I had the chance to attend a training by Richard Shell on The art of woo. For those who wonder what is the woo:
woo definition: winning others over. Or if you prefer, the art to persuade people. As the authors write it, "simple to say, hard to do".
They decompose the persuasion process into four steps:
- Survey the situation
- Confront the five barriers - consider all the barriers people have to overcome to be convinced; some of these barriers relate to your personality and credibility; others are dependent on your idea.
- Make your pitch
- Secure your commitments
The book is full of examples and anecdotes that make the theory far more digestible. The authors' favorite story is the story of Charles Lindbergh. He got the idea to try the nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean in a single engine plane, alone, whereas all the other competitors in 1927 focused on planes with two or three engines and a crew of three pilots. Lindbergh was a shy and introvert man and he had to work a lot on himself before being able to pitch and secure funding for his project as people viewed his strategy as pure madness. An another interesting one is the story of Brad Garlinghouse, the author of the Peanut Butter Manifesto, which was published on the first page of the Wall Street Journal a few years back to convince Yahoo CEO to rethink his strategy.
And once you finish to go through everything, or you get bored by the theory, take a pen and fill the quizz in the Appendix A to discover your leadership style.
Authors: Richard Shell and Mario Moussa
Publisher: Penguin
woo definition: winning others over. Or if you prefer, the art to persuade people. As the authors write it, "simple to say, hard to do".
They decompose the persuasion process into four steps:
- Survey the situation
- Confront the five barriers - consider all the barriers people have to overcome to be convinced; some of these barriers relate to your personality and credibility; others are dependent on your idea.
- Make your pitch
- Secure your commitments
The book is full of examples and anecdotes that make the theory far more digestible. The authors' favorite story is the story of Charles Lindbergh. He got the idea to try the nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean in a single engine plane, alone, whereas all the other competitors in 1927 focused on planes with two or three engines and a crew of three pilots. Lindbergh was a shy and introvert man and he had to work a lot on himself before being able to pitch and secure funding for his project as people viewed his strategy as pure madness. An another interesting one is the story of Brad Garlinghouse, the author of the Peanut Butter Manifesto, which was published on the first page of the Wall Street Journal a few years back to convince Yahoo CEO to rethink his strategy.
And once you finish to go through everything, or you get bored by the theory, take a pen and fill the quizz in the Appendix A to discover your leadership style.
Authors: Richard Shell and Mario Moussa
Publisher: Penguin