Power Play : Game Changing Influence Strategies for Leaders [1 ed.] 9780730329459, 9780730329442

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R E W PO

Y A PL Game changing influence strategies for leaders

YAMINI NAIDU

R E W O P

Y A L P

R E W PO

Y A L P Game changing influence strategies for leaders

YAMINI NAIDU

First published in 2016 by John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd 42 McDougall St, Milton Qld 4064 Office also in Melbourne Typeset in 11/13 pt Minion Pro © Yamini Naidu Consulting 2016 The moral rights of the author have been asserted National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data: Creator: Title: ISBN: Subjects:

Dewey Number:

Naidu, Yamini, author. Power Play: game changing influence strategies for leaders / Yamini Naidu. 9780730335993 (pbk.) 9780730329466 (ebook) Transformational leadership. Success in business. Influence (Psychology). 658.4

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the Australian Copyright Act 1968 (for example, a fair dealing for the purposes of study, research, criticism or review), no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, communicated or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission. All inquiries should be made to the publisher at the address above. Cover design by Kathy Davis/Wiley Cover image: © Master 3D / Shutterstock Printed in Singapore by C.O.S. Printers Pte Ltd 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Disclaimer The material in this publication is of the nature of general comment only, and does not represent professional advice. It is not intended to provide specific guidance for particular circumstances and it should not be relied on as the basis for any decision to take action or not take action on any matter which it covers. Readers should obtain professional advice where appropriate, before making any such decision. To the maximum extent permitted by law, the author and publisher disclaim all responsibility and liability to any person, arising directly or indirectly from any person taking or not taking action based on the information in this publication.

Contents About the author vii Acknowledgementsix Introduction: Another book on influence? xi Part I: The case for new influence

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1 Influence versus manipulation

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2 The art of power play

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Part II: How (so far) and the new how

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3 Hard power … ouch, that hurts!

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4 Soft power … take it slowly

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5 Story power … inspire me

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6 Context power … I am king

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7 Empathy power … walk in my shoes

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8 Message power … become the master of your message

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  9 Love power … changing the world in four letters

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10 Humour power … why so serious?

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11 Positioning power … become the influencer

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12 Fierce power … fiercely being you

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13 Co-creation power … the magic of elevation

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14 Cause leadership … mega power of movements

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Conclusion: What next? 187 Index195

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About the author Yamini is, as far as she knows, the world’s only economist (please don’t hold that against her) turned business storyteller. With a client list of Fortune 500 and ASX top-20 companies, she works at CEO and C-suite level around the world to spread the power of stories throughout organisations. She was born and raised in Mumbai (formerly Bombay) in India and to everyone’s surprise, including her own, won a gold medal at Bombay University and completed a postgraduate degree at the London School of Economics on an LSE Scholarship. Yamini is a prolific speaker and writer, and is consistently rated among the top business storytellers globally, as well as being one of Australia’s most in-demand keynote speakers. Her first, co-authored book, Hooked: How leaders connect, engage and inspire with storytelling, was published in 2013 to critical acclaim. She is also a voluntary guide at the National Gallery of Victoria. She now lives in Melbourne, Australia, with her large extended family, including a crazy seven-year-old escape artist Cavoodle.

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Acknowledgements It was 9 am on 23 September 2015, in Dearborn, Michigan, world  headquarters of the Ford Motor Company. I was presenting at the Ford Global Leadership Program. As I was introduced, a powerful wave of emotion surged through me. The MC called out my name and I was on. I stepped out to face a room full of leaders … and stood there, speechless. This doesn’t happen often — I speak for a living. I didn’t utter a word for a full minute (or that’s how long it felt) as I composed myself. What I’d just experienced was a tidal wave of gratitude for the privilege of addressing one of the most prestigious gatherings of business leaders on the planet. I frequently have the opportunity, pleasure and privilege of travelling around the world to run workshops and master classes and give keynote addresses to audiences large and small, usually made up of business leaders. Leaders who have a mandate to change not only their world but the world. Every day these individuals face two challenges: how to engage people and how to deliver results, generally in tough commercial environments. Above all they have to meet these challenges with authenticity and integrity rather than vanity and arrogance. I base this book about influence on their learnings and experiences, and am grateful for the generosity with which they have shared their challenges and successes. This book is a co-creation built on the honesty of the leaders, too many to name, with whom I have worked. It would also not ix

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have happened without the talented team at John Wiley & Sons, particularly Acquisitions Editor Lucy Raymond, who suggested the genius title Power Play (which magically summed up the book). Deepest thanks to my brilliant editors, Jem Bates and Roger McDonald, for their tough love. Isaac Newton said, ‘If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants’. I have this privilege every day. I wish to thank Dr Roger Pearman for his belief in me and for backing me in the global arena. I am also grateful for the wisdom of my mentors who continually inspire and challenge me: Matt Church and Peter Cook. My deepest thanks to Simon Waller whose mentoring in digital productivity is what made this book a reality. Simon, your work changes lives. Carolyn Tate, the founder of the Slow School of Business Melbourne, shared her salubrious home (Slow School HQ), where much of this book was written. Thank you, Carolyn, for your encouragement and generosity. The love and support of my family, my husband, Vish, my daughter Tara, my brother Prathap, my sister Girija, my niece Poornima, the warmth of my extended family, and the laughter and joy of my friends, especially the ‘awesome foursome’, all make my life rich. Above all, thank you, dear reader, for choosing this book and for taking on the opportunity to Power Play. Yamini

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Introduction

Another book on influence? In July 2009 a young mother was driving down a suburban street in Milwaukee in the United States with her two young children strapped in the back. She lost control, the car hit a tree, flipped over, trapping the young family inside, and burst into flames. A crowd quickly gathered around the burning vehicle, but everyone was scared and no one knew what to do amid the chaos. Then brothers Joel and John Rechlitz pushed to the front of the crowd. Sizing up the situation, the two off-duty firefighters grabbed a couple of pipes lying by the side of the road, smashed the windshield and pulled the mother and her two-year-old daughter to safety. But the four-year-old boy was still trapped in the blazing car, which threatened to explode at any moment. Joel and John tried to reach the boy through the windshield but couldn’t free him. They knew they couldn’t rescue him alone, so they shouted instructions to the crowd. Joel asked for a knife so he could cut the boy free from his seatbelt. John called for a nearby hose. The crowd swung into action. Even though their own lives were at risk, the brothers galvanised the onlookers into action. They freed the boy with seconds to spare before the fuel tank exploded, engulfing the car in an inferno.

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America embraced John and Joel as heroes, but the brothers acknowledged they could not have pulled off the rescue without the help of strangers. What John and Joel did that day was heroic, but they also used a power we all possess — the power of influence. They influenced a group of people to risk their lives and extend themselves in a crisis.

What is influence today? Essentially influence is about creating a shift, getting things done through other people. In leadership, influence means getting people who turn up to turn on. Influence is like gravity: without it so much of your effort floats out into space. When you choose to influence, you exert a positive force like gravity that pulls success into your orbit. Aperian Global reviewed a 2012 survey by the Corporate Leadership Council (CLC) of 11 500 leaders in 35 companies across a range of industries and countries. Among its findings were the following: Influence emerged as the top-ranked competency of high-performing global leaders  —  it was more strongly correlated with successful global leadership performance than capabilities traditionally seen as key elements of a leader’s job such as vision, decision-making, delegation, creativity, resource allocation or holding employees accountable …

But does the world really need another book on influence? When motivational speaker and author Zig Ziglar was once told motivation didn’t matter because it didn’t last, he replied, ‘Neither does bathing, which is why we recommend it daily’. Influence, like motivation, is a daily choice. Life usually lets you choose whether to influence others or to be influenced by them. If you choose to be an influencer, this book is for you. It gives

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you the tools and mindsets you’ll need as an influencer in the 21st century. Do you remember Brody’s (Roy Scheider’s) reaction in Jaws when he first saw just how big the great white shark was? ‘You’re gonna need a bigger boat.’ Most leaders recognise they are going to need a bigger influence boat to successfully navigate the shark-infested challenges of the modern workplace. And that is what Power Play offers — it is your bigger boat.

How is this book different? You have probably read so many books on influence that the idea has become almost a cliché. How is this book different? Recently I was walking near my home and saw something that made me pause. I spotted a man in a suit in a public phone booth using the pay phone! I wanted to press my nose against the glass and ask, ‘What’s wrong? Where’s your mobile?’ The image struck me as almost shockingly old fashioned and out of place in a modern context. Of course you can still do business from a public pay phone, but how effective, agile and competitive would you be against an opponent who always carries a mobile? This book explores the mobile phone equivalent of contemporary influence.

Influence versus power In The Elements of Power: Lessons on leadership and influence, Terry R. Bacon differentiates influence as the application of power to accomplish a specific purpose. He identifies 11 sources of power: five in the personal realm (knowledge, expressiveness, history, attraction and character), five organisational sources (role, resources, information, network and reputation), and one meta-source (will).

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Every year Time magazine produces a special edition dedicated to the world’s 100 most influential people. Introducing the list in April 2014, Time’s managing editor, Nancy Gibbs, wrote, ‘The TIME 100 is a list of the world’s most influential men and women, not its most powerful … Power is a tool, influence is a skill; one is a fist, the other a fingertip’. Power and influence, the tool and the skill: you need both to succeed in business. Both allow you to lead where others will follow. Even if you don’t have the formal position or mandate of leader, influence will mean your voice is heard, your idea implemented or the client signs up with you, not your competitor. Influence is often the means by which someone achieves power. Influence and power are like the chicken and egg. Traditionally it was impossible to have influence without positional power, but today we know the paradigms have shifted. The internet and social media have given sole activists a voice and influence far beyond the traditional power bases of the corporate behemoths they take on. We can see influence and power as two sides of the same coin. Influence will give you more power, but power will not always give you more influence.

What is power play? CEB Global’s talent report of 2014 focused on high-potential individuals and programs, and what motivates achievement in an executive position. A key finding was that high-potential individuals are driven by power: ‘they want the opportunity to exercise, influence and shape how things are done’. Simply stated, this is what power and influence can do: they can help you effect the change you want in your world. Trying

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to succeed without power and influence is like trying to get to your destination in a car with no fuel. You may as well walk. Power play hinges on your decision to play the game to turbocharge your influence. So you can create the change you want as a leader, in your relationships, in your organisation or business, and in the world. This book not only fills your car with fuel — it gives you a better engine management system, a well-tuned exhaust, a sexy spoiler and better handling alloy wheels, to deliver high performance in every arena in your business and life. Power play positions influence as the key to thriving and succeeding in business and life. Yet I will show that influence does not have to be onerous, hard to do well or especially challenging. Like any skill, it can be taught and learned, and we can all get better at it. And play is the energy you need to bring to the game of influence. Often influence strategies are implemented with unnecessary gravitas — ‘It is serious business, this influence’ — yet to be successful requires a playful energy. You need to take risks, to do your best, to learn from your mistakes and to celebrate your successes. Keep your touch light, build bridges and make friends as you seek to grow your influence power. To be a power player, use the strategies in this book, yet do so with a playful energy, and see your influence take a quantum leap forward. This book will help you become a power player whose tank of influence never runs empty. In this book we explore many forms of influence, from hard power (coercion) to soft power (consulting, collaborating) and story power (connecting, inspiring). On the way we track the progress of approaches to influence from yell to tell to sell to compel.

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We also examine influence tools you may not have consciously considered before, such as message mastery, context power, the power of empathy, love, humour, co-creation and positioning, fierce power (the power inherent in you) and the power of cause leadership. We identify the weaknesses and strengths of each of these influence tools and offer you practical tips so you can create a seismic shift in your influence while maintaining authenticity and integrity.

Does the world need influencers? We might also ask that other eternal question: does the world need leaders? The answer in both cases is a resounding yes. Influencers generate change in the world. (Of course change might be for good or evil, but this book is concerned primarily with positive change.) Influencers are the movers and shakers — perhaps even the rock stars — of our world. We not only need influencers, but we need more of them. Every word we speak and every act we perform is an opportunity to influence and create an impact or shift. A recent study revealed that on average we speak around 16 000 words a day. Many of us spend most of our waking moments in company talking. We don’t so much sleep talk as wake talk! But talking isn’t always communicating. Much of our talk is white noise, unless we choose differently. When he was CEO of NAB, one of Australia’s top four banks, John Stewart was surprised to learn that he spent more than 75 per cent of his time ‘communicating’. Like most CEOs and leaders, a large part of your role and your success in it depends on your ability to influence people, opinions and outcomes. It is about crafting a message that resonates and communicating it effectively to inspire others to act.

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Influence can make the difference between achieving results and falling short, keeping clients or losing them, winning that pitch or blowing it. Our success in exerting influence can determine our wellbeing and happiness in our personal lives too. My friend Jen divides the world into two sorts of people: those who keep their petrol tank full and those who let it run dry. Her husband falls into the latter category. One day she left a note on his alarm clock saying, ‘Fill the tank please. Love you! Jen’. He replied via email with an image of an empty tank and the words ‘Chances — grim’. She decided she had to influence him in some other way, so the next morning she left him a different note: ‘Fill the tanky for some hanky panky tonight.’ Her tank has been full ever since! Influence is the key to personal and professional success. Influencing others isn’t a dark art; it isn’t about luck or magic. It is a skill that, when applied wisely, will help you to dramatically increase your impact and success. But you can, and should, wield it with authenticity, compassion and integrity. Beyoncé featured on Time’s March 2014 cover as the most influential person on the planet, after sell-out world tours and shocking the music industry by releasing an album directly through social media. You’ve heard of monologue and dialogue. Welcome a new word to the English language — Beyoncelogue. Actress Nina Millin created a YouTube sensation by weaving lyrics from Beyoncé’s songs into a dramatic monologue. It’s probably only a matter of time before we’re all speaking in Beyoncelogue! According to Time, Beyoncé doesn’t just sit at the table, she builds better tables. And that is what power play can do for you. It can help you build better relationships, businesses, sales, clients — and a better life.

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What makes me an expert? My journey with the power of influence began at age 10 when my teacher, Miss Asha, asked our class to write a sentence according to these rules: it had to make sense and use 10 words only, and each word had to consist of just two letters. We tried and tried, but came up with nothing. My teacher then wrote on the board, ‘If it is to be, it is up to me’. That day Miss Asha influenced a classroom of children to think and behave differently — not just in that moment, but for the rest of their lives. It was my first lesson in influence, and I was hooked! So much so that many years later, in 2005, I co-founded a company that did just one thing: it specialised in storytelling, the oldest form of influence. To put this in context, I am an economist by training, but decided I really wanted to be a storyteller. Reading Steve Denning’s The Leader’s Guide to Storytelling, a seminal work on business storytelling, I had a lightbulb moment: I realised that for a leader and influencer this was the missing link. Data on its own was not enough; my spreadsheets needed stories. I was so excited when I made this decision. I told my mother, ‘I’m going to become a storyteller’. And like any good Indian mother, she replied, ‘Is that a job? Why can’t you choose IT or be a doctor? Storytelling? You do that on weekends’. Today my mother is my proudest supporter and introduces me as an ‘economist turned storyteller’.

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How to use this book Hmm, my first answer would be, ‘Read it from cover to cover, word for word, then follow up with a five-star review on Amazon, thank you’. Of course I might be biased! How do you read? Are you a scanner (flipping through headings, summaries), a dipper (dipping into chapters that grab your attention) or a deep diver (reading the whole book, or at least the parts that interest you) or a combination of these? This book works for all reading styles. If the thought of reading the whole book sequentially from start to finish makes your hair curl, start by reading Part I as that will give you a frame of reference for the book. Scan the ‘at a glance’ summaries in Part II for a snapshot of each chapter, then dive deep into the strategies that interest you. You might love a slow buildup or prefer to cut to the chase from the get-go. No matter your preference, each chapter finishes with a gift for every reader, providing a power play tip that will propel you into an accelerated start. The 1999 movie The Hurricane was based on the true story of middleweight boxer Rubin ‘Hurricane’ Carter, who served nearly 20 years in prison based on a controversial murder conviction. In the movie, his character says, ‘He who bemoans the lack of opportunity forgets that small doors many times open up into large rooms’. Think of the end-of-chapter power play tips as small doors that will open into large rooms. Where information is concerned, we are often spoilt for choice. These tips are designed to help you pick out just one technique from each chapter and make a start. Action precedes clarity.

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If you’re looking for a quick fix, or ways to manipulate others, then this book is not for you. But if you’re looking to grow as a person and as a leader, to influence for good, to make your world and the world a better place, then I extend a warm welcome to you. Let’s salute influence as a timeless skill, but recognise it as a skill whose modes have changed to reflect the times we live in. Welcome to the new way to influence for success and results in the 21st century. More power play to you. Now let’s begin our journey.

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Part I

The case for new influence When was the last time you tuned into the safety briefing on board a plane? It’s amazing to consider that even when our lives could depend on the information, we are reluctant to pay attention. Air New Zealand has managed to reinvent the tired format of airline safety videos, using humour to find new ways to influence their audience. Every year they release a new air safety video that is pretty much guaranteed to go viral. For example, film director Peter Jackson plays a cameo role in a Hobbit-themed version called  ‘An Unexpected Briefing’;  another, ‘Safety Old School Style’, stars Golden Girl Betty White; and (my personal favourite) US fitness personality Richard Simmons and leotardclad cabin crew deliver preflight safety messages to a disco beat! Air New Zealand has found a fresh and compelling way to influence. The case for new influence doesn’t rest on media stars and videos with high production values, though, but on simple yet effective strategies that can be used successfully every day. Even a humble sign can be made over using one of the tools we will examine — message power. Walking through a park in London recently, I spotted a lawn sign that, rather than the conventional ‘Keep off the grass’, read simply, ‘The grass is resting’. Just a little paint, and imagination. That’s influence. Part I sets out the case for new influence. In chapter 1, we explore the difference between influence and manipulation. Chapter 2 introduces the art of power play, challenging our traditional reliance on a limited range of hard power and soft power tools, and presents a review of the various ‘modes of influence’ that will be developed in the rest of the book.

Chapter 1

Influence versus manipulation What if lives were saved or lost based on your ability (or lack of it) to influence people and events? How do you exert influence when the stakes are so high? Pet Rescue Australia faces this challenge every day. Tragically, 100 000 rescued dogs are put down every year in Australia. In an effort to make a difference, Pet Rescue set out to persuade more Australians to adopt rescued dogs. First they had to break down their biggest barrier: getting people to visit a shelter. Their strategy was simple: ‘If we can’t bring people to the rescued dogs, we’ll bring the rescued dogs to the people.’ How, though? Pet Rescue is a not-for-profit organisation with limited marketing budget and resources.

A perfect match But they had a secret weapon. Japanese researcher and psychologist Sadahiko Nakajima has made a study of dog– owner resemblance. Nakajima’s research shows that pet–human resemblance is empirically valid, a key reason being that some pet owners consciously or unconsciously choose dogs that look like them! Pet Rescue Australia used this insight to deploy their strategy.

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They commissioned an app called Dog-A-Like. You download the app and upload a photo of yourself, and the app scans through all the photos of dogs in rescue shelters to find your perfect dog match. Bingo! Dog-A-Like was an instant hit, becoming the number one app in the Australian iTunes store for a couple of weeks. Whether or not they were thinking of getting a dog, thousands of people started using it and uploading their ‘perfect match’ images to Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. The result? A 36 per cent increase in dogs rehomed — that’s more than 2200 dogs every month. It has been Australia’s single most successful dog rehoming campaign to date, and that’s nothing short of inspiring. But influence is not all dancing unicorns, rainbows and adorable rehomed dogs.

The dark side Just as the sun casts a shadow, influence has a dark side. It often earns a bad name because people mistakenly interpret it as manipulation, but manipulation is the flip side of influence. Too many books on influence focus on techniques best described as manipulative or exploitative. Sixteenth-century diplomat and political theorist Niccolò Machiavelli, in his controversial but enduring political treatise The Prince, declared, ‘It is better to be feared than loved’. Could that be true, then and now? Machiavelli was a man of his times, and the city-states of 16th century Italy were snake pits of intrigue and deviousness where the powerful ruled through fear and by controlling information. But that was 500 years ago. Today the internet and social media have created unprecedented levels of transparency and accountability, right?

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Influence versus manipulation

We all love stories of human endeavour, especially when the underdog beats the odds and triumphs over adversity. We admire heroes, invest in their success and learn from their wisdom. In a world overwhelmed by bad news, these inspiring stories offer rare beacons of hope. We are eager to believe.

A breach of trust In 2013 wellness blogger Belle Gibson shared her personal story. She portrayed herself as a brave young Australian mother who had survived brain cancer and fought back, reinventing her life based on health and wellbeing. She won a worldwide social media following through her Whole Pantry philosophy, released a bestselling app and scored a book deal with Penguin. Belle’s journey and apparent transformation touched people’s lives profoundly. She was an inspiration for cancer sufferers and ordinary people all over the world. In March 2015 investigative journalists broke an even bigger story, alleging that the entire saga — from multiple cancers and heart surgery through heroic recovery — was a fabrication. When proof of the cancer was requested, none emerged. Claimed charitable donations from Gibson’s app sales were unsubstantiated. Penguin and Apple pulled their support. Gibson’s followers all over the world were left feeling angry and hurt. The fallout was ferocious. We experience dishonesty and manipulation, whether personal or public, as a deep violation. They breach our trust by exploiting our empathy and compassion. We feel abused in the worst way, emotionally and sometimes monetarily too. The public backlash in the Belle Gibson case was fast and furious. Sometimes we are fooled and victimised by master manipulators. In other contexts we are simply made to feel powerless.

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Powerlessness — an influence vacuum In both your professional and your personal life you will probably experience moments of powerlessness, when you feel you cannot even speak up, or be heard or listened to, let alone make an impact. In 2009 we did some work on storytelling with a senior leadership team. It was one of our first experiences of a toxic management group. The CEO snapped at anyone who spoke, talked over staff and publicly humiliated the team members, all of whom were direct reports. The CEO was obnoxious, aggressive and intimidating. You could have cut the atmosphere with a knife. No one, apart from one woman leader, could stand up to this. Since then that organisation has often been in the news for all the wrong reasons, hurtling through leadership crises and financial mismanagement scandals. Given the low levels of trust and high levels of toxicity emanating from the top, few people familiar with the company were surprised. Viktor Frankl wrote in Man’s Search for Meaning, ‘Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom’. We hope the individuals in that leadership team find the courage and power to leave the organisation. Powerlessness is dangerous. It makes us shrink and focus only on ourselves. It makes people feel hopeless and, in the long term, can lead them to breakdown.

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Influence versus manipulation

Manipulators — power for power’s sake Manipulators focus only on themselves and are driven by greed. They act opportunistically and their impact, while often devastating, is transient. In his epic poem Paradise Lost, John Milton retells the biblical story of the Fall. The snake (Satan) manipulates Eve into eating the apple (forbidden knowledge). The snake uses a toxic blend of blasphemous flattery and falsehood, promising her that eating the fruit will make her as powerful as God. Those rigid threats of death: ye shall not die: How should you? By the fruit? It gives you life to knowledge; by the threatener? Look on me, Me, who have touched and tasted; yet both live, and life more perfect have attained than Fate meant me, by venturing higher than my lot.

