Are you Assertive or Persuasive?

               
During a session I did this week on Leading from the High Road, I found myself mediating a very engaging debate between two participants. The question I had thrown out for discussion was, “From a High Road perspective, which characteristic do you feel is more effective — to be assertive or to be persuasive?” I allowed them to verbally duke it out for a bit before I jumped back in to guide the resolution of the conversation.


The conclusion that I guided them to is – both. I believe it is important to be assertive and persuasive simultaneously. These complimentary characteristics must both be in play to lead productively from a High Road perspective.


As I have mentioned here before, you must be assertive in your communication to be effective. If you are passive, others will steamroll over you. If you are aggressive, you will repel more people than you attract. Truly successful leaders and communicators are consistently assertive. Next week I’ll offer some suggestions on how to communicate assertively; today I want to focus on persuasion.


According to Dictionary.com, persuasion is “the ability to prevail on someone to do something, either by advising or urging.” It’s a trickier skill to master than assertiveness. There are four factors that are essential to being persuasive— I call them my Four Keys to Persuasion.


1. Build rapport first – Establish a relationship at some level as quickly as possible. This allows the other person to see you as an ally immediately. Then, when you need to offer them negative feedback, ask them to make a change or do something in a specific manner, they are less likely to be argumentative, defensive or resistant. People won’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. Every human being on Earth has an invisible sign hanging around their neck that says “Make me feel important.” Read the sign. Build rapport first.



2. Tell them what’s in it for them – Your second key to persuasion involves the proverbial WIIFM – “what’s in it for me?” On that invisible sign everyone has around their neck, underneath the great big letters that say “make me feel important” are little-bitty letters that say “and what’s in it for me?” Give them the “what’s in it for them.” How’s it going to benefit them to improve their performance? How’s it going to benefit them to make that change or do things as you want them done? Frankly, they don’t care how it’s going to benefit you — they do care how’s it’s going to benefit them.



3. Maintain two-way communication – No one likes to be talked at. Everyone appreciates being communicated with. Make sure that communication is flowing well in both directions. This means you need to listen as much, or more than you speak. Listening is the most under-utilized, under-appreciated, under-practiced communication skill – and yet it is crucial. In business, as in life, people feel drawn toward people they believe are listening to them – and tend to discount people they believe are not listening to them. As a High Road Communicator, you want that inertia in your favor. Besides, every human being that I have met thus far in my life was born with two ears and only one mouth. The challenge is remembering to use them in correct proportion! You need to make sure you are listening as much or more than you’re talking.



4. Get their input – People will support that which they helped to create, so get their input. You don’t have to act on every piece of input you get – although if you’re smart, you’ll act on as much of it as you can. Otherwise you’ll build a reputation as someone who is just doing lip-service to gathering input. Get the input every time; act on it when you can.


These Four Keys to Persuasion, when combined with consistent assertive communication, will give you a good start on leading from the High Road.


High Road Challenge for the Day: Think of a time when someone “persuaded” you to do something different than you had planned to do. Did they use Four Keys to Persuasion, or did they steamroll you into submission? Identify how you would use the Four Keys to Persuasion to achieve a similar goal.

High Road Diplomacy and Customer Service

My husband and I went out to dinner last night to celebrate our twenty-fifth Valentines Day together.  I recommended a restaurant that he had never been to.  He called to make a reservation and was advised that they don’t accept reservations and yes, they expected to be very busy.  For that reason we decided to go a bit earlier than we normally would.

When we arrived the gal at the door smiled up at us and said, “How many?” 

“Two, please.”

“Do you have a reservation?” she asked.

“No, we were told that you don’t accept reservations.”

“Well, I don’t know who would have told you that.  We’ll do our best to squeeze you in, it will probably be about 55 minutes,” she said as she handed me a pager.

55 minutes seemed reasonable on the Saturday before Valentines Day, so we sat down to “people-watch” and bide our time. About thirty minutes into our vigil, a trio of women sat down beside us and continued a heated discussion they were having about the projected wait time.  They had apparently arrived a half an hour before we had and their wait time kept growing each time they checked with the desk.  Hmmm, this didn’t bode well for our seating.  Shortly there after, one of the three had some extremely testy words with the manager and they were seated fairly quickly.

An hour and 15 minutes into our adventure, Ron got up to check with the desk.  She advised him that it would be another 15 to 20 minutes, but we were welcome to sit in the bar if we could find a seat there.  20 more minutes passed and I approached the desk to check one more time.

“Can you give me a realistic estimate of when a table will be available for Lauren-party-of-two?”

“Oh, it shouldn’t be much longer,” she smiled, “about another 15 – 20 minutes.”

It might have been the grimace on my face… I’m not sure… but the manager stepped in at that point.  “Hi, my name is Steve.  I’m the General Manager.  How can I help?”  I shared our dilemma with him.  “Ah, the challenge is fitting the walk-ins in with the reservations.  We guarantee seating within 10 minutes of a reservation time.”

“Here is my concern,” I said.  “When we called to make a reservation we were advised that you did not take reservations.  I have also heard several people discussing calling ahead to get their name on the list.  This possibility was not offered to us either when we called.”

“I am so sorry for this inconvenience,” he said.  “I can see why you might be frustrated.  Let me clarify our policies for you.  We do indeed accept reservations, and we normally accept same day reservations.  Today we had to cut off the reservations because there were so many.  I am sure that is what she meant when she said that we don’t take reservations.  We also do recommend calling ahead to get your name on our waiting list.”

“Ah,” I replied. “I believe there was just a fundamental break-down in communication.  Had it been explained to us in that manner when we called, we would have understood – and we probably would have made a different choice, at least for this very busy evening.”  Then I added, “I have eaten here for lunch several times and enjoyed it greatly.  That is why I recommended it to my husband who has never been here.”

Steve nodded, “I understand.”  He walked over to introduce himself to my husband and said, “Let me see what I can do to get you a table.”  We were seated within 2 minutes.  We had a wonderful dinner and Steve arranged for complimentary dessert.

I believe the whole encounter is an excellent lesson in High Road diplomacy and customer service.  My husband truly hates being a “squeaky wheel,” such as the grousing trio that had been sitting next to us – although it did get them a table immediately.  I chose a High Road solution and explained the reason for our concern and confusion.  I followed that with a “what’s in it for Steve” moment when I explained that I had recommended the restaurant to my husband.  The unspoken message was simply, “Is this the first impression you want him to have?”  I find High Road strategies to always be most effective.  (I would bet that the grumpy trio did not get a free dessert out of it.)  Furthermore, Steve’s customer service at that point was impeccable.  He saw a problem brewing and tackled it immediately.  He made us feel valued and respected, fixed the problem and then went the extra mile to leave a positive impression.  That is a model for exceptional, High Road customer service.

So here is a High Road shout-out to Steve Kyriazis and the Elephant Bar Restaurant in Overland Park, KS.  The food is excellent.  When you decide to go on a busy night... make sure you have reservations!