{"id":4235,"date":"2023-06-19T21:58:17","date_gmt":"2023-06-20T01:58:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mattwkane.com\/?p=4235"},"modified":"2023-06-19T21:58:17","modified_gmt":"2023-06-20T01:58:17","slug":"to-sell-is-human","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.mattwkane.com\/?p=4235","title":{"rendered":"To Sell is Human"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Daniel Pink\u20142012.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Introduction<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>In Chapter 6,1 discuss \u201cclarity\u201d\u2014the capacity to make sense of murky situations. It\u2019s long been held that top salespeople&#8211;whether in traditional sales or non-sales selling\u2014are deft at problem solving. Here I will show that what matters more today problem is finding. One of the most effective ways of moving others is to uncover challenges they may not know they have. Here you\u2019ll also learn about the craft of curation\u2014along with some shrewd ways to frame your curatorial choices.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Part One: Rebirth of a Salesman<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>1. We\u2019re All in Sales Now<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Americans love complaining about bloated governments\u2014but America\u2019s sales force outnumbers the entire federal workforce by more than 5 to 1. The U.S. private sector employs three times as many salespeople as all fifty state governments combined employ.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Working with Qualtrics, a fast growing research and data analytics company, I commissioned a survey to try to uncover how much time and energy people are devoting to moving others, including what we can think of as non-sales selling.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>People are now spending about 40 percent of their time at work engaged in non-sales selling\u2014persuading, influencing. And convincing others in ways that don\u2019t involve anyone making a purchase. Across a range of professions, we are devoting roughly twenty-four minutes of every hour to moving others.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>People consider this aspect of their work crucial to their Professional success\u2014even in excess of the considerable amount of time they devote to it.\u2019<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>2. Entrepreneurship, Elasticity and Ed-Med<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>In chapter 7, , you will learn something called the \u201cPixar Pitch\u201d Built on the work of Hollywood\u2019s famed animation studio, the technique involves offering a short summary of the point you\u2019re trying to make, rendered in the narrative structure of a Pixar film.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Brooklyn Brine embodies the first of three reasons why more of us find ourselves in sales: the rise of small entrepreneurs.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>What people actually do inside tiny operations is often fundamental different from what they do within massive ones.&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Given these numbers, \u201cInstead of rolling our eyes at self-conscious Brooklyn hipsters pickling everything in sight, we might look to them as guides to the future of the \u2026 economy,\u201d says New York Times Magazine columnist Adam Davidson. Harvard University\u2019s Lawrence Katz, perhaps the top labor economist of his generation, agrees. He projects that middle-class employment of the future won\u2019t be employees of large organizations, but self-sufficient \u201cartisans.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li> In just three years, Kickstarter surpassed the U.S. National Endowment for the Arts as the largest backer of arts projects in the United States.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Enter the second reason we\u2019re all in sales now: Elasticity\u2014the new breadth of skills demanded by established companies<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Take, for instance, how the relationship between Atlassian and its customers begins. In most enterprise software companies, a company salesperson visits potential customers prospecting for new business. Not at Atlassian. Here potential customers typically initiate the relationship themselves by downloading a trial version of one of the company\u2019s products. Some of them then call Atlassian\u2019s support staff with questions. But the employees who offer support, unlike a traditional sales force, don\u2019t tempt callers with fast-expiring discounts or badger them to make a long-term commitment. Instead, they simply help people understand the software, knowing buyers to make a purchase. The same goes for engineers. Their job, of course, is to build great software\u2014but that demands more than just slinging code.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>To help its engineers develop such elasticity, the company doesn\u2019t offer sales training or march recruits through an elaborate sales process. It simply requires every new hire to read two books. One is a nonfiction a(\u2018count of the September 11 attacks, so they\u2019re better attuned to what happens when governments can\u2019t make sense of information; the other is a British drama instructor\u2019s guide to improvisational acting, so they understand the importance of nimble minds and limber skills.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>A decade of intense competition has forced most organizations to transform from segmented to flat (or at least, flatter). They do the same, if not greater, amounts of work than before\u2014but they do it with fewer people who are doing more, and more varied, things.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Timothy Shriver Jr. is an executive at The Future Project, a nonprofit that connects secondary school students with interesting projects to adults who can coach them. His work reaches across different areas\u2014marketing, digital media, strategy, branding, and partnerships.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>While jobs in the manufacturing sector have been declining for forty years, as recently as the late 1990s the United States still employed more people in that sector than in professional and business services. About ten years ago, however, professional and business services took the lead. But their ascendance proved short lived, because rising like a rocket was another sector, education and health services\u2014or what I call Ed-Med. Ed-Med\u2014which includes everyone from community college instructors to proprietors of test prep companies and from genetic counselors to registered nurses\u2014is now, by far, the largest job sector in the U.S. economy, as well as a fast-growing sector in the rest of the world. In the United States, Ed-Med has generated significantly more new jobs in the last decade than all other sectors combined. And over the next decade, forecaster\u2019s project, heath care jobs alone will grow at double the rate of any other sector.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>. Ferlazzo makes a distinction between \u201cirritation\u201d and \u201cagitation.\u201d Irritation, he says, is \u201cchallenging people to do something that we want them to do.\u201d By contrast, \u201cagitation is challenging them to do something that they want to do.\u201d What he has discovered throughout his career is that \u201cirritation doesn\u2019t work.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>It\u2019s about leading with my ears instead of my mouth, \u2018 Ferlazzo says. I \u201cIt means trying to elicit from people what their goals are for themselves and having the flexibility to frame what we do in that context<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>For example, in his ninth-grade class last year, after finishing a unit on natural disasters, Ferlazzo asked his students to write an essay about the natural disaster they considered the very worst. One of his students\u2014Ferlazzo calls him \u201cJohn\u201d\u2014refused. This wasn\u2019t the first time he had done so, either. John had struggled throughout school and had written very little. But he still hoped eventually to graduate. Ferlazzo told John that he wanted him to graduate, too, but ^ that graduation was unlikely if he couldn\u2019t write an essay. \u201cI then told him that I knew from previous conversations that he was on the football team and liked football,\u201d Ferlazzo said. \u201cI asked him what his favorite football team was. He looked a little taken aback since it seemed off topic\u2014it looked like he had been expecting a lecture. \u2018The Raiders,\u2019 he replied. Okay, then, what was his least favorite team? \u2018The Giants. So Ferlazzo asked him to write an essay showing why the Raiders were superior to the Giants. John stayed on task, said Ferlazzo, asked \u201cthoughtful and practical questions,\u201d and turned in a \u201cdecent essay.\u201d Then John asked to write another essay\u2014this one about basketball\u2014to make up for previous essays he hadn\u2019t bothered to do. Ferlazzo said yes. John delivered another pretty good piece of written work. Later that week, in a parent-teacher conference with all of his teachers, John\u2019s mother cried when I showed her the two essays. She said he\u2019d never written one before\u201d during his previous nine years of schooling. Ferlazzo says he \u201cused agitation to challenge him on the idea of graduating from high school and I used my ears knowing that he was interested in football.\u201d Feriazzo\u2019s aim wasn\u2019t to force John to write about natural disasters but to help him develop writing skills. He convinced John to give up resources\u2014ego and effort\u2014and that will helped John move himself.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>We go in and tell you what to do.\u201d But she has found, and both experience and evidence confirm, that this approach has its limit. \u201cWe need to take a step back and bring [patients] on board,\u201d she told me. \u201cPeople usually know themselves way better than I do.\u201d So now, in order to move people to move themselves, she tells them, \u201cI need your expertise.\u201d Patients heal faster and better when they\u2019re part of the moving process.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>3. From Cavea Emptor to Caveat Venditor<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>His book, How to Sell Anything to Anybody\u2014whose cover claims \u201c2 million copies in print!\u201d\u2014reveals the secrets, which he also shares with live audiences around the world. \u201cI guarantee you that my system will work for you, if you understand and follow it,\u201d he promises.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The centerpiece is \u201cGirard\u2019s Rule of 250\u201d\u2014that each of us has 250 people in our lives we know well enough to invite to a| wedding or a funeral. If you reach one person, and get her to like you and buy from you, she will connect you to others in her! 250-person circle. Some of those people will do the same. And so on and so on in ever-widening cascades of influence. Girard advises us to \u201cfill the seats on the Ferris wheel\u201d with as many prospects as we can, to let them off the Ferris wheel for a while after they buy, and then to turn them into your \u201cbirddogs\u201d by paying them $50 for every new sale they subsequently send you. \u201cA Chevrolet sold by Joe Girard is not just a car,\u201d he writes. \u201cIt is a whole relationship between me and the customer and his family and friends and the people he works with.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>We bring them in and we put them in a one-week training course that\u2019s not just about sales. We talk about customer service and social media.\u201d&nbsp; Most of all, what makes someone effective on this shifted terrain is different from the smooth-talking, backslapping, pocket picking stereotype of the past. Darvish says the qualities she looks for most are persistence\u2014and something for which a word never appeared in either of the word clouds: empathy. \u201cYou can\u2019t train someone to care,\u201d she told me. To her the ideal salespeople are those who ask themselves, \u201cWhat decision would I make if that were my own mom sitting there trying to get service or buy a car?\u201d It sounds noble. And maybe it is. But today, it\u2019s how you sell cars.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Who service shop offers free detailing to the teacher of the month at a neighborhood school.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The company launched in 1993 hoping to reinvent the way Americans bought used cars. Two decades later, CarMax is a Fortune 500 company that sells more than four hundred thousand vehicles each year and collects annual revenue of more than billion.^\u00b0 From the start, it tried to undo the conventions that gave rise to that first word cloud. For instance, it established a set price for each car\u2014no haggling necessary. That reduces a customer\u2019s fear of being out bargained by a more informed seller. Also, CarMax salespeople\u2014most of them decked in blue polo shirts with a company logo rather than a suit and tie\u2014earn their pay entirely through commissions. But those commissions aren\u2019t based on the price of the car. Selling a budget car earns the same commission as selling an expensive one. That mitigates the fear that a pushy salesman will press you to buy a vehicle that\u2019s good for his wallet rather than yours. Finally, CarMax practically disgorges information. Since any customer on her own can find a report on the vehicles condition or history, CarMax gives that to customers for free. It offers warranties, certifications, and guarantees to address the quality concerns that Akerlof identified back in 1967.