Influencing Groups: Why You Don’t Need 100% Agreement

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When persuading groups, you don’t need unanimity or an overwhelming mandate to generate agreement; you need critical mass.

Consensus is something everyone can live with, not something everyone would die for. With that in mind, focus on the pragmatism of the numbers. That means that “being right” in your own mind isn’t sufficient. You may have all the facts and all the right conclusions, but that still doesn’t mean your idea will become reality in a group setting.

You must be cajoling and politically savvy. “Work” the system, just as you would “work” a room when you’re networking. You don’t want to meet everyone, just the people who can help you the most. (A politician wants to convince every voter to vote for him or her but is most interested in those voters who can deliver — through their own influence — thousands of additional votes. Hence, a union officer is more attractive to a politician than a union member.)

Groups are not sentient creatures as an entity, but they contain sentient creatures. The legal and marketing departments will have different views on your pitch than, say, the R&D and finance departments.

In other words, where others stand on an issue depends on the professional background they bring to the discussion and the impact a “yes” will have on their job, rank or career.

One of the weaknesses of group influence is that the task takes much longer because of such dynamics. You have to stay the course and, in some cases, outlast opponents who will eventually be transferred, promoted, retired, terminated, or otherwise obscured or overruled. Sometimes, no other way exists, so be prepared for a long-term persuasion arrangement in which you might need to create allies who recognize how they can prosper from your ideas.

15 Ways to Punch Out Stress

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Psychologists report that stress, anxiety and tension reduce many people to operating at only half of their capabilities. Here are 15 tips to help ensure that you run at full capacity, all the time.

1. Be realistic about your own goals.

Don’t try to conquer the world in one day. A career is a marathon, not a sprint. Don’t beat yourself up if you can’t double your prospect list within 24 hours or convince everyone in the room that your way is best after a five-minute presentation. As the saying goes, the rewards don’t always go to the fastest runners, but to those who stay in the race.

2. Confront the fear of failure.

Everyone experiences fear of failure. But instead of expending valuable energy worrying about what will go wrong, put that extra energy into planning and preparing for what can go right. The best sales professionals experience failure regularly, but that means they are trying new things and constantly expanding their skill sets. So go ahead and try that new prospect or persuasion approach. If it works, great! If not, no big deal. Move on.

3. Communicate, communicate, communicate.

If there is a misunderstanding between you and someone at work, talk it out. Don’t let something simple overwhelm your thoughts or activities. As soon as possible, pick up the phone, or go see that person, and explain your position. Somebody once told me, “If you have to go ugly, go ugly early.” In other words, communicate your position as soon as possible. This allows you time to solve the problem, and then concentrate on the business of getting more people to say, “Yes.”

4. Don’t become a victim of unrealistic demands.

People sometimes make requests that are impossible to fulfill: “We have no money, but we’d like to take you up on your offer.” You’re a sales professional, not a professional magician. If you think someone is making an unrealistic demand, take a few minutes to examine the request more closely. Sometimes the “impossible” really is possible, so do not use “unrealistic demands” as an easy way out. If, however, the demands truly are unrealistic, explain your position to the prospect. If he bolts, that’s OK. You weren’t going to be able to help him, anyway.

5. Get more rest.

Adults average 6.9 hours of sleep a night, even though many experts contend they need between seven and nine hours. The resulting sleep deprivation results in reduced productivity at work, irritability, diminished driving capacity and a variety of health problems.

6. Get to work early.

Employees who arrive early have a few spare minutes to better prepare for the day. Be one of them, and take that time to organize a daily “to-do” list or wrap up any loose ends from the previous day; you’ll be amazed at how much better you’ll feel when you can get a jump on the day.

7. Get in shape.

Being in good physical condition leads to more energy – thanks to improved blood flow to muscles and the brain, faster muscle recovery and better use of oxygen. How do you determine if you are in good condition? Many experts consider the best indicator of health to be your resting heart rate. Physicians rank heart rate as the most important vital sign when evaluating patients. Most people have a resting heart rate between 70 and 90 beats per minute. A physically fit person will have a resting heart rate around 50 beats per minute. Scientific studies show a direct correlation between physical exercise and mental well-being, proving that aerobic exercise such as walking, running and bicycling for 30 minutes three times a week actually works.

8. Eat right.

Nutrition plays a major role in a person’s ability to handle stress. Eating the right foods at the right time gives you more energy and the ability to accomplish more. So, forget about that greasy fast-food burger; pack your lunch. It’ll save you calories and dollars. Or better yet, take a qualified buyer out to lunch, and enjoy salmon and a salad. Get healthy while building relationships.

