Power Persuasions

A huge majority of us are, to a certain level, hyper-active and lack the ability to focus on things for long. In some ways we resemble a flock of birds chirping away at nothing and for this we can happily blame it on the nature of our creation. In many ways we are affected by the fast changing, constantly chaotic, circumstances which surround us. The bottom-line, though, regardless of whether it is nature or nurture that makes us, is the fact that we are always in a state of flux.

To give positive direction and constructive shape to the change that is constantly happening to us requires that we develop skills to navigate or anchor ourselves at a deeper, primal level closer to our identities and emotions. To give positive direction and constructive shape to change in others we must also develop the skills and abilities to create a shift for them at a deeper and a more emotional level in them…read more

Dr Robert Cialdini, known for his popular book on persuasion and marketing, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion makes claim to six laws that can create a shift in others and these, very quickly, are;

• Reciprocity - People tend to return a favor for a favor. Thus giving the power to one who does the first favor.

• Commitment and Consistency - If people commit, orally or in writing, to an idea or goal, they are more likely to honor that commitment.

• Social Proof - People will do things that they see other people are doing.

• Authority - People will tend to be influenced by authorities and celebrities.

• Liking - People are easily persuaded by other people that they like.

• Scarcity - Perceived scarcity will generate demand and therefore give power to the one owning title to the things in demand.

These laws are good and make a lot of social sense. I agree with them absolutely and would add to these facts the current research from the fields on Nuero-psychology. What support and enshrouds all these laws is the fact that deep change occurs at the levels where our emotions and memories reside. It is the images, the sounds and the feelings of past experiences of joy and sorrow which become a powerful driving force behind the choices we make today, behind the actions we take today and destiny that we shape for our tomorrows.

Change at and around the seat of our emotions and past experiences is brought about a careful construction and morphing of the verbal and non-verbal language that we use in our day to day interactions with our family, friends and colleagues. Those that recognize the power of the words we weave have learned the art and science of it over time, through deliberate effort and razor-sharp awareness of their own thoughts, mental processes, ideas and emotional shifts. Those that master these skills and develop intuitive competencies stop being like a bunch of sparrows atop a tree but become soaring eagles in the sky that fly down sharp and swift for a purpose and then fly back into the echelons of personal performances and achievements.

History Repeats Itself

The other day at the bank, Lisa, my young and attractive bank officer was telling me how her mother had taken a fall, and while waiting for hip replacement, was confined in a hospital in the USA.

While Lisa was talking to me, I was watching her eyebrows and wondering how painful it must be for girls to undergo all that plucking. I was wondering how she would look if she let her eyebrows grow. Coming out of the trance, I looked up and brightly asked her: “Hey how’s your mom? Does she still live in Japan?”

Right! I was hearing her but I hadn’t been listening! I was physically present but spiritually gone. I was hearing her but I wasn’t listening. Listening requires engagement, comprehension, absorption, and processing while hearing is only a function of the ears.

We spend half of our waking time communicating with others and the other half listening. In school we are taught how to read, write, and recite, but have any of us spent time learning to listen fully? If we learned to listen with our heads and hearts, we’d be able to manage our time projects and plans much more efficiently.

Putting our heads and hearts together makes us not just attentive, but also watchful of our own input. Our partners, our customers deserve that and some more from us. Call this behavior “Listening Mindfully.”

Listening Mindfully will benefit you by:

• Making you aware of your own intentions and authenticity.
• Strengthening and improving your relationships with your colleagues, customers and community.
• Giving you the ability to bring about positive and meaningful change in the world.

In all conversations, Listening Mindfully can be achieved by taking these five simple steps:

1. Investigate Intentions. Before entering any conversation, find out what it is that you really want to achieve. An honest appraisal of your intentions will keep you engaged and make your customers feel served well.

2. Increase Awareness. While you are listening, clear your personal, mental clutter. This could be anything from nagging thoughts, to lists of things to do, to plans for the day. Postpone these thoughts, increase awareness, note change in tone, and pitch and pace of speaker. Look for underlying feelings and visualize your mind consciously capturing key ideas.

3. Interact with Interest and Enthusiasm. Listening is also done with your eyes and body. Maintain eye contact and lean towards the speaker. Every now and then blink with approval, nod, and smile or participate gently by uttering words like “uh-uh,” “hmmm,” or “I understand.” Keep this participation genuine and non-intrusive.

4. Inquire and Re-Phrase. All transfer of information, knowledge, or ideas from one mind to another generally leaves a small percentage of the unknown. Clarify and fill that gap as much as possible by making simple, direct, and inoffensive questions. Rephrase ideas or create comparisons to further solidify understanding.

5. Inscribe Impressions. Whenever and wherever possible take quick and colorful notes. You know what they say about remembering, “A blunt pencil is better than a sharp mind.” This will help you put down your impressions and review ideas and perceptions later.

Follow these five simple steps and your customer service experience will jump up several notches. Also, the next time you are in a bank with an attractive bank officer, it will help keep your mind where your body is. History repeats itself only because people do not listen mindfully the first time!

