Start with what can kill you: A way to persuade better
A few years ago, this was a familiar scene from my work day: I would be pitching to global publishers of scientific content, in person or virtually, the idea of converting traditionally published research (heavily jargonized writing) into multi-format derivatives (videos, plain-language summaries, infographics). These pitches would follow a typical pattern: I would open with why multimedia content is the future, what was in it for them, and why my team could be entrusted with the responsibility of delivering the said benefits. There was agreement that the idea of repurposing technical content into something more digestible for wider consumption had legs, and my approach hinged on defending that idea. Meeting after meeting would end with a show of enthusiasm with promise of imminent work. A period of following through would ensue with reminders and offers to answer questions, suggestions to start off with a small pilot to test waters, customer remonstrations about budget--a sequence any seller of B2B services is familiar with.
Given the chance to do it again, I would approach the whole thing differently, but setting that aside as outcome bias, during those months of hustle it felt like I was missing something to truly convince customers. Let me explain myself.
Getting buy-in
We’re naturally protective of the parts about us, our positions, our arguments, that are vulnerable. We shield them by not airing them and then work hard to persuade the other party without being found out. We execute this strategy by mounting a strong case for us from the outset: open with our biggest strengths. We think this will consume the full attention of the listener and sway their judgement to the point of no return. But, as I painfully discovered, this dish often starts off sweet and ends up bitter.
A friend who works in product at Amazon, and is part of a duo that hosts Product, Explained, a podcast on the most popular tech products, was talking about how in presentations at Amazon it often happens that the one thing in his plan he isn’t sure about and hopes no one would spot is the first thing that is brought up. We’ve all been in this situation before and wondered how we could have been a smoother operator and where exactly we let it slip.
When we’re looking for buy-in, the strategy of talking up seems intuitive but is not always effective. When we focus on communicating our pluses to a doubtful audience we end up not paying enough attention to what may be important to them--the minuses. Understanding that no persuasion is complete without the other party’s committed consent is key to winning their confidence. And the first stop on the path to genuine consent is at the station of downsides.
Adam Grant in his book Originals recounts the story of how Babble, a parenting website, was bought by Disney for $40mn in 2011. With a slide titled ‘Here’s Why You Should Not Buy Babble’, the founders drew attention to the low user engagement on the site and the incongruous fact that 40% of the posts on their parenting website were about celebrities.
Leading with the downsides while pitching to a circumspect audience does at least four things:
Gets your audience to solve problems for you by shifting them from a high alert (got to find holes!) to a relaxed state (okay, so here are the holes; can we fix them?)
Makes you win credibility by making the audience believe you’re willing to expose your problems
Makes you look smart by showing you as a sound judge of your own shortcomings
Makes it harder for the audience to retrieve any other weaknesses (availability bias)
Negotiating
The counterintuitive approach of putting your worst foot forward is not restricted to winning over investors. Chris Voss, former FBI hostage negotiator and author of Never Split the Difference, talks about the same concept in the context of negotiations: To get to a Yes, bring out all the No’s first. He advises that we focus on getting rid of the negatives before getting to the positives, or we are at risk of receiving a counterfeit Yes. These fake Yes’s are the kind we offer to an aggressive salesperson (that was me!) we want to shake off our backs. To get to a committed Yes, the best approach is to acknowledge all the big No’s--all the potential deal breakers. Voss suggests we do that with something called an Accusation Audit. The idea behind it is that repeating our value proposition, something we’re all trained to do, is a ‘very one-sided point of view of things and takes into account in no way shape or form what the deal breakers are’. With an Accusation Audit we open by drawing out all possible reasons for someone to not do business with us and we address them head-on. This works not just in hostage situations but elsewhere as well, and is something that we may well remember from courtroom dramas where the defence lawyer opens by laying out all facts against the defendant in a move called ‘taking the sting out’. A point to note that the above advice applies to an audience that is not with us to begin with and needs to be won over. If, however, the audience is on our side, there’s little need to sow seeds of doubt by loading up on problems.
If entrepreneurs should open with downsides and negotiators should do accusation audits, how could business leaders who are on the other side of the fence as recipients of suggestions for change approach their work?
Managing
Thomas Zurbuchen is no ordinary manager. He is one of the biggest allocators of publicly funded capital to science, being in charge of the $8 billion research program at NASA. He believes that the best leaders should be able to carry worries with them, or their teams won’t bring any to them. ‘Don’t make me laugh, don’t make me feel good,’ he says, adding, ‘Make me feel scared and then make me feel comfortable because you’re dealing with all the risks. Don’t come and say it’s all low risk. It is not low risk, it’s rocket science.’
He outlines that leaders should endeavor to listen carefully to what’s not being said and eschew any pain aversion they may have if they want to get to the truth. This is perhaps truer for rocket science where if you miss an opportunity you literally have to wait for the stars to be aligned again for your next shot.
Having a high pain threshold is not enough in itself. There are leaders who are great at simply reacting to what is presented to them: they smile with you if your news is good; they question you if not. Either way, they depend on their teams to tell them the truth. Unless leaders have the motivation to go looking for white spaces, they are more likely to hear stories with happy endings as teams will optimize for their leader’s behavior.
While pitching change, being afraid of our limitations being exposed is natural. It assumes rejection as the inevitable consequence. So we play up our strengths and paper over our weaknesses. In doing so, we get busy telling our story and miss the opportunity to put our audience at ease by acknowledging their needs.
Persuading powerlessly is counterintuitive. But if opening with reasons for rejection is ultimately only a means to get to approval, we should be more open to using our limitations to our advantage. Why not start with what can kill us if it only makes us stronger?
What is your take on persuasion? Share your thoughts in the comments!