to decisive action.
Most people relate to information as if it were a character in a story.
Reason Emotion
Why we resist
We resist telling stories because we mistrust anecdotes. Lets take a minute to look at why that is. Its pretty rare in a math class for a teacher to ask a student about their feelings related to the truth of a proposition. In math, proof is the only acceptable standard. How you feel is irrelevant. And this makes sense because math is about the manipulation of abstract symbols, which have no explicit connection to intuition, emotion, or other forms of human knowing. Intuition can be a great guide in math, but it has
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no bearing on whether something is considered true or false. And we are also taught that examples are not a form of proof, that anecdotes are not evidence. But here we fall into a logical trap of hasty generalization. We apply that rule to all things in life rather than restricting it to reasoning about abstractions. We believe that here are no valid uses for anecdotes.
Anecdotes are vehicles for evidence.
A more valid conclusion would be to recognize the contextual uses of anecdotes. In many instances they are helpful vehicles for evidence. And in case you need evidence for the value of anecdotes and influence, neuroscience is beginning to offer exactly that. Scientists are now finding that our brains our designed to process information by observing a sequence of causal events. A good story activates mirror neurons in the brain as the listener imagines themselves in the story. It triggers cortisol, a hormone associated with focusing attention, and oxytocin, the empathy hormone which engenders warm caring feelings. So go ahead and give storytelling a try without feeling that youre compromising your commitment to logic and reason. You dont have to give them up to use stories for influence.
How to translate facts into story

Since were all wired for storytelling and narrative, you already have it in you. We dont need to teach you how to tell a compelling story. But we find that translating concepts and symbols into stories doesnt always come naturally. It takes a concerted effort and practice to translate facts, logic, and reason into a narrative structure.
Start with your goal

Think about a situation that you want to influence. Be explicit about what decision needs to be made, the best course of action, and who will be making the decision, and what is important to them. Your goal will be to move that person to change what that they think, feel or believe in such a way that they make a decision in support of that action.
Capture the facts

Then simply write down the most important, convincing facts related to your case. For example:
We have 12 help desks on campus. Each helpdesk has its own tracking software and procedures. Faculty, staff, and student satisfaction with tech support surveyed at its lowest point in 10 years.
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The two biggest complaints in the satisfaction survey were that people didnt know which helped us to call or were constantly being bounced from one to another. We spend 25% more on support per user than our peer institutions.
Think of an experience
Then think of an experience, real, hypothetical or even metaphorical that references these facts, as well as the emotions triggered by the situation. Tell what happened, and what resulted. The story emerges from causal events. Heres an example: Last month the Dean of the arts college called me to complain about how much trouble he had getting help with a hard drive problem on his laptop. He couldnt figure out which of our 12 help desks to call, so he just randomly picked one. He waited on the phone for 10 minutes and then was told that he had to call someone else. And as I listened to him, I felt worse knowing that we spent 25% more than our sister institutions, only to give him such poor service.
End with a moral

Make sure there is a moral to your story. Be explicit about what your listener should conclude about this story. I really want us to have an easy-to use, cost effective help desk system, I think we can save a lot of money, if we can just prioritize this project for next quarter.
Formula
Here is a formula for a basic story structure that can contain any kind of fact: Someone [ did | experienced ] something that was [ surprising | intriguing | unexplained |embarrassing | exciting | difficult | etc.] which lead to an outcome
Skill #5: Restore Trust

Every work relationship has breakdowns eventually. Projects have problems. Expectations arent met. Or personalities clash. These breakdowns, if handled poorly, can destroy all of your good work and undermine your influence. But thats not necessary. In fact, handled well, you can exit a relationship breakdown with more influence than you started with. As geeks, when problems arise, we tend to focus exclusively on fixing the problem. Unfortunately, no matter how capable you are at fixing technical problems, your business partners will not feel good about you or your technology if you dont manage the feelings that arise with these issues. Copyright 2013, Leading Geeks Company. | www.leadinggeeks.com | 310-694-0450
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In Pauls book 8 Steps to Restoring Client Trust, he outlined a simple approach for overcoming inevitable conflicts, handling both the facts and the feelings: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. Be prepared for inevitable breakdowns. Get their facts as your business partner understands them. Just listen. Find the feelings about the situation and the relationship. Let them know you got it listen for whats important to them. Dispute the facts (if you must) Only dispute their facts if its important. Frame the problem ensure that the meaning of the problem is not misconstrued or blown out of proportion. Handle the feelings offer an apology for the facts, the feelings, and the impact of the problem. Handle the problem lastly, fix whatever went wrong.
Remember, just as empathy is essential in building trust, it is even more important when restoring it.
Conclusion
By now, hopefully you no longer feel that IT Leaders can never overcome the persistent influence deficit. We can get that seat at the table that weve been talking about for decades. But it will take consistent and persistent work on our part to lower the barriers (the resistance) to our influence and practice in the techniques to break through. Too much is at stake to give up. Technology has become too central to the success of our organizations to accept that we in technology will forever be relegated to second class status. We owe it to ourselves, to our staffs, and to our organizations to strive for influence commensurate with the technology we oversee.
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About Leading Geeks

