If you’ve been to many meetings lately, you’ve probably noticed how many people seem to think that the secret to influence is either:
being the originator of a brand new, spectacular idea, or
proving how brilliant they are by tearing other ideas to shreds. (View Highlight)
But (shockingly) it turns out in practice both of these things are dead ends. Instead, for leaders the most important secret to influence is also the hardest part of communicating — framing the message like a pro. (View Highlight)
In my last post I lamented the fact that, despite a truly incredible number of words spent on describing the importance of communication, it remains many leaders’ single greatest challenge. That’s a shame, but also an opportunity, since communication is well within all of our power to improve. I described a simple, but not easy approach that boils down to: say the thing, repeat the thing, and frame the thing. (View Highlight)
While all three steps are essential for leadership communication, it’s that last one that’ll get ya. If you can’t frame it, saying it and repeating it can do more harm than good. What’s more, framing for influence is really freaking hard, and it’s never the same twice. (View Highlight)
The good news is that we can still develop a solid playbook. Through my own experience as both a leader and a coach across companies and industries, I’ve learned that the path to the ideal framing comes from combining three key principles, each of which takes advantage of some basic science — from sociology to neurology — to help a finely honed message stick. (View Highlight)
Framing something well is less about what you want to say, and more about what someone can hear. That can be hard for people to really understand, especially when they’re pretty excited about their super awesome idea. (View Highlight)
The challenge is to take your idea, and then pitch it in a way that respects, reflects, and responds to what someone else needs. But not just anything they need. We don’t care if they need a sandwich. The secret to great framing is that it answers two key questions:
If you want influence, then that’s your research project. Start by figuring out what someone is actually trying to do. Not just the obvious stuff (goals, OKRs, or the bulleted list in their last email), but the bigger goal, the strategic goal, or the personal goal. What do they need to get out of this project, how do they feel, and why is it important to them? Maybe also for you, and for the whole company, but mostly for THEM. (View Highlight)
But just as important as what they need is what they’re anxious about. I’ll tell you, if you can help someone sleep better, there’s almost nothing they won’t do for you. Often a colleague or executive’s anxieties are tied to their needs, but not always. Regardless, you want to know what their nighttime brain is feeding them when they’re awake at 2 a.m., desperately trying to get some rest. (View Highlight)
Your job isn’t to judge whether their needs or anxieties are right or wrong. It’s to discover them, whether they’re obvious or hidden, and understand them. Understanding our colleagues this way has so many leadership benefits, but for framing a message, the incredible value comes from connecting your message directly to their goals and anxieties.
The clues for needs and anxieties are everywhere if you’re looking. They’re in emails and meeting comments. They’re in what people choose to talk about (and what they don’t), and how they answer questions. Sometimes they’re right out in the open in strategy docs or Slack channels. (View Highlight)
All those clues you’ve just discovered are gold, because once you’ve discovered them, the secret to effective framing is blatant theft. Use THEIR words and THEIR framing to describe YOUR thing. Steal liberally from the way they described it in the last all-hands, or how they phrased it in that tense email thread. (View Highlight)
You will never find a framing more powerful than the one that’s in someone’s own words. This works because of what social psychologists call linguistic mirroring. (View Highlight)
• It signals you’re an ally. Using the same language is a signal that you’re on the same team. You trigger all those meaty in-group effects which are really going to help your message land.
• It gives them ownership. When you frame something in someone else’s words, you’re giving them implicit ownership of it. Now, you should also give credit whenever it’s appropriate, but framing and mirror are often more subtle processes. So when you frame your idea in their words, it feels less like your idea and more like our idea.
• It’s deliciously familiar. In social psychology, the mere exposure effect tells us something simple and powerful — we often prefer things that we’re familiar with. It’s not rocket science — familiarity breeds liking and affinity. So the more you use familiar words, metaphors, and framing the more you’re setting the message up for success. (View Highlight)
If you’ve ever gone to an improv acting or comedy class, you probably know that the most important principle of improv is “Yes, and…” To be effective in an improv troupe, you accept the reality that your partner in the scene has created, rather than undermining it. Then, you build and mold that reality by adding your own ideas. Keep doing it… comedy gold (View Highlight)
Carnegie says the secret to influence is to avoid “no” and “but,” and quickly move to find common ground. Even if turns out you disagree, Carnegie teaches us that yes/no isn’t a dichotomy, it’s a continuum. And the most influential people know that starting from a place of agreement and going from there is a path to influence. (View Highlight)
So, the second trick to framing is to try to always embody that “yes, and” vibe. Deep understanding and linguistic mirroring go a long way, but so does getting your communication off on a respectful and positive foot. (View Highlight)
I’m a certified rule-of-three fanboy. I put things in trios whenever I can, and so should you. And not just because it feels good. This is a very old idea. Just to summarize a few science-backed reasons it works:
• Working memory is probably limited to 3–5 chunks, which makes three the simplest substantive number that might actually stick.
• There’s some evidence that persuasive claims can stack up to three, but may drop in efficacy after that (check out this paper with atruly awesome title).
• Trios are ancient (like, 3000+ BCE ancience) and absolutely everywhere. That makes many people fluent and familiar with the idea of a trio (here we go with thefamiliarity heuristicagain!).
• Trios give narratives, ideas, and phrases a warm and lovely cadence — think of the classic three act play, or what linguists call the *tricolon (*e.g. “veni, vidi, vici”). (View Highlight)
There’s a version of all this that reads like a manual for stealing other people’s ideas and using them to manipulate others. Obviously that’s not the idea. The division between good and evil is created by intent. So just choose to be good. (View Highlight)
In the end, leadership is basically never about shouting louder. It’s about framing sharper. These skills are difficult to master, though. Which I think helps explain why so many leaders fall back on being loud, even though high volume really only ever made everybody deaf. (View Highlight)
