assuming they’re remember

I was running late today to catch a bus. In the front of my mind was how little time I had left myself to get where I needed to be. As I rounded the corner, the bus sailed past. I knew I had 100 metres to sprint to get to that bus-stop. And I hoped that there were enough people waiting so that the bus would still be there when I got there. I was in luck. I’d got my timing perfect. For someone in a hurry, I’d lost no time waiting for a bus!

Unfortunately while timing was perfect, there was another criteria that was just as important – destination! That’s right, I got on the wrong bus. Now, I know destination is important. I know buses at that bus-stop take different routes. But, it wasn’t front of mind when I made the decision to get on.

I’ve talked earlier about the dangers of assumption when it comes to communication. It’s dangerous to assume others think like me. It’s dangerous to assume others have the same values/motivations to me. It’s dangerous to assume that others know what I know. It’s dangerous to assume others will react how I expect them to react. It’s dangerous to assume others will draw the same meaning/conclusion as I do. A useful discipline is to always test our assumptions. Don’t assume, find out.

But here’s another dangerous assumption. It’s dangerous to assume that others will remember what they already know! When leading or seeking to influence others don’t ignore what your audience already knows. They may be forgetting it’s relevance to this specific situation. Don’t assume they’ll remember, remind them. You may need to be explicit. Not because they don’t know it. But because you want it at the front of their mind when you’re communicating. Particularly if it’s important to your objective and message. Don’t assume they’ll remember. They may get on the wrong bus!

When the tide goes out – managing in a downturn.

“A rising tide lifts all the boats”.But when it goes out some of the boats end up sitting on the rocks!

The good economic times over the last few years have probably covered over a few business shortcomings. It has been hard not to do well, when there has been lots of business around. Now the game has changed in two ways. First there is less money around, and secondly, because there’s the same competitors, there will be more competition for the business that is around.

The natural response is to cut costs to manage the anticipated reduction in revenue. That’s important always. But here are a couple of other things to think about:

1. How effective is your business development process? In particular I’d look two aspects – at the quality of the sales interaction and the effectiveness of sales management. I am always astounded by the generally poor perception of clients towards suppliers involved in tender situations. Most sales people still don’t ask enough questions and don’t listen well enough. And most sales management is focused on results. You can’t manage results as you have no control over them! Clients decide! Sales management needs to focus on behaviours. What are the right behaviours at this point in time? Based on the sales pipeline, sales targets, and the specific client.
2. How effective are your client/supplier negotiations? Like cost savings, these go straight to the bottom-line. What I notice in sales teams is a tendency to give value away. They want to get the deal, profitability isn’t that important! Of course, they don’t say that. There is always a very good reason why they have to give value away!

A new mindset?

There’s alot of commentators advising on how NZ should survive and even prosper during the current financial turmoil. Mark Weldon is quoted as advocating “we need a new mind-set of aggressively competing”. I think he’s wrong. For three reasons:

1. A mind-set of aggressively competing has partly contributed to the mess we’re in. Banks were so focused on competing that they have created the largest economic down-turn since the Great Depression.
2. Changing the mind set of an individual is hard enough, let alone a whole country. Even if it was a good idea, it would be practically impossible.
3. And it’s not a good idea. Much of the NZ psyche or mindset is important to keep. I’m talking about our friendliness, warmth, creativity, freshness, tolerance, and egality.

I’ve just returned from overseas and my experience is that people love Kiwi’s. Let’s not lose that. We just need to be bolder and less self-deprecating. To value ourselves and what we have to offer to the world.

A few small changes that could have a big impact. (and I’m taking my own advice – watch this space!)

Tailoring the message

I had to smile today as I walked past the preacher on Lambton Quay. He has been there since I can remember. His message is usually along the lines of – we are all sinners, repent before it’s too late, etc. He never seems to get much traction with the passing foot traffic.

Right at the moment, the world seems to be impoding internationally due to the banking crisis. Today his message was – smile, it’s not that bad! At least he’s thinking about his audience. I didn’t stop today but will next time and talk to him about his apparent change of heart.

Premature Articulation!

Premature articulation isn’t a good idea …. when it comes to influencing. What I mean is articulating your solution, recommendation or advice before your audience is ready to agree with it. I had a boss once who was a master of getting you to arrive at his idea yourself. He made you think it was your idea all along. Instead of showing me his picture of the solution and asking if I liked it, he would paint his picture in my mind before he showed it me. And of course I loved it then, as it matched what I had in my mind. That is a very subtle and empowering form of influence.