Eve is seduced into eating the apple, and Eve and Adam are banished from the Garden of Eden. Watch out for the snakes that can infest the gardens of work and life. Some people set out to manipulate and damage others by their behaviour. They may seek only short-term advantage, but they can damage relationships and trust for ever. Such tactics cause stress and anxiety and create long-term negative outcomes.

Masters of influence Influence power is like fire: you can cook with it, or burn down your neighbourhood. The issue is not fire itself, but how you

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choose to use it. When you set out to influence, you assume a power to change lives — and even the course of history. How you do this, and for what end, is what really matters. Every day we face the choice of whether to influence for long-term good or to manipulate for short-term gain. The tools provided in this book focus on positive influence, not manipulation. Dale Carnegie was a master of influence. Since he first published his blockbuster, How to Win Friends and Influence People, in 1936, more than 15 million copies have sold worldwide. Can a book published 80 years ago still be relevant? Yes, it can. The book advocates integrity and champions enduring, timeless concepts. It is built on rock-solid foundations and speaks to a profound, universal truth: to positively influence others, you must first get along with people; otherwise success either will be transient or will elude you. Carnegie’s classic work is the quintessential guide to human relations. Power Play builds on his ideas, emphasising the importance of influence rather than manipulation. Another source of inspiration is Influence: The psychology of persuasion, published in 1984 by Robert Cialdini, Regents’ Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Marketing at Arizona State University, and particularly his Six Principles of Influence (also known as the Six Weapons of Influence). Cialdini identified the six principles through experimental studies and by studying salespeople, fundraisers, recruiters, advertisers and marketers  —  people skilled in the art of influencing and persuading. His six principles are reciprocity, commitment, social proof, liking, authority and scarcity. Depending on how they are deployed, these principles are powerful tools or potent weapons. So every day you have a choice: you can choose to influence with integrity. Remember, every time you influence the most important thing in the world is at stake — your reputation.

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A good reputation takes time and effort to build, but only moments to destroy. Legendary investment genius Warren Buffett has declared, ‘We will not trade reputation for money’. A new movement has formed around the concepts of conscious capitalism and conscious marketing. The ethos hinges on the idea of building purposeful, prosperous businesses that can at the same time make the planet a better place. Here is the sacred contract I hope you will commit to. Use the ideas in this book to help you make the world a better place for everyone, not just for yourself. Choose wisely for positive change so as to inspire yourself and others. If you want to build a prosperous business with a purpose, this book will help you get there. If I have found inspiration in developing and sharing my ideas about influence, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants such as Dale Carnegie and Robert Cialdini. I invite you to do the same.

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Chapter 2

The art of power play This chapter presents a helicopter view of the book, a perspective that reveals the sweeping landscape around and ahead of us, hovering briefly over each feature. Equipped with this overview, we will go on to land and explore each mode of influence in Part II.

How (so far) Traditionally, influence has been about hard power (good old command and control), soft power (consulting, connecting, collaborating) and story power (inspiring through storytelling). These are what I call the ‘how (so far)’ modes of influence.

Hard power Hard power describes the kind of influence wielded through systems of command and control, coercion or the carrot-andstick approach. Martin Scorsese’s 2013 movie The Wolf of Wall Street shows stockbroker Jordan Belfort (the wolf of the title) ordering his salespeople to ‘get on the phone and don’t hang up until the customer buys or dies’. This bullying and intimidation is hard power in its worst garb. It’s definitely not the way to create longlasting, sustainable influence.

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We all have an instinctive understanding of pecking orders and hierarchies and other expressions of hard power. Prestige power is one such expression. When I was growing up in India, family photos were rare. I have a small black-andwhite photo of me, my mother, sister and family friends from the 1970s. We are standing in front of a car — unusual in itself, but in this case it was a Hindustan Ambassador, which was a huge status symbol then. Amusingly, the car wasn’t even ours. But we understood the power of prestige, even if borrowed. At work, hard power is expressed through status symbols such as the corner office, bureaucratic hierarchies and reporting structures. As shown in the following chapter, hard power focuses on results and actions, but often rules through fear. The accepted view is that action and results need supervision, and people do what is required because the boss is watching. Generally the impact of this mode of power is only temporary. While the tiny despot in all of us does like to use hard power (hopefully only occasionally), in chapter 3 we will show you how hard power hurts you, other people and your chances of success as a power player.

Soft power Soft power focuses on people, delivering results through attraction, cooperation, consultation and connection. The concepts of hard power and soft power were developed in the work of Harvard business professor Joseph Nye. Nye applied these terms initially to diplomatic power and later to leadership. Of course the wisdom around soft power as an influence tool has always existed in our society. Consider this proverb: ‘It is easier to catch flies with honey than vinegar.’ Soft power builds relationships, encouraging cooperation, teamwork and collaboration. In chapter 4 we will explore this mode of power, when to use it and its limitations as an influence strategy. 12

The art of power play

Where hard power creates an impetus for action, soft power, if used well, sparks desire. What if you want to foster both?

Story power While storytelling is as old as time itself, the business world has rediscovered its power as a contemporary tool through Steve Denning’s seminal work. Business storytelling is purpose and results driven. Here’s an example. Two young goldfish were swimming along when they met an older fish, who said, ‘Morning, boys. How’s the water?’ One of the young goldfish looked over at the other and said, ‘What the hell is water?’

The late, great David Foster Wallace, a brilliant American writer, shared the goldfish story in his commencement address to the 2005 graduating class of Kenyon College, Ohio. The story illustrates how the most obvious, ubiquitous and important realities are often those that are hardest to see and discuss. It would be almost impossible to convey this point in an effective and memorable way except through a simple but powerful story. Storytelling as an influence tool creates connections to you and your message, inspiring your audience and moving them to action. Good stories spread through an organisation by way of repetition. They take time to craft, and they require a level of self-disclosure that makes some people uncomfortable. With story power, your goal is to engage your audience, connect them with your message and create a ripple of inspiration. Chapter 5 gives you tools to help you find, craft and share stories, and discusses some of the obstacles that can stop us from being compelling storytellers. Hard power, soft power and story power aren’t novel. So what is new? What is the latest iteration of influence and how can you use it to become a power player?

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Power Play

The new how In chapters 6 to 14 we look at the following strategies: context power, empathy power, message power, love power, humour power, positioning power, fierce power, co-creation power and the power of cause leadership. Note this is not the ‘Same old, same old’ or ‘Do what everyone else is doing’ section. These modes are the ‘new how’ of power play. Some of the ideas will challenge you and may sometimes even feel a bit new agey. But they are all based on robust research and commercial smarts, and they all focus on a single agenda: to set you up for success as a power player.

Context power Everything in life is about context. To be a successful influencer you have to be a master of your context. Like a Bollywood hero. Bollywood heroes have many attributes: they’re handsome and dashing, with a moral compass so finely tuned it would put most of us to shame. Above all they are masters of their context. One moment you watch the hero judiciously deploying hard power by punching up the bad guy; the next he is dancing soulfully in the city square, using soft power to romance the woman he loves. Tellingly, when he dances in the square everyone — passing students, shopkeepers, even homeless street people — knows the steps, and all dance soulfully in perfect synchronicity. Caution: think twice about trying this in your city square! In chapter 6 we explore the anatomy of context (the what, why, where and who) and how, by understanding this anatomy, we can become masters of context. Exercising context power, you adapt to your circumstances rather than trying to force the situation to adapt to your every need. Does your situation call for hard power, soft power or story power?

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The art of power play

The impact of context power can vary, but if you get it wrong, it can work against you. The world witnessed a notable cringeworthy moment at the 1997 Oscars presentation when James Cameron, the director of the movie blockbuster Titanic, declared in his acceptance speech that he was ‘king of the world’. The announcement provoked an instant backlash. While such musings might have been appropriate at home or in his own mind, the Oscars platform was the wrong context for such arrogance. So while hard power rests on coercion, soft power on collaboration and story power on inspiration, context power is situational.

Empathy power What sets you apart as a power player is a deep empathic understanding of your audience. By caring for your audience, you understand what drives them, which helps you create connection and initiate courageous action. Sometimes the line between sympathy and empathy blurs. Empathy is not feeling sorry for a person or indulging their self-pity, but recognising their perspective sufficiently to help generate change through action. With empathy power, your focus is external, your attitude is one of courage and service, and the impact is change. Chapter 7 discusses how we can grow our empathy through caring, connection and courage. You may have come across a YouTube clip of this wonderful story, thought to have originated with the great David Ogilvy, who is often viewed as the father of modern advertising and market research. Every day a young London copywriter walks past a blind beggar with a tin cup beside a sign that reads, ‘I’m blind. Please help’. The tin is always nearly empty. 15

Power Play

One day the copywriter picks up the sign and writes something on the back. She has barely replaced the sign before passersby start to drop money into the tin. When the copywriter stops by on her way home that evening the beggar, whose cup is now overflowing, asks, ‘What did you do to my sign?’ The young woman replies, ‘I wrote the same thing, but in different words’. She had changed the sign to read, ‘It’s a beautiful day and I can’t see it’. The new approach won immediate empathy from his audience who, moved by emotion, emptied their pockets. This is the power of empathy.

Message power In Fascinate: Your 7 triggers to persuasion and captivation, author Sally Hogshead points out that our attention span 100 years ago was 20 minutes. Guess what the current figure is? We’re now down to just nine seconds. We’ve become lean, urgent scanning machines. And the habit is hardening as a survival tactic in a digital age that swamps us with information. Today, more than ever, we must not underestimate the power of words. The Jubilee Project, to raise support and awareness for the American Society for Deaf Children, poignantly demonstrated the power of words in a short video (also available on YouTube). The film shows a boy and a girl sitting at either end on a park bench. He flicks through a newspaper while she listens to music through her earphones as she does her crossword puzzle. Over a few days they pass notes to each other and move closer. One of the boy’s notes asks: ‘What are you listening to?’ She eventually offers him her headphones, and it turns out to be the sound of silence.

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The art of power play

She uses sign language to tell him she is deaf and he writes, ‘You’re still beautiful’. The video concludes with this message: ‘Words have a strong impact on our daily lives. You have the power to speak encouragement or persecution over others’. To master the power of influence you must build messages that grab attention, stand out in a crowded marketplace and deliver results. To achieve success, you craft your messages using skills and tools that help you create, confirm or challenge your audience’s identity. This might sound like a task for a talented copywriter or your marketing department, but it’s an essential influence skill for all power players. In chapter 8 we will outline easy ways to create message power, focusing on content that connects with people’s identities and persuades them to take mutually productive action.

Love power In 16th century Florence Niccolò Machiavelli advocated fear over love as an influence tool. Today, the pendulum has swung the other way, and most leaders and organisations realise they cannot and do not want to rule through fear. The polar opposite of fear is love. We know love can move mountains and save children from burning buildings, but how can we channel love at work? When we speak of love as an influence weapon, we define it as love for what we do (passion). Steve Jobs said, ‘The only way to do great work is to love what you do’. It is also love for the people we do it with (companionate love) and love for the people we do it for (our customers, clients . . . or patients). In October 1982 a profoundly deaf Melbourne man, Graham Carrick, was able to hear for the first time in 17 years when a remarkable new invention, implanted in the shell-shaped cochlea in his inner ear, was switched on.

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Power Play

Since that world first, close to 200 000 people of all ages around the world have benefited from life-changing cochlear implant technology. None of this remarkable story would have happened but for the vision, tenacity and perseverance of one man, the inventor of the cochlear implant, Professor Graeme Clark, who loved and believed in what he did, and who was driven by his own father’s experience with hearing impairment. ‘I had much criticism and was referred to as “that clown Clark”, ’ recalls Professor Clark. ‘But I was determined to persist and see it through, and I’m so pleased I did. I cannot imagine any technology that has had such a profound effect on transforming so many people’s lives.’ Over 12 years he and a team of dedicated health professionals worked on a solution. Just as funding was about to dry up, with investors showing signs of pulling the plug, a simple collision of events triggered the breakthrough they needed. Professor Clark was enjoying a much-deserved holiday at the beach, although his research was never far from his mind. He was playing with a sea shell (representing the human cochlea) and blades of grass (representing the electrode bundle he had concluded was needed to stimulate the auditory nerve in the hearing impaired), when it came to him. He bent the blade and inserted it into the sea shell. It was his eureka moment. The chance convergence of shell and grass gave Professor Clark his breakthrough, and the hearing impaired a priceless gift — the gift of hearing. Welcome to the new world of influence.

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The art of power play

In chapter 9 we demonstrate how focusing love on people — love bombing them with understanding and devotion — can create explosive results. Challenging — yes! Powerful — absolutely. You have to love that!

Humour power In the Herald Sun article ‘Grin and share it’, business culture expert Kyla Tustin notes that humour is an essential ingredient for positive organisational culture, in beating stress and increasing productivity. Tustin’s research indicates that people’s brains are 31 per cent more productive when they are in a positive state. ‘Playfulness helps us perform better’, she says. But who would have thought that humour was a powerful tool for influence? Even if you think you aren’t funny, or that it’s not appropriate for business, in chapter 10 we’ll show you how to bring humour into work (and it’s not about telling jokes) in ways that are authentic to your style and compelling for your audience, and that will give you unprecedented results.

Positioning power Often people set out to identify the influencers in their realm and then attempt to influence them. This is a robust way forward. But even better than trying to influence the influencers is becoming a mega influencer yourself. Position yourself in your organisation or industry as the expert who not only knows plenty but is known for having and sharing the knowledge.

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Power Play

In business, channeling influence by being a mega influencer translates through the power of positioning and profile. A mega influencer is someone who amplifies their thinking by sharing it with the world through speaking, writing, profiling and positioning. Seth Godin, Marie Floreo and Jonathan Fields exemplify the power of positioning, which is sometimes called thought leadership. In their book Sell Your Thoughts, authors Matt Church, Peter Cook and Scott Stein describe what thought leaders do: ‘Our wish for the world is that you get to make the contribution that you were born to make. That you get to make a difference to thousands or even millions of people … you leave the world better than you found it.’ Chapter 11 gives you the tools you need to become a mega influencer by building your positioning and profile inside and outside your organisation for prosperity, profit and competitive advantage. And to do so with authenticity, integrity and longevity.

Fierce power Can you influence not by doing what you do, but by being who you are? In a society that fetishises doing, it’s difficult to demonstrate that sometimes you can influence simply by being. Yet being who you are speaks volumes. It takes you back to your origins as a human being, rather than a human doing. Now it may sound contradictory to point out what every parent knows: that our greatest power as role models for our children rests not on what we say but on what we do, or the example we set. Here influencing by being starts to become more complicated. It also means you have to face your inner demons, which in turn means you must ask yourself, ‘Is being who I am enough?’ For most of us, just being who we are drives all our insecurities to the surface. Are we enough?

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The art of power play

Who you are is the mother lode of all influence. It is about fully owning and living your whole identity. Fiercely being you. The foundation for this inner fierceness is your values. Building on a foundation of values creates robustness and sustainability. You express your values, creating congruence and connection through your behaviours. But owning who you are takes both courage and humility. You want to do this elegantly … and for results. When American actor Robin Williams died, tributes poured in from around the world. Among them was the following anecdote. Studio hands, occupying the lowest rank in the Hollywood pecking order, often get to see the true colours of the celebrities they encounter. On one occasion they were surveyed on who was the easiest star to work with and who was the hardest. Without exception they nominated Robin Williams as the easiest. He always made an effort to learn their names and to ask them about their day. How can you fearlessly express who you are? Chapter 12 shares how you can channel fierce power through values, words and behaviour that make you a powerful role model.

Co-creation power What would it look like if, instead of manoeuvring to influence those around you, you started to influence what the future might look like? What if you were to work shoulder-to-shoulder to shape and create this new future? This is the power of cocreation. Co-creation harnesses your and your colleagues’ capabilities and possibilities. Imagine what you could create together? At its core, co-creation recognises that embracing greatness not only is possible but should absorb you every day as you live out

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Power Play

the truth that you can build something that is greater than the sum of its parts. Co-creation means elevating yourself and your associates, family and friends through focus and effort. It means embracing what people most want from work, which is meaning, purpose and recognition rather than money, status and other more obvious rewards. Co-creation creates power play — that moment when your influence takes that quantum leap forward. At the same time you need to avoid the Pollyanna trap, believing co-creation can in itself resolve all issues. What if your interests are mutually exclusive to others? Co-creation happens when the two circles of your and your chosen collaborators’ desires intersect. Melbourne has a group of restaurants called Lentil as Anything (you just have to love that name). Founder Shanka Fernando believes that food is about community and trust, so the whole restaurant experience is co-created by the chefs, the waiting staff and the customers. The customers pay what they think the meal is worth. The joy, and the success of the Lentil as Anything co-creation model, is that all parties in the equation receive what they most value. Chapter 13 unlocks the secrets of co-creation to build a shared future, a future that represents a win for everyone.

Cause leadership ‘We don’t ask you for free iPhones,’ artist and pop star Taylor Swift wrote to tech giant Apple in an open letter titled ‘To Apple, Love Taylor’.

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The art of power play

‘Please don’t ask us to provide you with our music for no compensation.’ Taylor was publicly protesting the new music streaming service that Apple had launched with a three-month free trial during which artists would receive no compensation. In a beautifully crafted letter, Taylor acknowledges her respect for Apple, but not on this call. Most importantly, she made her stand on behalf of young and new artists who could not afford the luxury of going unpaid for three months. In an instant Taylor Swift became a cause leader. Less than a day after her public criticism the company reversed its decision. Cause leadership is purposeful, giving people a reason to care and a way to get involved. It can centre on a one-off concern like Taylor Swift’s, or represent a lifetime’s dedication, such as the work of Indian activist Ela Bhatt, a Gandhian labour organiser who in 1971 founded the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) to protect textile workers. Today Bhatt is a member of The Elders, a group convened by Nelson Mandela and made up of veteran leaders, organisers and human rights activists who contribute their wisdom, integrity and leadership to tackling some of the world’s biggest challenges. Chapter 14 shares how you can tap into people’s heads and hearts, rallying them around a call to action for a cause. Cause leadership is a call to arms not just around any cause, but around a cause that makes the world a better place. Cause leadership recognises that a brighter future is possible, no matter how grim the current situation, and that it is people who make the difference.

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Power Play

It’s not easy or even necessary to turn everything into an opportunity for cause leadership. But if you are a power player seeking to create an impact that really touches people, in your world and the wider world, you will find you can achieve your greatest influence as a cause leader. ∗∗∗ During our helicopter tour we have hovered over each mode to get the lay of the land. In the chapters that follow we are going to touch down and explore each mode in more detail.

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Part II

How (so far) and the new how In Part I we touched on a truckload of ideas and tools relating to influence. In Part II we will investigate the world of influence strategy by strategy so you can become the expert. In his analysis of the history of television, Adrian Martin, Associate Professor of Film and Culture at Melbourne’s Monash University, breaks it down into three ‘ages’, Paleo TV, Neo TV and Post TV. Traditional TV viewing, where the broadcasters set the schedule and incorporate paid advertising, Martin terms ‘Paleo TV’. The cable revolution opened up a Pandora’s box of choice in terms of content and viewers could record and view shows to suit their needs and life style. This Martin labels ‘Neo TV’. Martin states ‘Post TV refers to the contemporary digital media landscape where streams of content are managed, and time shifted and controlled to meet customer desire. Of course today all three forms of TV continue to coexist. In the TV landscape, nothing new completely replaces the old.’ Borrowing this metaphor for your journey through the influence landscape, think of hard power (chapter 3) as comparable to paleo TV; and soft power and story power (chapters 4–5) as neo TV. But the greatest, most exciting rewards for leaders are to be found in the ‘new how’: context power, empathy power, message power, love power, humour power, positioning power, fierce power, the power of co-creation and cause leadership (chapters 6–14). Think of these as equivalents to post TV. And where they can take you and your organisation . . . well, the mind boggles. So buckle up for a wild ride!

Hard power at a glance ■■

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Hard power is influence based on fear. It relies on coercion, command and control, yell and tell, reward and punishment, and control of information. Its main focus is on results. Bureaucratic hierarchies and reporting structures are typical expressions of hard power. Symbols of status and prestige are others. Hard power is tough on leaders because it demands they know all the answers, are always right and never make mistakes. Hard power’s influence tends to last only temporarily. It discourages discretionary effort, innovation and creativity. The internet age has undermined hard power’s reliance on control of information and helped pave the way for more inclusive modes of influence. Machiavelli is a famous historical advocate of hard power based on fear and control of information. The police and defence forces are bastions of hard power. Focus

Impact

Outcomes

Temporary

Attitude

Action

Fear

Coercion

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Chapter 3

Hard power … ouch, that hurts! Hard power is about coercion, command and control, yell and tell. It is also the carrot-and-stick approach, rewarding good behaviour and punishing bad. Every society needs to impose some level of hard power. Our police and defence forces, for example, are bastions of hard power that are tasked with keeping our streets and country safe. Our world is replete with institutions, edifices and symbols that support the exercise of hard power. One of Australia’s biggest companies has recently custom-built a 6-star green energy–rated headquarters in Melbourne’s CBD. The foyer is an example of pure hard power on display. The scale is colossal. Acres of glass and steel immediately dwarf you as you climb a towering set of marble steps. A vast, cold, echoing space channels you towards Reception. If you’re not yet sufficiently intimidated, the reception area is set up for maximum security with physical barriers and commanding signs. All these expressions of power signal clearly and unsubtly where the control lies, and it’s not with you. The corner office, organisational charts and reporting hierarchies are all hard power at work.

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When did our love affair with hard power begin? We’ve already met Machiavelli, that doyen of hard power, but the tools he championed were shaped by a very specific historical and cultural context. In more recent history, the command and control mindset reemerged in a different form following the industrial revolution. Frederick Taylor’s pioneering work in industrial settings in the late 19th century spawned Taylorism, or scientific management, which paved the way for a range of efficiency measures that governed much manufacturing output through the 20th century. Taylor saw it as the task of factory management to determine the best, most efficient way for workers to do the job, to provide the proper tools and training, and to deliver incentives for good performance. He broke down each job into its individual components, analysed them to determine their relative importance and priority, and timed workers and processes with a stopwatch. Taylorism saw skilled managers and technicians overseeing semi-skilled or unskilled workers engaged in simple, repetitive chores. Inspired by Taylor’s scientific management theory, Henry Ford revolutionised the American automobile industry in the years leading up to the First World War by introducing a system of mass production that saw further division and control of labour while offering workers greater financial reward. English writer Aldous Huxley’s chilling futuristic novel Brave New World was published in 1932. In it he portrayed these trends towards economic standardisation and conformity as serious threats to the freedoms associated with individualism and emotional expression. Charlie Chaplin, who had experience of the automobile industry, showed in his film Modern Times (1936) how the soul-destroying monotony of assembly-line work drove workers insane. 28

Hard power … ouch, that hurts!

