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Why are questions such powerful tools for persuasion? They are the principal means of achieving and properly applying all four pillars of Practical Eloquence. Do you remember what they are? They are outside-in thinking, content is king, preparation, and being your best self.
Outside-in thinking requires you to understand what the other person is thinking and feeling, and that means you may have to ask a lot of questions because we overestimate our ability to read others. I’ve heard that veterinarians are the best physicians, because they can’t ask their patients where it hurts. Imagine diagnosing someone without asking questions! Yet, that’s what we do all the time when we give advice or try to persuade others. (I know, I did it last night when speaking with Mackenzie about her and Matthew’s dilemma about whether to move to California.)
The second part of OIT is that the other person should also feel it, or sense that you are at least trying to use it, the old “They don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” How better to show someone you care than by taking an active interest in them? A couple of years ago, I had dinner with an old friend I hadn’t seen since high school. After an excruciating hour in which he told me all about himself and his family, and never once asked a single question about me or my family, I knew immediately why I hadn’t seen him since high school—and another 40 years will be too soon. You know exactly what I mean, but ask yourself if you just may be guilty of the same thing yourself.
Second, content is king, and questions are essential for getting the answers you need to ensure that you have the right content. Contrary to what most people think, most of the world’s content is not stored in google-accessible databases—most of the knowledge that you need to succeed in the world is locked inside the minds of the people you live with, socialize with, and work with on a daily basis. Questions are the most important technology we have to tap into those crucial unique personal databases.
And questions go beyond simply extracting knowledge; the best ones create knowledge by getting others to think about issues in ways they have not before. The answers may be in our heads the entire time, but we may not know it until someone asks the questions that spark the necessary connections and combinations. The Socratic method is the oldest and best-known form of this, and closer to today’s time, Toyota’s 5-whys forces us to drill deeper into an issue to get at root causes.
Questions are also the building blocks of pillar three, preparation. Proper preparation and planning starts with situation analysis, which requires you to take inventory of everything you know or don’t know that’s relevant to your situation. Questions are all about resolving DKs and by methodically asking them we will probably encounter (DK)²s as well. If we have a mental template of required information, we’ll need questions to fill in the blanks.
Finally, questions help you be your best self by letting the other person see that you genuinely care about them, and you don’t arrogantly assume you know it all.
So, if questions are so powerful, why don’t we ask enough of them?
First, we’re too self-focused, more worried about what we want to achieve in the conversation than about helping the other person realize how our proposal helps them. We’re also too impatient, and in our rush to get our point across we may not realize that it did not stick in the other person’s mind. Some of us are reluctant to ask questions because we’re afraid of looking dumb. Finally, despite our best intentions, we may be simply unprepared to ask the best possible questions.
To become a better questioner, you must first be aware of your own questioning frequency and practices. What percentage of time do you actually talk during most conversations? Are you truly taking an interest in the other person? Do you probe to get a deeper understanding of where they’re coming from? Next, cultivate two attitudes of humility and curiosity. Remind yourself going into the conversation, that you don’t know it all, and strive to get beneath the surface of what the other person is thinking and why they’re thinking that way.
In subsequent podcasts, I will address specific questioning techniques and methods that apply in various persuasive communication situations.
What’s the major cause of talking too long and losing your audience?
It’s something I’ve observed for too many presentations, and even one-on-one conversations. In fact, it’s the principal reason that many of my clients hire me to train their staff to become better communicators, because it’s one of their biggest sources of personal frustration—especially when they suffer through seemingly endless technical presentations.
I’m sure by now you’re wondering what it is, and I’m in danger of losing you, because I’m actually doing it to you right now.
Instead of getting right to the point, I’m taking the “long and winding road” or “tell them how to build a watch” approach, and I’m sure you’re familiar with it. In fact, by now you’re probably asking yourself, “Are we there yet?”
I call it BLAB, or Bottom Line At Bottom. As you can see, it’s frustrating, time-consuming, and even confusing.
What’s the antidote to BLAB? Simply put your bottom line at the top—start with BLUF: Bottom Line Up Front.
