chapter 33

Influence decisions

As a leader, you cannot make every decision yourself. Some decisions will be beyond your control. This is especially true as firms globalise and reorganise. You may find that decisions that affect you are being made by people far away, following processes that exclude you. That should not stop you influencing decisions that are important to you. Fortunately, there is good evidence on how you can influence decisions, based largely on the work of Nobel Prize-winning economist Daniel Kahneman. Despite his academic pedigree, there is plenty of help for the practising leader in his work.

Here are some pointers on how you can influence decisions in your favour.

1. 1Anchor the debate on your terms. Strike early and set the terms of the debate around your agenda. For example, is the Moon more or less than 1 million miles from Earth? I have no idea, but I have just anchored the debate around 1 million (not 10 million or 100,000).
2. 2Build your coalition. Manage disagreements in private. Once they disagree with you in public, they will be committed to that position and will not change. Meet key people early and in private. Let them change their view without loss of face and publicise any agreements widely to build a bandwagon of support. Find powerful sponsors to endorse your position.
3. 3Build incremental agreement. Don’t scare people by asking for everything at once. Ask individuals to back the one part of your idea where they have relevant expertise (finance, health and safety, etc.).
4. 4Size the prize. Build a clear, logical case that shows the benefits of your proposed course of action. Quantify the benefits and have them endorsed appropriately.
5. 5Frame the decision favourably. Align your agenda with the corporate agenda. Frame your idea in the right language and style for each person. Be relentlessly positive.
6. 6Restrict choice. Don’t give too many options that will tend to confuse. If you offer 30 choices, you create confusion and decision paralysis will follow. Offer two or three choices at most. This is normally option A: ideal, expensive and impractical; option B: cheap, nasty and unacceptable; option C: the one you want them to pick. Let them lecture you on how awful options A and B are, then look suitably impressed by their insight and advice when they tell you to go with option C.
7. 7Work risk and loss aversion to your favour. Show that alternatives to your idea are even riskier. Normally, the default option is ‘do nothing’: low cost, low risk and low effort. You have to show that doing nothing is not acceptable.
8. 8Put idleness to work. Make it easy for people to agree, by ­removing any logistical or administrative hurdles for them.
9. 9Be persistent. Repetition works. What works? Repetition. Repetition works. Repetition works. Repetition works. Repetition works. Repetition works. Repetition works. Repetition works. Repetition works. Repetition works. Repetition works. Repetition works. Repetition works. Repetition works. Repetition works. Repetition works. All great advertisers and dictators know that the more you repeat something, the more people believe it. Be persistent and never give up.
10. 10Adjust to each individual. See the world through their eyes. Respect their needs in terms of substance, style and format. Build common cause. Align your agendas.