There’s no doubt that selling requires the ability to compel others, often strangers, to act in the desired direction.
These skills, however, aren’t just valuable for those in sales. In today’s highly collaborative work environments, the ability to compel others to act is necessary, particularly if you want to be successful in Human Resources.
Your title doesn’t matter
I recall early in my career my first manager role. My team was small, with only five people; however, the company ensured I had an office with my name proudly displayed on the door.
I recall thinking, “now that I have a title, compelling others to act will be simple.” In reality, it couldn’t be farther from the truth.
A few months in, one of my employees had taken early retirement, and another wasn’t following my instructions. Add to this, two other members of my team had made it clear that if I wanted them to do anything outside of their job description, I’d have to take it up with the union,
Compelling communication
It was the first time I realized that your title doesn’t matter; success in any business environment requires that you can be compelling in your communication.
Although being a compelling communicator might seem like something best left to those working in sales, it’s one of, if not the most, essential ingredients to achieving success in human resources.
As a Human Resources professional, you likely coach managers and other leaders on a regular basis, often with mixed results. What if you could compel them to not only listen but act on your ideas? Better yet, what if you could achieve this without it feeling like you had to “coach” others to follow your instructions?
Let me give you an example.
Julie, a past client of mine, struggled with getting managers to treat employees fairly. They often let their high-performing employees do whatever they wanted. Frustrated, Julie began spending her time sitting in on meetings with employees to ensure policies were rolled out equally with everyone understanding their impact.
When Julie began to consider why the leaders favored the high-performing employees, then began asking reflective questions to help these same leaders recognize the indirect impact of their doing so, suddenly they began to see the problem with their approach.
Shifting from enforcement to compelling communication was a subtle shift Julie made, but it had a significant impact on the support she gained from the other leaders.
5 steps to compelling communication
Here are the five most important steps to ensuring compelling communications:
- Change your shoes
- Build enticing bridges
- Ask reflective questions
- Present options
- Zero in
Change your shoes
First, consider the position, viewpoint and experiences of the other person you will communicate with. What is their experience with our idea or view? Are they likely to agree with us or not? If not, why?
When we consider the others person’s view before communicating, we put our message in the best possible position to gain their attention and even early buy-in.
Building enticing bridges
Once you’ve reflected on the other person’s views, you’ll want to create what I refer to as verbal bridges or connection points between where you think their perspective or opinion will be and where you would like it to be.
Let’s look at an example.
Suppose I was trying to convince you to let me work from home one day per week. But unfortunately, your preference is that your team members work from the office. So then, I had better create some enticing reasons that align directly with what’s important to you. For example, I might suggest working from home on Fridays will allow me to visit some key customer accounts close to my house. I might also say that working from home would allow me to avoid distractions and complete some administrative work I hadn’t previously achieved.
Ask reflective questions
When trying to communicate compellingly, you want to make it appear as if the other person is driving the discussion and any resulting decisions. So, making a statement like “this is what I am going to do” doesn’t bode well.
Instead, ask reflective questions to determine the extent to which they agree or disagree with your idea. In our earlier example of wanting to work remotely one day per week, you might ask questions such as “Do you think this is a good idea?” or “Does this make sense to you?”
Reflective questions force the other person to discuss and share their opinion. Think of it like flushing out objections before they arise.
Present options
Once you understand whether the other person is close to agreeing with you, you’ll want to provide options on how to proceed. If, for example, it seems like the other person agrees with you, never assume they are good to move forward. Instead, provide options for the next steps, which continues to engage them in the outcome of the discussion.
Make sure that your preferred next steps are one option, providing two or three different variations. Sticking with the same example, you might ask, “So, do you think doing a test on working from home one day a week makes sense for the next month, or would it make sense to consider it a permanent change”
Notice with these options, I guide them toward my preferred outcome but still engage them in the decision.
Zero in
The last stage is zeroing in on your listener’s next steps. Select one of the options that they’ve agreed to (and that aligns with your goals) or modify the option they choose to fit more closely with your desired outcome, then recap the following steps to zero in on what you’ll do next.
Keep in mind these steps aren’t always sequential but rather dynamic. You may have to revisit building bridges if the options or ideas shared by the other person don’t align somewhat with yours.
As an HR professional, becoming a compelling communicator is the key to enabling others to agree too, and most importantly, act on your ideas.
Use these five steps, and you’ll quickly become a master at selling your ideas internally.