Persuading People: Expert Solutions to Everyday Challenges (Pocket Mentor) [ペーパーバック]

This is one of the volumes in the Harvard Business Press "Pocket Mentor" series, each of which offers "immediate solutions to common challenges managers face on the job every day." No matter where you are, "these portable guides enable you to tackle the daily demands of your work with greater speed, savvy, and effectiveness." In this instance, the advice is provided by Harry Mills, CEO of The Mills Group and the author of several books, notably Artful Persuasion: How to Command Attention, Change Minds, and Influence People (2000),The Rainmaker's Toolkit: Power Strategies for Finding, Keeping, and Growing Profitable Clients (2004), The StreetSmart Negotiator: How to Outwit, Outmaneuver, and Outlast Your Opponents (2005), and most recently Power Points!: How to Design and Deliver Presentations That Sizzle and Sell (2007). As Mills duly acknowledges, many managers still view persuasion as manipulation. "Properly used, persuasion isn't manipulation at all. Instead, it can be the process of changing or reinforcing others' attitudes and behaviors to serve important business needs...Persuasion is a blend of art and science. To achieve this blend, you need to master a range of skills, including building your credibility, winning others' minds and hearts, and overcoming resistance to your ideas. If you sharpen these skills, you'll sweeten the odds of transforming your own excellent idea into valuable business outcomes." In this booklet, Mills explains how to do all this.

The narrative consists of only 64 pages plus a "Tips & Tools" section (Pages 68-91) that consists of three diagnostic ("persuasion Self-Assessment," "Establishing Your Credibility," and Understanding Your Audience"), a ten multiple-choice self-diagnostic to identify one's baseline knowledge of persuasion with answers provided and discussed, and a "To Learn" section in which Mills recommends additional sources. Mills manages to cover many of the key points insofar as effective persuasion is concerned. As is also true of the other booklets in this series, the one provides a number of checklists such as key elements of persuasion, suggestions about how to gain others' trust, guidelines to demonstrating one's expertise, suggestions as to how to analyze an audience's receptivity, strategies for audience receptivity and persuasion, steps for "reading" an audience quickly, suggestions for constructing an effective presentation, other suggestions on how to provide "compelling evidence," and steps for defining a unique value proposition. As these brief remarks clearly indicate, Mills's emphasis is on what works. He is clearly a pragmatist whose suggestions are based on empirical evidence.

Ultimately, those who seek to persuade would be well-advised to keep in mind what Edward R. Murrow once asserted: "To be persuasive, we must be believable. To be believable, we must be credible. To be credible, we must tell the truth." Edward R. Murrow

Those in need of wider and deeper coverage of this important subject are urged to check out the sources that Mills recommends (Page 91) as well as other volumes in this series, notably Coaching People, Giving Feedback, Leading People, and managing Crises. Also, Robert B. Cialdini's Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, Noah J. Goldstein's Yes!: 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive, and Barbara Pease's The Definitive Book of Body Language.