What if there were one communication tool that would increase your visibility as a leader? How can you make yourself memorable?
How to Influence and Persuade: Consider the risks
You have all those great ideas and recommendations and initiatives, the whole project plan all laid out. You have some great thought leadership advice that you want to give to your constituents or your clients. But there’s a flip side that a lot of people don’t always talk about. They don’t talk about the risks, they don’t talk about the backup plan, they don’t talk about the things that could go wrong.
In other words, you can own your power to persuade by NOT just focusing on the things that work.
The main focus of the conversation is all about keeping the level of optimism at some point. It’s important to keep the level of optimism. But if you want to gain more visibility, you also want to make sure that you’re considering the holistic picture. Talk about the risks of NOT going in a certain direction, as much as you talk about the direction that you’re proposing.
Before I forget, I want to be sure you know about my audio leadership course (it’s free) that’s designed to help you own your authority in your career and it works. It’s based on two decades of leading in Corporate America, (I’m a former Wall St. Executive) and those professionals I coach here at In Our Shoes. Now onto persuading your audience…
What are the things that they haven’t thought about? What are the things that you’ve experienced personally, which have set you back on previous projects or initiatives? What are the skills needed in a team and you realize, we need to make sure we get our skills up in this particular area.
If you’re looking to get more of your ideas across, and be perceived and appreciated and respected as a leader of people trust, you want to give them that holistic picture. So think about the flip side of not going in the direction that you’re proposing.
How to Influence and Persuade: Bring your passion
I like to train and coach professionals on making sure that they bring emotion to the conversation of any communication. When people leave a phone call with you, they want to feel some sort of passion, some sort of enthusiasm.
So whatever it is that you’re doing or saying, do it with an inspired enthusiasm, one that is so strong that even if they don’t agree with anything that you say, they feel where you’re headed. This still gives them an open space to come back and maybe push back or suggest some alternatives.
As an effective leader, you have to make yourself a little bit vulnerable. And not hold back, especially with with your emotions. I’m not saying be EMOTION – AL. But bring your passion to that conversation.
How to Influence and Persuade: Think ahead
If you are thinking ahead, and you know your audience, and you have an idea of what they might be proposing, then you might want to have in your hip pocket, some of the risks the organization would be taking, by going down that path. Have in your hip pocket a couple of reasons of going in that direction.
This sets you up on a different level. It shows that you’re thinking ahead, and demonstrating leadership. This could be in a casual conversation when someone is seeking your opinion. Let them know why you think that’s a great idea. But don’t forget to give them your opinion on what could end up biting them down the road and some of the the potholes they might be stepping into.
This also opens up a whole other conversation. Once you state the risks, the next question is, Why is that a risk? That brokers a whole new conversation where you can share a story about when you or your team were burned. This opens up more of a opportunity to demonstrate your expertise, and showcase yourself as someone who is not thinking about just what is, but also what can potentially happen. And having your clients back.
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