How to Influence Part II

The Six Principles of Persuasion

Robert Cialdini

Principle	In action
Liking If people like you—because they sense that you like them, or because of things you have in common—they’re more apt to say yes to you.	Time 100 most influential 2012
Reciprocity People tend to return favors. If you help people, they’ll help you. If you behave in a certain way (cooperatively, for example), they’ll respond in kind.	Give and Take (Adam Grant)
Social Proof People will do things they see other people doing—especially if those people seem similar to them.	The Giving Pledge (Gates Foundation and Warren Buffett)
Commitment and consistency People want to be consistent, or at least to appear to be. If they make a public, voluntary commitment, they’ll try to follow through.	The Iraq War Syria red line Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change
Authority People defer to experts and to those in positions of authority (and typically underestimate their tendency to do so).	Gartner Magic Quadrant Walt Mossberg McKinsey Global Institute Movie Reviews by Siskel, Ebert and now Roeper
Scarcity People value things more if they perceive them to be scarce.	Forever Diamonds Patek Philippe

Do you have other principles of influences or examples of them in action? Share!

To Influence, be a Happy Warrior*

 

Figure 1: Behavior for varied warmth/ strength (Cuddy)

The best way to gain influence is to combine warmth and strength. These traits are mutually reinforcing. Feeling a sense of personal strength helps us to be more open and less threatening/ threatened in stressful situations. A confident and calm individual exudes authenticity and warmth.

Heart first – mind next: Before we can win people’s minds, we have to win their hearts with warmth. During the initial 30 days most of us work hard to demonstrate our competence. We want to project strength and take every opportunity to demonstrate strength. We feel we are still being interviewed and strive to present the most innovative ideas in meetings, being the first to tackle a challenge, and working the longest hours.  In contrast, the first 30 days should be about establishing trust.

Without the foundation of trust there’s risk of eliciting fear and dysfunctional behaviours (Figure 1). Fear can undermine creativity and problem solving, and cause employees to even disengage. Trust increases information sharing, openness, fluidity, and cooperation. Trust also facilitates the exchange and acceptance of ideas—it allows people to hear others’ message—and boosts the quantity and quality of the ideas that are produced within an organization. Most important, trust provides the opportunity to change people’s attitudes and beliefs, not just their outward behaviour – core for successful influence.

Happy Warriors: Leaders who combine warmth and strength face troubles without being troubled. Their behavior is not relaxed, but they are relaxed emotionally. The effect of their demeanor on those around them is calming and energizing. They reassure us of success in whatever challenges we may face. President FDR fireside chats and President Obama’s 2008 campaign are examples.

How to Project Warmth	How to Project Strength
Smile—and mean it Smile sincerely, feeling happy makes us smile, and smiling makes us happy.	Feel in command Eliminate Self-doubt to project confidence, enthusiasm, and passion. Connect with yourself to connect with others.
Validate feelings Demonstrate that you hold similar views others do. For colleagues to listen and agree with you, first agree with them.	Posture Stand up straight. Reach your full height rather than slouching.
Find the right level Amp up the enthusiasm in your voice. Speak with lower pitch and volume with no pretense or emotional adornment.	Get ahold of yourself Move deliberately and precisely to a specific spot.
Posture Lean inward to signal interest and engagement. Keep your hands open and welcoming. Don’t stand with your chin pointed down.

 

Reference:

1.      Connect, Then Lead: Amy J.C. Cuddy, Matthew Kohut, and John Neffinger, Harvard Business Review, June/ July 2013.

 

 

India – the golden bird in crisis again

India is again in crisis mode and presents opportunities to reset actions. India is facing stagflation – stagnating GDP and persistent inflation. The government, corporate and personal debts are at a high and savings rates have reduced. Capital allocation has suffered and ROA is trending down.  Currency is at a life time low, imports are high, exports are flat and balance of trade is adverse. Stock market is lopsided at Oct 2007 levels with FMCG and IT as the significant contributors. All outputs have lagged behind plans – Electricity, Gas, Oil, Roads, Ports. Even Government Navaratna monopolies like BHEL, Coal India, Gail India and Container Corporation are bleeding. Unfortunately, the hard changes required for bringing the potential of the golden bird and I in the BRIC have not come to fruition yet.