9. Cut back on the caffeine.

Caffeine does not give you energy; it stimulates your nervous system and adrenals. That’s not energy; that’s stress. It’s been reported that a single 250-milligram dose of caffeine (about 2.5 six-ounce cups of coffee) can increase levels of the stress hormone epinephrine (adrenaline) by more than 200 percent. Be reasonable with your caffeine consumption, and understand that it isn’t a source of “real” energy.

10. Lose the smokes.

If reviewing the results of a Google image search of “smokers’ lungs” won’t make you stop smoking, perhaps the fact that cigarettes contain an estimated 4,000 known toxins with several known carcinogens will. Cigarette smoking also contributes to severe vitamin deficiencies and reduces your body’s ability to oxygenate. How do you quit? Try interval sprinting every other day, which should at least make you think twice before lighting up.

11. Spend time on yourself.

Go for a brisk walk early in the morning, or take the long way home in the evening. Everybody needs quiet time to recharge their mental batteries.

12. Get input from others.

Talking to friends, family members and coworkers about situations that cause stress can provide a different perspective. (Be sure to avoid whining to these people.) Constructive conversation can be a great tool for relieving stress. Often, it’s that sense of community and companionship that can see you through tough situations.

13. Use positive mental affirmations.

Much research has been conducted on the rejuvenating powers of the mind. Psychologists claim that most of our “self talk” is negative, which creates a defeatist attitude and low energy. When you feel your energy starting to ebb, and you’re focusing on how tired you are, try passing a powerful, energizing thought through your head. For the spiritually inclined, I like Isaiah 40:31KJV (go ahead, look it up). For something more secular, try the affirmation made famous by late-19th century French psychotherapist Émile Coué: “Every day, in every way, I’m getting better and better.” I use both. A lot.

14. Understand control and influence.

I was taught long ago that successful people spend the majority of their time on what they can control, some time on what they can influence and precious little time on what they can’t control or influence. Instead of agonizing over the possibility of failure, use your resources to think of ways to get more projects in the pipeline or generate ideas to intensify the desire of your hot prospects. One huge contributor to being overwhelmed is feeling like you have no control. So work on what you can control, and don’t worry about the rest. Not always easy to do, but well worth it.

15. Have high-quality options.

That’s great advice. For whatever reason, the times in my life when I’ve succumbed to stress and behaved in ways I wish I hadn’t typically occurred because I felt I didn’t have options. So, build your skills, have financial reserves, establish scores of terrific professional partnerships, and you will always find that you have options.

Do You Recognize These Three Types of Stress?

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Feeling stressed out right about now? To deal with stress, you first must understand where it comes from. The American Management Association identifies three basic types of stress:

1.) Individually oriented stress

2.) Interpersonally oriented stress

3.) Organizationally oriented stress

Let’s break down each of these stress types and explore where and how they originate.

1. Individually Oriented Stress

Face it, most of us create our own stress. It is internal, and very often one of the most challenging types of stress to overcome. Some symptoms of individually oriented stress include:

  • Fear of failure
  • Self-set deadlines
  • Long hours
  • Unrealistic expectations of self, career or goals
  • An overwhelming sense of personal responsibility
  • A self-perceived lack of self-control, personal support or feedback

You are your own toughest critic. As with most things, balance is a significant consideration. You want to take initiative and push yourself, but not to the detriment of your health or well being. (Go ahead: Ask me how I know.)

2. Interpersonally Oriented Stress

When people feel unappreciated or misunderstood by superiors, peers or subordinates, hard feelings take root. Stress also can occur when people believe their colleagues aren’t performing up to par. Open communication works best when battling this type of stress.

I believe no one intentionally shows up at work and says, “Man, I’m going to mess up today!” Most people really want to do a good job. If, in fact, you have an employee who is constantly forgetting to provide the follow-up support necessary to close deals, take the time to show that individual what needs to be done and why. Just don’t berate him.

3. Organizationally Oriented Stress

Employers can create stress in the following ways:

  • Providing unrealistic demands
  • Placing too much emphasis on competition
  • Setting unclear job requirements
  • Not giving enough credit for accomplishments
  • Failing to follow through on expected promotions
  • Providing little information about career paths
  • Allowing workplace politics to fester
  • Avoiding participation in decision making
  • Creating poor work conditions

Managers can easily fall into what I call the “insatiable more” complex, meaning they always demand more and more in terms of business performance. This often can be an exercise in futility, because of all the variables impacting your business.

Don’t Let Your Co-Workers and Clients Stress You Out

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Stress can hugely impact how well you interact with — and thus persuade — others. In any job, you need the cooperation of your colleagues and clients, and you’re less likely to get that if you are abrupt, terse and snap at those you rely on.