Hard power and incentives These performance metaphors referenced machines. Machines were obedient, uncomplaining, untiring, but also unimaginative. But the machine metaphor doesn’t work for humans, who are not programmed to be identical. We are all individuals, who respond to stimuli across a broad spectrum of emotions, from fear to love to incentives and rewards for good work. In the end, unlike machines, we’re also unpredictable. The carrot-and-stick approach, or incentivising desired behaviour through reward and (the threat of) punishment, is another unreliable form of hard power. Poorly designed incentive schemes can produce unintended consequences. In one famous story, the colonial authorities in British India, concerned about the numbers of venomous snakes in Delhi, offered a financial reward for dead cobras. Entrepreneurial natives quickly recognised a business opportunity and started a breeding program that saw ever larger numbers of cobras produced to claim the reward. Here was a classic case of a solution that only exacerbates the problem. Behavioural economists identify three kinds of incentives: ■■

■■

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financial or physical rewards, through which money, goods or services, or rebates induce you to adopt or desist from certain behaviours social incentives, which make you feel liked, respected or appreciated moral incentives, which appeal to your shared or community sense of right and wrong.

In their 2005 bestseller, Freakonomics: A rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything, Stephen Levitt and Stephen Dubner cite an experiment involving fees charged to parents who arrive late to pick up their children at day care. Researchers had conducted a 20-week disincentive experiment

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at 10 day-care centres in Israel, penalising unpunctual parents financially for their behaviour. ‘What they find is, if you charge a small penalty — $3 a day for coming late to day care — more parents come late, not fewer,’ Levitt notes. ‘You start with a situation where there’s no charge for coming late; there’s only a social or moral penalty associated with knowing you made the day-care providers wait longer with your children. But once you put a dollar value on it, the financial side actually crowds out the social and the moral side of it and makes the problem worse, so it’s very difficult indeed to combine the three types of incentives.’ Dan Pink’s research, as recounted in his business blockbuster Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us, reached similar conclusions. Pink believes the carrot-and-stick approach worked well in the early 20th century for tasks that were typically routine, unchallenging and highly controlled. But these industrial age tools fail to motivate people today who are driven by autonomy, mastery and purpose.

Hard power in a knowledge economy Traditionally hard power has relied on an unequal balance of power and on the control of information and knowledge by a few people (as in 16th-century Italy and, especially before the invention of the printing press and popular literacy, the Church). Today’s global communications networks and information technologies have turned this paradigm upside down. Fear, intimidation and bullying haven’t gone away by any means. Alain de Botton recognises this in his TED talk ‘A kinder, gentler philosophy of success’: ‘The nightmare thought is that frightening people is the best way to get work out of them, and that somehow the crueler the environment,  the more people will rise to the challenge.’

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Hard power … ouch, that hurts!

But the transparency produced by digital technology has significantly undermined power modes based on the monopoly of information, exposing such a strategy’s moral deficit and creating a shift towards more inclusive leadership styles. In the new information era, anyone with an internet connection can access knowledge. Not only can you source information quickly, economically and accurately, but you can also contribute to it and (usually) freely share your opinions online. Many websites are dedicated to encouraging employees and customers to post reviews on companies. Airbnb encourages both travellers and hosts to post reviews. If you stay in Airbnb accommodation you can post a review and rate your stay, but your host can also post a review on you — on what type of guest you are. In her ground-breaking book What’s Mine Is Yours, Rachel Botsman says companies such as Airbnb, Taskrabbit and Uber are transforming the traditional landscape of business and society. While the currency of hard power is fear, Botsman argues the currency of this new economy is trust.

Hard power is tough on leaders Hard power is tough on leaders too, because it makes three exacting demands on them. They must: ■■

always know the answer

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always be right

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never make a mistake.

This is an unsustainable trifecta. The use of hard power creates an environment in which people do the right thing, or what is expected of them, as long as a figure of authority stands over them. The cost of supervision is high for both supervisor and supervised. It suppresses or even kills creativity and innovation, and discourages or destroys discretionary effort. Yet so often it is the discretionary effort by employees — going that extra

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mile — that makes all the difference to the bottom line of an organisation. Excessive hard power can result in fear and bullying, sometimes with tragic consequences. In October 2015 journalists in Melbourne reported on how the dysfunctional culture in a regional hospital in Victoria, coupled with failures of an antiquated system, may have resulted in a spate of infant deaths in 2013. Staff who sought redress from the unions were labelled as troublemakers, nurses were strongly discouraged from reporting clinical risks, full-time staff were denied promotions and part-time staff were refused additional shifts. In a statement Lisa Fitzpatrick, the Victorian secretary of the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation, said, ‘It was a real culture of fear and intimidation, rather than one that was supportive of a learning environment’. At the time of writing, this tragedy was still being investigated by both the regulator and the health department. Sadly, any lessons learned will come too late for the parents involved. For most of us our roles do not revolve around decisions of life and death, but we may still be tempted to use hard power inappropriately.

Limitations of hard power Like it or not, we are all to varying degrees driven by ego. A little autocrat within still tempts you to tell your neighbour exactly what to do. Wouldn’t that make your life so easy? But what if the shoe was on the other foot? Do you like being instructed, commanded, ordered about? I often ask groups this question: ‘On a show of hands, how many of you like being told what to do?’ No hands ever go up. I then ask another question: ‘How many of you, no matter what I or anyone else tells you, like to do your own thing?’ Most hands go up. In business, some situations favour the application of hard power, even demand it. When an emergency calls for immediate

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Hard power … ouch, that hurts!

or urgent action, hard power is the right tool for the context. But mostly hard power offers limited results, because of the following restrictions. One of the more serious potential consequences of applied hard power is outright rebellion. David Sinclair has experience of this. Sinclair, an Australian-born and -educated molecular biologist, is a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School. In 2014 Time magazine included him on its list of the world’s 100 most influential people. He made the list because he has discovered a way to rejuvenate human cells. You read that right. He has come across something approaching the proverbial fountain of youth. In scientific terms this discovery is monumental. But in a TV interview he contrasted working in collaborative teams with the challenges of parenthood. ‘While it is an honour to be on the [Time] list, frankly I can’t get my kids to pick their stuff up off the bedroom floor.’ He is one the world’s most influential people, yet he still faces rebellion from his children when exercising even a mild form of hard power. Exponents of hard power also have to deal with grudging compliance or even sabotage: people say ‘yes’ but do ‘no’. In other words, they undermine initiatives while appearing cooperative. Don Argus, an Australian corporate titan and financial visionary, says banking involves getting three components right: people, technology and risk. He is right to place people at the top of the list, because they make or break everything that follows. Hard power doesn’t work on all people across the human spectrum and can damage your chances of success. Hard power means you’ll always be pushing uphill in terms of influence. With influence, you want people who turn up to turn on, and hard power can unintentionally but effectively turn them off. 33

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Hard power is dumb power, it’s grunt and muscle. Power players are too smart to be lured by the short-term results of hard power on their influence journey. Use hard power at work sparingly and for the right reasons, such as where you and your people follow rules around critical operations or issues. In an emergency, for example, there should be zero tolerance where lives or safety could be endangered. Table 3.1 summarises when and why hard power is used, and when it should not be relied on. Table 3.1: when hard power is used … and when it should be avoided Hard power is used …

Never use hard power …

when you need people to follow rules exactly (for example, in health and safety)

to foster innovation

in an emergency

to increase discretionary effort (getting people to do more than the bare minimum)

in carrot-and-stick incentives

when you want the best from people

to increase fear, intimidation, bullying

for a healthy, productive, high-performance workplace

In most other contexts, hard power comes up against its biggest barrier — people. If you work with people, lead people or have people as clients, take particular care to keep the use of hard power to a minimum. Simply stated, hard power hurts — it hurts you, other people and your chances of success. Power players understand this and seldom reach for hard power as an influence tool. Hard power is a hammer — use it only for nails. Soft power, as the following chapter will show, is both smarter and stronger.

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Hard power … ouch, that hurts!

Power play tip to start fast and smart Hard power limit: 1 in 10 If you use hard power more than 10 per cent of the time, STOP! Work on your self-awareness so you know what trips your fuse and why you turn ugly when you know it doesn’t work. If you have to use hard power (in specific contexts such as an emergency or when a process has to be followed exactly), transition smoothly by telling people what is happening: ‘This is an emergency, so I have to go into command and control mode.’ If the problem persists or recurs, seek help.

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Soft power at a glance ■■

■■

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Soft power is influence based on trust, with its main focus on relationships. It uses attraction, connection and persuasion rather than coercion to create influence. Soft power is ‘smart power’ because it recognises that people make the difference between success and failure. It is strong power without the sharp edges. But soft power is also slow, subtle and hard to do well, and some leaders fear that it will make them appear weak. At the final of the 1995 Rugby World Cup in Johannesburg Nelson Mandela walked onto the pitch to a rapturous welcome. He wore a Springboks jersey (a potent symbol of white South Africa) and raised his fist in a symbol of black liberation, and in that one soft power gesture united black and white South Africans. Focus

Attitude

Cooperation

Consult

Impact

Action

Relational

Collaboration

36

Chapter 4

Soft power …  take it slowly In the 1990s, along with high-waisted ripped jeans, the Spice Girls (remember them?) and The Simpsons, we discovered soft power. The term soft power comes to us from the work of Harvard business professor Joseph Nye. Nye saw soft power as the use of co-option and attraction, rather than force, to influence. The theory was first applied to international relations, where hard power is represented by the military and soft power relates to trade, diplomatic negotiation and building friendly relations. Soft power influences through persuasion rather than coercion. In organisations it involves connection, cooperation, consultation and collaboration. Soft power ignites desire. In our personal lives it is about love, peace, and physical and emotional connectedness. You never want to go through a day without soft power at work and at home.

An awww moment Recently I flew to Auckland from Melbourne. The flight had already been delayed and boarding was slow. Finally we had all settled in, when a flight attendant approached a man sitting in my row who had an empty seat beside him. She said, ‘Sir, would you mind moving to another seat at the back, also a middle seat?’

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He looked at her, amazed. He was in his allocated seat, had stowed away his baggage, settled in, organised his entertainment settings, and now she was asking him to move. Could life be any more irritating? She quickly added, ‘We have a couple on their honeymoon who are sitting apart, but if you moved into one of their seats, they could move here and sit together’. Everyone around him sighed, ‘Awww’. He got up with a smile and a shrug of his shoulders and moved to the other seat. Soft power can sometimes be as simple as giving people a reason why. In his bestseller Start with Why: How great leaders inspire everyone to take action, Simon Sinek presents a compelling case for what separates great leaders. They all start with why, not how or what. In Hollywood terms, soft power is like Marilyn Monroe. Not that it is purely feminine, but it is beautiful, seductive and slow. Hard power is more like Arnold Schwarzenegger. If hard power is about action and threat, soft power is about desire. If hard power is push, then soft power is pull.

Sometimes only soft power will do On 31 October 2000 Singapore Airlines, one of the world’s largest and most respected carriers, recorded its first and only fatal plane crash. The catastrophe killed 83 people. Singapore was traumatised. The airline staged a press conference, with the families and friends of the deceased invited. The press conference was beamed live around Singapore and everyone stopped what they were doing to watch. Rick Clements, vice president of public affairs, took the lectern. He was deeply apologetic and extended his sincerest condolences to the victims’ families. He promised that the airline would analyse every element and process of the flight to ensure that such a disaster would never occur again.

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In the audience, a man who had lost his brother in the crash began hurling abuse at Clements. Two security staff moved in quickly to remove him. Clements quickly stepped away from the lectern, waved the security guards aside and walked over to the man, who was now sobbing openly. You could have heard a pin drop. Clements stood in front of the man with his hands open. And then he reached out and embraced him. That embrace, that moment of soft power, reduced people in the room, including hardened journalists, to tears. It was the tipping point, when Rick Clements persuaded not just the people in the room, but an entire nation and an international audience, that they could all move forward together. General Wesley Clark, a highly decorated US soldier and veteran of more than 30 years and a Rhodes scholar, was once challenged about hard power. Why would the US military, the epitome of hard power, dabble in soft power? General Clark wisely replied, ‘Because soft power gives you influence, far beyond the edges of hard power’.

Experiences with soft power
 I grew up in Mumbai. Mumbai is a city on steroids, an urban jungle, astonishingly busy, moving at a manic pace and marked by an entrepreneurial ferocity. Mumbai worships commerce, and I worship Mumbai. Mumbai trains are packed to the ceilings, human sardine cans. They have no doors. If you run for the train, hands will reach out to help you aboard. Soft power, in one of the hardest cities on earth, where strangers reach out to help each other. Some leaders, such as Mother Teresa, understand soft power intuitively. She is paraphrased as saying, ‘I was once asked why I don’t participate in anti-war demonstrations. I said that I will never do that, but as soon as you have a pro-peace rally, I’ll be there’.

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Peace is one of the most potent symbols of soft power. One of the most beautiful monuments on earth, and one of the Seven Wonders of the World, the Taj Mahal, was inspired by the strongest, the most potent power we know. At the same time, it’s the softest power we can bring to bear, a power that no amount of money can buy. It’s the power of love. More wars have been fought over it, more poems, songs, screenplays and books have been written on it than on any other subject. A Google search on the word love reveals more than 1.6 trillion results. Love is so important for us as power players that chapter 9 is dedicated to it. Martin Luther King, Jr said, ‘Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that’. Love seems scarce in North Korea right now. Since March 2014 all male university students have been required by law to have their hair cut in the same style as supreme leader Kim Jong-un. So a dictator subjects hair, a symbol of the soft power of beauty and attraction, to the hard power of military conformity and compliance. Hair, food and culture are all symbols of soft power, as are the power of touch, peace and love. Money may make the world go round in the world of Cabaret, but it is soft power that makes the world go round in our lives. You never want to be without soft power. At work it’s connecting, consulting, collaborating; at home it’s a hug, a helping hand, love. Softness isn’t weakness; it’s strong power without the sharp edges.

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Soft power to influence Walking my dog along a public footpath in Melbourne, I came across this sign: ‘Dog guardians, please pick up after your dogs. Thank you. Attention dogs, grrr, bark, woof. Good dog!’ You know there is hard power behind this message — the threat of fines and prosecutions to enforce community standards of behaviour. The people who crafted this sign are trying to influence our behaviour with soft power, appealing to our better selves, our empathy and sense of humour. Who wouldn’t want them to succeed? In business, you probably think logic informs people. Sometimes it does, but not always. You also probably expect people to change their behaviour based on logic. When they don’t, do you become frustrated? If logic fully governed the way you behaved, you would always obey speed limits, eat healthily and exercise properly every day. You would give up smoking and do only what was of clear benefit to you and your community. Reality tells you otherwise. As a businessperson, you make daily choices through your communications. Are you trying only to inform — to lay out facts impartially so the recipient can reach an unbiased decision? Or are you trying to influence behaviour and encourage action, choices or thinking that directly benefit you as well as the target of your influence? If the latter, then your next choice is to decide how soft power can work for you.

Soft power, slooow results Soft power makes the world go round, but soft power is also slow power. If hard power is a microwave, soft power is a slow cooker. It takes time to percolate through collaboration, consultation and connection. It takes meetings, meetings and more meetings.

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Effective influence gets people who turn up to turn on. Hard power in the end turns them off, while soft power turns them on, but slooowly. Soft power is hard to do well. Trust and respect are prerequisites. It also depends on reciprocity, with the other person responding fully and positively to your approach. I work with leaders attempting to make the switch from hard power to soft power. One of them, who has spent a lifetime in the trenches with hard power, once said to me, ‘Making the switch to soft power is like turning a nun into an exotic dancer!’. If hard power is a fist, soft power is a fingertip. Because it’s subtle, soft power can also sometimes be misunderstood or miss the mark. We have met Shanaka Fernando, the inspiring founder of Melbourne’s Lentil as Anything restaurants, which are built on the soft power of trust. In his Melbourne 2012 TEDx talk Fernando shared his story. A Buddhist, Shanaka had been looking for enlightenment in his adopted city of Melbourne, Australia. When his Buddhist teacher instructed him to live in a tent, he left home and set up his tent on the foreshore of St Kilda, one of Melbourne’s busiest and most popular beach suburbs. Inevitably he ran foul of the police and council officials. After a few weeks he called his Buddhist teacher and shared the frustrations of his journey towards enlightenment through tent life. His Buddhist teacher replied, ‘You silly man … I never said live in a tent, I said live with intent!’ Leaders worry that using soft power may make them appear weak or vulnerable. Hard power can bring you results, but it can also hurt your chances of long-term success. Soft power makes you and the world revolve, but it is slow, subtle and sometimes hard to do well.

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Could there be something beyond hard and soft power that would work for your context as your situations change? In the next chapter we will explore story power.

Power play tip to start fast and smart Soft power: I need to get better, fast We can all get better at soft power. Who does this well in your organisation? Study them and copy some of the things they do. Remember, imitation is the greatest form of flattery. Even better, invite them for a cup of coffee and pick their brains, and pay for their coffee — another soft power move! You don’t need to struggle with soft power on your own. Ask a mentor or a trusted adviser to give you feedback on your soft power style. Take it in openly and gratefully, and work on it actively and visibly. Remember, you asked for it. And, as the Maybelline ad says, you are worth it.

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Story power at a glance ■■

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Business storytelling is storytelling with a purpose and for results; it enables leaders to connect authentically and move people to action. To find the right story, start with the purpose (message) of the story, scan through personal experiences for a match, and consider your audience. Craft your story by writing it down. Keep it short and practise, practise, practise. Storytelling requires vulnerability and leaders worry about seeming unprofessional when using stories rather than sticking with the data. Steve Jobs is considered one of the best business storytellers. His biographer Walter Isaacson describes him as ‘a compelling storyteller with fascinating stories’. Focus

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Ripple

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Inspiration

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Chapter 5

Story power … inspire me We live in a world bloated with information yet starved of inspiration. We suffer from an inspiration famine. Yet all the research tells us that people crave authenticity and connection. Storytelling gives leaders and businesspeople the ability to connect authentically and to move people to action. Story power inspires your audience to both action and desire. Storytelling is an ancient yet also a contemporary tool that, if practised authentically and purposefully, can deliver powerful results. All religious belief systems, cultures and societies, past and present, use stories as a mode of influence. As humans, we are hardwired to tell stories and to listen to them.

Business storytelling I believe so much in storytelling as an influence tool that in 2005 I co-founded Australia’s first company to specialise in business storytelling. Business storytelling is storytelling with a purpose and for results. Here’s an example from one of my clients, James Lindsay of Accenture: A few years ago when I was living with my family in Canada, we had friends over one evening for a Thanksgiving dinner. It was a lovely evening, we had the fire going in the fireplace, lots of good food, red wine and conversations. After our friends left we cleaned up and went wearily to bed.

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At about 2 am I was woken by the smoke alarm going off. I sprang out off bed and went around the house carefully checking the fireplace, the basement, the whole house, but could find no evidence of any fire. The alarm eventually turned itself off and I went back to bed. But about 15 minutes later, the alarm went off again. I couldn’t believe it, and went through the whole process again, carefully checking the house from top to bottom, and there was no fire to be seen anywhere. I thought the alarm might be faulty and did not want to be disturbed again, so I turned it off completely. Later that night I was woken by a thick cloud of smoke and barely made it out of the house, with my wife and son. I even had to rush back in to get my dog. We were standing outside our house, which was engulfed in smoke, waiting for the fire engine when a huge flame erupted, exactly from in front of the fireplace. The fire engines arrived and put out the fire, and we found out that builders had been installing faulty fireplaces in new homes in our area to save money. I also found out later that my family and I had escaped the Grim Reaper by only a few minutes. In life we often get early warning signs that serve a purpose. If we took notice of these signs and did something, imagine the difference we could make.

You could use this story to influence and inspire a client to take action by quickly responding to early warning signs. Sometimes information alone isn’t enough to promote action, but a story combined with data will often persuade and inspire. Whether you want to influence your team or change the world, how do you find the right story to share? Try these three simple steps.

1. Think of a bumper sticker Start by looking at the purpose of your story.
What’s the single message behind your story? To achieve clarity, think of the message or idea as a bumper sticker. Bumper stickers force you to tackle just one message with your story. They make you prioritise and focus and distil what you’re trying to convey to its core. 46

Story power … inspire me

Is your message Step up or Fortune favours the brave? Writing your bumper sticker down helps you eliminate jargon. Jargon is the death knell of storytelling. We defy you to frame a personal story around ‘operational excellence’ or ‘optimising synergies’ or ‘leveraged synchronicity’. But it is possible to find stories around ‘giving the best you’ve got’ or ‘beating loneliness by working together’. To get your bumper sticker right, think of one thing that you want people to do differently. Is it to ‘ask questions’ or ‘share information’?. Your bumper stickers don’t have to be super sexy — we are not going to be selling them — nor do they have to be original! What they do have to do is give you crystal clarity on your purpose.

2. Scan your own life experiences Once you have bumper sticker clarity on your message, look through your experiences, both personal and professional, to see what fits this purpose. If your purpose is ‘Step up’, ask yourself, ‘When did I or someone I know step up and make something work?’ You'll be surprised how many experiences come flooding back. When your purpose is crystal clear, you’ll start to tune into events and issues happening around you that will work with your purpose. Once clients have their purpose in mind, I share a scene from Michael Jackson’s 2009 film, This is it. While Jackson’s team were working furiously on the music and lyrics, he approached them and said simply, ‘Let it simmer’. Don’t expect to find the perfect story for your purpose straight away. While your purpose and story idea simmer, go to step 3.

3. What does your audience want? Consider your audience and what will work for them. Once you have your bumper sticker purpose and have isolated the right experience, ask yourself, ‘Who is my audience and what do they like? What motivates them?’

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Darren Rowse, the founder of one of the world’s most successful blogging sites, problogger.net, has a razor-sharp understanding of his audience. He’ll paint a picture something like this: a thirty-something who lives in Melbourne, in the inner-city fringe suburb of Northcote, loves coffee and rides a fix-wheeled bicycle. He then writes with that person alone in mind. So you’ve decided on your bumper sticker purpose. You’ve captured the best story by sifting through your experiences and have selected the best fit for your audience. Now make sure it shines. Try these three tips: 1. Write it down. Most people ramble if they try to tell a story off the cuff. By writing it down, you can craft it, refine it and increase your clarity. Make sure you write as you speak so your story flows well and comes across as conversational, rather than as a prepared script. 2. Keep it short. In business, your stories should take between 30 seconds and two minutes maximum. Anything longer and you risk boring or losing your audience. 3. When you think you’ve practised enough, practise some more. Champion South African golfer Gary Player once said of his success, ‘The harder you work, the luckier you get’. The more you practise, the better your stories will be. It may feel awkward, but nothing beats practising aloud, whether it’s in the shower or in front of your family. It also helps to record your stories into your phone so you can play them back.