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>But the sharpest example is in plain view when you walk into the store. Each salesperson sits at a small desk\u2014him on one side, the customer on the other. Each desk also has a computer. In most settings, the seller would look at the computer screen and the buyer at the computer\u2019s backside. But here the computer is positioned not in front of either party, but off to the side with its screen facing outward so both buyer and seller can see it at the same time. It\u2019s the literal picture of information symmetry. No haggling. Transparent commissions. Informed customers. Once again, it all sounds so enlightened. And maybe it is. But that\u2019s not why this new approach exists.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Part Two: How to Be<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>4. Attunement<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Remapped conditions require revamped navigation. So here in Part Two, I introduce the new ABCs of moving others:<ul><li>A\u2014Attunement<\/li><\/ul><ul><li>B\u2014Buoyancy<\/li><\/ul>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>C\u2014Clarity<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Power, Empathy, and Chameleons<ul><li>Take a moment right now\u2014and if there\u2019s someone in the room with you, politely request thirty seconds of his or her time. Then ask that person to do the following: \u201cFirst, with your dominant hand, snap as quickly as you can, use the forefinger of your dominant hand to draw a capital E on your forehead.\u201d Seriously, go ahead and do this. I\u2019ll wait. (If you\u2019re alone, slip this exercise in your back pocket and pull it out at your next opportunity.)<\/li><\/ul><ul><li>Now look at the way your counterpart drew his or her E. Which photograph on the previous page does it look like? The difference might seem innocuous, but the letter on your counterpart\u2019s forehead offers a window into his mind. If the E resembles the one on the left, the person drew it so he could read it himself If it looks like the one on the right, he drew the E so you could read it. Since the mid-1980s, social psychologists have used this technique\u2014call it the E Test\u2014to measure what they dub \u2018perspective-taking.\u201d When confronted with an unusual or complex situation involving other people, how do we make sense of what\u2019s going on? Do we examine it from only our own point of view? Or do we have \u201cthe capability to step outside [our] own experience and imagine the emotions, perceptions, and motivations of another?\u201d<\/li><\/ul>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>&nbsp;Perspective -taking is at the heart of our first essential quality in moving others today. Attunement is the ability to bring one\u2019s actions and outlook into harmony with other people and with the context you\u2019re in.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>As a result, the ability to move people now depends on power\u2019s inverse: understanding another person\u2019s perspective, getting inside his head, and seeing the world through his eyes.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>But feeling too deeply isn\u2019t necessarily the answer either\u2014because you might submerge your own interests. Perspective-taking seems to enable the proper calibration between the two poles, allowing us to adjust and attune ourselves in ways that leave both sides better off. Empathy can help build enduring relationships and defuse conflicts. In medical settings, according to one prominent physician, it is \u201cassociated with fewer medical errors, better patient outcomes, more satisfied patients . . . fewer malpractice claims and happier doctors.\u201d And empathy is valuable and virtuous in its own right. But when it comes to moving others, perspective-taking is the more effective of these fraternal twins. As the researchers say, ultimately it\u2019s \u201cmore beneficial to get inside their heads than to have them inside one\u2019s own heart.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>So we must rely less on GPS-style directions\u2014and more on our intuitive sense of where we are. In the world of waiters and waitresses, this sort of attunement is called \u201chaving eyes\u201d or \u201creading a table.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>In the world of moving others, I call this ability \u201csocial cartography.\u201d It\u2019s the capacity to size up a situation and, in one\u2019s mind, draw a map of how people are related<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Successful negotiators recommend that you should mimic the mannerisms of your negotiation partner to get a better deal. For example, when the other person rubs his\/her face, you should, too. If he\/she leans back or leans forward in the chair, you should, too. However, they say it is very important that you mimic subtly enough that the other person does not notice what you are doing, otherwise this technique completely backfires. Also, do not direct too much of your attention to the mimicking so you don\u2019t lose focus on the outcome of the negotiation. Thus, you should find a happy medium of consistent but subtle mimicking that does not disrupt your focus.\u201d (Emphasis in the original.)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>\u2018Strategic mimicry\u201d proved to be effective. The participants told to mimic\u2014again, with just five minutes of notice and preparation\u2014did it surprisingly well and to great effect. In the gas station scenario, \u201cnegotiators who mimicked their opponents\u2019 mannerisms were more likely to create a deal that benefited both parties.\u201d In the recruiting scenario, the mimickers fared better than the non-mimickers\u2014and did so without adversely affecting the other side. The researchers titled their paper, \u201cChameleons Bake Bigger Pies and Take Bigger Pieces<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Our brains evolved at a time when most of the people around us were those we were related to and therefore could trust. But \u201cas the size of groups increased, it required more sophisticated understandings and interactions with people,\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>People therefore looked to cues in the environment to determine whom they could trust. T. \u201cOne of those cues is the unconscious awareness of whether we are in synch with other people, and a way to do that is to match their behavioral patterns with our own<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Other research demonstrates mimicry\u2019s effectiveness. For example, a Dutch study found that waitresses who repeated diners\u2019 orders word for word earned 70 percent more tips than those who paraphrased orders\u2014and that customers with servers who mimicked were more satisfied with their dining experience.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>When customers approached the salespeople for help, nearly 79 percent bought from mimickers compared with about 62 percent from non-mimickers.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>And much as perspective-taking and empathy are fraternal twins mimicry has a first cousin: touching. The research here, much of it by French social psychologist Nicolas Gueguen, is similarly plentiful. For instance, several studies have shown that when restaurant servers touch patrons lightly on the arm or shoulder, f diners leave larger tips. One of Gueguen\u2019s studies found that women in nightclubs were more likely to dance with men who lightly touched their forearm for a second or two when making the request<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>. Martin surprised me by repeatedly using a word one rarely hears in this context: \u201chumility.\u201d \u201cThe most common thread in the people who are really good at this is humility,\u201d she told me. \u201cThey take the attitude of Tm sitting in the small chair so you can sit in the big chair.\u2019\u201d That\u2019s perspective taking through reducing power, the first rule of attunement.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The notion that extraverts are the finest salespeople is so obvious that we\u2019ve overlooked one teensy flaw. There\u2019s almost no evidence that it\u2019s actually true.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Perhaps not surprisingly, introverted sales reps didn\u2019t perform as well as extraverted ones, earning an average of $120 per hour in revenue compared with |125 per hour tor their more outgoing colleagues. But neither did nearly as well as a third group: the ambiverts. Ambi-whats? These are people who are neither overly extraverted nor wildly introverted. Go back to that l-to-7 introversion-extraversion scale. Ambiverts sit roughly in the center. They\u2019re not is or 2s, but they\u2019re not 6s or 7s. In Grant\u2019s study, these Goldilocks personalities\u2014not too hot, not too cold\u2014earned an average of nearly $155 per hour, easily besting their counterparts. In fact, the salespeople who had the highest average revenue\u2014$208 per hour\u2014had extraversion scores of 4.0, smack at the midpoint.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>\u201cThese findings call into question the longstanding belief that the most productive salespeople are extraverted,\u201d Grant writes Instead, being too extraverted can actually impair performance, as other research has begun to confirm. For example, two recent Harvard Business Review studies of sales professionals found that top performers are less gregarious than below-average ones and that the most sociable salespeople are often the poorest performers of all.^^ According to a large study of European and American customers, the \u201cmost destructive\u201d behavior of salespeople wasn\u2019t being ill-informed. It was an excess of assertiveness and zeal that led to (contacting customers too frequently. Extraverts, in other words, often stumble over themselves. They can talk too much and listen too little.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>SAMPLE CASE<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Attunement<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Everything good in life\u2014a cool business, a great romance, a powerful social movement\u2014begins with a conversation.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>But what\u2019s the best way to start a conversation\u2014especially with someone you don\u2019t know well? How can you quickly put the person at ease, invite an interaction, and build rapport?<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>For guidance, look to Jim Collins, author of the classic Good to Great and other groundbreaking business books. He says his favorite opening question is: Where are you from?<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>So how can you teach yourself to be a bit more like that benevolent lizard and begin to master the techniques of strategic mimicry?<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The three key steps are Watch, Wait, and Wane:<ul><li>1. Watch. Observe what the other person is doing. How is he sitting? Are his legs crossed? His arms? Does he lean back? Tilt to one side? Tap his toe? Twirl his pen? How does he speak? Fast? Slow? Does he favor particular expressions?<\/li><\/ul><ul><li>2. Wait. Once you\u2019ve observed, don\u2019t spring immediately into action. Let the situation breathe. If he leans back, count to fifteen, then consider leaning back, too. If he makes an important point, repeat back the main idea verbatim\u2014but a bit later in the conversation. Don\u2019t do this too many times, though. It\u2019s not a contest in which you\u2019re piling up points per mimic.<\/li><\/ul>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>3. Wane. After you\u2019ve mimicked a little, try to be less conscious of what you\u2019re doing. Remember: This is something that humans (including you) do naturally, so at some point, it will begin to feel effortless. It\u2019s like driving a car. When you first learn. You have to be conscious and deliberate. But once you\u2019ve acquired some experience, you can proceed by instinct.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Amazon, like most organizations, has lots of meetings. But at the important ones, alongside the chairs in which his executives, marketing mavens, and software jockeys take their places, Bezos includes one more chair that remains empty. It\u2019s there to remind those assembled who\u2019s really the most important person in the room: the customer.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Seeing it encourages meeting attendees to take the perspective of that invisible but essential person. What\u2019s going through her mind? What are her desires and concerns? What would she think of the ideas were putting forward?<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Take a moment to find out. Visit this link\u2014http:\/\/www.danpink.com\/assessment<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>She calls it \u201cConversation with a Time Traveler.\u201d It doesn\u2019t require any props or equipment, just a little imagination and a lot of work. Here\u2019s how it goes:<ul><li>Gather a few people and ask them to think of items that somebody from three hundred years ago would not recognize. A traffic light, maybe. A carry-out pizza. An airport screening machine. Then divide into groups of two. Each pair selects an item. One person plays the role of someone from the early 1700s. The other has to explain the item.