Based on the book, “The Persuasive Manager” by Prof M M
Monippally, IIM Ahmedabad
July 6, 2011
Three types of managers
 Bystander managers: Take little initiative. Have little or
no influence on their organizations.
 Shotgun
managers:
Use
influence
tactics
indiscriminately to get what they want. Not particularly
successful.
 Tacticians: Choose their influence strategies carefully
and are generally successful. They occupy positions of
power largely through their knowledge and skills. They
are masters of the art of persuasion.
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Persuasion: A working Definition
Persuasion is an attempt, using means such as reasoning
and emotional appeal, to change others’ thinking,
attitudes, and eventually behavior in a way that builds on
their willing cooperation.
Persuasion means using formal and informal power
intelligently to influence people and shape the agenda.
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Persuasion Strategy
Ethos
Pathos
 Making oneself likeable  Creating indebtedness
Leveraging authority
Logos
 Engaging target in
consultation
 Stroking the ego
 Using inductive and
 Playing on herd instinct deductive reasoning
 Getting small
Commitments
 Appealing to shared
Values
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Sources of Power
Coercive Power
Reward Power
Resides in one’s position;
loss of position leads to loss
of power
Legitimate Power
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Expert Power
Resides in one’s expertise;
risks supersession
Referent Power
Resides in one’s
relationship; people respect
us, so they do our bidding
Coercive Power
Coercive power is the power to force others to do what we
want them to.
Comes essentially from the ability to harm another person
or group of persons if they don’t comply with our wishes.
Implies using the resources of our position to threaten
others with unpleasant consequences, such as denial of
essential resources.
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Reward Power
Reward power involves getting
the compliance of
subordinates or colleagues by offering them rewards.
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Legitimate Power
Legitimate power is the power that stems from legal or
social authority.
Holding a superior position in a corporate or social
organization implies having legitimate power over those
who are in subordinate positions.
Everyone recognizes it.
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Expert Power
Power
derived
by
individuals
from
their
specialist
knowledge and skills, irrespective of their position in an
organization.
The rarer the expertise or the harder it is to acquire, the
greater the power.
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Referent Power
Power that comes because others admire us, want to be
identified with us, and treat us as the point of reference.
They change their behavior and beliefs to be like us.
Referent power is the most effective in a manager’s
repertoire.
Carefully cultivated, this type of power can also be the one
that lasts the longest.
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Two levels of Compliance
As managers, much of our job is to enforce compliance.
Compliance is applicable at two levels.
The first is getting others to do their assigned work so that
we can get on with our own work and meet our targets.
The others could be our boss, peers, or subordinates.
The second level, especially applicable in a changing
environment is to get people to change their behavior
which may have worked well and been acceptable so far.
This type of compliance is generally much harder than the
first level of compliance unless people are sensitised to
the imminent dangers.
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The Art of Persuasion
Ethos
Pathos
Logos
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Ethos
Ethos is the most important and most powerful of the three
persuasion factors.
Ethos refers to the persuader’s character.
If we are perceived as credible and fair-minded,
persuasion is easy, especially in contexts where there is
room for doubt.
Our credibility increases if we have demonstrated
expertise in the field in which we are trying to persuade
others.
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Pathos
Means arousing
listeners’ emotions in favour of
persuader.
Emotions can be negative or positive.
Fear, anger, disgust, guilt, and envy are a few of the
negative emotions.
Pride, joy, hope and compassion are some of
positive ones.
the
Arousing these emotions can persuade the stakeholders
to accept or reject a particular course of action.
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Logos
Refers to persuasion by logical reasoning.
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Persuasive Moves (1)
Making oneself likeable
» Persuading becomes easier if we are liked by others
Leveraging authority
» Use legitimate power intelligently
Creating indebtedness
» Do good things to others
Stroking the target’s ego
» Use genuine praise to build good relations
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Persuasive Moves (2)
Playing on herd instinct
» Get a large no of people behind us.
Getting small commitments
» Getting a small commitment first makes it easier to get a
larger one later.
Appealing to shared values
» Every community has shared values
Engaging the target in consultation
» Share problem and seek help in solving
Using inductive and deductive reasoning
» Convincing logic facilitates persuasion
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Conclusion (1)
Persuasive strategy consists of choosing the right mixture
of persuasion factors mentioned in earlier slide.
Framing the compliance request in a way that matches the
target’s needs, values, and beliefs holds the key in
persuasion.
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Conclusion(2)
Persuasion is not guaranteed even if we play all the cards
right.
We may be able to change someone’s mind even when
the target is formidable and the resistance well founded.
And we may fail even when we have all the logic in world
in our support and we make irresistible offers .
Yet we should try it because it is worth trying.
Even if we fail, we will do so honourably.
And we will not regret we did not try.
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Conclusion(3)
Unfortunately, there is no formula that we can apply to
choose the right strategy.
We have to identify moves that we are most comfortable
with, and those our targets are most likely to respond to.
To make persuasion a way of managing and to become a
persuasive manager, we need to do two things.
First, we must plan our major persuasion efforts
systematically.
Second, we must review both our successes and failures
systematically.
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Thank you
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