Additionally, mistakes resulting from stress can affect the workplace environment. A deadline not met on time could delay a sale and upset a big-spending buyer. Or a pricey sale might be stalled because the paperwork wasn’t ready on time, creating tension between you and the finance team. Or a presentation might go downhill because of an unexpected question or prolonged disagreement.

These situations quickly escalate into conflicts, which can lead to even more mistakes. Your business suffers when stress takes its toll, which is why you need to treat your co-workers and clients with the same respect and gentility you would a customer.

Maybe even more.

Four More Ways to Bounce Back After Hearing ‘No’

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In a previous post, I wrote about four ideas to help you recover from hearing “no.”  I will now present four more ways to bounce back from rejection.

Here we go:

1. Perform a self-assessment.

Heed your own counsel. Is this the first rejection you’ve received regarding your pitch? Or have you been turned down several times making the same pitch? Once is an accident, twice is a coincidence and three times is a pattern. Is a pattern emerging?

2. Immediately do something you’re skilled at doing.

Whether it’s writing a memo, coaching a coworker or giving a talk, go do something in which you know you’ll be successful. This success-immediately-after-defeat strategy is a great way to reinstate positive feelings and get them working again in your brain. Even if it’s a small victory, it’s still a victory.

3. Forget about perfection.

Rather, focus on success direction. Set parameters of success, not “either/or” outcomes. Think about your results as the volume nob on an amplifier instead of the “on/off” switch. You turned in a great project and your boss called it “solid” but not “stupendous”? Don’t worry about it. Who uses the word “stupendous,” anyway?

4. Evaluate your entire body of work.

Hank Aaron had a lifetime batting average of .305; Joe DiMaggio, .325; Ty Cobb, .366; Lou Gehrig, .340; Babe Ruth, .342. Those guys failed approximately seven times out of every ten trips to the plate. Not only are they in the Baseball Hall of Fame today, their names are woven into the fabric of our language. If, when is all said and done, people refer to you as the Joe DiMaggio of new products, or the Hank Aaron of project management, or the Babe Ruth of marketing — well, you’d be in some pretty sweet company. Focus on your whole career, not one or two errors in the field.

The next time you hear “no,” don’t be so hard on yourself and make the necessary strides toward getting to “yes” next time.

How to Bounce Back from Hearing ‘No’

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You’ve worked hard to hone your pitch, state your case and present your ask. And then someone says “no.”

What now?

Here are four ideas to help you bounce back:

1. Move on to what’s next.

My favorite TV series was the seemingly timeless political epic The West Wing. In it, Martin Sheen played the role of President Josiah “Jed” Bartlet. It  captured a fairly accurate portrayal of life in The White House. President Bartlet — whether triumphant in victory or suffering a crushing setback — always responded in the same manner: “What’s next?” That’s a brilliant example of how to handle any situation. Activate the next issue on your own agenda, and don’t deliberate over defeat. Autopsies are for medical examiners, not managers.

2. Realize that you’re not the problem.

In his groundbreaking work, Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life, Ph.D. Martin Seligman wrote what should be required reading for every persuasion professional. He initially concentrated on the habits of explanation, or how people explain what most frequently happens to them. Those who were pessimistic (and less resilient) when facing setbacks would blame themselves: “I’m the reason this sale failed.” Optimists, on the other hand, (predisposed to being resilient) would blame the circumstances and then move on to the next challenge: “The buyer was in a bad mood, and there’s nothing I can do about that.”

Seligman notes that optimism won’t change what a salesperson says to the prospective buyer; rather, it will change what the salesperson says to himself after a negative exchange. Instead of telling himself, “I’m no good,” he might rationalize that “the client was too busy to fully consider my offer.” That particular target chose not to agree to your course of action at that particular time. That’s it. There is no connection to your worth as a person or the validity of your viewpoint.

3. Understand the external locus of learning.

For people who claim they already know what they need to know, a setback can be devastating. If, on the other hand, people believe their locus of learning is internal, they can shrug off the setback and tell themselves, I’ll have to get some coaching or read up on how to improve my presentation skills, so next time I’ll experience a better result. The world always seems a little brighter for these people, because they have more arrows in their quiver. You can always learn more about the subject, the target and/or the process of persuasion.

4. Ignore unsolicited feedback.

Alan Weiss, author of Million Dollar Consulting: The Professional’s Guide to Growing a Practice, tells the memorable story of how — following a rousing talk to a capacity crowd that gave him a standing ovation — a speech coach approached him and asked if she could provide some feedback. “Is there anything on the planet that might stop you?” Weiss wisecracked in his own inimitable way. She proceeded to tell him that she couldn’t concentrate on his message, because he always moved around on stage, and that he should stand still to make a point. My point: Pay no attention to suggestions of your so-called “supporters” — especially if they tell you that you should have tried harder or danced on the ceiling. Instead, seek out constructive feedback from credible individuals you trust.