<\/li><\/ul><ul><li>This is more difficult than it sounds. That person from three hundred years ago has a perspective wildly different from our own. For instance, to explain, say, a Big Mac bought from a drive through window requires understanding a variety of underlying concepts: owning an automobile, consuming what three hundred years ago was a preposterous amount of meat, trusting someone you\u2019ve likely never met and will never see again, and so on.<\/li><\/ul>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>\u201cThis exercise immediately challenges your assumptions about the understandability of your message,\u201d Salit says. \u201cYou are forced to care about the worldview of the other person.\u201d That\u2019s something we all should be doing a lot more of in the present.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>1. Discussion Map\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>In your next meeting, cut through the clutter of comments with a map that can help reveal the group\u2019s social cartography. Draw a diagram of where each person in the meeting is sitting. When the session begins, note who speaks first by marking an X next to that person\u2019s name. Then each time someone speaks, add an X next to that name. If someone directs her comments to a particular person rather than to the whole group, draw a line from the speaker to the recipient. When the meeting is done you\u2019ll get a visual representation of who\u2019s talking the most, who\u2019s sitting out, and who\u2019s the target of people\u2019s criticisms or blandishments. You can even do this for those increasingly ubiquitous conference calls. (In fact, it\u2019s easier because nobody can see you!) On page 93 is an example, which shows that the person with the initials JW talked the most that many of the comments were directed at AB, and that SL and KC barely participated.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Play \u201cMirror, mirror.\u201d\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>How attuned are you to slight alterations in appearances or situations? This team exercise, a favorite of change management consultants, can help you answer those questions and begin to improve. Gather your group and tell them to do the following:<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>1. Find a partner and stand face-to-face with that person for thirty seconds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>2. Then turn around so that you\u2019re both back-to-back with your partner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>3. Once turned around, each person changes one aspect of his or her appearance\u2014for example, remove earrings, add eyeglasses, and untuck your shirt. (Important: Don\u2019t tell people what you\u2019re going to ask them to do until they\u2019re back-to-back.) Wait sixty seconds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>4. Turn back around and see if you or your partner can tell what has changed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Repeat this twice more with the same person, each time altering something new about your appearance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>&nbsp;When you\u2019re done, debrief with a short discussion. Which changes did people notice? Which eluded detection? How much of doing this well depended on being observant and attuned from the outset? How might this experience change your next encounter with a colleague, client, or student?<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Find uncommon commonalities.<ul><li>The research of Arizona State University social psychologist Robert Cialdini, some of which I\u2019ll discuss in Chapter 6, shows that we\u2019re more likely to be persuaded by those whom we like. And one reason we like people is that they remind us of . . . us. Finding similarities can help you attune yourself to others and_ help them attune themselves to you. Here\u2019s an exercise that works well in teams and yields some insights individuals can later deploy on their own.<\/li><\/ul><ul><li>Assemble a group of three or four people and pose this question: What do we have in common, either with another person or with everyone? Go beyond the surface. For example, does everybody have a younger brother? Have most people visited a Disney property in the last year.\u2019\u2019 Are some people soccer fanatics or opera buffs or amateur cheese makers?<\/li><\/ul>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Set a timer for five minutes and see how many commonalities you can come up with. You might be surprised. Searching for similarities\u2014Hey, I\u2019ve got a dachshund, too!\u2014may seem trivial. We dismiss such things as \u201csmall talk.\u201d But that\u2019s a mistake. Similarity\u2014the genuine, not the manufactured, variety\u2014is a key form of human connection. People are more likely to move together when they share common ground.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>5. Buoyancy<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>How to stay afloat amid that ocean of rejection is the second essential quality in moving others. 1 call this quality \u201cbuoyancy.\u201d Hall exemplifies it. Recent social science explains it. And it you understand buoyancy\u2019s three components\u2014which apply before, during, and after any effort to move others\u2014you can use it effectively in your own life.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The hardest part of selling, Norman Hall says, occurs before his well-polished shoes even touch the streets of San Francisco. \u201cJust getting myself out of the house and facing people\u201d is the stiffest challenge, he says. \u201cIt\u2019s that big, unknown faceless person I have to face for the first time.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>However, the person whose example you should be following takes a different tack. His name is Bob the Builder. And if you haven\u2019t been around preschool children in the last fifteen years, let me offer a quick dossier. Bob is an overall-clad, hard-hat-sporting, stop-motion-animated guy who runs a construction company. His TV program, which began in England in 1999, now entertains kids in forty-five countries. Bob is always finding himself in sticky situations that seem inevitably to call for traditional sales or non-sales selling. Like all of us, Bob talks to himself. But Bob\u2019s self talk is neither positive nor declarative. Instead, to move himself and his team, he asks a question: Can we fix it?<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Yes, positive self-talk is generally more effective than negative self-talk. But the most effective self-talk of all doesn\u2019t merely shift emotions. It shifts linguistic categories. It moves from making statements to asking questions.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>They separated the participants into two groups, each of which was treated identically except for the one minute before they tackled their assignments. The researchers instructed the first group to ask themselves whether they would solve the puzzles\u2014and the second group to tell themselves that they would solve the puzzles. On average, the self-questioning group solved nearly 50 percent more Puzzles than the self-affirming group.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>In the next experiment,\u201d the researchers presented a new group of participants with another round of anagrams, but they added a twist of trickery: \u201cWe told participants that we were interested in people\u2019s handwriting practices. With this pretense, participants were given a sheet of paper to write down 20 times one of the following words: Will I, I will, I, or Will<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The outcome was similar. People who\u2019d written Will I solved nearly twice as many anagrams as those who\u2019d written \/ will, Will, or \/. In subsequent experiments, the basic pattern held. Those who approached a task with Bob-the-Builder-style questioning self-talk outperformed those who employed the more conventional juice myself up declaration self talk<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The reasons are twofold. First, the interrogative, by its very form, elicits answers\u2014and within those answers are strategies for actually carrying out the task. Imagine, for instance, that you\u2019re readying yourself for an important meeting in which you must pitch an idea and marshal support for it. You could tell yourself. \u201cI\u2019m the best. This is going to be a breeze,\u201d and that might give you a short-term emotional boost. But if you instead ask, \u201cCan I make a great pitch?\u201d the research has found that you provide yourself something that reaches deeper and lasts longer. You might respond to yourself, \u201cWell, yes, I can make a great pitch. In fact, I\u2019ve probably pitched ideas at meetings two dozen times in my life.\u201d You might remind yourself of your preparation. \u201cSure, I can do this. I know this material inside out and I\u2019ve got it some great examples to persuade the people who might be skeptical<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The second reason is related. Interrogative self-talk, the researchers say, \u201cmay inspire thoughts about autonomous or intrinsically motivated reasons to pursue a goal.\u201d As ample research has demonstrated, people are more likely to act, and to perform well, when the motivations come from intrinsic choices rather than from extrinsic pressures. Declarative self-talk risks bypassing one\u2019s motivations. Questioning self-talk elicits the reasons for doing something and reminds people that many of those reasons come from within.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>And if you watch his ambiversion in action and listen carefully to what he says and how he interacts of other people, he also demonstrates the second component of buoyancy: positivity.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>-Consider, for instance, a difficult negotiation in which each side is trying to sell the other on its position. The conventional view holds that negotiators shouldn\u2019t necessarily be nasty and brutish but that they should remain tough-minded and poker-faced.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>^ A few years ago, a team of behavioral scientists led by Shirli Kopelman of the University of Michigan tested this proposition by simulating a series of negotiations. In one experiment, they presented their participants, executives who were pursuing MBAs, 1 with the following scenario. You\u2019re planning a wedding. Several weeks ago, you made provisional arrangements with a catering company that had provided a good-faith estimate of $14,000 for its services. Now you are about to meet the caterer\u2019s business manager, who\u2019s come bearing bad news. Because of market fluctuations, the estimate has increased to $16,995. What\u2019s more, the caterer has another client ready to take the date if you don\u2019t sign the contract. Unbeknownst to the participants, they\u2019d been divided into three groups. And while the \u201cbusiness manager\u201d (a specially trained actor) gave each of the three groups precisely the same explanation for the changed price, and offered identical terms and conditions for the catering, she varied her emotional approach. To one group, she displayed positive emotions. She \u201cspoke with a friendly tone, smiled often, nodded her head in agreement, and appeared cordial and inviting.\u201d To another, she \u201cspoke antagonistically, appeared intimidating, and was insistent.\u201d To the final group, she \u201cused an even and monotonic voice, displayed little emotion, and spoke in a pragmatic manner.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The business manager\u2019s affect had a significant effect. Those who\u2019d heard the positive-inflected pitch were twice as likely to accept the deal as those who\u2019d heard the negative one\u2014even though the terms were identical. In a subsequent similar experiment, in which negotiators were able to make counteroffers, those who\u2019d&nbsp; dealt with the negative person made far less generous counteroffers than those dealing with someone positive on the other side of the table.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Negative emotions, she says, evolved to narrow people\u2019s vision and propel their behavior toward survival in the moment {I\u2019m frightened, so I\u2019ll flee. I\u2019m angry, so I\u2019ll fight). By contrast. \u201cPositive emotions do the opposite: They broaden people\u2019s ideas about possible actions, opening our awareness to a wider range of thoughts and \u2026 making us more receptive and more creative,\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Other studies show that positive emotions can expand our behavioral repertoires \u2022~and heighten intuition and creativity, all of which enhance our effectiveness. What\u2019s more, as we saw in Kopelman\u2019s study, emotions can be contagious. That is, the effects of positivity during a sales encounter infect the buyer, making him less adversarial, more 3pen to possibility, and perhaps willing to reach an agreement in which both parties benefit. And when both sides leave the table satisfied, that can establish a sustained relationship and smooth the way for subsequent transactions.