HR Management Information & Reference

Being Persuasive

Tip 1: Establish Credibility.

People believe people they like, people who are similar to them, people who are trustworthy, and people who have demonstrated expertise. Work on one or all of these to build your credibility with any given group. The higher your credibility, the greater impact your message will have. Aristotle summed it up this way: “Persuasion is achieved by the speaker’s personal character when the speech is so spoken readily than others; this is true generally whatever the question is, and absolutely true where exact certainty is impossible and opinions are divided.”

Tip 2: Talk About Rewards and Incentives to Those People Who Think in Terms of Payoffs.

Some people wake up every morning looking for ways to make their life better: how to save time, how to save money, how to move ahead in their careers, how to be better managers, how to get their coworkers to like them, how to win the lottery, how to complete a crossword puzzle. If these people are the group you have to win over, highlight the personal and corporate benefits of acting on your ideas. Continue Reading »

Holding Your Own in Meetings

Tip 1: To Meet or Not to Meet—Study the Question.

How many times have you accepted an invitation to a lunch meeting only to realize that you spent an hour and a half on something that could have been done in a 5-minute phone call or a 10-minute memo? The higher you go, the busier you get. And the meetings you attend must count. If you get a reputation for conducting useless meetings, the busiest and best people won’t show up.

If you’re asking to attend someone else’s typically unproductive meetings, defer with one of the following: “Is attendance mandatory?” “I’m unavailable. Is my attendance important enough to change my schedule?” “Could I send a representative?” “Would you mind if I offer my input in writing or by phone?” Others will generally surmise that you expect meeting time to be well spent.

Tip 2: Call a Meeting Only for the Right Reasons.

When you call a meeting, make it significant and be prepared. In a client situation, you may have been working on a deal for months that will either thrive or nosedive on a single meeting. Continue Reading »