Influence

The influence process

Like most things in life a process is a useful place to start. The influence process has six main steps which are:

1. Be clear on your goal

2. Establish rapport

3. Take the lead

4. Understand their values

5. Make a recommendation

6. Reach an agreement

If you'd like the Metta Influence template then click here to download:

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Metta Presentation Format

All effective communication has a structure - from movies and TV commercials to books and stories. When it comes to presenting the best formats are based on the ideas of Bernice McCarthy. If you'd like a copy of the Metta Presentation Format based on the McCarthy model please click here:

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How to keep customers in a recession

If you are thinking about how to keep your customers in a recession then read on. When customers leave you it’s more about your poor service level than the attractiveness of competitors. According to the American Society of Equality and Productivity Centre the top reasons why companies loose customers are rated as follows:

·         Service Dissatisfaction 68%

·         Product Dissatisfaction 14%

·         Lured by competitor 9%

·         Influenced by friends 5%

·         Customer moves 4%

The number one factor in service dissatisfaction is a lack of being understood by the service provider.  So go ahead and serve your customers better, or someone else will.

The gender power imbalance

For too long now we have experienced a gender imbalance in power.

We’ll look at the

·         Gender power gap

·         How it developed

·         What we can do about it and

·         Some reasons why things may be changing.

1. Gender power gap

As women progress in their careers they are less likely to reach senior positions.

According to the Australian Census of Women in leadership:

1.    Girls are getting best results at school and universities but this is not reflected in their careers. Half of our graduates are women but only:

·         33% in management positions

·         15% are in executive ranks.

·         Only 4% in executive board positions

The Equal Opportunity in the Workplace Agency found that female senior executives identified as top earners by the ASX200 companies are paid 58% of their male counterparts in comparable roles.

2. Eight reasons why the gap developed

The first four of these come from the work of Linda Carli (see the Journal of Social Issues Spring 1999).

1.   Reward – Men have more control over resources.

2.   Coercive – Men have more senior positions and are more willing to use coercive power & bully.

3.   Expert – Men are presumed to have more expertise.

4.   Legitimate Power – Men assume power more easily than women.

5.   Glass Cliff

    

Women are more likely to be placed in precarious leadership roles than men. (Women in the Boardroom UK Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development).

    6.  Sticky Floor.

For some women its choice – they choose not to compete for the senior roles.  Lisa Gordon joined the board of Chrystalis at age 28, being the youngest woman ever appointed as director of a FTSE 250 company. She worked fulltime them part time until 2002 when she resigned to spend more time with her family. The following is a link to her story: www.telegraph.co.uk/health/3300296/I-am-choosing-not-to-want-it-all.html

7.   Socialisation.

Women are often socialized into not taking power positions. See Deborah Cameron’s (1992) work on studying children in the playground and following the differences in developing leadership, collaboration and leadership styles:

“Boys tend to play in large groups organized hierarchically: thus they learn direct, confrontational speech. Girls play in small groups of “best friends” where they learn to maximize intimacy and mimimise conflict.”

8.  Corporate Culture

AIM Survey -63% of respondents said Australian companies are not supportive of women “who seek to achieve seniority equivalent to their male counterparts.”

3. What can we do about it?

The power of influence

When you are influencing others look to understand first and persuade second, and the best understanding is based on values. The three most common values in business are power, security or reward. One model of values is called Spiral Dynamics you can find out more at www.spiraldynamics.org

The power of authenticity

You will be most powerful when you are most yourself and operating from your signature strengths. Strengths are what you love and make you feel good. You can find out your strengths at www.authentichappiness.org and take the VIA signature strengths test.

You will be most powerful when you are happiest and genuine happiness comes from finding a way to contribute your strengths to something bigger than you. For me it’s the local Nippers program.

Authenticity also comes from alignment – aligning who you are with what you do and how you spend time. The best in this area is still Stephen Covey, check out his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People or visit him at www.stephencovey.com

Power of resilience

People like Brian Walker from CSIRO are key to the recovery efforts after disasters like the Victorian bush fires earlier this year. He studies how plants, animals and people absorb shock and sustain. The key question is ‘how much can you change without losing your identity?’

Systems have a threshold or a tipping point which is the limit of what you can absorb. This threshold is not fixed.

Resilience is defined as the capacity to absorb disturbance and retain the same features and functions – to have the same identity. The magnitude of the disturbance that can be absorbed is the level of resilience present. The resilience of any system is developed by probing its boundaries

How do you perform at a consistently increasing level?

How much stress can you absorb?

