OWP liVe REPORT

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How to create your persuasion strategy

Decide on timing

Determine purpose

Timing is everything, so ask when your strategic intentions will be most effectively heard. Use process control to create the rules of engagement around the topic, and sequencing skills to decide the order in which you will convince your network. Taking an incremental approach to persuasion breaks it down into a manageable series of tasks. Finally, action-forcing events play an important role in persuasion. Deadlines and windows of opportunity need to be leveraged.

What is the purpose of your influence or persuasion strategy? Once you have a defined purpose you can create rational arguments around it. Be clear about your own motives in the strategy and be authentic.

Design a network

Who needs to be influenced and persuaded and who is a key decision maker? Create a map of the network of influencers you have – your allies, supporters, adversaries and opponents – and spend time considering the best approach to take with each. Ask how you can find common ground with the four categories. Perhaps there is an overlap in their interests that you can leverage in favor of your goal. The important factor here is to spend the most time with your allies and supporters, as they will do much of the convincing for you using their own relationships and networks of influence. Use framing techniques to present your point of view in language that appeals to your organization and teams. By offering it as an objective opinion or as something of particular benefit to the audience, you are likely to gain more responsiveness. Use speech that appeals to both hearts and minds and your social influence to effectively drive your campaign. “You need to present the facts and also something that will touch people’s feelings to inspire the belief that this is really good for the organization. The most important aspect is to be yourself, be clear about your intended outcomes and your own motives,” said Szekely. Create a persuasion strategy

Choose tactics

Make appropriate choices around the tactics you will deploy to create consensus around your goal. It is human nature to reciprocate liking, care and respect, for example. Therefore, use your soft skills to appeal to your colleagues’ emotional trust and your hard skills – expertise, commitment and consistency – to create rational trust in your point of view. Finally, be aware that social proof is a useful tactic to deploy with the undecided fence-sitter, and also that scarcity is a great motivator for many of us. Therefore, framing the benefit of a decision as being time- bound can help to further your strategy.