In the Classroom
Beyond Negotiations: The Art and Science of Strategic Persuasion

During the Crimean War, Napoleon needed soldiers to man an exposed hill-top battery. It was a suicide mission. There were no volunteers. Napoleon could have used his authority to order the men to their deaths, but that would have been demoralizing. Instead, he appealed to their courage and pride. He posted a sign on the battlements that read: "The battery of the men without fear." The position was manned night and day. By understanding his men's passions and beliefs, Napoleon was able to persuade them to accept a deadly assignment. This is the power of persuasion.

Richard ShellAs the author of Bargaining for Advantage: Negotiation Strategies for Reasonable People, a global hit in the negotiation field now translated into more than 12 languages,and co-director of the popular Wharton Executive Negotiation Workshop: Bargaining for Advantage™ , Wharton Professor G. Richard Shell knows what it takes to succeed at the toughest bargaining tables.  He has now turned his attention to a broader topic: persuasion.  As the example of Napoleon's success in convincing men to volunteer for his dangerous mission shows, there are many moments in professional life when people need persuasion tools that go beyond bargaining and negotiation.  These interactions are concerned with more fundamental skills—influence and persuasion—selling ideas and "wooing" others to accept them.

As Shell sees it, negotiation is one form of persuasion—one of the interactive methods people use to get others to do things.  Persuasion is one form of an even larger set of tools that make up the field of interpersonal "influence." "You may not negotiate every day," said Shell, "but you are influencing and persuading. Negotiating has a structure that is more defined and formal. When you negotiate, you prepare, you exchange information to come up with a way of advancing the ball. Persuasion and influence are more informal. There is no trade, no exchange, and sometimes you are not even sure when you are done. It is the paradigm that CEO Alfred Sloan introduced in the early days at General Motors when he talked about a culture of "selling ideas."

With colleague Mario Moussa, Shell is finishing a new book called The Art of Woo: Using Strategic Persuasion To Sell Your Ideas and preparing to launch a related Executive Education program, Strategic Persuasion: The Art and Science of Selling Ideas.  The new work examines how people get others to accept their ideas.

Channels for Selling Your Ideas

Effective persuasion means understanding your audience and using the right channel to reach them. Shell and Moussa have identified six primary channels for persuasion based on research and practice: 

  • Authority
  • Rationality (reason, data, and logic)
  • Vision (inspiration and motivation)
  • Relationships and reciprocity
  • Interests and needs
  • Politics

Choosing the right channel or channels is crucial. For example, Napoleon might have been less successful if he had used the "authority channel" to order his men into battle. Instead, he chose "vision" as his channel for persuasion.

Pitfalls in Persuasion

Many managers are puzzled when they are not heard or their ideas fail to gain traction in the organization. They wonder: What went wrong? There are many pitfalls to persuasion that can undermine the acceptance of ideas. Some of these pitfalls are:

  • Thinking it is about you: Managers need to understand their own natural strengths in certain channels of persuasion, but that is only the beginning. Persuasion is not about you. It is about the other person. Which channel or channels will be the best way to reach the other person or people in the organization? What do they care about?  Rich Mellon, who was hired by Intel as a marketing manager in the early 1970s, was a tireless visionary and promoter of the personal computer. He could see a huge market in the future, but Mellon's words fell on deaf ears. He was seen as a nag, and by the time Intel woke up to the power of the PC a few years later, Mellon had moved on. Mellon, a visionary, used the channel of inspiration and motivation in an organization of engineers that was much more rational and data driven. If he could have framed his ideas in a way that this organization of scientists could understand, he might have been more successful in selling his ideas. Because of his failure to understand his audience, Mellon and Intel missed an opportunity to lead the way into the PC market ahead of Apple and IBM. "Get over yourself," Shell said. "It is about the other person." While Mellon's approach was wrong for Intel, a more rational approach might fail in a different organization. "If you are fascinated by data in an organization that is visionary, and you present all the data and reasons for following your idea, they will go to sleep during your presentation."

  • Losing sight of the relationship: Relationships are the basis for persuasion. Shell recalls a manager who tried to use a negotiating tactic to ask his boss for a raise. The manager went into his boss's office and asked for three times what he thought he should get. This is a tactic that negotiators sometimes use at the bargaining table—to start by asking for something outrageous and then backing down to the original goal—but it backfired in this context. The boss was shocked. When the manager backed down to his original request, the shock didn't go away. The manager received no raise at all. "He violated the relationship," Shell said. "It may work if you are raising money for charity, but it didn't work here. You just don't treat people like that. You can't forget that it is about the relationship." While the concept of "selling" might imply manipulation, "sales tricks and mind games" often lead to disasters because they undermine the relationship.

  • Solving your own problem: Another failure of persuasion is positioning a great idea as a solution to your own—rather than your organization's or, even better, your boss's problem. You need to understand what the problem looks like to your counterpart and present your solution in his or her terms. For example, a medical center faced a serious crisis when a change in government regulations took away a major benefit enjoyed by low-paid but vitally important hospital residents (doctors in training).  The residents were upset and were organizing to demand increased compensation. The hospital did not have the funds to give them a raise.  The CEO asked the residents' leaders to join a committee to explore their problems.  To his astonishment, this committee reported back that the residents would be willing to accept their reduced benefits if the hospital would agree to one very important demand: they wanted to wear the same, somewhat longer white coats that full-fledged physicians wore.  More than money, they wanted respect. The CEO ordered the new coats immediately. By understanding what the residents really wanted, the CEO was able to easily solve the problem and persuade the residents not to demand increased compensation. "Others want solutions to their own problems," Shell said. "Always frame the idea as a solution to the partner's problem." 

Making Woo, Not War

The language of love may sound strange applied to business interactions, but Shell notes that companies woo customers, heads of state woo coalition partners, and firms woo top executives to join their ranks every day. "It's no different when you persuade someone to advance your initiative or program at work," says Shell. "You need to woo them—get their interest and support."

The term also helps to contrast Shell and Moussa's approach to the traditional "art of war" that often guides politics in business. "Effective persuasion builds out of an awareness of who you are as a person and an understanding of the other person," Shell said. "That is what you do when you woo. It is the opposite of war. It is winning people over."

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