Raju Mandhyan
www.mandhyan.com

CSR: Learn not Teach

One of my sons has come of the age when he has to make the choice to study further or plunge into the world of business. So far he has been a good son, an outstanding student and a very responsible citizen of the world. His teachers at the Ateneo de Manila University do take note of his performances and they have rewarded him with the right accolades and scholarships too. In life, he seems poised correctly to take off from being a good boy to a man to be respected. I take pride in this fact but claim no credit. As far as I am concerned, he is a self-made man already.

While driving about town, sometimes, we have healthy conversations about business, politics, social issues, life and about living gracefully. I must confess that I, more often than not, pick up more lessons than I think I give out.

One particular Sunday morning, just a week after I made a presentation at the Asian Forum on Corporate Social Responsibility [CSR] in Manila, I was telling him about how people across the world are waking up to the realities of the rampage we have created, in the guise of development and growth, we have created on earth. I was also telling him how happy I was that thousand of individuals and organizations in the know are now doing the right thing by healing the earth, nurturing the needy and educating the ones not in the know. “People,” I said, “are essentially good, and when given the freedom and the resources will most likely do the right and the noble thing.” I was happy, I said, that many large business groups do not regard the concept of CSR just as marketing and a business strategy but more as a way of life. On other occasions most of our conversations had been, of course, about developmental work and study opportunities in the USA or Europe for him. His city of choice, to live, work and or study, he’d mentioned many a times to me, was San Francisco. Today, he just sat and heard me out quietly.

A few days after that one-sided chat, we were back in the car again.

“Pa,” he said “there’s this professor at school who was telling us about this developmental assignment in one of the remote provinces in the Philippines.”

“What about it?”

“It’s an eighteen month teaching assignment for high-school level kids in a village where there is no electricity and potable water.”

“And?”

“Well, I am seriously considering taking it up.”

Without thinking and very carelessly, I blurted out, “Why?”

Allowing no pause and with a quick frown on his good-looking face, he exploded, “What do you mean, why?”

That shut me up good for the rest of the drive. Again, instead of teaching, I’d learned. Likewise for CSR, I realized I need to learn not teach, do and not talk, live it and not just employ it as a business strategy.

Innovation Factory

Meeting up with Robert Tucker in Manila was a pleasure. Comparing notes, getting insights and drawing sensible conclusions about creativity and innovation has usually been a slippery process. Every single individual and every single industry have ideas of their. Robert shared the concept of his Innovation Factory and I walked away with three major conclusions.

One: One Size Doesn’t Fit All
Idea generation, capturing possibilities and executing that flux may all be logged in and read as that we must think out of the box and we must stretch our minds but how far individual ideas can be stretched is totally made to order and custom designed. You got to come up with a process that works for you. What worked for Google, Starbuck, 3M, Evian and even Mang Inasal may not work for you. You will have to mix your own.

Two: Execution is Key
None of the names mentioned would have known how wonderful their ideas were had they not taken them to market. Out in that nebulous territory called the “market” roam beasts and beauties of undefined shape and size. You may research, reason, position, plan and strategize but it will only be the results that will give you a true reflection and a report.

Three: Make your Approach Methodical
In essence, when you mix your own, make sure you keep track of the ingredients you use, the measures you use and how long each individual process stays on the burner of intention and focus.

I like to think in terms of preparing, persisting, percolating and performing towards creating something out of nothing. Towards making new what doesn’t work well and even what may be working perfectly well at this time.

I had the opportunity to peek into how Kraft comes up with new products, process and promotions for their products. They partner, they purchase, they persist but way before they do all that they prepare to come up with something new. Their work areas are colourful, spacious and laid out to trigger ideas and teamwork. They nurture their research and development teams with volumes of select information; they are exposed to new theories and methods of thinking and action.

All this leads to products that are yummy, a presence in the market-place that is unshaken-able and a perch where Kraft, always, gets a glimpse of the curves ahead.

Five Sensible Ideas for Meetings

The whole world is constantly participating in meetings. “Let’s have a meeting,” “I am in a meeting,” “Call you right back after the meeting,” are statements you hear all the time. Sometimes, it makes me wonder if most everyone I know is so often in one meeting or another who then, in heaven’s name, is minding the, proverbial, store? Who is building the bridges and who is baking all the bread in the world?

The truth is that a lot of time, across the world, is being wasted in and during meetings. Should we be able to capture all the wasted energy from the din and noise generated during meetings then we would have no energy crisis. We’d be cutting down lesser trees, digging up lesser oil and, leaving lesser carbon foot-prints on the face of this lovely planet. The air will be clean, the oceans will start cooling down and the birds will start flying south again.

A typical meeting usually starts late and it involves catching up with others, waiting for the late-comer, listening to his excuses and a traffic-report of the city, bringing him up to speed, ordering coffee, re-reading the minutes of the last meeting, plugging the computers, logging onto the net and rushing through the true agenda so as to catch up with the next meeting at another venue.

If this is even partially true for you then here are five quick ideas to bash up the beast of bad meetings. Five ideas is a good number because it represents the number of sensory inputs and outputs and research in the field of neurosciences has shown that the conscious mind can only juggle and manage seven plus minus two chunks of information at a given moment. With nine chunks of data we are at peak performance therefore stressed. With seven we perform at medium stress but at five chunks we are relaxed, participative and also creative.

