Gen Y.

Smart.

Technically astute.

Global.

Diverse.

Distracted.

Interesting…..

Ready? Equipped? Are they prepared to face the tough world ahead?

Recent studies by Trusted Advisor Associates shows that when it comes to what many consider to be the most powerful tool in your business and personal tool kit, (relationships) they are not prepared. Let’s look at the four levels of internal and external business relationships:

Expertise based

Needs based

Relationship based

…and trusted advisor based

Being a trusted advisor is the highest level one can attain, and, of course, the most valuable.

The studies show that as age increases, the level of trustworthiness increases. There is approximately an 18% difference in trustworthiness between the ages of 20 to 70. The downfall to lacking trustworthiness and struggling in relationships for younger workers, most likely,  is a lack of life and business and life experience. Can trustworthiness be accelerated in an individual?

Accelerating them ahead

“Going against conventional wisdom: trust CAN be taught. Some business leaders make the case that to improve performance, people and businesses should leverage their strengths rather than concentrating on fixing their weaknesses. This makes a great deal of sense in areas of skills mastery. But when it comes to trust, the opposite is demonstrably true. By focusing on their weaknesses, individuals can make disproportionately large and rapid improvements in their trustworthiness, because improving weaknesses has the effect of lowering standard deviation, thereby increasing perceived integrity. By becoming aware of an imbalance in their trustworthiness strategies, individuals can strengthen their overall trustworthiness. By focusing on even minor improvements in their weak components, they can see a major impact on their overall ability to build trust.” (From “Think More Expertise Will Make You More Trusted? Think Again” by Trusted Advisor Associates)

Is your new workforce ready for the onslaught? Probably not. It may be time to address the imbalance.

(For more on the Trusted Advisor Associates study, see What Really Builds Trust. And, for an interesting snippet of Gen Y see We are Gen Y)

Trip Allen, Team Egyii, Singapore

Dr. Robert Cialdini is Regents’ Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Marketing at Arizona State University and author of the best selling book, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. His extensive scholarly training in the psychology of influence, together with over 30 years of research into the subject, has earned Dr. Cialdini an international reputation as an expert in the fields of persuasion, compliance, and negotiation.

Cialdini begins (and keeps the theme consistent throughout) with explaining what influence and persuasion really are: exploitation of instinct (he calls it the click, whirr phenomenon, which he covers in the book). He explains how people generally operate on a “fixed-action” pattern which is manipulated through some kind of “trigger feature.” Psychologists have determined what many of these trigger features are and Cialdini lays them out in the book, calling them “weapons of automatic influence.”

In his book he cites great examples of studies and stories based on the six weapons, which are detailed as follows…

1. Reciprocation: People are more willing to comply with requests (for favours, services, information, concessions, etc.) from those who have provided such things first.

For example, in my neighbourhood, a restaurant called District 10 offers free pizza with happy hour beer prices. This works on me because 1) I usually stay past happy hour 2) I frequent the restaurant more often because they have given me something upfront and I actually like the staff (see item 6, Liking/Friendship).

Reciprocity, through listening, is an important subject matter in the Trusted Advisor philosophy. See Trust Tip 35: Reciprocity, Sales and Suicide Hot Lines.

2. Commitment/Consistency: People are more willing to be moved in a particular direction if they see it as consistent with an existing or recent commitment. Once we have made a stand or position on an issue, we are then more willing to say “yes” to a request that is consistent with that commitment.

Consider how small that commitment can be and still motivate change forcefully: a Chicago restaurant owner was beset by the problem of no-shows—people who made table reservations but failed to appear and failed to call to cancel. He reduced the problem by first getting a small commitment. He instructed his receptionists to stop saying, “Please call if you change your plans” and to start saying, “Will you call us if you change your plans?” The no-show rate dropped from 30% to 10% immediately.

3. Authority: People are more willing to follow the directions or recommendations of a communicator to whom they attribute relevant authority or expertise.

One study showed that 3 times as many pedestrians were willing to follow a man into traffic against the red light when he was merely dressed as an authority in a business suit and tie.

