Questioning Authority

The Conference Board Review^® Article

Mario Moussa wants you to win your next argument.

Mario Moussa wants you to win your next argument.

No. It's a word few of us like to hear, especially when presenting an idea about which we're enthusiastic. Mario Moussa also doesn't like to take no for an answer. In The Art of Woo: Using Strategic Persuasion to Sell Your Ideas (Wharton), Moussa, along with co-author G. Richard Shell, explains that wooing is "one of the most important skills in the repertoire of any entrepreneur, employee, or professional manager whose work requires them to rely on influence and persuasion rather than coercion and force." A principal at CFAR, a management consulting firm, he cites John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, Andy Grove, and Bono as some of history's most effective persuaders. Moussa, 51, spoke from his Philadelphia office about effective persuasion and why what you say may not be as important as how you say it. -- Vadim Liberman

What makes someone a good persuader?

A good persuader is someone who is sensitive and responsive to where others are coming from. The most important skill when it comes to wooing is understanding the way a situation looks from someone else's point of view, which is easy to say but hard to do because we're all self-centered and self-interested. It takes a real act of imagination to step into the shoes of someone else.

Too many of us assume that what would be convincing to us will be convincing to others. And we have a tendency to assume that the people we're trying to persuade already know what we know. But in constructing a persuasive argument, step one is to forget what you know and your point of view and see the situation the way someone else does.

Do senior executives really need to woo anyone? Can't they just use their authority and influence to make things happen?

Jeffrey Immelt has said that if he uses his formal authority more than seven or eight times a year, then he's a failure. So the rest of the time he's persuading; he's a salesman getting people on board. Besides, using your authority to beat people down in your company may help you in the short term, but it isn't good for morale. Most savvy, sophisticated executives are natural wooers because they understand that one of the most important things to people is their self-esteem, and it's counterproductive to force people to go along with your idea rather than convince them of its merits. When you sell your ideas, you have to think about long-term feelings and relationships. It's about building support over time. It's about what will hook colleagues and get them excited.

To get people on board, businesspeople often use numbers and data. Effective or not?

A lot of executives feel that if the numbers line up and support their case, then people are going to agree with them. But it usually doesn't work that way, unless the people you're trying to persuade are very numbers-oriented -- and most people are not. Just a few weeks ago, I was talking with a senior sales executive at a large financial-services company. He said to me: "I'm the kind of person who likes to let the numbers speak for themselves." Well, you may like numbers, but not everyone else does. Others may be looking to you for a vision or are more easily persuaded by a story. There's a lot of interesting evidence that even data-oriented people have a hard time remembering numbers. Even they tend to remember images and stories.

For example, thousands of consumers recently sued Merck over Vioxx. The first case to go to trial was brought in Texas, and Merck put on a vigorous scientific defense. The company showed the jury all its drug studies, explained how they were done, called its researchers to testify about methodology, and discussed how scientists reason with statistics. The plaintiff's lawyer, by contrast, told a story of the plaintiff's innocence, suffering, and loss. The jury found for the plaintiff. Merck's arguments about statistical significance fell on deaf ears. But the jurors understood the story about an innocent victim and a profit-hungry corporation; they based their decision on what they understood.

Unfair? Perhaps. So in subsequent trials, Merck put the science in the background and did a much better job making its case on a human level that juries could understand, and its success rate rose substantially.

Isn't that irrational? You can always find a compelling anecdote to support either side of an argument.

Different people think differently and have different ways of processing information. But even if you think they are unreasonable, as the person doing the persuading, you still have to adapt your style of persuasion to cater to them.

It sounds as though the way you present a message is more important than its content.

I'd say there's not a hard and fast line between form and content. The question really is, How do you take your idea and present it in such a way that the other person can hear it and evaluate it? Rather than focusing on the packaging of a message, you should focus on removing barriers from others hearing you. For instance, if you're talking to people who are focused on sales and you are focused on innovation, you need to retool your message.

There was an interesting New York Times article about President Bush and his team. What Donald Rumsfeld and others came to realize is that Bush is a big-idea guy. He didn't want to hear about political aspects of an idea; he was not so interested in numbers. But if you could present your idea as visionary, he'd be much more interested and likely to listen to you. That's an example of people changing the way they persuade someone.

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