How do you do it? The key is great questions. Think about all the questions you considered in convincing yourself and simply ask your audience so that they arrive at the same conclusion. Or you both arrive at a better solution because the combined thinking was better. Arrive together at the same place.

Also takes the struggle out of influence – for both of you.

Winning tenders – don’t just ‘throw your hat into the ring’

Yesterday I was talking to a senior public sector procurement specialist. What he had to say concerned me and should concern any large supplier pitching for government contracts.

Thinking of a recent procurement process, he said:

• none of the suppliers effectively used their opportunities to ask questions and discuss options prior to probity commencing.
• suppliers often fail to recognise during briefings that the people present will be evaluating the responses.
• suppliers often only address the literal questions rather than considering the broader issues.
• the quality of the responses were poor, even though sufficient time had been provided to submit responses.
• suppliers often make it difficult for the procurement process to evaluate their response.

It seems that despite the effort and cost of responding to large tenders, many suppliers treat tenders with a ‘toss our hat in the ring’ approach. And hope to win. The issue behind this is often a lack of pre-sales resoiurces or just workloads of the people needed to be involved in a major bid.

A more cost/time efficient approach would be to:

• qualify hard each opportunity – only respond to those with a better than average chance of winning.
• start early to understand what would really motivate the client to choose you.
• develop the bid strategy before building the solution.

If my friend is right, there’s a great opportunity here for someone.

Challenging Personal Paradigms

A friend and I are exploring a new business venture at the moment. It’s creative and we are both finding it very stimulating. We have been meeting with people in the industry and have been stuck by how people are captured by the prevailing paradigm. We have a different perspective. And it’s very difficult for people to see the opportunity from their perspective.

Tomorrow we’re pitching the opportunity to a critical partner. I need to remember to pitch the opportunity from their perspective or paradigm first. Before I try to change it. Then, I think I’ll try to use analogies to see if I can shift the paradigm. If I can choose analogies that are close enough to their experience. Maybe, I can get them to see things differently. I’ll let you know how I get on.

But this just leads me to my real point. What are the paradigms we have of ourselves? That may not be right. Or may not serve us. I often bump into these when coaching people for presentations. I get them to do something different. Something they are not used to doing. It may be, being more animated. And they say … ”That’s just not me! I want to be myself”. Right. I want people to be themselves too, but I don’t accept that we are our behaviours. Our behaviours have grown out of the set of our past experiences. And how we’ve interpreted those past experiences. We can still be ourselves doing something different.

If I can normally present in a semi-comatose manner that bores the living daylights out of people. I can present in a more animated and energetic manner. Do we really think our audience will say … “hey that’s not you. Go back to the old boring self we knew and fell asleep to”

This is just an example. Generalise to all your behaviour. Ask the question  … What behaviours do I need, at this moment, to achieve my objective?

Keys to influence

I had coffee today with a client. We ended up talking about the importance of influence in the public sector. It reminded me of my first boss when I started working in IT&T. He told me there were two keys to selling.

1. Show up – go and see people.
2. Stay – spend time with them. And I’d add a third, said my client …
3. Shut-up

That’s good advice for selling or influencing in the private or public sector.

Getting attention – be more interesting!

Edward de Bono wrote a book called “How You can be More Interesting”. He should have written a book called “How You can be More Interested“. More interested people are more interesting!

First – convince me.

I read once that during double-blind testing on new drugs patients are often given placebo’s (sugar pill). For a drug to be effective it has to significantly out perform the placebo. Yes, some people get better taking the placebo. But effectiveness of the placebo can be influenced by the conviction of the people administering the placebo. If the doctor believes it an effective drug, the patient is more likely to improve than if they know it’s a placebo! Interesting. I think a similar effective occurs when we are seeking to influence someone or pitch an idea/proposal.

To be convincing, first I need to be convinced. The first person to convince is myself. But not from the perspective of my own model of the world. I need to understand their model of the world and convince myself that my proposition will make sense to them. Be compelling to them. Be convincing to them.

Take your time to be convinced. Do it thoroughly. Don’t try to influence or persuade until you are thoroughly convinced. Otherwise you’ll blow your credibility.