The best work in this area is developed by Dr Herb Benson from the Harvard Medical School Institute of Mind Body Medicine. You can visit him at www.mbmi.org . Herb recommends relaxation and meditation as a way to reset the mind and body (look for the Relaxation Response on his website).

There are great examples of the power of meditation to create profound change for people. One example is Jenny Philips work teaching maximum security prisoners in Alabama how to use meditation to find peace. Have a look at her book East Meets West in The Deep South or the video at www.dhammabrothers.com

For how to eat for high performance look at the work of Professor Jennie Brand-Miller at Sydney University. Her book the New Glucose Revolution is excellent. Low GI eating is linked to high mental function and creates less stress in the body - have a look at  http://www.glycemicindex.com/  or find out more on Jennie at www.medfac.usyd.edu.au/people/academics/featured/brand_miller.php

4. Reasons to be hopeful about change

There are five good reasons why things may be about to change in the gender power gap.

    1.   Economic crisis means reward greed & coercive power  are questioned

    2.   Boards with female members do better than male only boards

·         Companies with women as executive directors have delivered average returns of nearly 14% over the past two years, those run by men mustered 10% (UK Cranfield School of Management study 2004).

·         Fortune 500 companies with the largest representation of women board directors and corporate officers achieve, on average, higher financial performance. (July 2008 Study by US Catalyst Group).

·         At time of great financial downtown in the financial markets companies that appointed a woman executive director experienced a marked increase in share price after the appointment and a period of financial stability. (Women in the Boardroom UK Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development).

    3.   Wisdom of crowds

A well formed diverse and informed group makes a better decision that its smartest member. See James Surowiecki’s book The Wisdom of Crowds.

 

4. Neuroplasticity – means we can all change our minds – brains are not fixed machines. Have a look at the work here of Norman Doidge.

 

   5. Rise of goodwill in the catastrophe. See the work here of Adam Philips and Barbara Taylor in their book ‘On Kindness’ where the authors document the value of kindness and its huge increase after a catastrophe.

Here are some additional resources which explore the gender power issue further:

Download Gender&Leadership

Download Gender&Management

Download Women&Power

Download WomenTakeCareMenTakeCharge

How Steve Jobs is a great presenter

Steve Jobs is widely acknowledged as one of the best presenters. In his annual Mac World presentations he inspired the Apple corporation and the industry with the next step according to Apple.

Have a look at his Macworld presentations on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmoDqPyofok&feature=PlayList&p=F8886490FF4659E3&index=0 ) and look for the following  ten reasons he is such a great presenter.

1.  Authentic Style

He looks comfortable and relaxed and appears to be genuine. People who know Steve Jobs say “that is who he is”. His comfortable style makes the audience feel relaxed.   He uses a conversational style that sounds very natural even though he rehearses more than most presenters.

2. Easy universal beginnings

When Steve Jobs opened Macworld 2008 he said “Welcome to Macworld 2008.  We’ve got some great stuff for you.” This is a very humble and easy way to begin. When you consider how complex and innovative his topic is, to use the phrase “great stuff” connects him with his audience and reinforces the key message that this is “for you”. Notice he doesn’t say “the reason I’m here is to show you new products.”

3. Clear Takeout.

Very early in the presentation Steve Jobs makes a simple and grand claim.  “Today Apple is going to reinvent the phone”.

4. Set the agenda.

He follows the Presentation Format by saying “So I’ve got four things I’d like to talk about with you today.  So let’s get started.” This gives us the elements or structure he is following.

5. Relevant transitions.

Because he is talking for a long time to a large group of people who are live and watching on large screens on adjacent rooms he knows that transitions help keep the audience on track. So he says “So that’s time capsule.  A perfect companion to Leopard, and that’s the first thing I wanted to share with you this morning.”

6. Persuasive support.

Jobs uses the full range os support from stories and gestures to PowerPoint and figures Most presenters use too few or too many figures. Jobs uses figures sparingly but when he does he makes it relevant. Listen for when Jobs says “We have sold 4 million iPhones to date.  If you divide 4 million by 200 days, that’s 20,000 iPhones every day on average.”

7. Variety in visual interaction

He uses multiple visual aids video clips, demonstrations, PowerPoint, grand gestures and movement; he even uses guests and rock bands to get his point across.

When he reverts to PowerPoint he uses just a picture, of just a picture with a few words in  large font.  He wants the audience to listen to him tell the story rather than just read the slides.  One example was a slide with only a green call phone button image on it. He uses the slides to help him tell a story and not tell it for him.

8. Taking risks.

Steve Jobs also demonstrates new software live, his willingness to learn how to do this in front of a world-wide audience gives us more confidence in the ease of use aspects of the product and more confidence in him.