 

More than at any time, currently Indian companies will be looking for technology to accelerate productivity and put them back on a growth path or optimize the cost structure. Collaborating with and helping target emerging and current leaders in select industry verticals will make scalable revenue and repeatable client successes. For e.g. Bharti Airtel IBM contract is coming up for renewal and likely going to be split into multiple vendors.

 

India can be a great innovation lab to launch new services in horizontals like Infrastructure Services, Mobility, Analytics, CRM and BPO. Running these innovation labs in India requires lower investment, allows for closer business/ IT collaboration and potential for long growth trajectory as mid-caps transition to super-caps. Again Bharti Airtel in 2004 would have been a great success as technology leverage led to market leadership. IBM went on to parlay expertise to Idea as well. Unlike innovation labs at TCS and Infosys, the Innovation Lab will co-innovate with clients, be client funded with initial internal seed funding. The Lab will crowd source ideas from employees, partners and clients. High potential ideas will be funded by external or internal customers. Future funding will be generated from deals won through direct contribution mining future, current and past client successes. India’s public sector with digital delivery of information and services can bring huge efficiencies and reduce corruption. Growing skills of the large young populace is another great opportunity for technology.  

Thank you!

Appreciation and Gratitude can dramatically improve your, team and company’s performance. Humans need recognition to reach their full potential (Maslow). Saying "thank you" increases the likelihood your employee will not only help you, but help someone else (Adam Grant and Francesca Gino). Receiving thanks creates strong feelings of social value, which inspires us to help further. Being thanked for our community impact also makes us more productive (Adam Grant). In turn, being grateful excites positive emotions, strengthens social relationships and leads to higher creativity and productivity.

Effective Appreciation is sincere, timely and specific, complimenting the process and the results the act produced for the company and yourself. “The open and collaborative feedback on the client deck is appreciated! Look forward to continue the collaboration!”  Appreciation Cards are a very quick and easy mechanism to send a personalized Thank You note to an employee and their manager for living the MphasiS values. Like a Bitcoin chain, an appreciation note can motivate the receiver to send a note of their own fostering a Give and Take (Adam Grant) culture. A critical mass of such notes can like a fission chain reaction cause an explosive surge of employee engagement and cooperation producing industry leading results.

Have you helped or appreciated someone today? Just do it and be delighted. Thank you!

12 Questions to innovate education

1. How do we determine success of the learning and teaching efforts?
2. How do we train students to be successful considering their individuality and preferences?
3. What do parents and students expect from the school experience and how can we deliver it?
4. What activities can students and parents do after school to supplement the classroom teaching?
5. What are teachers' expectations of their students/ parents and how can we help students/ parents meet them?
6. How can we recruit, empower, motivate and train the teachers to be committed and accountable for the students’ success?
7. How do we engage the community to invest their time and money for the schools?
8. What changes can be made to the curriculum, class duration, number of school years and teaching mechanism to prioritize higher value/ impact elements and reduce optional elements?
9. How can we use technology to help students learn and teachers teach?
10. How can schools be operated so administrators can focus on monitoring, experimentation and engaging students, parents, teachers and the community?
11. What lessons from other successful teaching experiments can be applied to a broader set of schools?
12. How do we constantly monitor and change how we teach to meet needs of the future generation?