Idea One: Email everyone, a substantial time before the meeting, a five-point agenda that is more illustrative than narrative. Use sketches, diagram and flowcharts because pictures are easier to remember than words. Assign expectations and tasks for that individual. Keep it simple and to the point.

Idea Two: During the meeting issue a little more detailed version of the same illustration to everyone with their roles and tasks color segregated. Allow space for that individual to make and takes notes. Look up Edward De Bono’s ‘Six Thinking Hats’ and use the science behind that. Throw out one of the hats or use it as a pan to collect penalties from the late-comers, the hecklers and the time-wasters in meetings.

Idea Three: Choose one big, hairy goal for the meeting and less than four minor goals to be achieved as outcomes of the meeting. Hang a large sign of the big, hairy goal where everyone can see it before and during the meeting. The large visual aids focus and like bees to honey everyone will keep directing their conversations to the big, hairy goal. The minor ones will fall in place just like dominoes do.

Idea Four: Allow a few minutes before the meeting ends to make a bonfire out of the big, hairy goal sign and the small illustrative notices that you sent out. Capture the outcomes of the meeting in an illustrative format and sketch out the measures and the big hairy goal for the next meeting. Oops, scratch out the last sentence! Your every meeting should be like you’ll never have to meet again.

Idea Five: All research, option generation, plans, milestones, measures are elements of cerebral thinking but true choices are made from the depths of our hearts. Treat each other with respect, kindness and empathy so as to nurture their emotional sides but let the late-comers, the time-wasters and hecklers be pirated by the competition.

Practice these five ideas if you like or chuck them out the window. It is best to just roll up your sleeves and bake that bread, build those bridges or chill by the beach.

Here’s hoping your meetings are always lean, mean and the coming year happy, healthy and wealthy for you!

Author, Coach and Trainer
Raju Mandhyan

While Speaking Where Do I Put My Hands

Have you ever watched Asian dancers from India, Indonesia, Japan, or Thailand? They have these exotic dance routines where the story behind the dance is beautifully and eloquently expressed through the movement of limbs backed up by facial expressions. You may have also seen people communicate through graceful hand movements and expressions. These dances and sign languages can be mesmerizing to watch because they create such clear images.

Most of us, especially those who are high on auditory learning, are not so proficient with using our hands. In reality, hand gestures are very powerful and effective visuals. Imagine the impact of hitting your fist into an open palm when insisting upon a point. Imagine the effect of placing your right hand on your heart while talking about personal things, and imagine the honesty expressed when you spread open both your palms towards your audience. With appropriate gestures, you can increase impact and enhance connectivity with the audience.

Here are some pointers on how to keep your gestures natural, effective and in sync with your words:

• Start with hands loosely held over your belly-button area, prayer style.
• Visualize your head and your body down to your waist level enclosed in an imaginary frame like a photograph. Work your gestures from within that framework. Any gestures that go out of the frame will appear loud and sometimes impolite.
• Do not point your index finger at the audience. No! You are not Uncle Sam that says, “I want you” with a scowl on his face and his index finger pointing! Instead use an open, upward facing palm.
• Let your hand movements be in sync with your words. When you say “big” raise your hands high. When you say “small” lower your hands with palms facing downwards.
• When you want to convey excitement rub your hands together or close them into a grip, lean forward slightly and emote expressions.

All through managing your body language, your facial expression and your hand gestures do remember that mind and body are one linked system. What you feel and think in your mind will show through your body and actions and what you do with your body and movements will have an effect on your mind. Therefore, think and practice rhythm and grace during all public speaking interactions.

Beyond these suggestions, another very powerful thing I can tell you about hands and hand gestures is that, while speaking, focus so much more on the message and the audience that you become less and less conscious of making hand gestures. Because we communicate as a single mind-body linked system, our hand movements, inadvertently, represent our thoughts and many a times fill in and make up for lack of appropriate words.

In all cases, always relax, have fun and let your message provide meaning and value to your listeners.


Raju Mandhyan
Author, Coach and Trainer
Video Clip
www.mandhyan.com

A World of Clear, Creative and Conscientious Thinkers!
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Need to Bleed

Recently, in an interaction, with people from my profession, I got a bit peeved when someone began professing the value and importance of Corporate Social Responsibility as an image-building tool and as a marketing strategy. She was suggestiing that CSR practitioners pursue efforts in areas where it would give them higher exposure and visibility.

I was in a quiet rage for the next few days until I came by an article on the story Mayang. Mayang, a Filipina in Japan, who has been doing work for the community for years and not seeking recognition for it until it was gifted upon her.

Some of Mayang's words sit well with me and here they are, "...being successful is all about being humbled by the experience. Like palay [rice shoots] arches its body towards the ground when starting to bear grains," and "You put success in your heart, not in your head."

Read the whole article at ‘Bayaning Pilipino’ in Japan By Karlo Jose R. Pineda
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 08:30:00 10/26/2009