Advanced Influencing Skills for Business

We now train attention onto the metaphors which might normally pass us by. Using a TV transcript as suggested in the previous exercise we experience how metaphors work in normal conversation.

We also learn what the metaphor is saying about the way an individual inteprets the world. They reveal the metphors they live by. This provides the basis for reading their minds.

This simple illustration demonstrates how different experiences produce different orientations in work role and how they are reflected in metaphorical language.

We suggest that it's easier to influence others once you hear their metaphors and communicate using metaphors which will register in their minds because they are familiar to the way they think and feel.

Exercise - listen to leaders in your place of work to gauge what the metaphors they use tell you about how best to communicate with them.

Message us if you have specific questions after this exercise.

Exercise - listen to Indra Nooyi and decide how would approach her if you were presenting a new business opportunity to her.

In what ways do her metaphors make you curious about how she operates in the world?

Have you heard other CEOs use similar metaphors?
How does knowing about their metaphors help you to work with leadership figure like Indra?

Exercise - compare and contrast Sir Richard's metaphors with Indra Nooyi's.

Does Richard's choice of metaphor affect the way you think and feel about him?

How would you present a new business idea to Richard knowing something about the way he relates to the world.

Exercise - compare Warren's metaphors with Indra's and Richard's.

How would you make a presentation to Warren in the light of his use of metaphor.

If you worked for him how would his description of reputation affect the way you work.

Here we explore the importance of listening in a new way. We encourage listening to understand and very accurate summarising.

Exercise - listen to recordings and try to recall precisely what you heard then go back into the recording and check how accurate you really were.

Exercise - set up The Elephant Game with friends.

Notice the differences.
On a scale of 1 to 10 how surprised were you with the varied images people have of "elephant?"

How does knowing we are all so different affect the way you will listen to and communicate with others?

An introduction into the questions which will prompt others to use metaphor. The questions are designed to prevent you from influencing or steering the way others think and feel.

Exercise - memorise the questions and use them in normal conversation when you spot a metaphor which makes you genuinely curious.

This is a transcript of a radio interview with Caitlin Walker on Malaysian business radio exploring metaphors to model the interviewers mental model of working at her best. Will load links to the talk into additional resources.

A case study from Caitin Walker's "Contempt to Curiosity."

Exercise - think about your own metaphors for collboration at your best and try to sketch them.

Think back to past experiences of good and bad collaboration and think of metaphors to describe team collaboration in both cases.

How did you move from bad to good collaboration?

What would be a good metaphor to describe that transformation?

Going live, modelling a specific function in the restaurant business.

Exercise - based on listening to the interview, what sort of development plan might you put in place which would help the interviewee the most.

Benefits as described by the directors of the software development team in the case study.

Exercise - think of additional benefits based on your personal experience of collaboration both good and bad.

The technique can be used to model any aspect of our thought lives. There are no real limits. If we think about something then we can model it. The process of modelling becomes more revealing omce we get curious about the relaltionships between the symbols or component parts of the metaphors.

Exercise - think of three activities at work which you would like to model. "Ask - when I'm doing that thing at my best that's like what?"

Checkout the link in additional resources to hear more of the questions in action.

Take time to review the new questions and try to use them as you get curious about metaphors you hear people using in busines conversation.

Nothing to add, so enjoy listening to a master in this technique help a person model their stress reaction.

We now move beyond the questions and start to populate the "psychoactive landscape" with symbols from metaphors.

Exercise - do you conceive of the way a person thinks as being like a landscape?

Think of a metaphor which more perfectly fits your conception of the operation of somebody's mind.
How does your metaphor improve on the landscape metaphor.
Please share with us your metaphor of mind.

You are now stepping beyond mind reading and using metaphor and Clean Questions to prompt for next steps. It's important to get plenty of practice in before moving on to these questions.

A practical example of benefical influence. A military metaphor which was producing adverse outcomes was changed to an orchestral metaphor with improved results.

An authentic in workplace modelling session.

Exercise - based on what you have heard how might you be able to assist Steve in his work on complicated tasks and procrastination?

Exercise - do you agree or disagree with my conclusions?

Think of questions that you would like to ask Steve if you got curious about his procrastination.

We can describe one thing in terms something as basic as a physical gesture. It makes perfect sense to interrogate gestures in exactly the same way as with verbal metaphors.

Exercise - first on TV or in films with the sound off and then in the work environment, train your attention onto gestures. Wear headphones in public so that you are forced to pay more than average attention to gestures.

Please take us up on our offer to practise at no cost to you. We usually do this over Skype - we both learn from the experience. Message us and we will help you to find a practice group in your area or link you into the Clean Community in the best way that we can.