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>For instance, Cory Scherer and Brad Sagarin of Northern IIlinois University have found that inserting a mild profanity like \u2018damn\u201d into a speech increases the persuasiveness of the speech and listeners\u2019 perception of the speaker\u2019s intensity. \u201cI believe in these products,\u201d Hall told me. \u201cI know damn well that when you buy one of these brushes you\u2019re going to have it for years.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>\u201cFredrickson sees the healthy positivity ratios of Hall and others as a calibration between two competing pulls: levity and gravity. \u201cLevity is that unseen force that lifts you skyward, whereas gravity is the opposing force that pulls you earthward. Unchecked levity leaves you flighty, ungrounded, and unreal. Unchecked gravity leaves you collapsed in a heap of misery,\u201d she writes. \u201cYet when properly combined, these two opposing forces leave you buoyant<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>In human beings, Seligman observed, learned helplessness was usually a function of people\u2019s \u201cexplanatory style\u201d\u2014their habit of explaining negative events to themselves. Think of explanatory style as a form of self-talk that occurs after (rather than before) an experience. People who give up easily, who become helpless even in situations where they actually can do something, explain bad events as permanent, pervasive, and personal. They believe that negative conditions will endure a long time, that the causes are universal rather than specific to the circumstances, and that they\u2019re the ones to blame. So if their boss veils at them, they interpreted as \u2018My boss is always mean\u201d or \u201cAll bosses are jerks\u201d or \u201cI\u2019m incompetent at my job\u201d rather than \u201cMy boss is having an awful day and I just happened to be in the line of fire when he lost it.\u201d A pessimistic explanatory style\u2014the habit of believing that \u201cit\u2019s my fault, it\u2019s going to last forever, and it\u2019s going to undermine everything I do\u201d\u2014is debilitating, Seligman found. It can diminish performance, trigger depression, and \u201cturn setbacks into disasters.\u2019&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Seligman and Schulman gave all the agents the Attributional Style Questionnaire ( ASQ)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The results were unequivocal. \u201cAgents who scored in the optimistic half of explanatory style sold 37% more insurance than agents scoring in the pessimistic half Agents in the top decile sold 88% more insurance than those in the bottom decile,\u201d they discovered.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Next, in response to Metropolitan Life\u2019s concern that about half of its sales agents quit their jobs in the first year, Seligman and Schulman studied a different group\u2014more than one hundred newly hired salespeople. Before these agents started their jobs, the researchers gave them the ASQ. Then they charted their progress. Agents who scored in the pessimistic half of the ASQ ended up I\u2019 quitting at twice the rate of those in the optimistic half Agents in the most pessimistic quarter were three times as likely to quit as those in the most optimistic 25 percent<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>In other words, the salespeople with an optimistic explanatory style\u2014who saw rejections as temporary rather than permanent, specific rather than universal, and external rather than personal\u2014 sold more insurance and survived in their jobs much longer. What\u2019s more, explanatory style predicted performance with about the same accuracy as the most widely used insurance industry assessment for hiring agents. Optimism, it turns out, isn\u2019t a hollow sentiment. It\u2019s a catalyst that can stir persistence, steady us during challenges, and stoke the confidence that we can influence our surroundings.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>SAMPLE CASE<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Buoyancy<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Next time you\u2019re getting ready to persuade others, reconsider how you prepare. Instead of pumping yourself up with declarations and affirmations, take a page from Bob the Builder and pose a question] instead.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Ask yourself \u201cCan I move these people?\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>As social scientists have discovered interrogative self-talk is often more valuable than the declarative kind. But don\u2019t simply leave the question hanging in the air like a lost balloon. Answer it\u2014directly and in writing. List five specific reasons why the answer to your question is yes. These reasons will remind you of the J strategies that you\u2019ll need to be effective on the task, providing a sturdier and more substantive grounding than mere affirmation<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>It\u2019s the golden mean of well-being, the magic formula for flourishing, the secret numerical code of the satisfied: 3 to 1. What can you do to ensure your balance between positive and negative emotions reaches that elusive ratio? One way to begin is to visit Barbara Fredrickson\u2019s website (<a href=\"http:\/\/positivityratio.com\/\">http:\/\/positivityratio.com\/<\/a>). Take her \u201cPositivity Self Test\u201d\u2014a twenty-question assessment you can complete in two or three minutes that will yield your current positivity ratio.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The more you explain bad events as temporary, specific, and external, the more likely you are to persist even in the face of adversity.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>For more information, visit Seligman\u2019s website (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu\/Default.aspx\">http:\/\/www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu\/Default.aspx<\/a>), and take his Optimism Test to get a sense of your current style. And check out his classic book. Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and your life<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Once the rejection is in writing, its consequences can seem far less dire. More important, by articulating the reasons for turning you down the letter might reveal soft spots in what you\u2019re presenting, which you can then work to strengthen.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>6. Clarity<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>But for this group, researchers used a computer software package that ages faces to create an avatar that showed what the participant would look like at age seventy. This group gazed at the seventy-year-old version of themselves for about a minute and then had the same brief conversation with the re-f searcher\u2019s avatar. Afterward, the experimenters gave both groups a money allocation task. Imagine, they told the participants, that you\u2019ve just received an unexpected $1,000. How would you allocate the money among the following four options?<ul><li>\u201cUse it to buy something nice for someone special.\u201d<\/li><\/ul><ul><li>\u201cInvest it in a retirement fund.\u201d<\/li><\/ul><ul><li>\u2018Plan a fun and extravagant occasion.\u201d<\/li><\/ul>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>\u201cPut it in a checking account.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Those who saw images of their current It selves (call them the \u201cMe Now\u201d group) directed an average of $80 into the retirement account. Those who saw images of their future selves (the \u201cMe Later\u201d group) allocated more than twice that amount\u2014$172.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>This conceptual shift demonstrates the third quality necessary in moving others today: clarity\u2014the capacity to help others see their situations in fresh and more revealing ways and to identify problems they didn\u2019t realize they had.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The services of others are far more valuable when I\u2019m mistaken, confused, or completely clueless about my true problem. In those situations, the ability to move others hinges less on problem solving than on problem finding.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>In the mid-1960s, two soon-to-be-legendary University of Chicago social scientists\u2014Jacob Getzels and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi\u2014 began studying the elusive subject of creativity. For one of his first investigations, in 1964, Csikszentmihalyi went to the nearby School of the Art Institute of Chicago and recruited about three dozen fourth-year art students for an experiment. He brought them into a studio that had two large tables. On one table were twenty-seven objects, exotic and mundane, that the school often used in its drawing classes. Csikszentmihalyi asked the students to select one or more objects from the first table, arrange a still life on the second table, and produce a drawing of the result. The young artists approached their task in two distinct ways. Some examined relatively few objects, outlined their idea swiftly, and moved quickly to draw their still life. Others took their time. They handled more objects. Turned them this way and that, rearranged them several times, and needed much longer to complete the drawing. As Csikszentmihalyi saw it, the first group was trying to solve a problem: How can I produce a good drawing? The second was trying to find a problem: What good drawing can I produce?<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Then Csikszentmihalyi conducted a mini art show of the student creations and asked a panel of art experts to evaluate the works. (These experts didn\u2019t know what Csikszentmihalyi was studying, nor did they know the source of the art.) When he tabulated the ratings, Csikszentmihalyi discovered that the experts deemed the problem finders\u2019 works far more creative than the problem solvers\u2019. S\u2019. In 1970, Csikszentmihalyi and Getzels tracked down these same artists, now out of school and working for a living, to see how they were faring. About half the students had left the art world altogether. The other half was working, and often succeeding, as professional artists. The composition of that second group? Nearly all were problem finders back in their school days. When Csikszentmihalyi and Getzels followed up again in the early 1980s, they discovered that the problem finders \u201cwere 18 years later significantly more successful\u2014by the standards of the artistic community\u2014than their peers\u201d who had approached their still life drawings as more craftsman like problem solvers. \u201cThe quality of the problem that is found is a forerunner of the quality of the solution that is attained . . .\u201d Getzels concluded. \u201cIt is in fact the discovery and creation of problems rather than any superior knowledge, technical skill, or craftsmanship that often sets the creative person apart from others in his field.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>In subsequent research, they and other scholars found that people most disposed to creative breakthroughs in art, science, or any endeavor tend to be problem finders. These people sort through vast amounts of information and inputs, often from multiple disciplines; experiment with a variety of different approaches; are willing to switch directions in the course of a project; and often take longer than their counterparts to complete their work.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>For instance, suppose I\u2019m in the market for a new vacuum cleaner. Ten or fifteen years ago, I\u2019d have had to go into a store, talk to a salesman who was much better informed than I ever could be, and then rely on him to provide the product I needed at a price that vas fair. Today, I can solve the vacuum cleaner problem myself I can go online and check out specs and ratings of various models. Can post a question on my Facebook page and seek recommendations from my friends and my \u201cfriends.\u201d Once I\u2019ve settled on a few possibilities, I can compare prices with a few keystrokes. And I can order my choice from the vendor offering the best deal. I don\u2019t need a salesman at all. Unless I\u2019ve gotten my problem wrong. After all, my ultimate aim isn\u2019t to acquire a vacuum cleaner. It\u2019s to have clean floors. Maybe my real problem is that the screens on my windows aren\u2019t sufficient to keep out dust, and replacing them with better screens will keep my entire house cleaner when the windows are open. Maybe my problem is that my carpet collects dirt too easily, and a new carpet will obviate the need for me to always be vacuuming. Maybe I shouldn\u2019t buy a vacuum cleaner but instead join a neighborhood cooperative that shares home appliances. Maybe there\u2019s an inexpensive cleaning service with its own equipment that serves my area. Someone who can help me achieve my main goal\u2014clean floors\u2014in a smarter, cheaper way is someone I\u2019ll listen to and perhaps even buy from. If I know my problem, I can likely solve it. If I don\u2019t know my problem, I might need some help finding it.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Take, for example, Ralph Chauvin, vice president of sales at Perfetti Van Melle, the Italian company that makes Memos mints, AirHead fruit chews, and other delicacies. His sales force sells products to retailers who then stock their shelves and hope customers will buy. In the past few years he says he\u2019s seen a shift. Retailers are less interested in figuring out how many rolls of Mentos to order than in learning how to improve all facets of their operation. \u201cThey\u2019re looking for unbiased business partners,\u201d Chauvin told me. And that changes which salespeople are most highly prized. It isn\u2019t necessarily the \u201cclosers,\u201d those who can offer an immediate solution and secure the signature on the contract, he says. It\u2019s those \u201cwho can brainstorm with the retailers, who uncover new opportunities for them, and who realize that it doesn\u2019t matter if they close at that moment.