Next time, I’ll explore four more ways to bounce back after hearing “no.”

How to Show Grace in the Face of Rejection

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What do you do when you’ve run out of persuasion options? Welcome to the NFL.

Let’s face it: Over the course of your career, you’re going to get rejected more than once. If you’re not hearing “no” at least some of the time, you’re probably not stretching yourself enough. That said, how should you respond in that moment of rejection?

  • Don’t get angry. That will just further push away your target.
  • Do show disappointment. No need to wear a tough poker face after the proposal you spent so much time and energy on gets turned down. As a matter of fact, if you don’t appear a little disappointed, your target could think your pitch wasn’t all that important to you.
  • Do remain respectful. How? By using power language: “Well, of course I’m disappointed. But I’d like to thank you for giving the idea such careful consideration.”

In the 1968 movie The Lion in Winter — set in in England in 1183 — King Henry II has imprisoned his conniving sons, Princes Geoffrey and Richard, in the wine cellar. When they think they hear their father coming down the stairs to kill them, this exchange occurs:

Prince Richard: He’ll get no satisfaction out of me. He isn’t going to see me beg.

Prince Geoffrey: My, you chivalric fool — as if the way one fell down mattered.

Prince Richard: When the fall is all that is, it matters.

Show grace in the face of rejection.

A Two-Step Process to Measure the Unmeasurable

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“You can’t measure morale!” somebody once tried arguing with me. “You can’t measure enthusiasm!”

OK, fair enough. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. That’s why I have a two-step method to help prove the unprovable:

1. Describe an observable behavior that you believe is an indicator of the desired result.

2. Count the occurrences.

It’s that easy.

If you’re seeking sustained high morale, perhaps you’ll choose to measure whether people are on time for staff meetings, or you might calculate what percentage of the staff is displaying positive emotions during a meeting. If you’re seeking efficient and effective teamwork, count the number of times people come into your office asking for you to settle disputes. If you’re trying to build positive repute, keep track of positive media mentions.

Is this a perfect method? Of course not. But it certainly is better and more accurate than using intuition alone. And the results might be compelling enough to help you prove your point.

How to Respond to All Those ‘Can We’ Questions

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Often buyers (and other persuasion targets) will ask if they can do something out of the ordinary, some sort of customization to the sale. In the motorcycle business, one common question customers ask is, “Can we …”

Can we make it louder?
Can we make it faster?
Can we make it lower?
Can we make it shinier?
Can we make it …

Sometimes a buyers even asks all of those questions.

In other jobs, you might hear things like this:

Can we create our own color schemes?
Can we set our own fee thresholds?
Can we accelerate the timeline?
Can we not and say we did? (I’m kidding.)

Far too often in the act of persuasion, people get side-tracked on some customizing-research adventure before they’ve even closed in on the primary decision: Are we going to work together? Do we have a project? Do we have a deal?

If you allow your target to derail that primary decision, you will end up increasing the amount of effort expended and in all likelihood reduce the possibility of actually reaching a worthwhile decision.

When your target asks one of those “can we” questions, be ready with an effective and compelling response. As long as you believe the request is within the scope of possibility, one of my favorites responses goes like this:

If you can devise it, we can do it. We believe we have the best talent and most capable resources in the business. We can make just about anything a reality. Here’s what I suggest we do.

First, let’s pick the approach that’s right for you. Then once we get the basic agreement worked out, I’ll introduce you to our people and we’ll get busy.

Now, tell me more about …

Note that this reply assures the buyer you will be able to help, and that you’ve got the staff and resources to do so. Then, a transition statement takes you back to the primary decision that needs to be made.

This response helps you stay in control and not get sidetracked by all sorts of questions about customization.

What Do Playing Basketball and Persuading Others Have in Common?

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The NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament begins this week. Teams play all season for the opportunity to compete in what is arguably sport’s most exciting event, and the ones that are “hot,” or “in the zone,” or “firing on all cylinders” usually perform the best.

Claremont Graduate University’s Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Management Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced MEE-hye CHEEK-sent- mə-HYE-ee) calls this progression the “state of flow.”

In his groundbreaking 1990 book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, Csikszentmihalyi described “flow” as “the process of total involvement with life.” Later, in a 1996 interview with Wired magazine, he defined “flow” as “being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you’re using your skills to the utmost.”

Unwittingly, Csikszentmihalyi also was describing peak performance, which occurs when you perform almost effortlessly at an incredibly high ability in challenging situations. Like the athlete who makes the winning free throw with 1.2 seconds remaining, the salesperson who performs gracefully and comfortably in challenging and complex selling situations, or the marketing manager who convinces a roomful of opinionated people that his way is best.

Think about it.