Personal stories are powerful Here’s an example of a story that pulls all these tips together. Bill Arconasti , formerly of major software developer Atlassian, shares it to demonstrate the power of the right story: A few years ago a friend and I went backpacking in the pristine wilderness of Denali National Park in Alaska. We bought every piece of equipment known to man to fight off grizzly bears, like pepper spray, bells, etc. Before we set

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Story power … inspire me

off, the rangers made us watch a video in which we were instructed to simply wave our arms in the air in the unlikely event we encountered a bear. My friend and I laughed so hard at the actors in the video and made fun of the idea that something so ridiculous would scare away a bear. The very next day we set off and had barely turned the corner when there right in front of us was a giant grizzly bear. My knees started knocking and my friend shouted, “Hand me the pepper spray!” And for some reason I replied, “No, just wave your arms in the air,” and we both did. To our shock the bear ambled off. When we returned we told the ranger about our encounter and he replied, “I’m so glad you didn’t use the pepper spray as that just makes the bears mad. Either that or you accidentally spray yourself!” I am sharing this with you because it reminds me of our daily choices with technology. Of course we can choose the “bells and whistles” version for our customers but sometimes, just like waving your arms can scare off a grown grizzly, all that is needed is the simple and effective version.

This story ticks all the right boxes: it’s engaging, funny and purposeful, and it marries story and message beautifully. It also shows how, even in business storytelling, personal stories are often the most powerful. But this is just the beginning. (Warning: the following is a blatant plug!) I co-authored an entire bestselling book on the power of storytelling, entitled Hooked: How leaders connect, engage and inspire using storytelling. Of course it’s the best book on the planet to show you how to do just that!

Power up your storytelling Once we have figured out our purpose (via a bumper sticker), panned through our experiences to find a story that will appeal to our audience, written it down, kept it short and then practiced it, where do we go next? All the steps and tips previously

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described are very much the price of entry for storytelling. These strategies will help you take your storytelling up a level.

Start strong With business storytelling we often see leaders do a preamble that, before launching into the story, gives away the ending or the purpose. This ‘faux beginning’, is the very antithesis of powerful storytelling. Steve Denning, the father of organisational storytelling, states that starting with time and place informs your audience that you are telling a story without you having to begin with, ‘Let me tell you a story …’ . For example, ‘Three years ago when I was working in London …’ or ‘Yesterday on the way to work …’ . Once you have played with this, you can subvert the rules and do a provocative beginning or even ask a rhetorical question. You could start by saying ‘What does it feel like to hit rock bottom? I remember when I was 18 …’ Beginnings are critical as this is where your audience will decide if they will lean in and listen. I recommend spending a suitable amount of time thinking, crafting and re-crafting your first sentence to ensure you start strong.

Seeking a segue Sometimes things can get in the way of us starting strong. Maybe we feel awkward or it feels too abrupt and we need some sort of launch pad. This is why leaders often clutch at faux beginnings such as ‘Before I begin let me tell you a story …’ or ‘I am going to tell you a story… ’. Why do I baulk at these segues? Because these faux story beginnings manage to both patronise and alienate your audience. It’s two for the price of one! Would

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you begin a factual statement by saying ‘Let me tell you a statement of fact?’ Highly unlikely. In a lot of contexts, what we need is a segue sentence that lets us smoothly launch into a story. A segue sentence acts as a launch pad for our stories and can be inserted into any conversation, avoiding the need for any clumsy, clunky or clichéd attempts to begin a story. Some suggested segues are ‘That reminds me of …’ or ‘To explain, let me share an example … ’. Former Chief Commissioner of Victoria Police Christine Nixon was a master at this. She would present complex strategy points in a Powerpoint presentation and then say, ‘To explain, let me share an example … ’, and launch into a story. Practice a few segues that fit with your natural style and find some that work for you.

Have fun There is unfortunately an earnestness that has seized the whole business storytelling world. The gravitas common in company announcements, meetings and presentations is now seeping into storytelling. With the exception of some stories that will merit a level of seriousness, the most important thing we can do is to have fun with storytelling. But as this instruction sounds like one of those pseudo positive psychology banalities such as ‘reach for the stars’ or ‘follow your passion’, let’s unpack how we can have fun with our storytelling. ■■

Share stories that you enjoy telling and that are meaningful to you. We once heard a CEO squirm his way through a story about his childhood. It was very uncomfortable for the audience and it later turned out that he had been persuaded to share the story by a well-meaning advisor.

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Harness conversational energy. Always pretend you are sharing the story with a friend over coffee, and use that energy both when you are crafting your stories and when you are in storytelling mode. Share stories your audience will enjoy, stories that are relevant to their world. While this might sound populistic, when your audience enjoys your stories, so will you. In storytelling it’s hard to have fun alone! When your audience laughs and relaxes into your story, you will too.

The power of everyday stories Storytelling is a skill you can learn. Stories have to be crafted and honed, tested and practised. I don’t suggest for a moment that sharing one story will gain you instant influence over all of your audience. No one story can do that, and no one deserves that level of influence. But as I have worked with clients, over and over again I have seen how a purposeful story, well crafted and shared with authenticity, creates a ripple effect of influence. What are the barriers that obstruct our storytelling? The first is ‘my story is not enough’ syndrome. When you ask for a story, many think it has to be spectacular — a hero’s journey, saving the world and slaying dragons along the way. Often our first exposure to inspiring storytelling is seeing a motivational speaker on stage. They usually recount an epic that involves scaling Mount Everest, sailing solo around the world, winning an Olympic gold medal, or some similar feat of courage and endurance.

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But in everyday leadership, everyday stories work better than Hollywood epics. Stories about shopping in your local supermarket, or a restaurant experience with friends, or an issue with your child at school. These common stories work because your audience relates to them. They can see themselves in the story. An epic story has your audience in passive, spectator mode. They enjoy the spectacle of your story, but they’re not involved in it.
An everyday story, on the other hand, engages your audience more directly. They invest in your story emotionally and relive their own experiences through yours. This leads to the next barrier in storytelling, the requirement that you, as the storyteller, acknowledge and display vulnerability. Vulnerability means self-disclosure and dealing with messy, unpredictable emotions. Storytelling also demands that you put something of yourself out there. Commendable as this is, it’s also difficult. For storytelling to work it has to be based on authenticity, otherwise it can degenerate into spin. Neil Gaiman is the author of the classic series of terror comic books from the 1990s, The Sandman. In Volume 9: The Kindly Ones, he writes: ‘Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn’t it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up’. The same can be said of storytelling, which requires a degree of self-disclosure and vulnerability that can be confronting both for you as a storyteller and for your audience. Why would you do it if the personal cost is so high?

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American sociologist, researcher and storyteller Brené Brown ponders whether stories are ‘data with a soul’. Her 2010 TED talk on vulnerability is itself a tour de force of storytelling, combining humour, honesty and occasionally breathtaking self-disclosure. It’s also the fourth most commented on TED talk in history. Brown is the author of a number of books, including the mustread Daring Greatly: How the courage to be vulnerable transforms the way we live, love, parent and lead. Some leaders find storytelling hard to do. Others design stories by committee, making them sound more like vision statements or corporate spin than authentic human connection. Storytelling done well can connect, engage and inspire your audience. But successful storytelling requires skill, authenticity and time to craft, road test and practise. In business, you can tell stories in writing or through social media, but they are most compelling when delivered face to face. In the next chapter we show you how you can magnify your influence by understanding the nuances of your context. By crowning it king you can make any context work in your favour.

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Power play tip to start fast and smart Collect your stories You’ll love this tip. Buy and use a notebook. It’s so easy to do, and if you have a stationery fetish like me, it will sing to your soul. If you don’t, set aside a few minutes of your day with your laptop or tablet using a program such as Evernote or OneNote. Collect a story every day for a month. This could be from the news, personal experience, observations, pop culture or a book you are reading, for example. Think about how you can use it as a story at work, in your personal life, and in your daily activities and interactions with others. Maintain a story lens. It’s almost as if you develop a third eye around stories. Make it a daily ritual. Then use the skills suggested in this chapter to craft and share your stories.

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Context power at a glance ■■

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Context power derives from understanding and harnessing the where, what, why and who of any situation. Power players use context to inform perspective, create personalisation and provide social proof. Context can be set up by one party for the purpose of control, or studied and adapted to with agility, or cocurated to transform outcomes. Context is as essential as oxygen: if we ignore it, misunderstand it or get it wrong our messages and influence will choke and die. Brought in as interim CEO of the New York Stock Exchange straight after a massive overcompensation scandal, John Reed (currently chairman at MIT and previously CEO of Citibank) used context power to win over popular opinion by accepting a $1 salary; he was then able to establish a new governance structure as NYSE became a public corporation. Focus

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Chapter 6

Context power …  I am king June 2014. An elderly man selling black-and-white prints in a pop-up stall in Central Park, New York, jostling cheek by jowl with other pop-up shops selling kitschy tourist souvenirs, artist prints, mugs and a mishmash of tourist memorabilia. His prints were a pricey $60 each, and he had just three sales that day, unlike neighbouring stalls, which did a roaring trade selling goods at a fraction of that price. Imagine the shock of New Yorkers when the next morning they discovered that these were no ordinary prints, but original art works by one of the world’s most famous if secretive and enigmatic street artists, Banksy. The next day Banksy provided provenance for the works through this statement on his website: ‘Yesterday, I set up a stall in the park selling a 100% signed Banksy painting at $60.’ It was part of a month-long campaign in which Banksy created street art in different spots in New York, sending locals and tourists into a frenzy. One stenciled spray painting bought for $60 was estimated by Bothams to be worth five figures. Even though New York was primed for Banksy, and experiencing Banksy fever, no one spotted his original art when it was sold for a tiny amount. Why? They were deluded by the context. Seeing an old man in a pop-up shop made them immediately dismiss the goods he was selling as bad art or possibly even fakes.

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An experiment in context Back in 2007 the Washington Post arranged for Joshua Bell, one of the world’s most celebrated violinists, to perform anonymously in a subway station in Washington, DC as an experiment in context and perception. In a Pulitzer Prize–winning article on the experiment, journalist Gene Weingarten writes, ‘He played masterpieces that have endured for centuries on their brilliance alone, soaring music befitting the grandeur of cathedrals and concert halls’. Preparing for the event, Post editors discussed how to deal with all imaginable scenarios. Surely people would recognise Bell. ‘Cameras would flash. More people flock to the scene; rushhour pedestrian traffic backs up; tempers flare; the National Guard is called; tear gas, rubber bullets, etc.’ As it turned out, only one person recognised Bell. The rest of the commuters swarmed past. Joshua Bell was ignored, and after playing for the whole day he earned just $40. ‘The following Tuesday,’ Weingarten writes, ‘Bell accepted the Avery Fisher prize, which recognized the Flop of L’Enfant Plaza as the best classical musician in America’. The Washington Post experiment demonstrated the power of context in shaping our perception and our ability to influence and be influenced. Away from the concert hall stage and the spotlight, Joshua Bell was just another busker. Original Banksy art works were dismissed as both worthless and expensive.

Context and content — which is king? Context is like oxygen: we live and breathe it; it regulates our lives. Without the oxygen of context, our content is doomed to die.

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Australian content marketing expert Kath Walters explains how we all love context. A contextual statement such as ‘Gina Reinhart is the richest woman in Australia’ or ‘cat movies are the most watched on YouTube’ is important because it creates a context for our brains when processing information. Power players understand the power of context and always treat it as king. The old way is to jump into content; the new way is first to study and understand context. Of course we can rise above our context. But for most of us, context defines our response to any given set of circumstances. StreetSmart Australia is a not-for-profit organisation that battles homelessness by raising awareness and funds. In 2003 StreetSmart launched a campaign asking diners at selected restaurants to leave a small donation with their bill. The campaign, DineSmart, runs in November and December each year. By nailing the context — at the end of a good meal, at the time of year when we feel most generous — DineSmart has helped raise more than $3.15 million for the cause. The campaign has had a hugely successful history and is still running. And it owes a measure of its success to the fact that the campaign brains understood the importance of context for success. Context is the what, why, where and who of any situation, and disproportionately influences our responses. Context shapes our interactions, our ability to influence and our capacity to be influenced. Recently the National Gallery of Victoria mounted an exhibition titled Follow the Flag: Australian Artists at War 1914–45. One of the themes was trench art, which showcased the art created by soldiers out of salvaged artillery shell cases and other battlefield detritus. The exhibition also featured a knife with the handle made from bullets and a belt with a buckle made from a shell case. One ink drawing by Colin Colahan, titled The Souvenir

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Hunter (1918), shows a soldier dashing out onto the battlefield in pursuit of a live shell that roars overhead. The caption reads, ‘I haven’t got a nose-cap off one of those big shells’. The catalogue describes trench art as both powerful and poignant because of its context — soldiers in the throes of war passing the anxious hours of waiting between attacks by conjuring up art out of the prosaic. It speaks volumes about their experience, their creativity and their ingenuity.

The anatomy of context In the anatomy of context model (illustrated in figure 6.1), we start by examining what context means, the first question that any understanding of context must answer. Figure 6.1: the anatomy of context model

I recently sat on a Melbourne tram opposite a man who was shouting angrily and gesticulating wildly. In most contexts this would have felt threatening, if not terrifying. But the fact that he was creating the uproar on his mobile phone changed the context (the what, why, who and where) for his fellow passengers. Still unpleasant, but not threatening.

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What and who … perspective and personalisation The what and who of context create perspective and allow personalisation. Perspective is how things appear. Addressing the what allows you to create the right perspective for your audience, or to invite them to share your perspective. It’s why people say ‘Let’s put things into perspective’. Perspective is a point of view. It can be both subjective (‘my perspective on this is …’) or objective (‘let’s get some perspective on this’). Perspective (point of view) and perception (how things appear to me) are two sides of the same coin. Perspective and perception are important filters. That is why in ink blot personality tests a blot can resemble a spider to one person and a flower to another. I’m a runner, but on a recent Saturday run I felt despondent. There I was, far behind the rest of my group, running alone. As humans, we hate being seen to perform poorly, especially in public. My mood darkened and at one point I wondered if I should give running away. It had been a year and I felt I wasn’t making much progress. My thoughts started to spiral into despair. At that moment my friend ran back to me so I confessed how I was feeling. She said to just remember that a year ago I wasn’t running at all and that now I can easily do 10 kilometres. Her words immediately gave me a different perspective, a different point of view. Think of a context at work or in your personal life and start by addressing the what. What perspective would most people have in this context? What perspective (point of view) would you like them to have? As an influencer you can further shape perspective (point of view) and perception (how things appear to me) through simple

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tools. For example, research has shown that in most contexts people defer to figures of authority and people in uniform. When it comes to taking instructions in an emergency, people respond best to men in suits. The National Gallery of Victoria security staff have traded in their traditional guard uniforms for Armani suits. The gallery understood how important the image of authority and respect was for patrons and staff alike. A police or nurse’s uniform, or a white coat and stethoscope, immediately shifts our perspective and informs our perception. In the Batman film The Dark Knight, Heath Ledger as the Joker subverts this perception by incongruously dressing in a nurse’s costume as he blows up the hospital behind him. At work, having the CEO launch the new flexible work program shapes people’s perspective that this is sanctioned from the top. In our model, next we think about the who in this context. Is it a work or business setting? Is it internal employees or external stakeholders? The who allows us to personalise our messages. Personalising allows us to create high-touch influence moments. Being high touch through personalisation in a low-touch/high-tech world will help you stand out as an influencer. So what is an example of high touch? The global decline in volume of letters sent by snail mail is accelerating. Yet we all know the power of a handwritten note, because it demonstrates thought, effort and care on the part of the writer in a very personal way. Compare that with the hundreds of low-touch emails you receive daily. My gym sends every member a handwritten birthday card. For some people it is possibly the only birthday card they receive as adults. Simple, yet powerful. A recent newspaper headline announced that Australia’s National Rugby League (NRL) referees would no longer wear pink. NRL officials believe that having them wear pink

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undermines the authority of the referees. No one can take a man in pink seriously. So referees this season will wear blue or red uniforms, colours that a National Centre for Australian Studies lecturer, Dr Tom Heenan, said were more likely to encourage discipline. In this context the who, the fact that we are dealing with usually male umpires in positions of authority in a macho sport, takes on added significance.

Why and where … and social proof The where in the model relates to the physical or non-physical space of the context. The environment in which we operate, and what is happening in our head space and lives — all contribute to the where of context. Most employers still believe the face-to-face interview is one of the, if not the, most crucial steps in the recruitment process. For them the where is crucial — usually in their own territory and in person. The why asks why this is important. Why should people care? The tool that helps us with both why and where is social proof. Humans are context-sensitive creatures, highly attuned to context cues. Often we take our cues on how to behave in unfamiliar contexts from those around us. The old adage ‘When in Rome, do as the Romans do’ goes some way to explaining why so many people wear business suits in the city and swimsuits at the beach. At some stage you have probably, and embarrassingly, misread the dress code for an event. It’s one reason why the ill-defined term ‘smart casual’ can cause so much angst. A former employer launched a smart casual Friday policy. (I concede that this was in the nineties, when we all emulated Silicon Valley however we could.) The company actually ran a fashion show to demonstrate to us what this new context demanded. Lots of chinos and tailored jeans and no thongs pretty much summed it up.

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You will often look for leads from people around you before taking action or making a purchase decision. The general heuristic rule is that if we see many others are doing it, it must be good — a persuasion principle that Robert Cialdini calls ‘social proof ’. We feel we are less likely to make mistakes if we follow the majority. This is both the weakness of social proof and its strength. It does provide a convenient shortcut in our time-poor and busy lives, but it can also leave us vulnerable to hucksters. On the other hand, when we set out to influence others, we don’t need complex models, mind-numbing data or thrilling explanations. The proof is not in the pudding but in the social proof! Simple social proof will work every time, which explains why marketers use statistics such as ‘nine out of ten people’ or ‘80 per cent of the population’. These stats are like flashing neon signs around social proof. If the context allows, social proof works well, but use it cautiously.

Masters of context One of my holiday jobs as a student in London was to count shoppers entering Harrods. Brandishing a clicker and a clipboard we operated in shifts in crack teams of two. It was mind-numbing work, but watching nearby street vendors fascinated us. There was one piece of theatre we particularly enjoyed. Every day two men would set up on the pavement nearby and display a range of perfumes, with one or two open bottles. They would cheerily spruik to passersby, announcing they were offering genuine goods cheap because they had ‘fallen off the back of a lorry’. They would quickly attract a couple of keen buyers, which would soon draw a crowd. The seductive bargains and enthusiastic buying (the power of social proof) did the rest.

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This performance took place a couple of times a day, so we soon noticed that the first two customers were always the same individuals. They would appear from the Underground, eagerly buy lots of perfume and disappear. Later, when the crowd had thinned, they would return discreetly and slip the perfumes back, ready to repeat the ruse all over again. The con worked every time. These con artists were masters of context. They understood their what, why, who and where, and set up a context that guaranteed them roaring sales. The perfume spruikers had rigged social proof, and it worked every time! Understanding the anatomy of context (what, who, where and why) allows us to define a perspective, create personalisation and provide social proof where necessary. Now you understand context, how can you set it up for success? How do you live the ‘context is king’ ethos?

Context is king The context is king model (see figure 6.2, overleaf) shows us three worlds — the old perfect, the imperfect and the new perfect — and juxtaposes these with the three dimensions of progress: before, during and the results. In the old perfect, one party sets up context (think of exams or an interview). The smooth running of your life depends on pre-set contexts, so when you walk into a bank or a parking lot or a supermarket you know what to expect. A set-up model can be rigid and contrived. How tedious is it when supermarkets position milk and bread at the furthest corners of the store, forcing you to wander the aisles first? You’ve probably met employment candidates who nail the interview but then perform poorly on the job. They are masters of the interview context, but not necessarily of the work they are expected to do.

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Setting up context — for example, choosing to hold your team meeting in the boardroom instead of in the breakout area or the canteen — sends powerful signals. It can give you a semblance of control, but it trades this for a more authentic interaction. Figure 6.2: the context is king model

A few years ago we did some work with a large financial company. They used to hold regular town hall–style meetings with more than 400 team members in a cavernous auditorium. The chief financial officer found that while everyone listened silently they never had any questions. She could sense a lack of focus or engagement. It was a tired context, so she decided to try something different. At the next meeting she changed the context. She invited smaller teams of employees into a room with café-style seating. No stage, no microphone. She and her executive team involved employees in the presentations and the conversation. They also changed the meeting structure to foster more interaction, with table discussions and question time.

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This change in context set up the presentation and messages for success. The silent mass, anonymous in the dark auditorium, was suddenly transformed into contributing, engaged and excited individuals. The CFO gave up some level of control, but traded that for positive engagement. In the context is king model the ‘old perfect’ means setting up the context. This can be contrived and rigid, and the result is control. But, as in the example shared above, it may not be the outcome you seek. The next level in the model, the ‘current imperfect’, requires us to research contexts, and then adapt to them with agility or try to mould them to suit our needs. There is an ancient proverb that says, ‘A wise man is able to adapt to the surprises of life as water to the decanter it is poured in’.

Research, be agile, adapt What do you do when you’re presented with a new or different context? You might be part of a pitch team invited into a client’s or prospect’s office, or on the executive team presenting to shareholders at the annual general meeting in an external environment, or a guest speaker in a webinar. The first step is to research the context and know what to expect. Never walk into a situation unprepared, because that can drastically affect your performance and results. While this may sound obvious, it is a surprisingly common mistake and can really separate the pros from the amateurs. If you are presented with an unexpected context, try to adapt it to suit your needs or use your agility to respond to it. Team members under one senior leader we worked with told us he’d delivered his whole presentation to them with his back

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to a window. The streaming light backlit his head like a halo but cast his face into deep shadow. No one suggested he move. Another senior leader was invited to speak at an industry conference where all the guest speakers used the lectern and he felt obliged to fall into line. Unable to move about and use his hands in his normally personable and animated style, he ended up feeling disconnected from the audience. When asked afterwards why he hadn’t requested a lapel mike, he said he hadn’t thought of it. Both research and adapting the context to work in your favour, rather than against you, can determine the impact and influence you will have. I was a guest speaker at an event in June 2014 at NAB Village, a meeting venue one of Australia’s top banks makes available for customers and conferences. The speaker before me used the lapel mike, but despite the sound checks we had run before the event, his voice was distorted and barely audible. When my turn came, I asked the audience for a show of hands from people who thought the sound quality was poor. It’s not something I normally do, but lot of hands went up. So I decided I would discard the mike. Making a joke of it, I projected my voice and said, ‘You don’t grow up in a country of over a billion people without learning to be LOUD. Can everyone at the back hear me? If not, please move forward’. Later, during the Q&A and feedback session, I was surprised by the number of comments on how altering the context in this way had changed the experience for the listeners.

The new perfect — co-curate, level up, transform The final option in the context model is to co-curate the context with your audience. This can be engaging and powerful. It requires courage to step up to this level, but the results will amaze you.