\u201d Using a mix of number crunching and their own knowledge and expertise, the Perfetti salespeople tell retailers \u201cwhat assortment of candy is the best for them to make the most money.\u201d That could mean offering five flavors of Mentos rather than seven. And it almost always means including products from competitors. In a sense, Chauvin says, his best salespeople think of their jobs not so much as selling candy but as selling insights about the confectionery business.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>And a few years ago, the Conference Board, the well-regarded U.S. busi ness group, gave 155 public school superintendents and eighty-nine private employers a list of cognitive capacities and asked their respondents to rate these capacities according to which are most important in today\u2019s workforce. The superintendents ranked \u201cproblem solving\u201d number one. But the employers ranked it number eight, their top-ranked ability: \u201cproblem identification.\u2019<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Today, they must be skilled at curating it\u2014sorting through the massive troves of data and presenting to others the most relevant and clarifying pieces. Second, in the past, the best salespeople were skilled at answering questions (in part because they had information their prospects lacked). Today, they must be good at asking questions\u2014 uncovering possibilities, surfacing latent issues, and finding unexpected problems. And one question in particular sits at the top of the list.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>One afternoon. Reeves and a colleague were having lunch in Central Park. On the way back to their Madison Avenue office. They encountered a man sitting in the park, begging for money. He I had a cup for donations and beside it was a sign, handwritten on 1 cardboard, that read: I AM blind. Unfortunately for the man, the cup contained only a few coins. His attempts to move others to donate money were coming up short. Reeves thought he knew why. He told his colleague something to the effect of \u201cI bet I can dramatically increase the amount of money that guy is raising simply by adding four words to his ign.\u201d Reeves\u2019s skeptical friend took him up on the wager. Reeves then introduced himself to the beleaguered man, explained that he knew something about advertising, and offered to\/ change the sign ever so slightly to increase donations. The man agreed. Reeves took a marker and added his four words, and he and his friend stepped back to watch.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Almost immediately, a few people dropped coins into the man\u2019s cup. Other people soon stopped, talked to the man, and plucked dollar bills from their wallets. Before long, the cup was running over with cash, and the once sad-looking blind man, feeling his bounty, beamed.<ul><li>What four words did Reeves add?<\/li><\/ul><ul><li>It is springtime and<\/li><\/ul><ul><li>The sign now read<\/li><\/ul>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>It is springtime and I am blind.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Reeves won his bet. And we learned a lesson. Clarity depends on contrast. In this case, the begging man\u2019s sign moved people in the park to empathize with him by starkly comparing their reality with his. Robert Cialdini, the Arizona State University scholar and one of the most important social scientists of the last generation. Calls this \u201cthe contrast principle.\u201d ^^ We often understand something better when we see it in comparison with something else than when we see it in isolation. In his work over the past three decades, Cialdini has recast how both academics and practitioners understand the dynamics of influencing others. And one of his core insights is that contrast operates within, and often amplifies, every aspect of persuasion. That\u2019s why the most essential question you can ask is this: compared to what?<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Everybody loves choices. Yet ample research has shown that too much of a good thing can mutate into a bad thing. In one well-known study, Sheena Iyengar of Columbia University and Mark Lepper of Stanford set up booths at an upscale grocery store in Menlo Park, California, and offered shoppers the chance to taste and subsequently purchase different flavors of jam. The first booth offered twenty-four varieties. A week later, Iyengar and Lepper set up another booth with only six varieties. Not surprisingly, more customers stopped at the booth with the vast selection than at the one with fewer choices.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>But when researchers examined what customers actually purchased, the results were so \u201cstriking\u201d that \u201cthey appeared to challenge a fundamental assumption underlying classic psychological theories of human motivation and economic theories of rational choice.\u201d Of the consumers who visited the booth with twenty-four varieties, only 3 percent bought jam. At the booth with a more limited selection, 30 percent made a purchase. In other words. Reducing consumers\u2019 options from twenty-four choices to six resulted in a tenfold increase in sales.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Several researchers have shown that people derive much greater satisfaction from purchasing experiences than they do from purchasing goods.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>For instance, we adapt quickly to material changes. That spectacular new BMW that so delighted us three weeks ago is now just how we get to work. But that hike on Canada\u2019s West Coast Trail lingers in our mind\u2014and as time goes by, we tend to forget the small-level annoyances (ticks) and remember the higher-level joys (amazing sunsets). Experiences also gives us something to talk about and stories to tell,<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>As a result, framing a sale in experiential terms is more likely to lead to satisfied customers and repeat business. So if you\u2019re selling a car, go easy on emphasizing the rich Corinthian leather the seats. Instead, point out what the car will allow the buyer to memories<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>For one group, they called it the \u201cWall Street Game\u201d; for the other, the \u201cCommunity Game.\u201d Did a maneuver as innocuous as changing the label achieve results as significant as altering behavior? Absolutely, in the Wall Street Game, 33 percent of participants cooperated \u201cand went free.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Something similar happened back in 1975 in three fifth-grade classrooms in the Chicago Public Schools. There a trio of Northwestern University researchers randomly assigned classrooms to three groups. Over a week, students in one group were told by Teachers, janitors, and others that they were extremely neat\u2014in fact, they had one of the neatest classrooms in their school. Children in the second group were simply used to be neat\u2014told to pick up their trash, tidy their desks, and keep the classroom clean. The third group was the control. When investigators later measured the litter in the classrooms, and compared it with litter levels before the experiment began, the results were unmistakable. The neatest group by far was the first\u2014the one that had been labeled \u201cneat.\u201d Merely assigning that positive label\u2014helping the students frame themselves in comparison with others\u2014elevated their behavior.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The blemished frame. Can a negative ever be a positive when it comes to moving others? That\u2019s what three marketing professors investigated in a 2012 study. In one set of experiments, they presented information about a pair of hiking boots as if the study participants were shopping for them online. To half the group, researchers listed all the great things about the boots\u2014orthopedic soles, waterproof material, a five-year warranty, and more. To the other half, they included the same list of positives, but followed it with a negative\u2014these boots, unfortunately, came in only two colors. Remarkably, in many cases the people who\u2019d gotten that small dose of negative information were more likely to purchase the boots than those who\u2019d received the exclusively positive information. The researchers dubbed this phenomenon the \u201cblemishing effect\u201d\u2014where \u201cadding a minor negative detail in an otherwise positive description of a target can give that description a more positive impact.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Second, the negative information must follow the positive information, not the reverse. Once again, the comparison creates clarity \u2018The core logic is that when individuals encounter weak negative information after already having received positive information, the weak negative information ironically highlights or increases the salience of the positive information.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Our initial, and very sensible, instinct is that we ought to use an achievement I frame\u2014and emphasize the deals we\u2019ve done, the divisions we\u2019ve turned around, the awards we\u2019ve accumulated. But in a fascinating and wide-ranging 2012 paper, Zakary Tormala and Jayson Jia of Stanford University and Michael Norton of the Harvard Business School suggest a different approach. What we really should do, they say, is emphasize our potential For example; these researchers put participants in the role of a National Basketball Association general manager tasked with awarding contracts to players. Some participants had to offer a contract to a player with five years of experience who had produced some impressive stats. Others had to offer a contract to a rookie who was projected to produce those same statistics during his first five seasons of play. Participants, on average, gave the veteran player with solid numbers a salary of over four million dollars for his sixth year. But they said that for the rookie\u2019s sixth season, they\u2019d expect to pay him more than five million dollars. Likewise, the researchers tested two different Facebook ads for the same comedian. Half the ads said the comedian, Kevin Shea, \u201ccould be the next big thing.\u2019 The other half said, \u201cHe is the next big thing.\u201d The first ad generated far more click-through and likes than the second. The somewhat peculiar upshot of the research, the scholars write, is that \u201cthe potential to be good at something can be preferred over actually being good at that very same thing,<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Once you\u2019ve found the problem and the proper frame, you have one more step. You need to give people an off-ramp. A study about a college food drive illustrates this point. Students were asked to nominate two groups of peers\u2014those \u201cleast likely\u201d to contribute to a food drive and those \u201cmost likely\u201d to do so. Then researchers divided each group in half. They sent half of the least likely group and half of the most likely group a letter. Addressed to each of the students by name, asking them to donate a specific type of food and including a map showing where they could drop it off A few days later, researchers gave these students a reminder phone call. The other half of each group\u2014again, half of the least likely group and half of the most likely\u2014received a different letter. Researchers addressed it \u201cDear student\u201d rather than to a specific person. The letter didn\u2019t ask for a particular kind of food and didn\u2019t include a map. These students didn\u2019t receive a reminder phone call, either.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>What mattered more\u2014the disposition of the students or the content of the letters? Among the students in the least likely group who received the less detailed letter, a whopping 0 percent contributed to the \u2018food drive. But their counterparts, who were more disposed to giving but who\u2019d received the same letter, didn\u2019t exactly wow researchers with their benevolence. Only 8 percent of them made a food donation. However, the letter that gave students details on how to act had a huge effect. Twenty-five percent of students deemed least likely to contribute actually made a contribution when they received the letter with a concrete appeal, a map, and a location for donating. What moved them wasn\u2019t only the request itself, but that the requesters had provided them an off-ramp for getting to their destination. A specific request accompanied by a clear way to get it done ended up with the least likely group donating food at three times the rate of the most likely who hadn\u2019t been given a clear path of action The lesson: Clarity on how to think without clarity on how to act can leave people unmoved<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>SAMPLE CASE : Clarity<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Michael Pantalon is a research scientist at the Yale School of Medicine and a leading authority on \u201cmotivational interviewing.