The Power of a Nudge: Persuading People to Take the Job

Knowledge@Wharton profiles some interesting new research regarding how to persuade people to commit to a new endeavor such as a job. Clayton Featherstone and Judd Kessler have written a paper titled, “Can Social Information Affect What Job You Choose and Keep?"   They studied Teach for America, and they conducted an experiment to see if they could convince more young people to sign up for the program.   Featherstone explains the research:    

Teach for America tries to place teachers in schools. If you’re admitted to the program, you get an email that says something like, “Congratulations, you’ve been admitted to Teach for America. You’ve been assigned to wherever. We hope you’ll join us.” That email is how they communicate that you should join Teach for America. The sentence we added to the email was, “Last year, 84% of people in your position chose to join Teach for America. We hope you will as well.” We found that one sentence was actually pretty powerful in inducing extra people to join. That sentence is a canonical example of social information. Basically, when I’m thinking about doing something, I might be interested in what others in my situation have chosen to do in the same way.

Now you might wonder if these people were convinced to join, but later dropped out as teachers in the program.  In fact, the scholars found that these people stayed on in their positions.  The small inducement via social information had long term positive consequences.  You can begin to see the implications for other situations, not simply letters to candidates who have been offered a job.   Of course, the power of social information has to be used with care.  You would not want to persuade someone to do something which is not ultimately good for them or the organization.  One wonders too whether the effect is pronounced here due to the age of the people in the study.  We are all shaped and affected by social information, but might the effect be larger for younger people?  

First-Time Managers: Weak at Influence and Persuasion

The Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) has reported on an interesting finding from its research.  The organization reviewed 360-degree feedback for first-time managers, and it discovered that many of these individuals received poor evaluations for their ability to influence others.  However, people reported that the ability to exercise influence was an important leadership competence that would have made these managers much more effective.  

How do you influence others?   CCL points to the research of SUNY-Albany Professor Gary Yukl and four basic approaches to influencing others described in his work.  You can attempt to persuade others through logical arguments and analysis.  In contrast, you can appeal to their hearts, using an emotional and inspirational message.   Third, you can give others voice and seek their input as a means of building buy-in for a proposal.  Finally, you can offer resources and help to another party if they will help you enact a particular idea or initiative.  

What do the best leaders do?  They match the persuasion and influence tactic to the situation at hand.  They examine the circumstances as well as the people they are trying to influence.  Once you understand these factors, you can choose the right influence tactic - i.e. the one best-suited to achieve your goals in this situation.  

Persuading People to Donate Their Time

In this video clip, Wharton Business School Professor Americus Reed describes the research that he and fellow scholars have done regarding how we can effectively persuade others to give of their time. 

Asking for a Favor: The Power of the Post-It Note

Kevin Hogan has penned a post for HBR about research conducted by Randy Garner at Sam Houston State University.  Garner performed a series of experiments to examine the likelihood that individuals would respond to requests for assistance with a task. Garner asked faculty members to complete a survey for him - a request often made of others when you are conducting research.   He divided the respondents into three groups.   For the first group, he attached a sticky note to the survey, asking them to complete it.   For the second group, he put the same handwritten message on the cover letter, rather than on a separate sticky note.   For the third group, Garner simply provided a typed cover letter.   They received no handwritten message at all.   What happened?  76% of the respondents completed the survey in the first group, far more than the other two groups.   Why such powerful results from a handwritten message on a sticky note?  Hogan outlines the four main reasons:

1. It doesn’t match the environment—the sticky note takes up space and looks a bit cluttered. The brain, therefore, wants it gone.
2. It gets attention first because of #1. It’s difficult to ignore.
3. It’s personalized. (That’s the difference between Group 2 and Group 3 in the experiment.)
4. Ultimately, the sticky note represents one person communicating with another important person—almost as if it is a favor or special request, which makes the recipient feel important.

What's the lesson here?  In an era of predominantly electronic communication, the power of a personal note should not be underestimated.  Moreover, it's important to put yourselves in the shoes receiving your request.  Ask yourself: How will they feel when they receive this request for assistance?  By stepping in your shoes, you can craft a more effective and persuasive appeal for help. 

Using Stories to Persuade

Trying to Look Smart... and Failing!

The Wall Street Journal reports today on research regarding how people try to appear intelligent to others.  One major conclusion:  the techniques and approaches utilized by many people may actually backfire.  They use tactics that do not at all make them look intelligent.  In fact, it may actually harm their credibility and ability to influence others.  The article summarizes a key finding from research by Professor Nora Murphy of Loyola Marymount University:

People who tried to appear intelligent risked exposing what they didn’t know, the research shows. Observers were more accurate in estimating the IQs—including lower IQs—of those instructed to act intelligent than in estimating the IQs of controls who weren’t given any instructions. Apparently, participants’ attempts at impression management actually magnified other cues signaling low intelligence. 