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Perhaps you have grown up with art galleries where ‘Do not touch’ is the norm. Installation and performance artists today often invite the audience to participate and co-curate the experience. Belgian artist Carsten Höller is a master of these techniques. Driven by his interest in human perception and play, he often invites adults and children alike to participate in artworks based on rides, a unique experience or viewing the world from a new angle. Some of these experiences can be disorienting. Giant Psycho Tank (2000), for example, invites visitors to float weightlessly in a sensory-deprivation pool. Upside Down Glasses (2001) flip your vision of the world on its head when you wear them. Co-curation is fine in the art world, you may be thinking, but how can it work in business? Spanish shoemaker Camper made headlines in San Francisco when the company opened its unfinished store to customers, calling it ‘Walk in Progress’. Camper invited customers to draw on the unpainted walls, and shoes were displayed on top of packaging containers. Customers loved it. The most popular message written on the walls was, ‘Keep the store just the way it is’. Camper has now adopted this experimental approach as part of its philosophy and opens stores in two stages. In the first stage, the ‘Walk in Progress’, customers are invited to contribute their thoughts and messages. The finished store then takes on the unique characteristics of its neighbourhood, as shaped by its customers. In this way, Camper co-creates and co-curates with its customers to shape their current and future shopping context. You may find just reading about these ideas hair raising. What about issues of health and safety, and legal liability? Co-curation takes courage, but it rewards us with a whole new level in the game of business. Co-creation can transform our ability to

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influence, and our results. It is so important that we dedicate a whole chapter (chapter 13) to it. I was recently listening to a pop quiz on the radio on my way to work. Every correct answer scored the contestant money. He had to beat the clock of course, and he stumbled and fumbled and the clock struck him out. Straight afterwards, without the clock, they asked him the same questions — and he knew almost every answer. The ticking clock changed the context for him, creating so much pressure that he couldn’t perform. Context can make or break us as influencers. It is like oxygen, so power players treat it with respect. They understand the anatomy of context and ensure it works in their favour. Hard and soft power, story and context — all play their part in building influence, but, as the following chapter explains, it is empathy that truly sets the power player apart.

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Power play tip to start fast and smart How to be a context ninja Just as you thoroughly prepare your authoritative content, study and prepare for your different contexts. Understand every context in which you seek to influence people. Frame it for success, adapt to it if necessary, but avoid entering any situation unprepared. Sometimes all it might take is a phone call to a friend, associate or insider, or a Google search. Each time, though, focus on one of the Ps of context: perspective, proof (social) and personalisation. Soon you will be a context ninja.

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Empathy power derives from climbing into your audience’s skin in order to understand their world. Empathy power rests on demonstrating caring by understanding other people, creating real connections and showing the courage to suggest solutions or offer options. Projection bias, imagining other people think like us, can create powerful distortions to our empathic response. Empathic power players are conscious of the private discourse (what people really think but leave unsaid) that is an undercurrent to any public discourse. They recognise that stepping into the private discourse, while challenging, turbocharges our empathy and influence. After the loss of AirAsia QZ8501 with 162 lives in December 2014, CEO Tony Fernandes immediately took off on the same flight path to be with the bereaved families. He continuously used social media to connect compassionately with them. His authentic, deeply empathic response at a traumatic time was widely praised. Focus

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Empathy power …  walk in my shoes A posse of foreign journalists travelled with the Dalai Lama as he visited village after poverty-stricken village. In every village the people would come out and present the Dalai Lama with gifts — a handful of rice, an old book, whatever they had. One of the journalists became angrier and angrier as he saw people who had practically nothing gifting what little they had, and the Dalai Lama graciously accepting every offering. In the final village of the tour, an old lady who lived under a tree was in tears because she had nothing other than the clothes she wore to give the Dalai Lama. Then she started digging furiously at the foot of her tree before carefully unearthing an old, fraying, dirt-encrusted dress. It was her wedding dress from many years ago. With tears still pouring down her wizened cheeks, she presented the Dalai Lama with her dress. He accepted the gift, clasped his hands together and bowed humbly. This was the final straw for the journalist. Almost exploding with rage he challenged the Dalai Lama: ‘Why on earth would you take a wedding dress from this poor lady?’ The Dalai Lama replied, ‘I accept the dress and the gifts not because I need them, but because people need to give them’.

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The Dalai Lama had demonstrated his mastery of empathy. He cared for people; he connected with them at a deep level and understood they wanted to experience both the joy and dignity of giving. But most of all he had the courage to act in a way that to others may seem counterintuitive.

Caution: caring people ahead Sympathy is when someone climbs into the well with you. Empathy is when they throw a rope down to help you climb out. Empathy has three components. The first is to demonstrate care by understanding other people and what matters to them. Dr  Stephen Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, famously wrote, ‘Seek to understand before being understood’. So often influencers and leaders jump into content without thinking, ‘How is this relevant to my audience?’ Or even simpler, yet just as profound: ‘What matters to my audience? What makes them tick?’

Beware of projection bias Your own biases can get in the way of caring (understanding others). You tend to think what is important to you is automatically important to your audience. Presuming other people think like us is called projection bias. Projection occurs when you externalise what you are thinking or feeling onto someone. Because you love chocolate, you might conclude that chocolate is the perfect gift for everyone. I love chocolate, so even using this example feeds into my own bias! Every parent who has tried to cajole, coax or compel a teenager to clean up their room suffers from projection bias. A clean and tidy room is important to a parent, but for many teenagers it is a less pressing priority. In the comic strip Zits, by cartoonists Jerry Scott and Jim Borgman, the teenage son is composing a

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song for his mum’s birthday. He explains to his dad, ‘Yeah, it has been pretty easy. You will be surprised how many things rhyme with nag!’ In business, biases get in the way of influence, and empathy is a powerful way to overcome this roadblock. We were helping leaders in a large Australian national bank roll out their new strategy to more than 20 000 employees through a series of roadshows. The focus of the leadership team’s strategy was on taking the bank from number four to number one. Through doing an audience analysis exercise with us, the most senior leader realised that the people at the coalface simply didn’t care about the bank’s ranking. What they really cared about was whether the new strategy would make their lives easier, help them serve their customers better and leave them with a job at the end of the process. The message, and indeed the entire roadshow, was based on a false premise and needed drastic reframing, as one leader was brave enough to acknowledge. So the group recrafted their presentation to start with a care package. Her opening statement at every stop on the roadshow now emphasised the bank’s new strategy: making the lives of their team members easier and helping them serve their customers better. They had everyone’s attention immediately. For once the presentation was about them, and the audience got the message that the presenters both understood and cared about them. The key take-away? To care you have to know what drives your audience. Is it pride in a job well done, a ‘that’s not fair’ attitude, or a ‘we could step up if we had the tools and the training’ mindset? As Henry Ford said, ‘If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from that person’s angle as well as from your own’.

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Connect here for empathy The second component of empathy is to create connections and look for commonality. ‘It’s all about connecting with your audience; nothing else matters,’ says John Polson, the founder of the immensely successful Tropfest short film festival. ‘If you don’t connect you are dead.’ This applies to everything you do in business: presenting, communicating, selling, customer service and leading. But above all it applies to influencing. You probably connect intuitively. But what does ‘connecting’ actually mean, and how do you measure it? Can you break it down into repeatable behaviours you can adopt every time to ensure meaningful contact with your customers or stakeholders, or with the audience you’re trying to influence? Of primary importance in building a connection is that people like you. You already know that the first 30 seconds are vital, that first impressions matter. It’s when what you say or do sets the tone for people to like you, or not. Take this seriously. People like to do business with people they like. People are also more open to listening to people they like.

Trust the source, trust the information Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne conducted research into how Australians accept new technology. In their 2008 study, Professor Michael Gilding concluded, ‘Trust in those delivering the information is crucial because when presented with complex scientific or technological data people often take a short cut and form an opinion based on the information source rather than the information itself.’ Renske Pin, a PhD student who worked with the Swinburne team, put it more simply: ‘If people trust the information source they are more inclined to trust the information’.

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In their 2013 Harvard Business Review article, ‘Connect, Then Lead’, Amy J. C. Cuddy, Matthew Kohut and John Neffinger point out, ‘Before people decide what they think of your message, they decide what they think of you’. Imagine if people both like and trust the source, and the source is you. Recently I had the privilege of hearing Mark Stephenson speak. The MC introduced him by rolling out a short version of his biography. Among other talents, Mark is an expert in prime number cryptography and computer-aided design. Listing his achievements went on for a couple of minutes. To put it mildly, Mark is a super-high achiever. The audience was thinking, ‘Wow, I don’t think I could connect with him. He’s up there in the stratosphere. I hope I can understand something of what he’s going to say’. Then Mark stood up to speak, and the first thing he said was, ‘You probably think I’m an ass now’. There was a brief second of silence before the whole auditorium exploded with laughter. People were thinking, ‘We like this guy!’ You don’t have to resort to crude language, but if you can convey to people who you really are in the first moment, it will help to break the ice and get people to like you. To connect you must be able to relate to your audience, whether it’s a customer or a room full of strangers. They need to feel you ‘get’ them. In the first episode of Junior MasterChef Australia, all eyes were on Anna Gare, the new judge. When Anna was introduced to her young audience, all under 12, she said, ‘I started cooking when I was your age and I could barely see over the counter’. Her audience laughed and immediately connected with her, because she related to them and understood what it felt like to be a child cooking.

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The power of value exchanges Connecting means seeing your interaction with another as a value exchange. You may be giving your audience information or a cool new tool, but they are giving you their time and attention. They need to feel they are getting something of value from you, something they can take away and use instead of merely being talked at or sold to. This explains why there is so much free, high-value content on the internet. The people who give away this kind of content know they are setting in motion a high-value exchange. You initially engage with them through high-value content, maybe a free e-book or a video. It’s almost like a taste test; if you like the flavour, you’re more likely to buy. You will eventually buy from them only after they have connected with you through a mutual value exchange. These are some of the building blocks of connection. Of course the acid test of connecting is whether they would like to see you again. I know I would love to see Mark Stephenson again, and again. The key take-away here? When have you felt understood? Connection is reaching out and being clear on your intent.

Empathy is courage The third facet of empathy is courage. The courage to suggest a way out, to offer options. The courage to step in and encourage a person not to continue wallowing in the problem. Connection and courage together create change. Sympathy generally stops with care and perhaps connection. Empathy forces you to extend the mandate to embrace courage — the courage to change. One of my early mentors and leaders was very open and encouraging when any team member spoke up and shared or aired issues and problems. After giving them a patient and

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very empathic hearing, he would ask, ‘What is your proposed solution?’ or ‘What can we do to fix it?’ Often he would preface the question by playing back the problem: ‘I want to be sure I have understood what you are saying …’ This made the person feel both heard and understood. He always moved the dial on empathy to the courage phase — the courage to take action. We learned quickly always to have a solution in mind, or at least some ideas towards a solution, before highlighting a problem. Our mentor intuitively understood that without the solution or courage phase, we would be stuck in the mire of sympathy, which is oh so comfortable, but unproductive. Empathy is caring (understanding others), connection and courage bound together with action for change. On the Friday before Mother’s Day in May 2015 in capital cities all over Australia, television news viewers were treated to an unusual sight: about 100 people tottering along in the street in high heels, in a one-mile march to raise awareness of domestic violence against women. Participants in this action, called ‘Walk a Mile in Their Shoes’, were mainly suit-wearing real estate agency men. One of them carried a placard that read, ‘It takes courage to stand up and be heard’. The marchers were literally walking in others’ shoes to demonstrate empathy and support for an important cause. Both connection and courage promote change, or at least provide an agenda for change. But there’s much more to empathy and making it work for you.

Public and private discourse Recently I was listening to a parenting expert at my daughter’s school. The expert said that teenagers engage in a public discourse and a parallel and sometimes contrary private discourse.

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For example, when your teenager shouts, ‘All my friends are going!’ or ‘None of their parents are ringing to check’, their private discourse may be: ‘Keep me safe; set me firm boundaries’. But it’s very hard for parents to keep in mind the possible private discourse when engaged in their teenagers’ public war of words. The private discourse is hidden, unspoken but important. .

I immediately thought how relevant and applicable this is for influencers grappling with empathy. As an influencer, you need to be aware of both the public and the private discourses in which your audiences engage. However, as we’re all polite adults and not hormonal teenagers, our public discourse can be more polite than honest and our private discourse less polite than honest. As another example, I was talking to the CEO of a large global professional services company that had run a massive event for its clients. At the end of the central PowerPoint presentation, they asked members of the audience for feedback and received lots of polite positives. The CEO, however, confided in us: ‘We could detect a lack of sincerity in their voices’. His observation was accurate. Afterwards an anonymous online survey (the private discourse) showed that attendees were less than impressed with the event. The CEO and his team listened to the feedback and substantially altered the event for the following year. It was much more successful. What happens when you become aware of the private discourse? You can choose to step into a moment of authenticity and create a deep connection with your audience. One of our clients — let’s call him Jack — was presenting at a roadshow. He told us employee attendance was compulsory, though he knew what they would all be thinking but not saying. As a senior leader, Jack decided to step into the private discourse so he opened by saying, ‘I know a lot of you might be thinking, “Not another bloody roadshow!” ’

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It was both unexpected and refreshing. His audience immediately burst into laughter. They’d been outed! Here was a leader who understood what they were thinking and feeling. They leaned in and listened. Articulating the private discourse helps you show empathy and understanding for your audience. By demonstrating courage you can create powerful connections. What if you can sense the undercurrent of a contrary private discourse but can’t quite put your finger on it? This is a fork in the road for you. You can bravely plug away at your message while pretending nothing is wrong. This may feel safe, but it’s actually more perilous than acknowledging that all is not as it should be. You risk losing your audience’s attention and, worse, your credibility. It’s time for you to speak to the truth of the moment by asking the audience for their truth. This is what power players would do. We ran a storytelling workshop with senior leaders where each leader in turn shared a story. After each story we asked for very simple feedback from the other leaders, and also provided some of our own. We couldn’t understand why there was so little response. It was like drawing teeth. Then one of the senior leaders opened up: ‘Why aren’t we providing feedback? I thought we were building a culture of openness and honesty. There’s a real opportunity here to demonstrate that. What’s stopping us?’ She had stepped into the private discourse. There was a stunned silence for a moment, until another of the group blurted out: ‘We’re all so busy worrying about our turn, we can’t concentrate on others’ stories’. Everyone felt sheepish, but now that the truth had surfaced and been acknowledged, the group’s behaviour shifted. People became much more forthcoming in their feedback, realising that this was the fair and right way forward, regardless of all other stressors.

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Stepping into the private discourse can be challenging. Can you fathom the private discourse, and do you have the courage to address it? As Mark Twain famously observed, ‘Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, NOT absence of fear’. Try sharing that with your teenager!

Empathy and the bottom line By the late 1980s disposable nappies, or diapers, had become a commodity business. A nappy was a nappy was a nappy, and all the key brands were reduced to competing on price. Sick of being number two in the nappy wars, Kimberly Clark engaged a research firm to find out what they could do differently. The firm conducted market research, going out and talking to and interviewing customers — in this instance, parents, grandparents and caregivers. So what did the researchers discover? In one instance, after the camera was turned off, one of the parents confided in the researcher that she was embarrassed when asked by her neighbour, ‘Is your child still in diapers?’ This reaction yielded a core insight that eventually led to Huggies Pull-Ups, a new kind of diaper in the form of training underpants that children could pull on themselves. The ad shows toddlers in pull-ups with a tag line ‘I’m a big kid now’. Ever since, Kimberly Clark has been number one in the disposable training pants market. That insight, an empathic response in product development and marketing, has generated a new, multi-billion-dollar business category. Empathy power — priceless!

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Armed with these empathic insights, the next objective for the power player is to achieve message mastery, as explored in the following chapter.

Power play tip to start fast and smart Walk in their shoes Go online and take an empathy test. Where are you strong and where do you need to do more work? What are your audience’s drivers? List at least three and bounce them off someone who knows your audience well. This one small step will position you ahead of your competitors. Roman Krznaric, an empathy adviser to organisations such as the United Nations, suggests this simple technique. Challenge yourself to have one conversation a week with a stranger. Pick someone quite different from you. And don’t just chat about the weather and sport — try to figure out what makes them tick.

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Message power derives from designing messages to move your audience into action, and making your audience’s identity central to your message. Message mastery has three stages: shift identifies what you want your audience to do differently, craft sharpens and condenses your message to its essence; test/do puts your message out. While message mastery may sound like work for a talented copy writer, it is an essential skill for power players. At the pinnacle of message mastery, your message can morph into a meme. Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, exemplifies message mastery in her popularisation of the concept of ‘leaning in’ for women as a solution to overcoming the challenges of balancing work and family. Focus

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Chapter 8

Message power …  become the master of your message ‘Sitting is the new cancer,’ Apple CEO Tim Cook declared when speaking at the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference in San Francisco in February 2015. The context was his Apple watch, which buzzes gently to remind him to get up and move. Here Cook crafted a message that would grab our attention, stick in our memory and persuade us to change our behaviour. When I find myself sitting for long periods a thought bubble containing those words pops up in my head, reminding me to get moving. The power of a well-crafted message.

Message mastery Although the dangers of a sedentary life is hardly a new idea, what Tim Cook did was show the kind of message mastery that truly influences people. To be master influencers today we start by carefully defining and shaping our message. We have to demonstrate message mastery. Why?

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In Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman explains, ‘The way we judge ideas and approach problems is heavily determined by the way they are expressed to us’. The way we express our message is the simplest yet most powerful means to win over our audience. Figure 8.1 illustrates the three stages of message mastery — shift, craft and test/do. Figure 8.1: the message mastery model

1. Shift In the shift stage you decide what it is you want people to think, feel or do differently as a result of your message. Here’s an example. The pinkie campaign Young men between the ages of 18 and 21 are at the highest risk of all drivers on our roads in terms of behaviour and fatality statistics. They ignore conventional advertising on the dangers of dangerous driving. In approaching this problem, the New South Wales Roads and Traffic Authority (RTA) knew the demographic it wanted to target. But how do you persuade an 18-year-old male who 86

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thinks he is invincible to drive safely? When burning rubber, hair-raising speed and mad road manoeuvres are practically a rite of passage and proof of machismo, what force can you use to oppose them? RTA knew the behaviour it wanted to shift. The challenge was to craft a message that would work for an audience that didn’t respond to conventional fear-based campaigns. They decided to go straight for the jugular with a clever campaign based on the eternal attraction between the sexes, but with a simple twist. Girls are shown watching a teenage boy trying to impress them by driving like a drag racer. In a simple but emotionally charged gesture, they show the boy their pinkies. It needs no words to explain that girls think boys who drive like maniacs are compensating for an inadequate penis. This behavioural change crusade, known as the ‘pinkie’ campaign, was splashed across television, radio, print and billboards from 2007 to 2009. Paul Nagy, creative director of Clemenger BBDO Sydney (the agency behind the campaign), explained its success: ‘It was memorable because it bucked the trend of speeding ads showing torn metal and shocking deaths. And it contained a brilliant insight: you speed to look big, but the very people you’re trying to impress think the exact opposite of you.’ The ad campaign was almost cruelly to the point and hit the target audience where it hurt most — in the ego. What’s more, it worked. ‘Pinkie’ became one of RTA’s most successful campaigns. Follow-up research showed three-quarters of young drivers said the ads had encouraged them to stick to the speed limit. Statistics showed that in New South Wales, only a year into the campaign, 22 fewer P-plate drivers died compared with the year before. So shift identifies behaviour, defines the new thinking or action required and isolates the audience for whom the message is intended. Yet surprisingly few influencers start here.

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Clarity first As an influencer you must be clear about what you want to change or shift before you take another step. Without that clarity, you’re setting out on a journey with no destination and no map. As a sharp-shooting professional wanting results, you must know what and who you want to influence. In the shift stage, influencers often make the mistake of assuming the targets will know what they mean without them having to S-P-E-L-L it out. But where behavioural change is needed, especially with problem behaviour, those being targeted generally have no idea they should act differently. So do you assume your audience has the intelligence of a gnat and risk patronising them with condescending language and unnecessarily detailed instructions? Or do you confuse them with messages that are so clever or subtle that only you understand them? Here’s a simple way to tackle the shift stage. Write down your objective, using very specific language. For example: ■■

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As a result of my message I want P-plate driver deaths and injuries to fall by 30 per cent in the next 12 months. As a result of my message I want accidents on Smith Street to drop by 25 per cent during our term in office. As a result of my message I want sales of guava popsicles through milk bars to climb to 10 000 units a month by 30 June.

Avoid what legendary political speechwriter and author Don Watson calls ‘weasel words’, such as corporate and bureaucratic jargon. A local council defined its objective in the shift stage in this way: ‘We want dog owners to clean up after their dogs, even when no one is watching’. It reached this nugget of gold after many attempts.

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All ideas are good ideas To crystallise your message, go for quantity. Write down as many variations of your message as you can, as fast as you can. By thinking and writing quickly you can outflank your inner censor. Then read it back for quality. Better still, pull together a team of colleagues in a think tank or creative brain session. Engage staff from a range of departments, even those unrelated to your marketing or message making. (You’ll be surprised at some of the quirky thoughts that come out of accounts and engineering.) If possible, take them out of their usual work environment and set up a creative space. Hire an external room if necessary, and make the event playful and enjoyable with a few preliminary games. Here’s a tip: Distribute a handful of funny postcards or birthday cards and get your people to come up with alternative captions. Or try the substitution game: If you were a colour/animal/car/ building/alternative profession, what would you be? Set out some basic rules: ■■

Avoid negatives or criticism (‘That won’t work’, ‘That’s a stupid idea’).

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All ideas are good ideas, no matter how crazy.

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No strategising (that comes later).

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Introduce lots of ‘what if ’ thinking.

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Encourage idea extension among your people (‘We could take Rick’s idea even further by …’).

One of my clients was searching for a catchy way to describe what they did, which was to analyse consumer behaviour online. She started with ‘How to stalk your customers’ (which was a bit creepy), but after many more shots at it she came up with a winner: ‘How to read your audience’s body language online’.

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Tweak the system All this work in the shift stage can also prompt another happy phenomenon. It may morph into your get-out-of-jail-free card and eliminate the craft and test/do stages that usually follow shift altogether. Survey after survey showed that people fully support recycling. Yet in shopping mall food courts people were loath to walk a few metres to dispose of their rubbish responsibly. Instead of more complex and expensive communications, the operators simply relocated the bins so consumers practically had to walk between them after their meal. A tweak of thinking about systems and processes achieved the objective. In Thinking, Fast and Slow author Daniel Kahneman shares a better way to get workers to switch off their lights: no, not more signs directing them to turn off the lights, but placing a garbage bin under the light switch. This way, workers on their way out of the office at the end of the day will tend to flip the light switch when they throw their rubbish into the bin. Again, a system tweak influences behaviour without the need for more messaging. Once you’ve completed the shift stage, it’s time to move on to crafting your message.

