The art of persuasion

During a recent coaching session, my client said, 'I'm not here to win a popularity contest.' Well, maybe, but I would ask; are people likely to go-the-extra-mile or buy-into your messages if they have a negative perception? The level of rapport directly affects your ability to influence.

Many business negotiations involve both parties 'sticking to their guns'. Negotiation under the conditions of rapport is a lot quicker than a 'battle of wills' and far more likely to generate a real win-win. If you attempt to deliver a difficult message without rapport, it's likely to degenerate -literally - into an argument.

Problems with rapport are often caused by thinking about what you want to communicate and how you are delivering it; but unfortunately, paying no attention to how the other person is receiving it. Communication is a 'two way street' - it's impossible to be a good communicator if you are 'stuck on transmit'. So how can you create a comfortable atmosphere of rapport, eliminating negative perceptions or distrust before you begin, so that you can influence others?

1. Mind your body language

There is a statistic that is often used in communication training; it is that 57 percent of the meaning of your communication comes from your body language and there is definitely something in it. It is easy to demonstrate that more than half of the clues that provide the listener an idea of meaning are non-verbal.

Allow me to demonstrate what I mean by 'meaning' - if I were to say to you, 'Your numbers are the same as last quarter which surprised me.' Is the meaning of that sentence good, bad or neutral? You have no way of knowing from the words alone - you will be looking for other clues such as voice, tone and body language to attribute a meaning to the words. If I say, 'I was just being funny' do I mean I was only being funny, or I was recently being funny, and do I mean funny ha-ha, funny strange, or something else entirely? It's so easy to misunderstand, and it's very easy for people to attribute negative meaning to your communication when their barriers are up. So how can you get them to drop the barriers so that you can positively influence them?

I could provide explicit instruction of how to use your body language, matching or mirroring the people you communicate with, but it's likely to provide an artificial and uncomfortable result. Instead I invite the reader to experience something - go into an environment where people are in rapport and then look at their body language in relation to each other. Is it the same or different? What are the similarities? Then re-create the comfortable body language dynamic in your interactions - take your lead from the other person, and adjust your body language to create the dynamics you have observed in natural interactions - and see what happens to the dynamic of the conversation...

2. Put it in their world

Here's a simple truth. When someone is receiving a communication of any kind they are thinking 'how does this affect me?' or 'what's in it for me?' So if people are thinking from that perspective, why not communicate from that perspective? Put it in their world, particularly if they are going through the uncertainty of a major business change programme.

Before talking about the company's vision and strategic objectives, put yourself in the shoes of the listener. What's in it for them personally? When you have 'ticked the box' you can move on to the strategic content and they will go with you much more willingly.

3. Communicate your intentions

We so often 'take it as read' that people know our intentions, and dive straight into the content, forgetting that the other person could easily perceive our intentions negatively.

It's impossible for your audience to misread your intentions if you have been open and frank about what your positive intentions really are. If you share the positive intention driving what you are about to communicate, and get buy-in to this, then the communication that follows will meet less resistance.

In addition, when people buy into your intention, they are far more empowered to help you to achieve it. When explicit proposals do not work, those people are minded to make alternative suggestions because they know what's really important, and what you want to achieve overall.

In the context of difficult conversations, when you take the time to separate your intent behind the message from the content of the message, they are unlikely to 'shoot the messenger'. If the message is unpleasant, you are not necessarily horrible for delivering it.

Communication is an absolutely critical part of the change process and in DAV's experience it is often managed poorly, with senior stakeholders underestimating the impact of uncertainty. When companies are undertaking strategic business change programmes, which might for example involve an acquisition, a reduction in resources or a strategic switch to externally managed services, more often than not clear messages and the way in which these are communicated can get lost in the overall momentum of the change process. Remember, silence spawns harmful rumours. When there is uncertainty about the future of a business, rumours proliferate and production suffers. A lack of communication often leads to frustration and ultimately, obstruction - something that must be avoided at all costs if the change process is to deliver the intended benefits to the business.

Acknowledgements to DAV's Enigma sponsoring partner, Use Your Noggin. Daryll Scott, Joint Managing Director is the author of best selling business book: Can We Start Again? The Patterns of NLP Applied to Business Interaction. Further extracts from this book and details on Noggin can be found at www.mynoggin.co.uk.