4. Social Validation: People are more willing to take a recommended action if they see evidence that many others, especially similar others, are taking it.

One researcher went door to door collecting for charity and carrying a list of others in the area who had already contributed. The longer the list, the more contributions it produced.

Dr. Cialdini also quotes Cavett Roberts’ advice to sales trainees, “Since 95% of people are imitators and only 5% initiators, people are persuaded more by the actions of others than by any proof we can offer.”

5. Scarcity: People want what they can’t have and people find objects and opportunities more attractive to the degree that they are scarce, rare, or dwindling in availability. Even information that is scarce is more effective.

One example is a US beef importer who informed his customers (honestly) that, because of weather conditions in Australia, there was likely to be a shortage of Australian beef. His orders more than doubled. However, when he added (also honestly) that this information came from his company’s exclusive contacts in the Australian National Weather Service, orders increased by 600%!

Stephen Worchel did a cookie experiment and found that cookies with a few in the jar were rated as more desirable than cookies with plenty in the jar. The testers admitted that they tasted the same.

As Cialdini says, ” The joy is not in experiencing a scarce commodity but in possessing it. It is important that we do not confuse the two.” Hence all the scarcity tactics.

6. Liking/Friendship: People prefer to say yes to those they know and like.

For example, research done on Tupperware Home Demonstration parties shows that guests are 3 times more likely to purchase products because they like the party’s hostess more than because of their liking of the products.

He also cites Joe Girard as the world’s greatest car salesman. He was General Motors best salesman 12 years in a row, selling 5 cars or trucks every day that he went to work. He says that he offers a fair price and someone that they like to buy from (ie. good looking/ good presentation/ flattery/ same as them/ on their side).

Conclusion: The book is well worth the read if you are interested in ways to influence and to understand what influences people. In fact, Fortune Magazine lists Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion in their “75 Smartest Business Books.”

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion ISBN 0-688-12816-5

http://www.influenceatwork.com/

Trip Allen, Team Egyii, Singapore

Tough times require resiliency, especially in a cut-throat business like insurance. Your company’s branding, name and reputation, products won’t do it. It’s all about your people.

With pressure from the economic downturn, a large Singapore based insurance company needed their financial planners to deliver every time.  However, the financial planners were not getting the right support they needed from their direct management. Read how Egyii’s Andrew Sidwell helped turn the situation around. Coaching for sales performance

Andrew Sidwell, Team Egyii, Singapore

Many people believe that improving your performance at work involves attending a training course such as ‘Communicate with More Impact’ and hey presto, they will change!

To really improve our performance, we need to address the whole person, not just one behavioural part of it. For example, you cannot effectively change a behaviour if you have a belief that contradicts it. If I want to be great at connecting with people but have a belief that nobody can be trusted, then I will find it very difficult to achieve my goal.

So let’s look at this ‘whole person’ that is you. You can be seen on five different but related levels. At the top is your identity, which asks the question ‘Who am I?’. This is where you determine your role in a particular context, and decide your mission. If you are unclear about your purpose in life or in a particular situation, then you will find it difficult to motivate yourself and to focus on the right action to take.

Second on the hierarchy is your belief system. Your identity and mission will naturally affect your beliefs and values. Change your identity, and you will have to change some beliefs. These beliefs and values determine what you do and how you do it. You can have beliefs which open up great opportunities for you, but you can also have beliefs which severely limit your performance and achievements.

Third on the hierarchy is your capabilities, which give you the skills and knowledge you need to achieve your purpose and fulfill your role in life. They form the level of competence you need to perform at the level you want in order to achieve your goals.

Your capabilities help to determine your actual minute-by-minute behaviour or actions that you take in order to move you towards your goal and achieve your purpose. So your behaviour is fourth on the hierarchy. It is often assumed that our behaviour is something we can change through learning or willpower, but as you can see from this holistic picture, our behaviour is determined by what we are capable of doing, which is determined by our belief system, which is determined by our sense of identity and mission. To be really effective at the level of behaviour, you want to make sure that what you are doing is in alignment with your capabilities, beliefs and values, and identity or role. When these are in alignment, then you are congruent, and you feel strong and confident.