2. Craft Now is the time to pore over every word in your message shaking out clichés and corporate jargon, and doing all in your power to play back the language of your audience. But before you go into the mechanics of designing your communication, try setting aside traditional message design and embracing a new mindset. The centre, the axis around which your message rotates, is your audience’s identity. Using this as the pivot for your messages will help you craft compelling words and images.

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The power of identity Big Hero 6, a computer-animated comedy-adventure film, features Baymax, a super-sized robotic healthcare companion, and 14-year-old protagonist Hiro Hamada. To fight evil, Hiro continually ramps up Baymax’s powers, and every time he gives Baymax a new power, the robot’s first response is: ‘How does this make me a better healthcare companion?’ Of course it’s a lot funnier in the film, and naturally in a swashbuckling adventure good triumphs over evil. But Baymax echoes a universal question: How does this impact my identity — who I am? It is a question that is much deeper and richer than the standard WIIFM (what’s in it for me?), which might prompt you to reel off a string of benefits. It’s so much easier to wade into the shallows with a hazy view of your audience than to articulate what really matters — what impact this will have on their identity, their very being. In their brilliant bestseller Selfish, Scared and Stupid, behavioural strategists Dan Gregory and Kieran Flanagan argue that whether you’re seeking to sell more product, to shift perceptions and drive social change, to lift the performance of your team or to inspire yourself to do more, you must first understand what drives behaviour. And nothing drives behaviour more than identity — who you see yourself as, and what you want the world to see you as. Start by asking yourself how this will help your audience be a better leader, a better teacher, a better entrepreneur. And design your message from identity out for maximum impact. Now we’ve established that identity is the core around which we build our messages, how can you craft compelling communications? Sexy sells We all know sex sells. That doesn’t mean you have to include sex in your messages (unless you work in the adult entertainment industry), but you can still sex up your messages. How? 91

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Start by listing all the key messages you are going to use to boost your influence. Don’t drown in the detail just yet, and make sure you avoid any laborious explanations. For example, one of your messages might be ‘collaboration is crucial’. The next step is to repackage these messages so they’re sexy or stimulating, daring or funny, so they grab your audience’s attention. A sexy message is a memorable, repeatable sound bite. Here are the top tips for creating a sexy message—and they all let you keep your clothes on! Tip 1: ‘Smart down’ your message A sexy message is not about dumbing down your message. It’s about ‘smarting down’ your message in a way people will connect with and remember. Find the right words: make sure they are memorable and capture attention. Jamie, one of our workshop participants, had as a message ‘last year’s results’. Their results were indeed spectacular, but this was quite a standard message. Jamie made it sexy by repackaging it, opening the presentation with, ‘I want to start by telling you why I love you’. Kaboom! Instantly everyone was paying attention. Compare that with the more conventional ‘I am here to share last year’s results’. Yawn! Tip 2: Spin it What if you have a boring message that has already been shared? You need to put a different spin on it to turn it into a sexy message. Try looking at newspaper headlines and popular culture for inspiration. For example, a research paper on counterfeit designer clothes became ‘The Devil Wears (Fake) Prada’, playing on the title of the movie and book. Messina, a Sydney ice-cream shop and a destination for foodies and lovers of gelato, promoted its summer menu under the headline ‘Game of Cones’, a play on the popular Game of Thrones TV series. Feel free to be tongue-in-cheek and provocative, 92

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and think about how your message can be repackaged using a current popular reference. Tip 3: Sexy is short Your message must be short: 15 to 30 seconds maximum. We used to say: storytelling helps increase sales by more effectively engaging with your customers. Now, in our short and sexy version, we say: facts tell, stories sell. Most messages contain much information but little inspiration. Ernest Hemingway once wrote a long letter to a friend, ending, ‘If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter’. This literary genius understood that it is harder to be short and succinct than to waffle. Tip 4: Write it as a bumper sticker or a hashtag Try to distil your message to its essence, much like you’d see on a bumper sticker. Let’s face it, you’d never see ‘maximising shareholder engagement’ or ‘plausible corporate deniability’ on a bumper sticker. This technique forces you to keep it short. You don’t have to come up with an original slogan. If it works with your message you can use one that is already out there. For example, if one of your messages is ‘Focus on the process and the outcomes’, you could repackage it to ‘Enjoy the journey’. Another way to get to the essence of your message is to think in terms of hashtags. If your message were a hashtag what would it be? #hewhoasksprospers or #inspirenotinform. Hashtags again force us to be succinct and punchy. It may not quite sizzle, but given how low the bar is set in most organisations, anything you do differently or even slightly better will be thought sexier than the norm. Tip 5: Look for inspiring advertising and movie tag lines You are probably not a professional copywriter, but there’s no reason why you can’t piggyback on some of the world’s best

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work. Start collecting advertising and movie tag lines. Think of this as your ‘sexy message bank’. A leader was presenting a business update on an internal project titled ‘The Hero Project’. The project had stalled, but soon more resources were to be pumped into it. His original, unsexy message was, ‘The Hero Project is strategically aligned with our organisational imperatives and the issues of resource allocation have been prioritised for this quarter’. He was also a keen Rambo fan and his favourite line from one of the Rambo films was ‘Heroes don’t die, they just reload’. So he repackaged his message: ‘Heroes don’t die, they just reload with new resources’. Insipid to inspiring. Of course, some lines providing more detail should always follow your sexy message.

3. Test/Do Finally you have to test your message and then use it. Testing is tricky, especially if you don’t have a big budget and can’t pay an agency to test for you. The simplest way is to ask trusted colleagues or members of your target audience. You could say you’re speaking to the sales reps next week and you’re thinking of leading with … (You then share the new, sexy message you have sweated over.) This is the time to embrace an iterative or multiple version mindset. The new perfect Recently I had the privilege of hearing marketing commentator Seth Godin speak. One of his key messages was: ‘Seventy per cent is the new perfect’. This message embraces a ‘ship it’ or iterative mentality. Its philosophy is get stuff done, deliver as promised, and continually improve based on customer feedback and market expectations. It is a powerful message because — unless you are landing planes or saving lives — perfectionism is often the enemy of execution. 94

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Of course, embracing 70 per cent as the new perfect is not a licence to fail. It doesn’t give you permission to do shoddy work or produce something you’re not proud of. On the other hand, clutching your messages to your heart as you tinker away crafting and recrafting each word and line, refusing to share until it is perfect, is a fool’s game. In their bestseller, Rework, Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson say it best: ‘You still want to make something great. This approach recognises the best way to get there is through iterations’. Message memes The pinnacle of message mastery is when your message becomes a meme, spreading like a virus inside and outside your organisation. When Princess Diana died in 1997, the then Prime Minister of Britain, Tony Blair, described her as ‘the people’s princess’. This became an instant meme for people to express how they felt about her. Memes speak to a shared truth and express a sentiment that you can feel but not articulate, in a way that makes you wish you’d thought of it yourself. Oscar Wilde was notorious for passing off other people’s quotes as his own, though to give him his due he was happy for others to borrow lines from him — and really, has anyone had better lines than him? One time he bumped into a friend, the artist James Whistler, who shared a witty anecdote. Wilde said wistfully, ‘How I wish I had said that’, to which Whistler replied, ‘Don’t worry, Oscar, you will’. Think of Janet Jackson’s infamous ‘wardrobe malfunction’ at the 2004 Super Bowl or ‘twerking’ — both memes in popular culture. Occasionally, memes are crafted to explode through the ubiquity of the internet, but the most powerful memes spread by tapping into authenticity without a set agenda.

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#putoutyourbats goes viral For a few days in November 2014, cricket-mad Australia was on a knife edge of anxiety watching updates on the condition of popular Australian cricketer Phillip Hughes, who was seriously injured by a freak blow to the head during a cricket match. Abruptly the wait was over, though not with the news Australians had hoped and prayed for, when a visibly distraught Michael Clarke, the national team captain, informed the world of Hughes’ untimely death. The ripples of shock and grief engulfed not only the cricket community but the entire country, and a large part of the cricket world. A Sydney cricket fan, Paul Taylor, posted a poignant image of his cricket bat outside his home, using the hashtag #putoutyourbats. In his own words, it was ‘just a way for all cricketers to show their respects to Phillip Hughes’. What happened next was startling. People all over the world used the hashtag #putoutyourbats to share photos of cricket bats outside their front doors. Even Google placed an image of a bat on its home page in memory of Hughes. I must admit to tearing up seeing a child’s bat outside a picket fence in my suburb. Through a simple hashtag, people all over the world found a way to unite and find mutual comfort, in this case over the senseless loss of a popular sporting figure. The initiative was unique and authentic: a simple gesture from a fan who wanted to pay tribute to a first-class cricketer. At a time where words do little to convey the sorrow of a situation, Paul Taylor created a meaningful meme and influenced people to show they cared. How to create a meme On the consumer technology site Digital Trends, Jam Kotenko details how to create a meme, and Google is your best friend here. Kotenko talks about internet memes, which she defines as ‘a popular and usually funny idea or concept that has been passed on from person to person via the Web, usually with a highly visual element and focus. It comes in various forms, most commonly through photos emblazoned with witty text’. 96

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Like so many things, memes take practice, insight and the ability to tap into popular culture or how people are feeling at this moment. Memes are an art form and there is no magic formula. It is unlikely the first meme you write will be a viral sensation! But memes are worth pursuing, thinking about and crafting as they can influence your audience today, tomorrow and into the future. Power players invest wisely in message mastery; they know words can transform, inside and out, changing their world and the world. Message mastery draws on passion — for a cause, a purpose, for change and above all for people. And this passion, as the following chapter shows, is expressed through the power of love.

Power play tip to start fast and smart Message mastery Be alert for sexy messages around you. (Sexy doesn’t just mean raunchy or physically provocative; it’s also about humour, aptness, relevance and wisdom.) Become a message jackdaw collecting every shiny message you see, for example in movies, advertisements, books and the news. If you have a Kindle or electronic reader, highlight relentlessly and catalogue your notes so you can access them easily. Join online groups such as the question-and-answer site Quora to see what’s being shared. Borrow, and rephrase, popular quotes and sayings, but always with full attribution. We’ve known this for millennia: to become a master you should study the masters. Surround yourself with mastery.

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Love power at a glance ■■

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Love, as an influence tool at work, means love for what we do (passion), love for the people we do it with (companionate love) and love for the people we do it for (concern for our customers). Love is heart over hype. We can express love at work through the art of love bombs. Appreciation is the love vehicle for power players. Love is also about giving credit where it is due and taking responsibility when things go wrong. Tough love is integral to love. We practise feedforward (rather than feedback) using a love (what I loved about …), learn (what I learned from …) and leave (one thing I want to leave you with …) love frame. Carolyn Miles, President and CEO of Save the Children, is a shining example of someone who uses love as an influence tool every day through her blogs, videos and work. Focus

Impact

People

Explosive

Attitude

Action

Appreciate

Love bomb

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Love power … changing the world in four letters April 2015, Baltimore, USA — a city in flames. A burnt-out pharmacy, torched by rioters, frames the backdrop. After days of uproar, a peaceful protest turns ugly when a bottle is thrown at police. The advancing police line deploys pepper spray. The media converge, knowing this is going to turn ugly fast. Suddenly a line of African-American men moves forward, positioning themselves between the police and the protesters. They raise their hands. Are they surrendering? They touch the tips of their index fingers and thumbs, creating a heart shape held above their heads. The police freeze and the protesters back off. Neither side is willing to escalate the confrontation. One of the men leans forward and explains to the confused journalists, who have never seen anything like it before: ‘It’s a comfort line — a love line’. He turns to the camera and says, ‘Kids, be positive. Don’t do anything stupid. We love y’all’. What defused this ticking time bomb? Nothing but love.

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Machiavelli believed it was better to be feared than to be loved. Is it? Is that what you want, as a leader? In Baltimore that day a row of ordinary citizens took a stand for change with the best four-letter word in the world: L-O-V-E.

Does what you do light you up? In the classic fairytale Beauty and the Beast (spoiler alert!), the beast turns into a handsome prince. Belle, the beast’s love, achieves the transformation. Note: she doesn’t set out to change him — her love does. Ahh … the power of love! Talking about love in a business context may make us uncomfortable. It may even seem inappropriate — isn’t business all about head, not heart? When we talk of love in a business context, as an influence tool at work, we don’t mean romantic love. The love we describe is multifaceted. It is love for what we do (passion), love for the people we do it with (identifying with and caring for our teammates) and love for the people we do it for (concern for our customers). I love TED talks and have spent many pleasant and productive hours watching and listening to remarkable and informative speakers. One of my favourites is Benjamin Zander. He so obviously knows and loves his subject (classical music), and has an infectious passion and enthusiasm. Zander’s love for classical music lights up the stage and the room. He seems to genuinely believe that his audience will share his love of classical music; they just don’t know it yet. It’s a brave idea, and it works. Passion is a word tossed around too loosely these days. In a business or work context, you can define it as a deep knowledge and expertise combined with a fervent enthusiasm for the topic, the product and the people with whom you engage.

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Where passion is concerned, there are two extremes to avoid. A lack of passion is as persuasive as a dead fish, while excessive passion — obsession, evangelism or zealotry — can be equally off-putting. People will immediately sense when leaders are insincere or faking passion. Are you passionate about the topic, product, service or strategy around which you seek to exercise your influence over people?

Heart over hype I have a confession. I’m addicted to the Australian series of Shark Tank. It’s a dramatic reality-TV series and a master class in negotiation, pitching and influence, all rolled into one. Shark Tank has budding entrepreneurs pitch to potential investors (sharks). The sharks decide whether to invest, and negotiate deals for equity and ownership. It works because the sharks are all successful businesspeople in their own right. They offer insight and business nous that is sometimes brutal but often priceless. You also see the dark side of passion on the show. In a recent episode, an entrepreneur was pitching his product in an overzealous, evangelical way. A progress worm at the bottom of the screen allows the audience to vote for or against a prospect in real time. As his pitch proceeded, he turned off more and more people. While passion is important, we have to learn not to bludgeon people with it. One thing Shark Tank has taught us is to get out of the passion prison. Passion fails to impress the sharks, and the show is littered with passionate entrepreneurs who miss the cut. What the investors look for is commitment, execution and persistence. Passion on its own is an empty tin cup, but passion supported by other values and qualities resonates like a temple bell. People buy heart not hype in the passion game.

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Do you love your co-workers? The latest research shows that people who love their co-workers have a superior attendance record and perform better. This is not romantic love but companionate love, based on warmth, affection and connection. In a longitudinal study titled ‘What’s Love Got to Do with It?’, researchers Sigal Barsade and Olivia O’Neill coined the term emotional culture to characterise workplaces where employees felt loved and cared for, and described the positive, measurable impact on performance and wellbeing this produced. But it’s not only love, which you may find hard to express at work, but making room for other positive emotions such as pride in a job well done, joy and laughter. You’ll find power in the small gestures: a handwritten note, a thank you, taking time to ask after people. All make for a happier workplace. A leader I know who works in a national financial services company knocks engagement scores out of the ball park year after year. He makes a point of connecting personally every day with every member of his large, geographically dispersed team, whether face to face or by phone, or via email or text. Personal connection for this leader means asking after a staff member’s mother’s hospital treatment or their son’s soccer game. And it’s genuine, coming from a deep sense of caring for his team, who as a result feel valued, connected and loved. He influences through love and authenticity. Again, it’s heart over hype. As a leader, you communicate daily on a professional level with people you work with, but do you take the time to connect personally?

Love for customers and consumers Atlassian (like Google for software developers and project managers) was launched because the two founders were sick of how software was sold to customers. Here’s a quote from

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their web page: ‘In 2002, our founders, Scott Farquhar and Mike Cannon-Brookes, set conventional wisdom on its ear by launching a successful enterprise software company with no sales force. From Australia. Our first product, JIRA, proved that if you make a great piece of software, price it right, and make it available to anyone to download from the Internet, teams will come. And they’ll build great things with it. And they’ll tell two friends, and so on, and so on’. In a February 2014 article published in Business Insider Australia, journalist Liz Tay portrays Atlassian’s beginnings as a fairytale startup. ‘It ran on a credit card. One of its founders was a university dropout. All the early staff were mates. One of its founding values was a flourish of Sydney brassiness: “Don’t f*** the customer” ’. Atlassian’s core product, a project management and bug tracking tool known as JIRA, is now a global standard, with customers ranging from NASA to universities to tech giants such as eBay and Twitter.

The art of love bombs A love bomb is letting people know you love them and their work. Imagine working in an organisation where love bombs explode all the time. Here are some ways to love bomb your employees and your customers. And while you’re at it, love bombing yourself sometimes doesn’t hurt either.

Love is appreciation Appreciation is the love vehicle for power players. We all crave appreciation but are often negligent about giving it, resorting to the occasional cliché such as ‘Good job!’ or a generic ‘Well done’. As with passion, appreciation has to be genuine. There are many ways of bringing it into the workplace. Appreciation is showing and telling people what you love about their work. In reality, this can be tough to do well. We may feel 103

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awkward, unsure how it will be received, or perhaps we simply don’t have enough practice. As one of my clients put it, ‘We excel at being critical, just not at being appreciative!’ In a wonderful scene from Absolutely Fabulous, Jennifer Saunders’ character, Eddy, is trying to teach Patsy (Joanna Lumley) how to smile. All Patsy can muster is a grimace, ugly but very funny. When you first start to practise appreciation at work, it can feel like a grimace. With perseverance, though, and the reward of seeing the impact it has on people, an effortless smile can soon come naturally. Why not begin a relationship with an appreciation, a thank you? Simple, a banking service startup, sends a thank you after you request an invite to its platform. It takes the place of a standard welcome email and makes a great first impression for the company. Its very first contact with you is a thank you love bomb. As part of the Slow School of Business faculty in Melbourne, we run a very successful series called ‘Talk on Purpose’ (formerly ‘Is There a TED Talk in You?’). Participants work through their ‘idea worth sharing’ using a range of tools and advice from expert facilitators. At the end of the program they deliver a TED-style talk in front of a live audience of more than a hundred people. It’s a big moment for everyone. One of the most successful tactics we use is asking the audience to write ‘love notes’ to each presenter as soon as they finish their talk, acknowledging just one thing they loved about the speaker’s presentation. As a joke we add, ‘No phone numbers or email addresses, please’. At the end of the night each presenter receives an envelope stuffed with love notes. Some of the presenters are moved to tears. They have described it as ‘all my Christmases arriving at once’ and ‘the best present I have ever received’. One shared his love notes with a mentor and was immediately offered a job.

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Windows and mirrors Another way of showing appreciation, or spreading love, is by giving credit where credit is due. I am a cricket buff. As I was (a little tearfully) rewatching Sachin Tendulkar’s farewell speech on YouTube, it struck me how rich it was in ‘window’ moments. I first came across the concept of ‘windows and mirrors’ in Jim Collins’ Harvard Business Review article on Level 5 leadership. According to Collins, Level 5 leaders always look out of the window to give credit — sometimes even undue credit — to people and factors outside themselves. But they also look into the mirror by accepting responsibility when things don’t go well, never blaming external factors or bad luck. For other leaders the reverse is true: they look out of the window for people or factors to blame, and into the mirror to preen when crediting themselves for things that go well. Sachin’s speech after his 200th and last test in Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai, packed with adoring fans was a masterpiece in looking out of the window to recognise everyone who had a hand in his success. They ranged from his father who had  inspired him to chase his dreams, to his doctors who kept him fit, to his legions of fans around the world. In the 20-minute soliloquy, he talked about and thanked so many people in his life, always crediting them for their support. It is both moving and humbling to watch. What sort of power player are you or do you want to be?

Love frames Life is seldom perfect. Often we will have to have the tough conversations, manage performance and even use the dreaded ‘f ’ word — feedback. Can we do this with love, or will that be perceived as weak or confusing? It is surprising how today’s leaders are still coached in the sandwich method of handling feedback: you simply package 105

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the negative feedback between two pieces of positive feedback. ‘It’s a common method,’ notes organisational psychologist and author Roger Schwarz, ‘but the sandwich approach may be undermining both your feedback and your relationships with your direct reports’. If you say, ‘You did a great job but …’ and follow up with a criticism, then all the person processes is the criticism. As my mentor Sacha Coburn would say, no one remembers anything before the but. Following publication of my bestselling co-authored book (yes, another plug!) Hooked: How leaders connect, engage and inspire with storytelling, I received a scathing email about a supposed misprint. The writer concluded by saying they were so happy that they had only borrowed the book from the library and not purchased it. Ouch! Reading the email on the train to work, I felt like I’d been kicked in the guts. I might even have sworn aloud … all right, I did! As it happens, it wasn’t a misprint but an accommodation for a global readership. So how can love help you do this differently and better? How do you give positive criticism? How do you deliver the type of feedback the receiver is open to hearing and acting on — in short, feedback with love? You will be called upon to suggest changes for and in others. You cannot avoid change, but it carries with it an implicit criticism of the past, as if all that preceded it was wrong or fell short. When you propose a change, you can at the same time pay tribute to the past. Recognising the good or workable aspects of the status quo, you can couch the proposed innovations as complementing past practice, and in this way encourage positive dialogue and acceptance. We all crave feedback and yet are loath to give it. Recently we faced the same challenge when running our ‘Talk on Purpose’

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program. Not only did the participants receive feedback, but we gave it in a group setting. We used a wonderful framework made up of three parts: ■■

Love — what I loved about your talk

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Learn — what I learned from it

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Leave — one thing I want to leave you with.

This is a love frame that will enable you to influence shift. A love frame helps people grow. The leave part suggests one thing they could do better or differently next time. This is the tough love part of the love frame and is critical for success. Love always has to include tough love to make it balanced and realistic; otherwise it’s all unicorns and rainbows. Here’s another thought about feedback. Love frames today are feedforward, not feedback. Feedback has expired, feedforward is wired. Using feedforward helps the person change their behaviour next time, or at least consider doing so. Influence without love is like a phone with no data; all you can do is play games.

Hearts and minds Love power, or love as an influence tool, is about winning people’s hearts and minds and watching their feet follow. It’s about heart, not hype. Love lets you build advocacy, which can turn into a movement. The era of hype, where information is controlled, is over. The era of heart with transparency and authenticity is here. Susan Steinbrecher, the co-author of  Heart-Centered Leadership: lead well, live well, believes people do their best work not through compliance but through commitment to the organisation they work for. At the centre of heart-centred leadership is commitment rather than compliance, and can there be a bigger commitment than love? The love ladder (illustrated in figure 9.1, overleaf) helps you gauge where your audience is in terms of your message and

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initiatives. At the bottom of the ladder, they may be totally unaware, or aware but indifferent or neutral. Figure 9.1: the love ladder

As power players, you use love bombs, and you practise mirrors and windows and other techniques to help your audience move up the love ladder. Your love bombs advocate heart over hype, and do so with integrity and authenticity, to turn your audience into fans, advocates — and sometimes even evangelists. Love as an influence tool will help you, your people and your organisation work at its highest level. In the following chapter we’ll see how humour and playfulness, used authentically, can also lift your game and achieve great results.