Toyota Recall and Lessons learned

In the real world, bad things happen to good companies. Be sure, in every change you make, after you have designed what should happen, to take the same amount of time to plan for the unintended disruptions that, you hope, will never come to fruition. (Source: Susan Cramm)

Whether you head a company, lead a good cause, or coach your children's soccer teams, your job is to root out complacency. Remember to:
· Keep up the essential disciplines every single day, not skipping a single one.
· Keep checking everything carefully.
· Repair, renew, relearn, and reinvest regularly.
· Don't rejoice in others' misery, because you could be next.
· Thank anyone who points out flaws. Listen to disgruntled customers or disaffected constituencies.
· Treat even small setbacks as occasions for redoubled efforts.
"Winning is great, but sometimes it takes a loss to get you motivated again. It humbles you down to reality," said a high school athlete in my research. That youth speaks truth! Although he might not be old enough to drive a Toyota, he is headed in the right direction. (Source: Rosabeth Kanter)

In terms of thinking ahead, when I first studied Toyota I noticed they had this kind of cultivated paranoia. Every time I would try to compliment people at Toyota about their success, they would say, “Wait a minute, hold on. Don’t compliment us. GM, the sleeping behemoth, may awake.” Or “Who knows if Kia will develop the capacity to catch us, like we caught others.” Then there was, “In China there must be 1,000 car companies, and we can’t even name them all, let along identify the one that may catch us.” So I think this really bad product failure is probably fuel for another two solid decades of cultivated paranoia. If there was a complacency problem at Toyota, which there may have been, my goodness, if this doesn’t flush that out of the system, nothing will. (Source: Steven Spear)

Success in business is never guaranteed, in spite of the enticingly simple promises made by some of the titles on the airport bookshelves. Luck and timing have more to do with companies’ success than many people realise, or are prepared to admit. Every institution is vulnerable, no matter how great. No matter how much you’ve achieved, no matter how far you’ve gone, no matter how much power you’ve garnered, you are vulnerable to decline ... Anyone can fall and most eventually do. (Source: Financial Times)

Innovation in India close to a tipping point

The New York Times article highlighting lack of an Apple or Google in India quoted 1. a financial system reluctant to invest in unproven ideas, 2. an education system that emphasizes rote learning over problem solving and 3. a culture that looks down on failure and unconventional career choices as primary reasons.

In 2006, while the Indian patent office received approx 2000 patent application from residents, Indians in the US contributed to 13.7% or 5760 patent applications. Increasingly immigrant Indians plan to return back and expect China and India to generate innovative products and services during the next 25 to 50 years. Reverse brain drain is now a reality.

Increasingly, Indian movies are highlighting the inherent entreprenurial energy and the lacuna of the Indian educational system. Amir Khan's latest movie 3 Idiots has become the highest grossing movie in Hindi cinema and underlined the inadequacies of the Indian education system. 'All Izz Well' has become a nationwide clarion call. Amir's 2007 movie Taare Zameen Par equally effectively drew the nation's attention to the role of a teacher and the education system to foster creativity. These movies have led to a quiet revolution and are bringing about change. The Harvard Law educated HRD minister Kapil Sibal has vowed to complete his reform of the education system in 2010 through 6 major legislations 2 of which have already been approved.

Niall Ferguson academic historian at Harvard and most recently author of Ascent of Money recently commented "Whereas in India, all that is really needed, and I know this sounds terribly simplistic, is improving primary and secondary education for a majority of people and improving infrastructure. And then let the markets rip. Indians are very entrepreneurial. Everywhere you go, people are selling stuff, even if it is only a pile of spices. I think unlocking the entrepreneurial energy of India will lift a large number of people out of poverty"

Innumerable practical innovations to address the growing Indian market and capitalize on the large fortune at the bottom of the pyramid are now coming to market. HP Labs India was established in February 2002 with the principal focus on creating new technologies for addressing the IT needs of the next billion customers for HP.

Increasingly, parents are supportive of unconventional career choices. IIMs are encouraging students to start ventures knowing if their ventures fail they can participate in the following year final placements.

Several of the Policy recommendations for improving availability of risk capital to early stage ventures are currently being implemented.

Innovation in India is hard....but increasingly possible and close to a tipping point.