\u201d This technique, which originated in therapy and counseling but has since spread to other realms, seeks to spark behavior change not by coercing people, promising them rewards, or threatening them with punishments, but by tapping their inner drives. And the most effective tools for excavating people\u2019s buried drives are questions.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>However, for the purposes of moving others, all questions are not created equal, Pantalon says. \u201cI\u2019ve learned that rational questions are ineffective for motivating resistant people. Instead I\u2019ve found that irrational questions actually motivate people better,\u201d he has written.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>So suppose your daughter is hemming and hawing, delaying and denying, and generally resisting studying for a big end-of-the year algebra test. Using Pantalon\u2019s approach, you wouldn\u2019t say.<ul><li>\u201cYoung lady, you must study,\u201d or \u201cPlease, please, please study for the test.\u201d Instead, you\u2019d ask her two questions.<\/li><\/ul><ul><li>Question 1. \u201cOn a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 meaning \u2018not the least bit ready\u2019 and 10 meaning \u2018totally ready,\u2019 how ready are you to study?\u201d<\/li><\/ul>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Question 2. \u201cWhy didn\u2019t you pick a lower number?\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Writes in his book Instant Influence. Asking why the number isn\u2019t lower is the catalyst. Most people who resist doing or believing something don\u2019t have a binary, off-on, yes-no position. So don\u2019t ask a binary, off-on, yes-no question. If your prospect has even a faint desire to move, Pantalon says, asking her to locate herself on that 1-to-lO scale can expose an apparent \u201cNo\u201d as an actual \u201cMaybe.\u201d Even more important, as your daughter explains her reasons for being a 4 rather than a 3, she begins announcing her own reasons for studying. She moves from defending her current behavior to articulating why, at some level, she wants to behave differently. And that, says Pantalon, allows her to clarify her personal, positive. And intrinsic motives for studying, which increases the chances she actually will.\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>So, on a scale of 1 to 10, how ready are you to try Pantalon\u2019s two-question technique? And why isn\u2019t your number lower?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Try a jolt of the unfamiliar.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Clarity, we\u2019ve learned, depends on comparison. 1. But many times we become so rutted in our own ways that we scarcely notice what we\u2019re doing or why we\u2019re doing it\u2014which can impair our ability to bring clarity to others. Sometimes, as Tufts University psychologist Sam Sommers says, \u201cit takes the jolt of the unfamiliar to remind you just how blind you are to your regular surroundings.\u201d So give yourself one of the following:<ul><li>Mini Jolt: Sit on the opposite end of the conference table at your next meeting. Travel home from work using a different route from normal. Instead of ordering what you usually do at your favorite restaurant, choose the eleventh item on the menu.<\/li><\/ul><ul><li>Half Jolt: Spend a day immersed in an environment not typically your own. If you\u2019re a schoolteacher, hang out at a friend\u2019s law office. If you\u2019re an accountant, take an afternoon and spend it with a lifeguard or park ranger.<\/li><\/ul>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Full Jolt: Travel to another country, with a culture different from your own. You\u2019ll likely return jolted\u2014and clarified.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>In the new world of sales, being able to ask the right questions is more valuable than producing the right answers. Unfortunately, our schools often have the opposite emphasis. They teach us how to answer, but not how to ask. The folks at the Right Question Institute are trying to correct that imbalance. They\u2019ve come up with a method that educators can use to help students learn to ask better questions\u2014and that can assist even those of us who graduated back in the twentieth century. Before your next sales call, or maybe in advance of that awkward upcoming meeting with your ex-spouse or annoying boss, give RQI\u2019s step-by-step Question Formulation Technique a try.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Go through your list of questions and categorize each one as either \u201cclosed-ended\u201d (questions that can be answered with \u201cyes\u201d or \u201cno,\u201d or just one word) or \u201copen-ended (questions that require an explanation<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Several books discuss some of the themes in this chapter\u2014from framing arguments to finding problems to curating information. These are five of my favorites.<ul><li>Influence: Science and Practice by Robert Cialdini<\/li><\/ul><ul><li>Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heath and Dan Heath.<\/li><\/ul><ul><li>Switch by Chip Heath and Dan Heath.<\/li><\/ul><ul><li>Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think by Brian Wansink.<\/li><\/ul>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>When you want to figure out what kind of problem someone has, ask a \u201cWhy?\u201d question. Then, in response to the answer, ask another \u201cWhy?\u201d And again and again, for a total of five whys.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>He said that in an attempt to understand the law\u2014or, for that matter, just about anything\u2014the key was to focus on what he termed the \u201cone percent.\u201d Don\u2019t get lost in the crabgrass of details, he urged us. Instead, think about the essence of what you\u2019re exploring\u2014the one percent that gives life to the other ninety-nine. Understanding that one percent, and being able to explain it to others, is the hallmark of strong minds and good attorneys.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Ask yourself \u201cWhat\u2019s the one percent?\u201d If you can answer that question, and convey it to others, they\u2019re likely to be moved.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Part Three: What to do<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>7. Pitch<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>In the fall of 1853, an American craftsman named Elisha Otis, who had found a solution to one of the era\u2019s toughest engineering problems, went looking for a grand stage to demonstrate his invention. At the time, many American buildings had elevators. But the mechanics of how these crude contraptions worked\u2014a combination of ropes, pulleys, and hope\u2014hadn\u2019t changed much since the days of Archimedes. A thick cable pulled a platform up and down a shaft, which often worked well\u2014unless the cable snapped, at which point the platform would crash to the ground and destroy the elevator\u2019s contents. Otis had figured out a way around this defect. He attached a wagon spring to the platform and installed ratchet bars inside the shaft so that if the rope ever did snap, the wagon spring safety brake would activate automatically and prevent the elevator from plummeting. It was an invention with huge potential in saving money and lives, but Otis faced a skeptical and fearful public.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>So he rented out the main exhibit hall of what was then New York City\u2019s largest convention center. On the floor of the hall he constructed an open elevator platform and a shaft in which the platform could rise and descend. One afternoon, he gathered convention-goers for a demonstration. He climbed onto the platform and directed an assistant to hoist the elevator to its top height. About three stories off the ground. Then, as he stood and gazed down at the crowd, Otis took an ax and slashed the rope that was suspending the elevator in midair. The audience gasped. The platform fell. But in seconds, the safety brake engaged and halted the elevator\u2019s descent. Still alive and standing, Otis looked out at the shaken crowd and said, \u201cAll safe, gentlemen. All safe.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The moment marked two firsts. It was the first demonstration of an elevator safe enough to carry people. (Otis, you might have guessed by now, went on to found the Otis Elevator Company.) And more important for our purposes, it was a simple, succinct, and effective way to convey a complex message in an effort to move others\u2014the world\u2019s first elevator pitch.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Their central finding was that the success of a pitch depends as much on the catcher as on the pitcher. In particular, Elsbach and Kramer discovered that beneath this elaborate ritual were two processes.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>But for pitchers, landing in the creative category wasn\u2019t enough. Because a second process was at work. In the most successful pitches, the pitcher didn\u2019t push her idea on the catcher until she extracted a yes. Instead, she invited in her counterpart as a collaborator. The more I the executives\u2014often derided by their supposedly more artistic counterparts as \u201csuits\u201d\u2014^were able to contribute, the better the idea often became, and the more likely it was to be green-lighted. The most valuable sessions were those in which the catcher \u201cbecomes so fully engaged by a pitcher that the process resembles a mutual collaboration,\u201d the researchers found.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The lesson here is critical: The purpose of a pitch isn\u2019t necessarily to move others immediately to adopt your idea. The purpose is to offer something so compelling that it begins a conversation. Brings the other person in as a participant, and eventually arrives at an outcome that appeals to both of you. In a world where buyers have ample information and an array of choices, the pitch is often the first word, but it\u2019s rarely the last.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>1. The one-word pitch<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The ultimate pitch for an era of short attention spans begins with a single word\u2014and doesn\u2019t go any further. The one-word pitch derives in part from Maurice Saatchi, who. With his brother Charles, founded the advertising agencies Saatchi &amp; Saatchi and M&amp;C Saatchi. For several years, Saatchi has been touting what he calls \u201cone-word equity.\u201d He argues that a world populated with \u201cdigital natives\u201d\u2014those under age thirty who scarcely remember life without the Internet\u2014has intensified the battle for attention in ways no one has fully comprehended. Attention spans aren\u2019t merely shrinking, he says. They\u2019re nearly disappearing. And the only way to be heard is to push brevity to its breaking point. \u201cIn this model, companies compete for global ownership of one word in the public mind,\u201d Saatchi writes. The companies\u2019 aim, and the aim of this type of pitch, is \u201cto define the one characteristic they most want associated with their brand around the world, and then own it. That is one-word equity.\u2019<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>When anybody thinks of you, they utter that word. When anybody utters that word, they think of you. If this aspiration seems fanciful, consider how far some companies have moved in this direction. Ask yourself: What technology company do you think of when you hear the word \u201csearch\u201d? What credit card company comes to mind when you hear the word \u201cpriceless\u201d? If you answered Google for the former and MasterCard for the latter, you\u2019ve made Saatchi\u2019s case.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>\u201cAre you better off now than you were four years ago?\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>2. The question pitch<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>And when people summon their own reasons for believing something, they endorse the belief more strongly and become more likely to act on it. So given your knowledge of the underlying social psychology, the next time you\u2019ve got a strong case to make to a prospective employer, new sales prospect, or undecided friend, do you think you should skip making a statement and instead ask a question.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>3. The rhyming pitch<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Participants were attributing accuracy to the rhyming versions unconsciously.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>What\u2019s going on? Rhymes boost what linguists and cognitive scientists call \u201cprocessing fluency,\u201d the ease with which our minds slice, dice, and make sense of stimuli. Rhymes taste great and go \/ down easily and we equate that smoothness with accuracy. In this way, rhyme can enhance reason.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>If you\u2019re one of a series of freelancers invited to make a presentation before a big potential client, including a rhyme can enhance the processing fluency of your listeners, allowing your message to stick in their minds when they compare you and your competitors. Remember: pitches that rhyme are more sublime.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>No surprise there. But they were also likely \u201cto open messages when they had moderate levels of uncertainty about the contents, i.e. they were \u2018curious\u2019 what the messages were about<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Along with utility and curiosity is a third principle: specificity. Indeed, Brian Clark, founder of the popular Copy-blogger copywriting website, recommends that subject lines should be \u201cultra specific Thus a mushy subject line like Improve your golf swing achieves less than one offering 4 tips to improve your golf swing this afternoon.