9. Key words.

Key words set the tone for the presentation when they are delivered congruently, that is, with passion and energy that suits the word. Listen to Steve Jobs use words like “extraordinary, amazing, cool, incredible, unbelievable and amazing and awesome.”

10. Memorable Moments.

When he makes a demonstration he asks – what is the best way to show this? When he introduced Mac Book Air he opened a manila envelope, took out the laptop and said “This is the new Mac Book Air. You can get a feel for how thin it is.” This created a memorable moment in the presentation by aligning a key message and a brilliant way of communicating it to his audience.

How Obama makes a speech

Barack Obama is a great speech maker because he uses so many techniques so well. Attached you will find a detailed analysis of his acceptance speeach of November 2008 and references to the techniques he is us. Download PA Analysis Obama Acceptance Speech

Nine great books on change

Change is a crucial element in the art of influence, here are nine of the best books I've read in the change area, my favourite is still #9, Kotter, who still makes the most sense and lays out a practical road map.

1. Blair, G and  Meadows, S. (1996) A real Life Guide to Organisational Change, USA, Gower Publishing Limited.

2.Brecht, G. (1997), Sorting out Change, Australia, Prentice Hall

3. Carnall, C. (1995), Managing Change in Organisations, UK, Prentice Hal

4. Duck, J.D. (2001), The Change Monster, New York, USA, Crown Publishing

5. Heller, R. (1998), Managing Change, London, Dorling Kindersley Ltd

6. Hultman, K. (1998), Making Change Irresistible: Overcoming Resistance to Change in Your Organisation, USA, Davies-Black Publishing

7. Johnson, S. (2000), Who Moved my Cheese?, New York, USA, G.P. Putnam's Sons

8. Kelley, T. with Littman, J. (2001), The Art of Innovation, USA, Doubleday Broadway

9. Kotter, J.P. (1996), Leading Change, USA, Harvard Business School Press

The importance of customer dissatisfaction surveys

Why do some dissatisfied consumers fail to complain? This is crucial because as many as two thirds of dissatisfied customers don't complain. The propensity to complain is linked to assertiveness which is a broader area that includes requesting help and information and resisting attempts at compliance. Central to the propensity to complain is a weighting that compares the cost of complaining with the benefits. The higher the Seeking Redress Propensity (SRP) the higher the likelihood of complaining. The study found that the emotion of anger is the main driver of complaining and resignation is the main driver of non complaining behavior. It seems most dissatisfied customers feel that complaining is pointless. A useful strategy to improve customer service is to encourage customers to complain or at least tell you what they are unhappy with. In some ways a 'customer dissatisfaction survey' is more valuable than a 'customer satisfaction survey.'

How to build enlightened hospitality

You can learn a lot about rapport from the hospitality business because it's often the way the business makes you feel that will bring you back. Danny Meyer launched the groundbreaking Union Square Café in New York twenty five years ago, now he is CEO of one of the world's largest restaurant organisations. His business philosophy revolves around enlightened hospitality, as Danny puts it:

"Hospitability is the foundation of my business philosophy. Virtually nothing else is as important as how one is made to feel in any business transaction. Hospitality exists when you believe the other person is on your side. The converse is just as true. Hospitality is present when something happens for you. It is absent when something happens to you. Those two simple propositions – for and to – express it all."

For enlightened hospitality to work it must be expressed to each of five key stakeholders - to each other, then to guests, community, suppliers and investors. He makes no excuses for his staff first approach because the only way he can ensure superior customer service is to ensure they are served by happy staff.

Meyer also draws a useful distinction between service and hospitality. Service is the technical delivery of the product; this is necessary but not enough. Hospitality for Meyer is "how the delivery of that product makes the recipient feel" and is more like a dialogue that involves listening and responding. To reach the top requires excellence in service and hospitality.

Have you ever wondered why a technically perfect restaurant leaves you feeling cold? Meyer uses analogy of a light bulb that gives off both heat and light. Imagine if every business was a light bulb with the primary goal of attracting as many moths as possible. In Meyer's world 49 per cent of the attraction is the light and 51 per cent of the bulb's attraction is the warmth.

To find out more about Danny Meyer and his Union Square Hospitality Group visit http://www.ushgnyc.com/ or read his excellent book Setting the Table, (Harper, New York 2008).

How to find out more about coaching

Two  years ago I started a weblog for people I coach, its full of useful resources and ideas to maximise your performance. Why not have a look at the weblog by visiting http://peteranthony.typepad.com/coaching/