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Power play tip to start fast and smart What’s love got to do with it? First give yourself a love bomb. Use the Love, Learn framework to write yourself some love notes. Write about at least 10 aspects of your work that you love, and 10 learnings you’ve had. Remember, charity begins at home and if you can’t love bomb yourself, you won’t be ready to love bomb others. For example, ‘I love how I was able to get people excited in yesterday’s think tank’, or ‘I love getting my niece to draw and paint’. The first few may be hard if modesty is one of your central drivers, but persevere. You’ll find momentum, and then you may not be able to stop at 10! Remember that these are strictly for your eyes alone. When one of my clients used this method he realised how much value he had added to his organisation in the preceding quarter. It earned him the pay rise he was looking for.

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Humour power is using humour skilfully, purposefully and appropriately to influence. Humour is a skill that can be taught and learned. The journey to harnessing humour power has three stages: amateurs watch and copy; apprentices curate and contextualise humour; masters craft and embody a lightness of being. We are often afraid to use humour because we think it might be unprofessional or unsuited to the work context. Most of all, we’re afraid that we’re simply not funny. Generating laughs is an official corporate goal at Southwest Airlines, who encourage the use of humour by crew and even test for humour in their recruitment process. Humour is now serious business. Focus

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Humour power … why so serious? Two English shoe salesmen were sent to Africa in the early 1900s to assess potential market opportunities there. Each sent a telegram back to their boss in Manchester. The first wrote, ‘Situation hopeless. They don’t wear shoes’. The other enthused, ‘Glorious opportunity! They don’t have any shoes yet’. This anecdote, shared by Benjamin Zander at the start of his TED talk, has the audience roaring with laughter. Zander then links it to his message: that some people think classical music is dying while others see it as thriving. Zander is passionate about classical music, but he knows that many of his audience will probably roll their eyes at the very mention of it. So he uses one of the most powerful influence tools in the book, the power of humour.

You have to be kidding In the world of influence, humour is the new frontier. Humour? You have to be kidding, you might say. ‘I’m not funny, and definitely not at work!’ Somehow work has become burdened with an often unnecessary gravitas; it has lost its sense of fun or play. Work is often tiring and demanding. To paraphrase bestselling Irish author Marian Keyes, or rather her wonderful character Maggie Walsh, that’s

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why it’s called work; otherwise it would be called deep-tissue massage. Humour is a joyful conjunction of connection and influence. It is the Trojan horse of influence. Every motivational speaker knows that no matter how compelling your message, the two tools that help you get behind your audience’s defences are humour and story. I speak for a living and know that my identity can get in the way of my message. People wonder if I am Indian or Sri Lankan or from some other country. So I often tell this story: ‘I was so excited when I started storytelling I raced home to tell my mother. My mother replied like any good Indian mother [I then slip into an Indian accent]: “Is that a job? Why don’t you go into IT or become a doctor?” ’ Everyone laughs. They find the story, my mother’s attitude and the Indian accent both charming and disarming. A couple of things happen at this point. I’ve resolved the puzzle of my identity, so people are free to listen to my message. And my use of humour has helped my audience to relax. Their expectations are heightened too, because they think this is going to be funny and entertaining. So the performance is already set up for success. It was about five years before I started playing with my identity using humour. I was fearful that it may be offensive. Obviously it’s not to me and to many other people; I am Indian, after all! But it takes courage, and finding the right angle is vital. It’s not that easy to engage humour as an influence strategy. So what stops us from using humour at work?

More than a joke You can write off humour by thinking of it as only telling jokes. While a leader may slip a joke or two into a presentation, humour in leadership involves a good deal more than telling the occasional gag. 112

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You may also worry that resorting to humour could be seen as unprofessional; no one will take you seriously if you suddenly become the office joker. This chapter is not about becoming a clown or an air-headed funster, and as with all modes, your application of humour power must correlate with who and what you want to influence. Most of all (and I hear this all the time), you may suffer from a bone-crunching fear that you’re simply not funny. As with any skill, using humour authentically and with integrity can be taught and learned. It’s all about finding your personal style and voice, and then having the courage to try. Remember, as a power player you want your influence to take a quantum leap forward. Humour will help you achieve that. Do it well, do it professionally, find your voice — all of this sounds hard. But why would you even bother with humour as an influence tool? Unless the why is compelling enough, you won’t board this bus or give the tool a healthy workout.

The facts on funny In a 2014 Harvard Business Review article titled ‘Lead with humour’, Alison Beard writes, ‘Make ’em laugh to boost engagement, and wellbeing, spur creativity and collaboration and improve analytical precision and productivity’. You know how you feel after a good belly laugh. Your brain and body are flooded with endorphins, you feel recharged, more optimistic, happier. There’s a spring in your step and you feel anything is possible. Imagine amplifying this across your team and your organisation? Humour lifts us above the humdrum, which is what so much of business communication is. When was the last time you eagerly downloaded a form, or felt giddy with excitement at attending another business meeting or presentation?

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Every field of human endeavour For most business engagements we set the bar so low because we expect them to be eye-wateringly boring. Speaker, consultant, trainer, author and storyteller Lori L. Silverman was inspired to call her book Wake Me Up When the Data Is Over because that was the lament executives would mutter when asked to sit through yet another meeting or presentation. Imagine if people instead looked forward to meetings with you, and had a smile on their lips just thinking about your next presentation. This doesn’t mean you have to turn everything into a comedy act so work becomes one long comedy festival. If only. What it does mean is that humour is a tool that can help you both to stand out in a crowd and to influence positive outcomes. In business, humour is number one in scarcity value. If humour were a natural resource, our current dearth in business would be declared a worldwide emergency. You may argue that it’s impossible to enlist humour in your field because it’s all data and numbers. But humour is a universal language and you can improve every field of human endeavour by its appropriate application. David McWilliams is an Irish economist who is credited with predicting the bursting of the Celtic Tiger bubble. He is also thought to have coined the definition of economists as accountants with a personality bypass. (I’m an economist myself, so I know the ribaldry that comes with the territory.) McWilliams has created the world’s only economics and comedy festival. It’s known as Kilkenomics and leading economists and comedians from all over the world attend and present. It’s a fabulous way of making something like economics accessible to the general public but in a format that tickles their funny bone. Who would have thought that possible?

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I hope you’re now persuaded that humour can be drafted by anyone who wants to lift engagement and boost creativity and productivity. The next barrier is probably in your head: can it be done by anyone? Absolutely!

A formula for humour? In The Humour Code, Peter McGraw and Joel Warner conceive of humour as a formula that can be broken down and used again and again. The first theory of humour was hypothesised in a research paper written by Thomas Veatch in 1998. Veatch proposed what he called the N+V theory: the idea that humour occurs when someone perceives a situation is a violation of a subjective moral principle (V) while at the same time realising that the situation is normal (N). For example, Groucho Marx: ‘Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read’. McGraw and Warner built on Veatch’s work to formulate a new comedic hypothesis: the benign violation theory. In this amended theory, humour occurs when something seems wrong, unsettling or threatening (that is, a violation), but simultaneously seems okay, acceptable or safe (benign). When an event is just a violation, such as someone falling down stairs, people feel bad about it. But, according to McGraw and Warner, when the violation turns out to be benign, such as someone falling down stairs but ending up unhurt, people often do an about-face and react in at least one of three ways: they feel amused, they laugh or they make a judgement: ‘That was funny!’ McGraw and Warner came to believe the benign violation theory could even help people improve their comic routine. As they put it, people could use this theory to make upsetting concepts more amusing by making them seem more benign. McGraw calls this tactic the Sarah Silverman Strategy, after the comedian who gets away with jokes on abortion and AIDS because the way she tells them is ‘so darn cute’. 115

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On the flip side, McGraw believes that pointing out what is wrong with our everyday interactions with sous-chefs and ‘close-talkers’ (people who stand uncomfortably close to us when talking) can help make those experiences hilarious. This technique is known as the Seinfeld Strategy.

For influencers, what is and what is not humour? Humour is not simply telling jokes. While we might break the ice with a humble joke or two, humour is seeing the lighter side of things on a broader level. Hans Rosling’s TED talk ‘The Best Stats You’ve Ever Seen’, is an example of how you can create humour even when grappling with a serious topic. Rosling presents complex longitudinal global statistics on child mortality but adopts the persona of a sports broadcaster. It’s magic and it works without his minimising the gravity of the issue he is dealing with. Humour is unexpected and refreshing. In a wonderful scene in the movie Dumb and Dumber Jim Carrey’s character (Lloyd Christmas) is trying to ask the girl of his dreams out. Lloyd: ‘What are my chances?’ Mary: ‘Not good.’ Lloyd: ‘You mean, not good like one out of a hundred?’ Mary: ‘I’d say more like one out of a million.’ [Pause] Lloyd: ‘So you’re telling me there’s a chance … YEAH!’ It’s a fabulous moment of blind, wild optimism that usually has audiences in fits of laughter. Humour is also about grace under pressure. Our only guarantee in life, beyond death and taxes, is that things will go wrong — it’s Murphy’s Law. My client Dee tripped on her way onto the stage 116

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to deliver a presentation. The audience gasped, but Dee regained her balance and puffed, ‘Things can only get better’, winning a laugh from everyone and even a smattering of applause for her response. So where can we begin with learning humour? The humour matrix, illustrated in figure 10.1, gives us a tool with which to learn this skill. The humour matrix helps us work through the three levels of learning on the humour journey: from amateur to apprentice to master. Each level has three components: the first is your mental and emotional state — how you show up; the second consideration is the content you use; and finally there is what you seek to become, or the potential outcomes of your efforts. Figure 10.1: the humour matrix

Humour amateur We start off as humour amateurs because we see humour as a tool that can help us move from the humdrum to the sublime. We might make a start with jokes and then slowly evolve our own personal style. A simple way of making jokes work, one that I learned from my mentor Matt Church, founder of Thought Leaders Global, is to search Google for jokes about professionals. 117

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Adapt a situation similar to yours. For example, I found a joke that asked: How many lawyer jokes are there in the world? But I’m an economist and want to poke gentle fun at other economists when I speak. So I’ve adapted the joke: ‘How many economist jokes are there in the world? [People usually answer with variations on ‘Plenty’.] No, only three … [Pause] the rest are true stories’. So if you’re looking for a funny line about innovation, Google jokes on innovation, use your own material to set up the body of the joke and then adapt the punch line at the end. You can use a funny quote or photo this way for a safe and very doable start. Practise imitation too. Imitation is the greatest form of flattery. Who do you find funny? Can you appropriate some of their humour and style? Note their sense of timing and use of language, then slowly evolve your own. Remember, this is just the start of your own humour journey. As a humour amateur moving up the ladder to humour apprentice and on towards mastery, Benjamin Zander’s admonition should be your touchstone: Don’t take yourself so seriously! Please don’t mistake me. Not for a moment am I suggesting that what you do is not important or should be treated lightly. Rather, humour is a way of being light-hearted and optimistic even while doing important work and your best for a better world.

Humour apprentice As a humour apprentice you start using humour with purpose. You begin to look for humour to offset your message anxiety. You think, ‘How could I make this funny?’ Humour makes information memorable and lowers people’s defences. Funny is the compass that points you to the new frontier of influence.

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One of our colleagues, Anna, loathes getting her taxes done. It’s always a burdensome chore, and she dreads the end of the financial year. Being funny and smart, she dreamed up an alternative approach. She created the Anna Tax Festival and invites her friends over to help with her taxes. With food, drink and good cheer, and lots of tax humour, she gets the job done. She influences her friends to help by using the fun umbrella of a tax festival. And it works. As a humour apprentice you go on regular humour safaris or treasure hunts, collecting humour wherever you can find it. Your humour radar is active and you’ve invested in a notebook to capture the funnies. As a humour amateur you copy; as a humour apprentice you curate. You find the best ideas and adapt them for your own context. The key is to be a keen observer of life. A great idea can come from anywhere, and opportunities for humour present themselves every day. Erica King, who owns and operates several dental practices in Melbourne, exemplifies this observational skill. In 2007 she was in San Francisco for a marathon and spotted the legend ‘Running Divas’ on a T-shirt. For Erica, the juxtaposition of two such unlikely personas — an athlete and a female opera singer — tickled her sense of humour. She loved it so much, she went on to found the Australian startup Running Divas to help women get into running. I love the name and the back-story. All great comedians are keen observers of life. Seinfeld’s technique was simply to milk his everyday observations and put them together. If you have a funny palette, use it; if observational comedy is your forte, own it; if you have comic timing, then that is your authentic funny self. Remember, apprentices may borrow from or be inspired by others; they are brilliant humour curators, but what they create is truly theirs.

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Oscar Wilde famously said, ‘Be yourself, everyone else is taken’. And nowhere does this apply more than on your journey as a humour apprentice.

Humour mastery You know you’re ready for humour mastery when you seize every opportunity to publicly practise your humour as an influence tool. Michelle Obama, America’s First Lady, was recently seen dancing on stage to convey her message about fighting child obesity through structured activity. It was fun and authentic, and it worked for her young audience. Humour and the energy of dance connected where normal messaging would have failed. To become a humour master, you need to find your authenticity — this is who you are, not who you try to be. You develop, nurture and celebrate your personal self and style. Mahatma Gandhi, celebrated as leader of the world’s largest non-violent struggle for independence, was also known for his sense of humour. Asked by a journalist what he thought about Western civilisation, he replied with a glint in his eye, ‘I think it would be a good idea’. As humour masters, we also begin a kind of transcendence into a lightness of being. Whoa! Did you read that right? Did I just throw that in as a joke? Absolutely not. It is a serious idea, so please stay with me here while I explain. A lightness of being, the ability to laugh with others and at yourself, and to use self-deprecation as a controlled form of humour, are benchmarks of a balanced personality. This does not detract from your professional image or standing; rather, it enhances your humanity, making you more attractive and memorable. In a recent talk show interview, award-winning actress Helen Mirren surprised and delighted the audience when she breathed in a helium balloon and delivered her lines in her new, squeaky

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voice. Her performance had the studio audience rolling in the aisles and was beamed in newscasts all over the world. Mirren was so comfortable in her own skin, she could display a comic side of herself without in any way diminishing her stature as a serious artist. But she’s an actress, you may argue. Could a leader do that? In May 2013 passengers on an AirAsia flight were very surprised to be served by one of the most powerful men in the world dressed in drag. Richard Branson had lost a bet to Tony Fernandes, AirAsia chief, and this was the deal. Branson went the whole hog, donning the AirAsia uniform, make-up, high heels and stockings to meet AirAsia’s grooming standards. But he kept his famous beard, joking, ‘Haven’t you seen a stewardess with a beard before?’ Of course this won huge global publicity. Branson said, ‘I’ve done some outrageous things in my time but this will be up there with the best of them’. Before boarding, he had commented, ‘I’ve just got to practise walking in high heels first’. Richard Branson exemplifies lightness of being. Of course humour mastery does not require you to be wacky or zany, but it does require you not to take yourself too seriously. No matter what stage you’ve reached on your humour power journey, used appropriately, humour can be your secret weapon in influence. Sally Hogshead, author of Fascinate: Your 7 triggers to persuasion and captivation, shares a wonderful example: ‘The moment I walked on stage for a recent speech, my microphone died. I said: “Don’t worry, I’ve been trained in mime … And I’ll be delivering the entire speech in interpretive dance”. By the time the laughter died down, my new mic was ready to go, and the speech went on to a standing ovation!’ That is what mastering humour can do for you: standing ovations, happy people and your message zipping through.

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Of course, not every subject lends itself to humorous treatment (unless you are Sarah Silverman!). Politics, sex, religion and race are generally taboo in a work context. But with that proviso, who would have thought you could have fun with influence, or that influence in business could also be funny? There’s a wonderful moment in the first Harry Potter film when Hagrid reveals Harry’s true nature. It’s the turning point in his life and the warm, funny pivot of the whole series. Hagrid: ‘You’re a wizard, Harry.’ Harry: ‘I’m … I’m a what?’ Hagrid: ‘A wizard, Harry.’ Mastering humour as an influence tool can do that for you. It can make you an influence wizard. All the influence tools we have explored so far have important roles in building influence for power players. In the following chapter we show how you can step up another level to become a mega influencer by using the power of positioning and profile to channel influence.

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Power play tip to start fast and smart Find your funny or go on a humour quest Revisit the humour matrix and honestly locate yourself on it. Are you an amateur, apprentice or master? Shade in the box that fits your current level of ability and skills. Use the shaded box as a signpost to determine your next destination. If you score yourself at the ‘ho hum’ level, your next challenge is to find jokes you can use appropriately in a business context such as a presentation. If you’re a humour apprentice and are already using humour purposefully, continue your journey towards humour mastery. Observe and collect humorous data, facts, anecdotes and quotes you can add to your repertoire. This is the perfect excuse to watch standup comedians on YouTube (no more than 10 minutes at a time, though) as part of your quest.

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Positioning is being the expert in your domain, and profile is being known as the expert. Positioning power uses both strategies for competitive advantage, with the ultimate goal of moving from influencing the influencers to becoming a mega influencer. The strategies involve doing the work, then building your profile by speaking up at meetings, networking, learning and partnering others. To be a mega influencer you have to lead the thinking in your field through your writing, speaking and example, which means using every opportunity to present inside and outside your organisation. It requires grit and courage, but, most of all, integrity and authenticity — being true to who you are. Indra Nooyi, CEO of PepsiCo, who is leading a brave change away from junk snack foods towards healthier alternatives, is a great example of a mega influencer. Focus

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Positioning power … become the influencer When seeking change, you will often start out by thinking about who the influencers are and how you could influence them or have them influence others. You may draw up a stakeholder management plan or a spreadsheet mapping out key people of influence in the domain you want to reach. Xero, the very successful accounting software company that has superseded MYOB in the number one spot in this sector, used this strategy successfully. Those most likely to recommend an accounting or bookkeeping software package to you are, unsurprisingly, accountants. Xero targeted accountants by showing them how its software could make accountants’ lives easier. Xero’s big WIIFM (what’s in it for me?) was to demonstrate to accountants that they understood what it was like to walk in their customers’ shoes. Accountants, as key influencers, were in turn able to explain the software, demonstrate its benefits and persuade their clients to make the switch, hence Xero’s tremendous success.

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Identify the movers and shakers You can map out a similar approach. Identify who the key influencers are in your target audience’s world, and how you might reach and persuade them. This exercise will also help you identify blockers — people who could stymie your initiatives. To be successful, you must identify your enemies as well as your allies, and develop strategies to at least neutralise them, if not convert them. Twitter and Facebook are great media to use to identify and reach out to the movers and shakers in your domain. The Ice Bucket Challenge in 2014 did this well by publicly co-opting celebrities to participate in the campaign to raise awareness and money for research into amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), or motor neuron disease. ALS, which causes muscle wasting, has no known cure. The campaign challenged celebrities to video themselves upending a bucket of ice and water over their heads, and at the same time to publicly challenge at least three other personalities to do the same. It created a viral ripple of publicity, giving the campaign unprecedented exposure and fundraising success. In my work, my target audience is organisational leaders, and in Australia business leaders read the Australian Financial Review newspaper and its monthly Boss magazine. One of my strategies for reaching and influencing this audience was to feature with three of my clients in Boss. The February 2014 article was a huge lead generator for me, and remains so. Determining what your audience reads, who influences them and where they gather will all contribute to your reach and your influence.

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Reach out to connect and influence Identifying the influencers in your domain (inside and outside your organisation) is a good first step. How you reach out to connect and influence them is determined by your own creativity and imagination. Christina Guidotti, a thought leader in productivity, is the author of How to Have It All. When writing her book on productivity, she reached out to Brian Tracey, author of the monster bestseller Eat That Frog, to ask if he would consider writing a foreword. She sent her request via email, included a synopsis of her book and let him know she was a huge fan. She wasn’t sure he would even respond, but, she thought, you never know unless you try. Brian Tracey was impressed enough by her enthusiasm that he wrote that foreword. In a workshop recently one of my clients shared her secret for getting what she wanted. She succeeds, she said, simply by asking for what she wants. It may sound obvious, but most people struggle with the concept. This was brought home to her when she came back from a conference loaded with goodies and a colleague asked her how she finished up with two pens. She blinked and replied, ‘Why, I asked for them’. Everyone listening was inspired to try this simple influence strategy. Of course, you will not always get what you ask for, but at least you’ve made a start. One of Australia’s most heavily booked speakers sends a beautiful gift pack filled with popcorn, chocolate and brochures to speaker bureaus. He has identified the audience that can book him for speaking engagements and deliberately sets out to woo them. His memorable gift boxes help him stand out from everyone else.

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The rise of the mega influencer What I am going to suggest here is you shift from influencing the influencers to becoming the influencer in your domain. Whoa! When you think of branding or marketing, who comes to mind? Is it Seth Godin? What about productivity? Is it David Allen (Getting Things Done)? What about talk show hosts? Oprah Winfrey? All these people influence you because of their profile and positioning. Remember they didn’t start out as mega influencers but became mega influencers along their journey of influence. Book publishers uncork the champagne when Oprah picks one of their authors to feature as her ‘book of the month’. They know her influence in America and globally will have cash registers ringing, automatically guaranteeing a blockbuster. It happens, even when a writer (think Jonathan Franzen, author of The Corrections) decides not to support the selection.

Profile and positioning What makes a mega influencer or thought leader a rock star in the organisational world? Just as we associate Einstein with physics or Charles Darwin with the theory of evolution, we should associate mega influencers with profile and positioning. Mega influencers are not born but made one step at a time, each step dedicated to working on their profile and positioning. Profile and positioning differ subtly. In their business book Sell Your Thoughts, Matt Church, Peter Cook and Scott Stein describe positioning as being the expert in your domain, and profile as being known as the expert. Often experts have positioning — they know their subject inside out — but they are not known for their expertise. On the other hand, some people have profile, but no positioning, which makes the profile a hollow promise. They’re famous for

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being famous, through a name or an inheritance, rather than for any expertise. You could call it the Paris Hilton phenomenon. While you and I live in an age of instant celebrity (Andy Warhol’s celebrated 15 minutes of fame), this is not what I mean when I talk about profile or positioning. If you crave the short cut to fame through celebrity or notoriety — the kind of mentality, for instance, that might persuade you that one sizzling sex video will set you on your way — you won’t find the formula here. But if you are looking to build an enduring profile and positioning based on work, integrity and authenticity, then please read on. When we discuss mega influencers who use their profile and positioning to advance their own and others’ causes, understand that their success is always based on credibility and expertise. Mega influencers use both profile and positioning to achieve super influence. They embody competitive advantage. Their positioning and profile create commercial advantage, profit and prosperity for themselves, their organisations and the world they influence. Bernard Salt, international demographer, author and KPMG partner, is a classic example of this new age mega influencer. He is positioned as an expert in his field and has the profile to back it up. Many people have heard of him and refer to his work, and his clients and prospects fall over themselves to work with him. Salt popularised the expressions ‘sea change’ and ‘tree change’, and gave Australia the ‘goat’s cheese curtain’, for a ring around inner-city Melbourne delineating the area in which a hipster lifestyle flourishes. Bernard Salt is all the things we’re talking about: a mega influencer, a professional rock star.