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Tapping the principles of utility, curiosity, and specificity, if I were to send you an e-mail pitch about the preceding five paragraphs, I might use this subject line if I suspected your inbox was jammed: 3 simple but proven ways to get your e-mail opened. But if I thought you had a lighter e-mail load, and you already knew me well, I might use: Some weird things I just learned about e-mail.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>5. The Twitter Pitch<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Each year the Tippie College of Business at the University of Iowa Receives more than three hundred applications for roughly seventy spots in the coming year\u2019s MBA program. Applicants submit their university grades, scores on the standardized business school admission test, letters of recommendation, and several essays. But in 2011, Tippie added a contest to its process, one intended to test the pitching prowess of the future business leaders it would be educating. The school asked a fairly standard essay question: \u201cWhat makes you an exceptional Tippie full-time M.B.A. candidate and future M.B.A. hire?\u201d But it told applicants to respond in the form of a tweet\u2014a micro-message of 140 or fewer characters.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Meet the Twitter pitch, which uses Twitter as a platform and its character count as a limit on loquaciousness. One of the pioneers of this form is Stowe Boyd, a programmer, designer, and investor. In 2008 Boyd was heading to a conference and planning to meet with some start-up companies. To avoid getting buried beneath a sandstorm of eager entrepreneurs, he required any start-up seeking a meeting to send him its pitch via Twitter. This approach. Said one commentator, is \u201cquick, painless, and to-the-point. It cuts through the PR babble and forces companies to summarize what they do in 140 characters or less.\u201d As Twitter insinuates itself more deeply into our lives, Boyd\u2019s \u201ctwitpitch\u201d has become another important tool in everyone\u2019s persuasion kit.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The types of tweets with the lowest ratings fell into three categories: Complaints (\u201cMy plane is late. Again.\u201d); Me Now (\u201cI\u2019m about to order a tuna sandwich\u201d); and Presence Maintenance (\u201cGood morning, everyone!\u201d). But three of the categories rated. The highest provide some insight on pitching via this new medium. For instance, readers assigned the highest ratings to tweets that asked questions of followers, confirming once again the power of the interrogative to engage and persuade.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>6, The Pixar pitch<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Emma Coats, a former story artist at the studio, has cracked the Pixar code\u2014and, in the process, created a template for an irresistible new kind of pitch. Coats has argued that every Pixar film shares the same narrative DNA, a deep structure of storytelling that involves six sequential sentences:<ul><li>Once upon a time _ _______Every day, _ _______. One day _____Because of that, ______Because of that, _______until finally_____<\/li><\/ul>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Take, for example, the plot of Finding Nemo:\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Once upon a time there was a widowed fish named Marlin who was extremely protective of his only son. Nemo. Every day. Marlin warned Nemo of the ocean\u2019s dangers and implored him not to swim far away. One day in an act of defiance. Nemo ignores his father\u2019s warnings and swims into the open water. Because of that, he is captured by a diver and ends up as a pet in the fish tank of a dentist in Sydney. Because of that. Marlin sets off on a journey to recover Nemo, enlisting the help of other sea creatures along the way. Until finally Marlin and Nemo find each other, reunite, and learn that love depends on trust.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Imagine you\u2019re a nonprofit organization that\u2019s created a home HIV test and you\u2019re looking for funders. Your Pixar pitch could go something like this:\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Once upon a time there was a health crisis haunting many parts of Africa. Every day, thousands of people would die of AIDS and HIV-related illness, often because they didn\u2019t know they carried the virus. One day we developed an inexpensive home HIV kit that allowed people to test themselves with a simple saliva swab. Because of that, more people got tested. Because of that, those with the infection sought treatment and took measures to avoid infecting others. Until finally this menacing disease slowed its spread and more people lived longer lives.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Your Twitter pitch could include an online link to an artist\u2019s rendering of the bridge along with a list of its benefits and entice people to click it with: See what tomorrow\u2019s Beeston and Arborville can look like &amp; why we need to create that future.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>If you\u2019re sending information to your fellow Beeston citizens, your subject line pitch could be: 3 reasons why Beeston families support a new bridge<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>&#8211; Your rhyming pitch? Opportunities are wide on the other side.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Your question pitch could help people think through their own experiences; should it be such a pain to get to Arborville?<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>And your one-word pitch could explain the reason for your efforts (not to mention an indispensable lesson of this chapter): Connect.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>SAMPLE CASE: Pitch<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Practice your six pitches.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>There are three ways to learn and perfect the six pitches: Practice, practice, practice. Here\u2019s a place to begin. (You can also find extra copies of this practice sheet at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.danpink.com\/pitch\">http:\/\/www.danpink.com\/pitch<\/a>.)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>1. The One-Word Pitch\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Pro tip: Write a fifty-word pitch. Reduce it to twenty-five words. Then to six words. One of those remaining half-dozen is almost certainly your one-word pitch.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>2. The Question Pitch\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Pro tip: Use this if your arguments are strong. If they\u2019re weak, make a statement. Or better yet, find some new arguments.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>3. The Rhyming Pitch\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Pro tip: Don\u2019t rack your brain for rhymes. Go online and find a rhyming dictionary. I\u2019m partial to Rhyme Zone (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.rhymezone.com\">http:\/\/www.rhymezone.com<\/a>).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>4. The Subject Line Pitch\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Pro tip: Review the subject lines of the last twenty e-mail messages you\u2019ve sent. Note how many of them appeal to either utility or curiosity. If that number is less than ten, rewrite each one that fails the test.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>5. The Twitter Pitch\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Pro tip: Even though Twitter allows 140 characters. Limit your pitch to 120 characters so that others can pass it on. Remember: The best pitches are short, sweet, and easy to retweet.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>6. The Pixar Pitch\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Pro tip: Read all twenty-two of former Pixar story artist Emma Coats\u2019s story rules: <a href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/jlVWrG\">http:\/\/bit.ly\/jlVWrG<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Answer three key questions.<ul><li>As you prepare your pitch, whichever variety you choose, clarify your purpose and strategy by making sure you can answer these three questions:<\/li><\/ul>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>After someone hears your pitch\u2026<ul><li>1. What do you want them to know?<\/li><\/ul><ul><li>2. What do you want them to feel?<\/li><\/ul>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>3. What do you want them to do?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Go first if you\u2019re the incumbent, last if you\u2019re the challenger.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Granular numbers are more credible than coarse numbers.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>8. Improvise<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>\u2018Like the thirteen executives here with me\u2014they hail from large companies like Bank of America and from digital start-ups with oddly spelled names\u2014I\u2019ve come to study with a master. Her name is Cathy Salit.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>She runs a company called Performance of a Lifetime<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The second innovator was Keith Johnstone, a Brit who worked for years at London\u2019s Royal Court Theatre. As he grew weary of conventional theater he, too, began devising his own set of looser. Less traditional performance techniques. And in 1979 he wrote what many consider the seminal work in the field, Improv: Improvisation and the Theatre. (The founders of Palantir, a company I mentioned in Chapter 2, ask all employees to read Improv before starting their jobs.)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>in those circumstances and many others, you\u2019ll do better if you follow three essential rules of improvisational theater: (1) Hear offers. (2) Say \u201cYes and.\u201d (3) Make your partner look good.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>And to master this aspect of improvisation, we must rethink our understanding of what it is to listen and what constitutes an offer.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>For all the listening we do each day\u2014by some estimates, it occupies one-fourth of our waking hours\u2014it\u2019s remarkable how profoundly we neglect this skill. As the American philosopher. Mortimer Adler wrote thirty years ago:\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Is anyone anywhere taught how to listen? How utterly amazing is the general assumption that the ability to listen well is a natural gift for which no training is required. How extraordinary is the fact that no effort is made anywhere in the whole educational process to help individuals learn how to listen well.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Little wonder, then, that so few of us, in fact, do listen well.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>That\u2019s why Salit\u2019s training emphasizes slowing down and shutting up as the route to listening well. We learn this in another exercise, called \u201cAmazing Silence,\u201d where I\u2019m paired with a top V television executive about ten years my senior. The rules: One person has to reveal to the other something important to him. The other person, who must make eye contact the entire time, then responds\u2014but he must wait fifteen seconds before uttering a word.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The executive opens his heart more than I expect. He tells me that after thirty-two years of demanding work, he\u2019s questioning whether what he\u2019s doing now is what he should be doing forever and whether it\u2019s time to leave the jackal-eat-jackal savannah o\u2019 New York media. His eyes water a bit as he speaks, which makes me even more uncomfortable than I was doing the vertical bebop I with the high-heeled cosmetics vice president.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>When he\u2019s finished, I have to respond. But not yet. I begin counting down the seconds in my head. Fifteen. Fourteen. Thirteen. No breaking eye contact. Twelve. Eleven. This is agonizing. Ten. When will the madness end?<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>It does end. But those fifteen seconds feel preposterously long and, as in the earlier exercise, disturbingly intimate. And that\u2019s what Salit wants. Listening without some degree of intimacy isn\u2019t | really listening. It\u2019s passive and transactional rather than active and engaged. Genuine listening is a bit like driving on a rain-slicked highway. Speed kills. If you want to get to your destination, you\u2019re better off decelerating and occasionally hitting the brake. The ultimate idea, she says, uncorking a small bottle of Zen in the cramped conference room when the session is over, is to \u201clisten without listening for anything.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>In 1981 he coauthored Getting to Yes, the most influential book ever written about negotiation.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>SAMPLE CASE Improvise<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>This is a group activity that you can use to make a memorable point. Along with yourself, you\u2019ll need at least two more people as participants. Have everyone assemble themselves into pairs. Then ask each pair to \u201chook the fingers of your right hands and raise your thumbs.