What if, instead, I had begun by saying: “The major cause of talking too long and losing your audience is putting your bottom line at the bottom”?
That would have helped you because you would have understood my main point unequivocally up front while you were paying full attention. At that point, you may have told me you agreed and I could have stopped. Or you may have wanted to hear my reasoning, and I could have given it to you, but at least you would have had the advantage of knowing the destination of the journey we’re going on together.
If you’re in love with BLAB, take heart: there’s still a use for it. Go ahead and use it as a summary and a call to action, if you’d like—but only as a bookend to BLUF.
But the bottom line is: move this line to the top.
No! No! A thousand times no! Business is too serious to take rhetoric seriously.
Business is all about producing maximum results with minimum input, and its lifeblood is effective and efficient communication. Business communication is plain, business communication is direct, and business communication is above all utilitarian.
If you’re cooking a meal, always remember that while people may want fancy flavors and exotic spices, what they need is healthy nutrition at a reasonable price. That’s why business communication is not about inspiration, it’s about information and illumination. It’s about profit, not poetry; efficiency not excitement.
If you try to get too cute, you’re liable to fall flat on your face. Anyone in business who enters the lion’s den of the C-suite and tries to sail against the current of logic and analysis will run aground on the shores of skepticism.
So, if you want to soar to the heights of business success, leave the airy abstractions and pious platitudes to the politicians; leave the flights of fancy to the fakers, and keep your feet firmly planted on the clearest and plainest path.[1]
[1] I hope I convinced you. If so, go back and count how many rhetorical devices you found in my 200 words.
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In the previous podcast, I talked about the stuff of leadership communicaiton—what leaders talk about. In a very small nutshell, leaders describe a vision for the future that is personally meaningful to followers, and expresses confidence that they can reach it.
All of that is extremely important, of course, but it’s not enough. Suppose you took a group of say 30 people and divided them into two rooms, and then selected one person at random to be the “leader” in the room. You give each leader an identical document that has all the necessary talking points: the vision, the reasons it should be meaningful and important to the followers, and reasons why they should have confidence in its success.
It’s easy to imagine totally different results from the two rooms. One person could deliver a perfectly clear and articulate explanation of all those points, and fail to spark even a glimmer of engagement or excitement from listeners. The other could send people pouring out of the room looking for brick walls to run through—same message, completely different results.
The key question is, what’s the difference? Is it something intangible that you’re either born with, or not? And of course the answer that I’m going to talk about in this podcast is that it’s not something you’re born with—it’s something you do, it’s a skill you can learn, and it’s a skill that you can grow and improve.
It’s not only what you say, but it’s how you say it that also matters. In this podcast, I’m gong to share some of the evidence that proves it’s true, give you a list of verbal tools that you can use to make you sound more like a leader, and then talk about the kinds of actual words you should and should not use if you want to make a mark on someone’s mind.
How I know it’s true
Leadership charisma is one of those things that people have actually studied and figured out. What makes someone attract attention and compel belief? People have actually studied that; A lot of what I’ve talked about in previous podcasts, especially in my Max Cred series, contributes to the effect, but there’s more to it than that.
One example I’m going to use is taken from a HBR article called “Learning Charisma” by John Antonakis, Marika Fenley, and Sue Liechti. They describe work they’ve done to identify and teach 12 charismatic leadership tactics These are both verbal and physical, although I only cover the verbal ones in this episode. They’ve taught these skills in experiments and have seen leadership competence ratings jump by about 60% on average. They also found that 65% of people trained in the CLTs received above-average leadership ratings, compared to 35% for those who didn’t receive training.
Rhetorical Devices
- Contrast
- Lists, Repetition, Rhythm
- Metaphors
- Stories
Word choice
While it’s generally best to use plain direct speech and short common words, you can occasionally choose an unexpected word or phrasing to add strength, style and spice to your speech. The key is to be smart and avoid being perceived as pretentious or too cute by half. You can do this by asking yourself if the word adds value in the form of precision, impact, vividness, or memorability.
If you do, you will find a word that clicks into place as if no other word could have fit in that spot at that time.