Last but not least is the environment, the fifth level in the hierarchy. We often say ‘I was just in the right place at the right time’, which emphasizes the importance of context for success. You can have the right behaviour, skills, beliefs and sense of purpose, but if your environment does not support these higher levels, then you are unlikely to succeed. And you can have some control over your environment. This writer spent many years working in an industry that just didn’t suit his temperament or talents, and try hard as he might, he didn’t achieve success until he entered a new industry.

So pay attention to yourself. Listen to your still voice which suggests a purpose for you. Change a belief if it was useful when you were small but serves you no purpose other than to hold you back today. Look at your skills and competencies. Are they going to be the right ones or enough to help you achieve your purpose? And become conscious of your behaviour. Get out of auto pilot mode and function as if on manual pilot, with greater self awareness and attention to what you are doing all day long. And finally, make sure you are in the right place for you, or that your arrange your environment to support you rather than work against you.

For more information see Self Management & Relationship Management.

James Irvine, Team Egyii, Singapore

HR-in-Action Nite- 2 April 2009
for the HR Community @ SHRI Singapore Human Resources Institute

The secret to getting good results at work is by getting control of our thinking, rather than just diving into new behaviours.

Most learning programmes try to help us change our behaviours by giving us new knowledge and skills. However, much of the time nothing actually happens because we have not addressed the things that drive those behaviours i.e. our thinking patterns. It’s like a plane trying to change course while all the time having the auto pilot set on another direction.

Yes, it’s important to learn new behaviours. But since so many of them are habitual, we need to change the beliefs, values and emotions that control those behaviours if we are to experience change that lasts more than a few days. And the funny thing is, when we do control our thinking patterns, the behaviours tend to take care of themselves.

Based on Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), this talk will introduce you to some of the key drivers of our behaviour as well as methods for getting control of these. You will find that you can apply this knowledge in any situation both at work and at home, and you will gain a new sense of control over the results you get.

Please feel free to click on the downloadable Slideshare version of the presentation here.

For more information, please email us at stuff@egyii.com.

Bon vivant!

Trip Allen, Team Egyii, Singapore

In fact, ignorance of Metaprograms can relegate us to the group of chronic underperformers if we are in sales, management, human resources or leadership. Understanding this vital aspect of relationship management gives us one of the keys to performance acceleration and improved personal results.

One Metaprogram is known as ‘toward or away from’, and describes people’s preferences and drives. For example, if John is a ‘toward’ person, then he will be motivated by the prospect of receiving or gaining a benefit, or achieving a future goal which has positive results for him. In other words, you must show him how he can move towards a pleasurable feeling. If you attempt to persuade John by emphasising what he will lose by not doing what you suggest (e.g. buying insurance or investing in your financial product), you will fail to win him over time and time again.

On the other hand, if you attempt to influence him to invest in your financial product by emphasising the possible increase in asset values and income, he will probably sit up and listen to you. So long as you present John with a movement towards some positive future outcome, you will gain his attention and interest.

Turning to the opposite motivation, if John’s friend Judy is an ‘away from’ person, you will stand a greater chance of persuading her if you present her with the lost opportunity of not investing. You will need to show her how much profit she will potentially lose by not investing (”Imagine the increased wealth you would lose by this time next year if you don’t switch from cash to a unit trust”). In other words, she is motivated by avoiding pain. With Judy, no amount of positive messaging will encourage her to invest. She is motivated by the fear of loss, and will do anything to move away from a potentially negative situation.

Of course, ‘towards or away from’ are not the only metaprograms. You can probably identify some other of your motivations if you think about it.  The point is, no amount of skill in active listening or speaking in short, clear sentences is going to help you get the results you want if you don’t first lay the foundation of human understanding. Once this is in place, your relationship skills will come into their own and help you achieve more than you ever thought possible.