To get a board or executive team to back your ideas, you need to become a master at selling them. Here’s how to boost your persuasion skills and get your ideas over the line.

It’s believed that much of Apple’s success came from Steve Jobs’s team being able to persuade him to rethink his position on certain matters. 

For years, Jobs said Apple would never make a phone. That was the hill he was willing to die on. Eventually, after some coaxing and careful handling of Jobs’s ego, he agreed to try. However, his next restriction was that there were to be no apps on the phone. It took another year of strategic persuasion before he relented. 

Within nine months, the App Store had exceeded a billion downloads. A decade later, the iPhone had generated more than $1 trillion in revenue. 

That’s the thing about being a masterful persuader: it’s rarely a quick win. But it’s a critical business skill to hone, especially for HR, as employers start reimagining work for the future.

What holds us back from influencing others? 

Many people think that to get an idea over the line with a naysayer, they just need to push harder, says Jonah Berger, Associate Professor of Marketing at the Wharton Business School at the University of Pennsylvania and author of The Catalyst: How to Change Anyone’s Mind. 

“Often we push, pressure and cajole and then nothing happens,” says Berger. 

“We often think if we just add more facts, figures and information that people will come around [to the idea]. But sometimes the more we push people, the more they dig in their heels and do the exact opposite of what we wanted them to do.” 

Instead, think like a chemist, says Berger. “There’s a special set of substances in chemistry that make change happen faster and easier. These substances don’t add [higher] temperatures or more pressure, like things often do in chemistry. They identify obstacles and remove them. And the same thing is true for great catalysts in the business world. 

“Instead of saying, ‘What could we do to make that person change?’, they take a different approach and ask, ‘Why haven’t they changed already? What’s stopping them?’” 

Sometimes they just haven’t got all the information they need, he says, but usually it’s more than that. 

“Imagine you’ve parked your car on a hill. You put your key in the ignition, step your foot on the pedal, but the car doesn’t move forward. Some people might think, ‘It just needs another pump of gas,’ so you push harder, but you don’t see that you’ve got the hand brake on. No matter how much you step on the gas, the car isn’t moving.” 

HR needs to be on the lookout for other people’s hand brakes.

For example, maybe you’ve got a CEO who doesn’t like being told what to do. Instead of orating at them until you’re blue in the face, think about how you can tweak your messaging so it might seem like it was their own idea. 

Prompting productive responses 

“Speakers in the midst of trying to convince others – especially if passionately – can fall into the trap of emotionally reacting versus thoughtfully responding,” says Joel Schwartzberg, a leadership communications coach and author of Get to the Point! Sharpen Your Message and Make Your Words Matter. 

“A reaction is sudden and emotional, like anger, sadness or embarrassment. A response is measured and considered, like a solution, a suggestion or a counterproposal, which is much more productive.” 

Most leaders will be far more responsive to a solution-driven pitch. A key psychological tip to ensure they make a decision is to offer them a choice, says Berger. 

“Often when we give people one option – when we email people and say, ‘We should do this’ – people push back. They think of all the reasons why they don’t want to do the thing you’ve suggested,” says Berger. 

“By some estimates, even when the new thing is 2.6 times better, people still tend to stick with the status quo.” – Jonah Berger, Author and Associate Professor of Marketing, Wharton Business School

Great change agents give people options. 

“They’ll say, ‘I think we should do X or Y. Which one do you think is better?’ By giving people options, it deactivates their antipersuasion radar. Instead of focusing on what they don’t like, we’ve given them a new job – to focus on which option they like better. This makes them more likely to pick one of the options at the end of the interaction.” 

Similar to this, Berger says people often have more success when they phrase something as a question instead of a statement. Instead of saying, ‘We need to increase the diversity of our leadership team,’ you might say, ‘What could we gain if we made our leadership team more diverse?’

“The more [people] feel like we’re pushing them, the more they feel like we’re usurping their autonomy and their ability to make a volitional choice. But there are very few things people enjoy more than giving their opinion.” 

It also encourages commitment to the cause. 

“If we ask someone, ‘What would we gain if we would increase our funding for the D&I program?’ then that encourages commitment to the conclusion, because they might say, ‘I think D&I is important for these reasons.’ It becomes harder for them to say ‘no’ later because they’ve already put a stake in the ground. Not because we told them it was important, but because they decided it was.” 

Choose your words wisely 

Another potential barrier to change is status quo bias, says Berger. 

“Anytime we’re trying to get people to do something, they’re often making a choice between an old and new way of doing things. That by itself isn’t necessarily a bias. Maybe the status quo is better. But even when the new thing is better people stick with the familiar. In fact, by some estimates, even when the new thing is 2.6 times better, people still tend to stick with the status quo. 

“New things require more effort. Think about when you go to the grocery store, for example. When you buy milk, you probably buy it in the same size and brand.” 

If you’ve pulled off someone’s parking brake and convinced them to try a new approach, next you need to think about what to say. 

“Good persuasion techniques go back to Aristotle, the father of persuasion,” says Schwartzberg. “He recommended including elements of ethos [expressions that establish credibility and trust], pathos [details that trigger an emotional response] and logos [the application of logic and reasoning] in every argument. Using all three will elevate the persuasive power of a pitch as effectively in 2023 as it did in 335 BC.” 

And the words you choose matter, he says. 

“When audiences hear your words, they make subconscious assumptions. For example, they’ll think you took more action if you ‘enabled’ a result versus ‘allowed’ it. And they’ll understand that you prevailed over a challenge if you say you ‘overcame’ it versus ‘addressed’ it.”

He also suggests using “attention magnets”. 

“These are short, often generic phrases that signal to the audience that something important is about to be shared. It’s the verbal equivalent of a flashing neon sign.” 

These include phrases like: 

• We’ve covered a lot, but here’s the thing… 
• If you only take away one idea today, it should be that we need to commit to our people as much as we do to our profit. 
• To take advantage of this rare opportunity, here’s what I recommend… 

“Using phrases like ‘I recommend’ and ‘I suggest’ is useful for leaders, who should be making clear points and proposals, not just sharing information or data.” 

Attention magnets are powerful, he says, “but if you overuse them, their strength will wane. Reserve that engagement firepower for your most important lines and points.”

He also recommends choosing attention magnets that sound like you. 

“Say each one aloud and pick the ones that feel natural to your style and vocabulary.” 

Does persuasion come down to data or storytelling?

HR professionals are forever being told to back up everything they say with data. While Schwartzberg agrees data is effective, he also recommends customising your persuasive approach to the person you’re speaking to. 

“Emotional pulls and intellectual pulls don’t have to be either/or. Speakers can use both in a single speech,” he says. 

“But ultimately, you want to choose the tactic that best serves your goal: persuading the other person, who may respond differently to a compelling story than to a data point, for example.” 

These skills won’t just serve you well as an HR professional, says Berger. They’ll help you as an employee, parent, spouse and friend. 

“We all have people in our personal and professional lives that we want to move in a certain direction, but too often we think that pushing is the right way to go. What’s much more effective is getting people to want to change. And we do that by removing the barriers that get in their way.”

This article is from the March 2023 edition of HRM Magazine.

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