\u201d Then, give the sole instruction: \u201cNow get your partner\u2019s thumb down.\u201d Remain silent and allow the pairs to finish the task. Most participants will assume that your instructions mean for them to thumb-wrestle. However, there are many other ways that they could get their partner\u2019s thumb down. They could ask nicely. They could unhook their own fingers and put their own thumb down. And so on.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The lesson here is that too often our starting point is competition\u2014a win-lose, zero-sum approach rather than the win-win, positive-sum approach of improvisation. In most circumstances that involve moving others, we have several ways to accomplish a task, most of which can make our partners look good in the process.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>9. Serve<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Others featured text accompanied by \u201cexplicit and gruesome images of severed body parts.\u201dBut all urged passengers to take action\u2014to implore their driver to slow down, to complain loudly when he attempted breakneck maneuvers, and to browbeat him until he operated the matatu more like mild-mannered Dr. Jekyllj than maniacal Mr. Hyde. The researchers dubbed their strategy \u201checkle and chide.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Over the next year, the team found that passengers riding in matatus bearing stickers were three times as likely to heckle drivers as those in the stickerless matatus. But did the efforts of these loudmouthed passengers move the drivers or affect the safety of their journeys?<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>To find out, the researchers examined a database of claims from the insurance companies that covered the matatus. The results: Total insurance claims for the vehicles with stickers fell by j nearly two-thirds from the year before. Claims for serious accidents (those involving injury or death) fell by more than 50 percent. And based on follow-up interviews the researchers conducted with drivers, it was clear that the passengers\u2019 vocal persuasion efforts were the reason. In other words, adding a few stickers to the minibuses saved\u2019 more money and spared more lives than just about any other effort<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Instead, it\u2019s a broader, deeper, and more transcendent definition of service\u2014improving others\u2019 lives and, in turn, improving the world.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Make it personal and make it purposeful.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>When the radiologists sat at their computers and called up one of these patients\u2019 CT scans to make an assessment, the patient\u2019s photograph automatically appeared next to the image. After they\u2019d made their assessments, the radiologists completed a questionnaire. All of them reported feeling \u201cmore empathy to the patients after seeing the photograph\u201d and being more meticulous in the way they examined the scan. But the real power of Turner\u2019s idea revealed itself three months later.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>One of the skills that separate outstanding radiologists from average ones is their ability to identify what are called \u201cincidental findings,\u201d abnormalities on a scan that the physician wasn\u2019t looking for and that aren\u2019t related to the ailment for which the patient is being treated. For example, suppose I suspect that I\u2019ve broken my arm and I go to the hospital for an X-ray. The doctor\u2019s main job is to see if my ulna is fractured. But if she also spots an unrelated cyst near my elbow, that\u2019s an \u201cincidental finding.\u201d Turner selected eighty-one of the photo-accompanied scans in which his radiologists had found incidental findings and presented them again to the same group of radiologists three months later\u2014only this time without the picture of the patient. (Because radiologists read so many images each day, and because they were blind to what Turner was studying, they didn\u2019t know they\u2019d already seen these particular scans.)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The outcome was startling. Turner discovered that \u201c80% of the incidental findings were not reported when the photograph was omitted from the file.\u201d Even though the physicians were looking at precisely the same image they had scrutinized ninety days earlier, this time they were far less meticulous and far less accurate. \u201cOur study emphasizes approaching the patient as a human being and not as an anonymous case study,\u201d Turner told ScienceDaily.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Turner\u2019s study shows\u2014and because of his work, photographs are \u2018now being added to Pap smear specimens, blood tests, and other diagnostics\u2014injecting the personal into the professional can boost performance and increase quality of care.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>He\u2019s selling fresh antipasti, linguine alle vongole, and certified Neapolitan pizza to hungry families. But with this sign, he\u2019s transforming his offering from distant and abstract\u2014Washington, D.C., is not short on places that serve pizza and pasta\u2014to concrete and personal. And he\u2019s going it in an especially audacious way. For Farruggio, service isn\u2019t about delivering a calzone in twenty-nine minutes. For him, service is about literally being at the call of his customers.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The researchers weighed the bags of soap and gel at the beginning of the two-week period and weighed them again at the end to see how much the employees actually used. And when they tabulated the results, they found that the most effective sign, by far. Was the second one. \u201cThe amount of hand-hygiene product used from dispensers with the patient-consequences sign was significantly greater than the amount used from dispensers with the personal-consequences sign, or the control sign,\u201d Grant and Hofmann wrote.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>But Grant and Hofmann reveal something equally crucial: \u201cOur findings suggest that health and safety messages should focus not on the self, but rather on the target group that is perceived as most vulnerable.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>About half of the people in the second and third groups\u2014 the \u201cself-interested\u201d and control groups\u2014recycled their papers. But in the \u201cself-transcending\u201d first group, nearly 90 percent chose to recycle. Merely discussing purpose in one realm (car-sharing) moved people to behave differently in a second realm (recycling).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>For two consecutive nights, one group read stories from people who\u2019d previously worked in the call center, explaining that the job lad taught them useful sales skills (perhaps attunement, buoyancy, and clarity). This was the \u201cpersonal benefit group.\u201d Another\u2014the \u201cpurpose group\u201d\u2014read stories from university alumni who\u2019d received scholarships funded by the money this call center had raised describing how those scholarships had helped them. The third collection of callers was the control group, who read stories that had nothing to do with either personal benefit or purpose. After the reading exercise, the workers hit the phones, admonished not to mention the stories they\u2019d just read to the people they were trying to persuade to donate money.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>A few weeks later. Grant looked at their sales numbers. The \u201cpersonal benefit\u201d and control groups secured about the same number of pledges and raised about the same amount of money as they had in the period before the story-reading exercise. But the people in the purpose group kicked into overdrive. They more than doubled \u201cthe number of weekly pledges that they earned and the amount of weekly donation money that they raised.\u2019<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The time is ripe for the sales version of Greenleaf\u2019s philosophy. Call it servant selling. It begins with the idea that those who move others aren\u2019t manipulators but servants. They serve first and sell later. And the test\u2014which, like Greenleaf\u2019s, is the best and the \u2018most difficult to administer\u2014is this: If the person you\u2019re selling to agrees to buy, will his or her life improve? When your interaction over, will the world be a better place than when you began?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>SAMPLE CASE: Serve<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Anytime you\u2019re tempted to upsell someone else, stop what you\u2019re doing and up-serve instead. Don\u2019t try to increase what they can do for you. Elevate what you can do for them.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>One way to do better is with what I call \u201cemotionally intelligent signage.\u201d Most signs typically have two functions:<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Achieves those same ends by enlisting the principles of \u201cmake personal\u201d and \u201cmake it purposeful.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>My Cortisol level dropped. The line turned out not to be nearly as long as I feared. And I spent my short wait in a better mood. By empathizing with line-waiters\u2014making it personal\u2014the sign transformed the experience of being in that space.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>For an example of the second variety of emotionally intelligent signs, I simply visited a neighborhood near my own in Washington, D.C. On one busy corner is a small church that sits on an enormous lawn. Many people in the area walk their dogs. And the combination of lots of dogs and a giant expanse of grass can lead to an obvious (and odorous) problem. To avert that problem, that is, to move dog-walkers to change their behavior, the church could have posted a sign that merely announced its rules. Something like this, for instance, which I\u2019ve doctored a bit from the original:<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>However, the church took a different approach and posted the following sign instead:\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Children play here. Pick up after your dog.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>By reminding people of the reason for the rule and trying to trigger empathy on the part of those dog-walkers\u2014making it purposeful\u2014the sign-makers increased the likelihood that people would behave as the sign directed.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Now your assignment: Take one of the signs you now use or see in your workplace or community and recast it so it\u2019s more emotionally intelligent. By making it personal, or making it purposeful, you\u2019ll make it better.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>By removing the cloak of anonymity and replacing it with this form L of personal connection, you\u2019re more likely to genuinely serve, which over the long haul will redound to everyone\u2019s benefit.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Always ask\u2014-and answer\u2014these two questions.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Finally, at every opportunity you have to move someone\u2014from traditional sales, like convincing a prospect to buy a new computer system, to non-sales selling, like persuading your daughter to do her homework\u2014be sure you can answer the two questions at the core of genuine service.<ul><li>1. If the person you\u2019re selling to agrees to buy, will his or her life improve?<\/li><\/ul>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>2. When your interaction is over, will the world be a better place than when you began?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Daniel Pink\u20142012. Introduction Part One: Rebirth of a Salesman 1. We\u2019re All in Sales Now 2. Entrepreneurship, Elasticity and Ed-Med 3. From Cavea Emptor to Caveat Venditor Part Two: How to Be 4. Attunement SAMPLE CASE Attunement 1. Find a partner and stand face-to-face with that person for thirty seconds. 2. Then turn around so [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4236,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[238,241,253,256],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-booknotes","category-business","category-communication-storytelling","category-sales-and-marketing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mattwkane.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mattwkane.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mattwkane.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mattwkane.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mattwkane.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4235"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.mattwkane.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4235\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4237,"href":"http:\/\/www.mattwkane.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4235\/revisions\/4237"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mattwkane.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mattwkane.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mattwkane.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mattwkane.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}