Paul Glen, Founder, Geek. As the award-winning author of the book Leading Geeks, a long-time columnist for Computerworld and a 25-year IT veteran, Paul helps concrete thinkers navigate the murky world of human relationships. paul@leadinggeeks.com
Maria McManus, Co-founder, Non-geek. Drawing on her experience as VP of Product at iVillage and Director of User Experience at Disney, Maria helps business people unlock creativity and productivity when working with technical teams. maria@leadinggeeks.com
Sponsored by:
GoToAssist Citrix GoToAssist provides easy-to-use cloud-based solutions that enable organizations of all sizes to connect with customers, employees and machines online. With GoToAssist, IT professionals can deliver fast, secure remote support and monitor IT infrastructures from anywhere. GoToAssist is recognized as the worldwide market leader by IDC and ranked highest in customer satisfaction according to TSIA research. To learn more, visit www.gotoassist.com GoToMeeting GoToMeeting is the extremely simple, extraordinarily powerful web conferencing service from Citrix. It integrates HD video conferencing, screen sharing and audio conferencing, allowing you to collaborate effectively online in a face-to-face environment. Hold unlimited meetings for one low flat fee and attend meetings from a Mac, PC and mobile devices. GoToMeeting will change the way you work and perhaps a whole lot more. To learn more, visit www.gotomeeting.com.
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Leading Geeks

A Geek Leaders Guide to Influence

A Geek Leaders Guide to Influencing Business People

SOFT SKILLS FOR INFLUENCE

Copyright 2013, Leading Geeks Company. | www.leadinggeeks.com | 310-694-0450

A Geek Leaders Guide to Influence

Is it really that bad?

Whats been tried to fix this?

Copyright 2013, Leading Geeks Company. | www.leadinggeeks.com | 310-694-0450

A Geek Leaders Guide to Influence

Why we lack influence

Influence vs. power

Influence is the ability to affect another persons inner state .

Power is the ability to affect another persons observable behavior. If Im wielding

Copyright 2013, Leading Geeks Company. | www.leadinggeeks.com | 310-694-0450

A Geek Leaders Guide to Influence

The preconditions of influence

Facts arent enough

They must be open, you must be willing and able.

Copyright 2013, Leading Geeks Company. | www.leadinggeeks.com | 310-694-0450

A Geek Leaders Guide to Influence

Copyright 2013, Leading Geeks Company. | www.leadinggeeks.com | 310-694-0450

A Geek Leaders Guide to Influence

We need to address our aversion to persuading other people.

A geek-friendly approach to influence

First reduce resistance

Then improve technique

Become more willing

Foster their openness

Adapt our approaches

Copyright 2013, Leading Geeks Company. | www.leadinggeeks.com | 310-694-0450

A Geek Leaders Guide to Influence

Reduce our resistance: Become willing to move people

Our beliefs undermine our willingness

We hate the whole idea of influence.

A Geek Leaders Guide to Influence

Decisions are based on emotions

A geek-compatible approach to appealing to emotions

Copyright 2013, Leading Geeks Company. | www.leadinggeeks.com | 310-694-0450

A Geek Leaders Guide to Influence

The golden rule is fundamentally flawed.

Copyright 2013, Leading Geeks Company. | www.leadinggeeks.com | 310-694-0450

A Geek Leaders Guide to Influence

Reduce their resistance: Foster openness

Competent enemies are much more threatening than incompetent ones.

Copyright 2013, Leading Geeks Company. | www.leadinggeeks.com | 310-694-0450

A Geek Leaders Guide to Influence

How do people evaluate same-sidedness?

Empathy is the key to openness

Copyright 2013, Leading Geeks Company. | www.leadinggeeks.com | 310-694-0450

A Geek Leaders Guide to Influence

Empathy is constantly being reassessed

Copyright 2013, Leading Geeks Company. | www.leadinggeeks.com | 310-694-0450

A Geek Leaders Guide to Influence

How we inadvertently close them off

Contemptuous thoughts can rarely be hidden.

Copyright 2013, Leading Geeks Company. | www.leadinggeeks.com | 310-694-0450

A Geek Leaders Guide to Influence

Empathy paves the way

Copyright 2013, Leading Geeks Company. | www.leadinggeeks.com | 310-694-0450

A Geek Leaders Guide to Influence

Soft Skills for Influence

Skill #1: Listen for whats important to people

Copyright 2013, Leading Geeks Company. | www.leadinggeeks.com | 310-694-0450