What types of techniques can backfire?   For example, using big words and complex sentences may be counterproductive.  You don't impress people.  Instead, you make yourself the object of ridicule.  I'm sure it's particularly bad if you misuse particular words! 

Managing Up

David Bradford and Allan Cohen have written a new book, Influencing Up.  They are the authors of the previous best-selling leadership book, Influence Without Authority.   Stanford Business School has posted an interview with Bradford about the duo's latest work.  Bradford has a key insight about how we perceive ourselves relative to our bosses:

What does it take for a direct report to gain power in the employee-boss relationship?

First, not falling into the trap of accentuating the power gap. Research, much of it done here at Stanford, shows that when there is a significant gap between the most powerful and the least powerful, dysfunctional things happen for both parties. In the book, we say that "high power makes you deaf and low power gives you laryngitis." When you have high power, you tend to overestimate your abilities and can be closed to influence, which can be very dangerous in a fast-changing world. On the other hand, if you perceive you have very little power, you tend to shut down instead of offering alternate points of view, which is really what is needed. Now, sometimes power is objective: some people have a lot of money and others have very little; someone is CEO and another is a clerk. But we often exaggerate the power gaps, and when we do that we hurt ourselves and our bosses.

I think Bradford has made a good point.  Sometimes, employees do exaggerate the power gaps.   They do not realize the other sources of power that they may have. Clearly, the boss has the formal authority.  However, the subordinate may have deep expertise on a particular specialized subject.  The subordinate also may have cultivated a network of collaborators and allies in other parts of the organization.  That network may be a source of power.  The subordinate may have key facts on their side.  The question becomes:  How do you present that data most effectively?   In short, managing up does indeed require a thorough assessment of one's power in a particular situation.  Avoiding the knee-jerk conclusion that a massive power gap exists is good advice.   

Speaking Up Effectively

In my work, I have focused a great deal on how leaders often create conditions in which it becomes very difficult for individuals to express dissenting opinions.   What about the dissenter?  Can individuals become better at expressing dissent?  Can they enhance the odds that leaders will listen and consider their views?  Can they increase the odds that others in the group will not marginalize them?  I believe that dissenters can become better at speaking up.

Here are a few strategies:

1.  Know thy audience.  Who are you trying to influence or persuade?  How do they think?   Are they analytical by nature, or they do make decisions more intuitively? 

2.  Understand the history of the issue.   What events have taken place leading up to this situation?  Who has been involved?  Who might become defensive if I challenge the conventional wisdom here?

3.  Build a coalition.   Who could be my allies on this issue?  How can I cultivate their support before I express my dissenting view?

4.  Develop some options.  If I disagree with this plan of action, I should offer some alternatives.  What options might I propose?  How could I invite others to propose alternatives? 

5.  Ask questions.  Do not declare your opposition outright if that might be too threatening.  Ask questions. Seek to understand, to press for clarification, to surface and test key assumptions, to encourage people to think differently about the issue. 

Persistent, Redundant Communication Pays Off

Professors Paul M. Leonardi and Elizabeth M. Gerber of Northwestern and Professor Tsedal B. Neeley of Harvard Business School have published an interesting new study in Organization Science. They have found that managers who send a series of redundant messages to team members using multiple media achieve better results. They can actually get projects accomplished more quickly than those who do not use persistent and redundant communication. The paper is titled "How Managers Use Multiple Media: Discrepant Events, Power, and Timing in Redundant Communication."

The authors also found that those managers with less power and formal authority tended to use this strategy of persistence and redundancy more often. Neeley explained to the HBS Working Knowledge blog: "Those without power were much more strategic, much more thoughtful about greasing the wheel to get buy-in and to reinforce the urgency of the previous communication. Managers without authority enroll others to make sense of an issue together and go for a solution."

This paper reminds me of something that the famous cognitive psychologist Howard Gardner once wrote many years ago. He advocated a strategy that he called redescription as an effective means of persuading others. In his book, Changing minds: The art and science of changing our own and other people’s minds, Gardner explained:

“Essentially the same semantic meaning or content, then, can be conveyed by different forms: words, numbers, dramatic renditions, bulleted lists, Cartesian coordinates, or a bar graph… Multiple versions of the same point constitute an extremely powerful way in which to change minds.”