How to become a mega influencer Imagine if your organisation was packed with mega influencers and the quantum leap this would allow you to make over your competitors. More importantly, imagine if you were a mega

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influencer. How can you become a mega influencer by building your position and profile inside and outside your organisation for prosperity, profit and competitive advantage? And do this with authenticity, integrity and longevity? That is what we will do in the model that follows. Brand Godin and Brand Oprah weren’t created overnight. Building your profile and position is a long-term game, a marathon, not a sprint. Everything you do to reinforce your profile and positioning will add weapons to your arsenal of influence. In this journey (illustrated in figure 11.1) you start at base camp by doing the work. Doing the work lays a strong foundation for your success as a mega influencer. Once you have successfully set up base camp you can begin your climb to mega influence by getting your voice heard, learning and growing, and partnering with the right people before scaling the giddy heights to conquer the rock star peak of your world. Figure 11.1: the mega influencer matrix

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At base camp The first stage in the mega influencer’s journey is like setting up at base camp. Base camp is where you build the foundation from which you’ll make your steady climb up the professional mountain. Base camp is made up of three steps: 1. Do the work. 2. Promote the work. 3. Engage others. 1. Do the work (create and contribute) Jerry Seinfeld was paid a very large fee to present his success secrets at a leadership conference. Legend has it he entered stage right, wrote three words on a big whiteboard at centre stage and exited stage left. He wrote: ‘DO THE WORK!’ Three simple words, and his secret to success. Your journey to becoming a mega influencer starts in the humblest way. You must do the work. Even Bernard Salt, while he has minions churning out reports and crunching data, still does the thinking. Oprah commands a mighty team, yet she reads, researches and vets ideas all the time. So doing the work will give you the strongest foundation you can build on your path to becoming a mega influencer. I know it’s unglamorous. Like Cinderella, you would probably prefer to skip straight to the ball with the glass slipper and the prince. But that amazing transformation is not possible without humble beginnings. The US TV series Undercover Boss takes remote business owners and senior executives out of their ivory towers and onto the shop floor. The disguised execs join ordinary workers at the coalface to experience the conditions there, to discover what makes people tick and to learn who is doing it hard.

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It’s made-for-TV drama, often with a big finish where all is revealed, with tears and hugs and hard-working employees rewarded in unexpected ways. The series promotes the idea that it is the work that matters. No matter who you are, whether you are a small cog, the monkey that keeps the wheels turning or a mysterious god at the top of the corporate pile, this first step is the same. Create the work or contribute to the work. Surprisingly, most people stop here. They firmly believe the work will speak for itself. Women particularly suffer from what I call meritocracy bias — a notion that merit will be duly recognised and rewarded. You do the work and you wait for the accolades to flow. And if we lived in a perfect world, it would happen. The hard reality is we don’t, and recognition and rewards don’t always match performance. I have suffered from this syndrome too. In an early job, in a pharmaceutical company, I worked on a project shoulder to shoulder with a male colleague. We worked in a very similar way and with similar results. Our team had regular meetings at which everyone shared what they were working on. My colleague presented his work in a way that blew everyone away. You’d think he was saving at-risk babies single-handedly and changing the world at the same time. And in a sense he was. He wasn’t inventing the results, or even wildly exaggerating, but rather presenting his work in the best possible light. So while you do the work, this next step is equally critical. Regrettably, rather than doing the same, ensuring that my work and the results it achieved for my team and for me were recognised, I chose to let the work speak for itself. My male colleague received his just rewards. I didn’t. Not bitter, just observing! Rather than excessive humility (‘The meek shall inherit the earth’), the real world will often favour delusions of grandeur (‘Build it and they will come’). As bestselling author activist,

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author and co-founder of The Peace Alliance, Marianne Williamson says, ‘We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? Your playing small does not serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you … As we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same’. 2. Promote the work Many Australians are reluctant to promote their own achievements for fear of the tall poppy syndrome, where others feel obliged to chop them down. Many build nests and hibernate once they have done the work. No one else knows what they do. Mega influencers resist this tendency. Not only do they take pride in their work, but they make sure it receives the recognition it deserves, not just for themselves, but also for the benefit of their colleagues and the organisation. As Guy Kawasaki puts it in Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds and Actions, ‘If you don’t toot your own horn, don’t complain that there’s no music’. If you use the same approach on your journey to becoming a mega influencer, you’ll be surprised at the number of supporters your courage and determination will flush out to negate the naysayers and curmudgeons. Once you commit to the work, you must also commit to promoting the work — for everyone’s benefit. I run a storytelling business. I don’t start by promoting myself but by promoting the field of business storytelling. I talk about it as a valuable skill for leaders all over the world. I talk about the progress of the art, research from the field and many other aspects. Through talking about storytelling, I showcase my knowledge and expertise. When I talk about the work I have done with individual clients, I cross the bridge between promoting the work and promoting my work. And the two are already

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linked, so the transition is smooth and natural. (Look how I am promoting myself in these paragraphs you have just read! Practise what you preach, as they say.) Promoting your sector builds a subtle bridge that can lead you to promoting your own work. No one else knows what you do or what successes and learnings you have had unless you share them. As an authority and spokesperson for your industry or sector, or on your journey to becoming one, you earn the right to link yourself to its stories ahead of your competitors. But make sure you also credit others who have helped you. They’ll thank you for the recognition and help you again. Running an undercover operation around your work differs dramatically from shouting its successes from the rooftops. Talking up your business or organisation may feel like blowing your own trumpet, and to a degree it is, since no one but a saint will do it for you. But knowing the difference between selfpromotion and trumpet-blowing makes all the difference. Make the work the star, and credit others who have helped you, especially your mentors, sponsors and team. If you are seeking inspiration on how to do this well, tune in to the speeches award-winning actors give at the Oscars. The best always make it about the movie and always express gratitude to everyone who made it happen. Consider another prong to promoting your work: always promote work that is of interest to your sector and is commercially successful. Make the promotion relevant. For example, few will pay particular attention to your talking about how you reshape internal guidelines for your team. But link this to how your work will change the way your sector does business in the future, and you’ll capture your audience’s attention.

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Another obstacle to promoting your work is ‘silo speak’, where you use jargon from your area of expertise and expect it to resonate with others. For example, business development practitioners who talk about unlocking brand value, or accountants who discuss capital asset depreciation will generally fail to impress. You may think this kind of language makes you look professional but it can position you as unintelligible or, worse, as someone who is competent in only a narrow area of business. If you suffer from silo speak, and we all have our moments, this is an ideal time to revisit chapter 8 on message power. This poses an interesting conundrum. Your journey to becoming a mega influencer is primarily based on your solid knowledge and talent in your field (your positioning as an expert) and on being known for your expertise (your profile). But it is also based on how you can make this knowledge accessible to others. How will you safely emerge from the trenches of competitive expertise and connect with your allies in your and other sectors to push forward with the stories and promotions that matter to your business? Think Bernard Salt’s goat’s cheese curtain. He has unscrambled demographic and lifestyle data into a simple idea you can relate to, and that is what makes him a mega influencer. Again the lessons from chapter 8 serve us well. 3. Engage others The best way to promote the work and your work is to engage others in it. Remember the golden rule of reciprocity: treat others as you would have them treat you. Translate that into engaging in their work too, or at least showing an interest in it. Nothing is more flattering than someone taking an interest in you and your enterprise. Returning the favour shows you’re aware this journey is about more than you. We recently concluded a large project with an organisation that was keen to promote its work internally. One of the challenges 135

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our client wanted us to address was how little people within the 13 000-strong organisation knew of the great work done by so many of their colleagues. Sadly this was the case even when people worked within metres of one another. One of our initiatives was to train people from inside the organisation to present a three- to five-minute TED-style talk on their passion and purpose, and what lit them up at work. This resulted in a five-week program and graduation where a number of staff presented to a theatre full of their colleagues, leaders and peers from inside and outside the organisation. So many of the talks were emotionally wrenching. Some had people in tears. At the end one leader summed it up like this: ‘I feel so proud to work here. I always knew we did amazing work but I only ever got to see or hear of a few disparate incidents. ‘Now I and everyone here knows we do good work, work that makes a difference and work that makes us proud. I also feel sad that we never heard from all of you before. And how many more amazing stories do we have in our organisation that never see the light of the day? I urge you all to go back, share your work, share your stories and ask your colleagues for theirs.’ She may have been speaking for many organisations and people in business. Bad news spreads like wildfire, but we simply don’t share the good stuff enough. So why not decide that you will be your organisation’s broadcaster? It doesn’t mean you become the office gossip. Quite the opposite. You start by collecting and broadcasting good news stories. If you work for yourself you can distribute customer testimonials and references. As with everything, you have to do this well. This isn’t a bragathon. Be discerning and choose what’s relevant to your audience. Go back to chapter 7 on empathy power for a refresher and pointers. For inspiration, look at or listen to the daily news on

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TV or radio. Broadcasting and engaging others in your work must follow these principles. Mix it up, find out what else is happening in the business and broadcast good news about that too. The TED talk series gave our clients an opportunity to do just that. We often overlook another simple but effective strategy: engage the power of corridor and lift conversations. Sometimes the small things can make a big impact, just as a tiny magnet can lift iron filings. Many of my clients work with thousands of colleagues in large office towers in the city. Every day they share the lift with relative strangers, but strangers with whom they already have one vital point in common: they all work for the same organisation. Each encounter represents an opportunity to connect and engage in their work and yours. Try a smile and a friendly chat. Neil Armstrong was a master at taking a genuine interest in others. At a lunch organised in his honour, he was enthusiastically quizzing a lunch companion about all the places she had travelled. Although she was flattered, she burst out, ‘But Mr Armstrong, you have been to the moon’. To which he replied, ‘That’s the only place I have been; tell me more about your travels’. Armstrong never let his celebrity go to his head and always showed an interest in other people. This is one of the fundamental principles that Dale Carnegie sets out in his blockbuster How to Win Friends and Influence People. You will be delighted with the synergies and opportunities you discover when you build those bridges and connections. This is a step towards building your profile — ensuring that more people know about you, what you do and what you stand for. Google spends recognising the common space. into each other

vast sums of money on its workspaces, power of people working face to face in a They call it the bump factor. People bump in the gym, in the lift, in the corridor — all

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these random opportunities for connection and potential collaboration, for ideas to seed and grow. One of the first and perhaps most controversial initiatives Marissa Mayer adopted as CEO of Yahoo was to dismantle the well-entrenched practice of remote telecommuting. She did so partly because it was being abused, but also to promote the power of people working together face to face and to give the organic bump factor a giant boost.

Leaving base camp … ready to conquer The foundations of your mega influencer journey are to do the work, to promote the work then your work, and to engage with others. Now that you’ve successfully set up base camp, you’re ready to spin the dial on your positioning and profile and to start the climb to the peak. Conquering the mountain means committing to three stages: 1. Be heard. 2. Learn and grow. 3. Partner others for mutual progress. 1. Be heard You will start your climb by being heard and having your voice recognised inside the organisation. Standing out starts by speaking out. When people think about your area of expertise, yours should be one of the first names that spring to mind. A simple way of being heard is to speak up in meetings. Make a point, however small, perhaps by reaffirming what someone else has said or asking a question. So often people simply don’t speak up in meetings. They’re frightened of saying the wrong thing or appearing stupid; they feel intimidated by the power players in the room. But don’t overdo it. At the other end of the spectrum are the people who won’t shut up. A few weeks ago at a council community engagement forum, a man stood up and made a 138

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powerful point, supporting it with a snappy example. A lot of heads nodded. But then he went on to explain, elaborate, elucidate, embroider and reiterate his point for another five minutes, scarcely drawing breath. You could see the shift in the room. People started coughing, shuffling papers, tapping their feet. Speaking out isn’t a mandate to over-talk. Comments about this speaker overheard during a break were unflattering: ‘Loves the sound of his own voice.’ ‘You can never get him to shut up.’ He wasn’t a close-talker but an over-talker. Sometimes over-talkers start off persuasively but undo their good work with boring repetition. Or they cover up a lack of knowledge or preparation by making the same point in multiple ways. It’s conversational smoke and mirrors. When speaking out, apply the Goldilocks principle: not too much, not too little. Maybe you never speak at meetings. Here are some suggestions, depending on where you are on the speaking-up spectrum. Remember, you are speaking up to build your positioning and profile. Prepare and rehearse. Think of cuisine queen Nigella Lawson (‘Here’s some I made earlier’), and pre-prepare some points or questions. This will help you tackle nerves and other blocks that prevent you from speaking up publicly. At the meeting, resolve to make your point even if it is only a minor one, or ask the question you prepared earlier. Do it as soon as is appropriate so you don’t lose courage and so no one else beats you to the punch with your question. After the meeting, pat yourself on the back for having taken that first step. Next time, ask two questions and make a comment, even if only to reaffirm what someone else has said. What if you do speak up, but you’re uncertain if this is a step in the right direction on your journey to becoming a mega

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influencer? To help, before the meeting, do some extra reading and preparation on the subject. Never go in cold. At the meeting, instead of adopting your default speaking position (it could be that you always object or wholeheartedly agree or nimbly pass the buck), think how you can add value. To be a true mega influencer, think about the private discourse behind the discussion. While they may all appear to agree on an issue, you may have picked up on a sense of unease or discomfort, something that hasn’t been voiced — an elephant in the room. You don’t have to resolve the problem but you can draw it out: ‘I sense a level of unease or doubt about this. Is that right?’ People may then reveal what is bothering them and, with some informed discussion, you may be able to resolve it as a group. People will admire you for your courage and honesty. You have now moved from just speaking, and having your voice heard, to making a difference and a contribution. In her book The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron suggests a good way of approaching this. Keep notes on meetings by running a line down the middle of a page of your notebook, recording what is said on the right and what is unsaid (feelings, agendas, elephants) on the left. After the meeting, congratulations: you are playing a bigger game, with every meeting a speaking opportunity and a milestone on your journey to becoming a mega influencer. What if you speak too much? Many of us have been guilty of over-talking. I know I have! Before the meeting, embrace the less-is-more principle. Watch out for these red flags: ■■

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I’m holding court for more than a couple of minutes without drawing breath. I’m not allowing anyone else to get a word in. I’m repeating myself, while one part of my brain is screaming ‘Stop talking now!’

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People who were bright and sparkly when I started are now distracted and listless.

Not for a moment am I suggesting you should be taciturn or speak only in staccato bursts. Great conversations and deep connections make the personal and business world go round. But over-talkers lose out on these benefits just as under-talkers do. After the meeting remind yourself that the first step needed for change is self-awareness. The second step is to modify your behaviour based on the red flags above. Analyse how you went as follows: ■■ ■■

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Did I add value to the meeting? Did I make my points in the shortest and clearest possible way? Is my contribution helping me on my journey to becoming a mega influencer? Rinse and repeat for the next meeting!

Speaking is like a muscle. You may need to exercise it more to build it up or, if it is overused, rest it. Speaking out builds your identity, helps you voice your thoughts and opinions and allows you to make a difference in your world. You speak with strategic intent, knowing each delivery is helping you build your positioning and profile. Of course, you do this with authenticity and integrity, and don’t lose your spontaneity. You don’t want everything scripted or manufactured. Maintaining your moral compass and intent, you take a step closer to your status as a mega influencer. 2. Learn and grow Your next imperative is to constantly seek and embrace learning opportunities, both formal and informal. Sign up for courses, and put your hand up for projects that expose you to the movers

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and shakers in your organisation or sector. Remember, if you want to be successful, associate with successful people. In every situation, ask yourself, ‘What can I learn from this?’ When you ask for mentoring, be prepared to mentor others. This doesn’t have to involve a formal mentoring role, but you can always provide advice or suggestions for the newbie or the less experienced. ‘Pay it forward’, so to speak, by supporting and encouraging other people where possible. Nothing is better for your own growth, your reputation and your network. But again don’t be the annoying ‘know it all’. Always be clear-sighted about when your help could make a difference and when it is unlikely to. If you are not the right person, suggest a more appropriate expert and offer to connect them. The single most powerful thing we can do for our personal and professional growth is to read. Pat yourself on the back, because you are already doing that. Lots of business professionals struggle with reading. We never have enough time, or we feel overwhelmed by choice and worry about staying current in our field. Research suggests that most people don’t get beyond page 40 of the average business book. Today we are drowning in content and books, and we have never lived in a time when it has been easier to read. So how do we pick what to read, and how can we read faster and smarter? While you can and should subscribe to blogs (especially mine!) and podcasts, I am going to focus on books, which tend to present more complex ideas in greater depth. First, discover the classic book and the current blockbuster in your field, and read both. Browse bestseller lists, such as those offered by the New York Times, Forbes or editor’s picks at Amazon. A Google search of ‘must-read business books’ will leave you spoilt for choice.

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Also find out what other people are reading. Ask friends and family. Check out what leading thinkers such as Seth Godin or business leaders such as Bill Gates are recommending. Now you have a short list of must-reads, how can you read faster and smarter? The good news is you don’t have to read every book from cover to cover (apart from this one, of course — don’t stop here!). The app Blinkist, for example, will provide you with a short summary of the book along with the irresistible promise of ‘a smarter you in 15 minutes’. Using this app I will often read my first business book of the day over a morning cup of coffee. For longer summaries, subscribe to a service such as getAbstract. If you prefer auditory learning, a talking book service such as Audible is a great option. Overachievers in my gym often combine audible with exercise. All these services come with a free trial period so you can experiment to find one that works for you. Two strategies to use here are compression (what compressed version of the book can I read or listen to right now?) and ‘making time in time’ (such as reading on your phone while waiting for an appointment, reading a summary in the train on the way to work, or listening on your headphones while walking your dog or driving). So what else can you do in terms of ‘learning and growing’? Smooth others’ paths as much as you would like yours to be smoothed. No one gets to the top without building bridges, nurturing relationships, making friends (and maybe a few enemies) and doing good work along the way. In their bestseller The Power of Nice, Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval share how they have moved to the top of the advertising industry by following a simple but powerful philosophy: it pays to be nice. Where so many companies encourage a dog-eat-dog mentality, the Kaplan Thaler Group has succeeded through chocolate and flowers. Through recounting their own experiences and the stories of other people and businesses, they demonstrate why,

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contrary to conventional wisdom, nice people can finish first. Your learn and grow phase is about everyone with you learning and growing too. So don’t hog the platform and don’t be selfish with opportunities; be both a giver and a taker, not just a taker. 3. Partner others for mutual progress Barack Obama and Michelle Obama went out to a local diner for a quiet dinner. The owner of the diner asked to speak with Michelle in private. When she returned the president, intrigued, asked: ‘What was that about?’ She replied, ‘Oh, he was my first boyfriend and just wanted to say hello’. To which Obama joked, ‘So if you were married to him you’d be running this restaurant’. And Michelle quipped back, ‘No, if I was married to him, he would be President of the United States’. On your conquest of the mountain you also have to partner with the right people, both inside and outside your organisation or industry. At base camp you were fully occupied thinking about engaging in people, engaging in their work and inviting them to engage in yours. How can you partner with people inside your organisation? And what would you partner them for? Not all of these stages are always discrete, of course; they frequently overlap. In the learning and growing phase you might find the best way to learn more about marketing is by partnering with the marketers in their next project; or you might explore how you could add value to the production team by visiting their meetings to share ideas or brainstorm. And learning and growing never stops — in business, as in life, we must be dedicated lifelong learners. I don’t pretend the partnering process will be easy. You may have to cross tight departmental lines. Your ability to partner

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will depend on the relationships you formed at base camp and all through your journey. You don’t need many partnerships, but those you do form must be strategic. Wearing your smartest, sharpest commercial hat, ask, ‘What is the most important project in the business right now? Where is everyone’s attention, energy and money focused?’ This would be a great arena in which to form a partnership by sharing what you might bring to the table. For example, a learning and development practitioner might hear of a large tender for government work and find out that there is scope around learning opportunities. You could offer to partner the business development team in writing up and contributing to this part of the proposal. If you pitch it well, and they are smart, they should rush to take you up on the offer. At the same time, beware of the dangers of aligning yourself with a large or prestigious project. It may associate you with suggestions of opportunism. Or with major public failure: the collapse of a large star swallows many smaller stars. Choose well. You may also choose to hitch your wagon to a star by following people you admire and want to work with, rather than particular opportunities. I have done this in my professional life, and with them as partners I have been guided to the right decisions, have loved my work and have grown through the process. As well as checking which projects may benefit from your partnership input, consider who will lead the projects. Are they admired within the business or sector? Are they known for their commitment, delivery, results and management? Will you enjoy partnering with them, learn from them and grow? Or are they ambitious egotists who take all the credit when things go well, and dodge the blame for failures? Consider all these factors before bravely throwing your partnership gauntlet down.

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What about supplier partners? Who are the supplier partners outside your business from whom your business would benefit? One of our clients, who had brought us in for a large project in her financial services firm, later said, ‘It was one of the best career decisions I ever made’. A good supplier can be a wonderful partner and help you shine inside the organisation. But the same rules apply in choosing an external partner as an internal partner. On your mountain climb, by working on being heard, learning and growing, and partnering inside and outside your organisation or industry, you build on your positioning and profile as a mega influencer.

At the peak You’ve made it to the top. This is where you emerge like a butterfly from your cocoon and spread your wings wide. And nothing will build your visibility more than teaching and publishing. Teaching and publishing means using every opportunity to present inside and outside your organisations. By now your confidence will have grown enough that you will be presenting in all kinds of forums. Start small Many great speakers have started small and come up through the ranks, seeking or accepting invitations from schools, community groups, or service clubs such as Rotary or Toastmasters. You can do the same. The world is always short of speakers. You can then go on to larger events and stages, presenting at conferences, seminars and workshops. Never miss an opportunity to speak and teach around your area of expertise. When Anthony Robbins decided he wanted to be a great public speaker, he attended a course, at the end of which the teacher

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set the class a challenge: ‘For the next 10 weeks, I want each of you to speak publicly at least once a week’. Most of the class said, ‘No, that’s too hard’. Anthony Robbins knew he needed all the practice he could get so he decided he would speak publicly three times a day every day for 10 weeks. And he did. It didn’t matter where — in a library, on a street corner, in a classroom, wherever people gathered. At the end of 10 weeks his classmates had spoken 10 times, while he had spoken more than 200 times. But even he began with that small first step. Write your way up The other way to build both profile and positioning is by writing. You might start with a humble blog post, put up an article on your intranet, feature in an interview in your industry magazine, do a podcast on one of your articles, write a white paper or make a contribution as a guest on another website. Here’s a handy tip on writing: create content once, but leverage it often. Remember, you have done the work, built a foundation. You create content for your presentations and speeches using the message mastery tools in chapter 8. Now you turn this same content into a blog post or a podcast. The easiest way to write is not to write at all. How can that work? Can you talk about your topic? Then simply record into your phone and transcribe this audio into an article. I know authors who have written whole books this way. With technology, tools and business smarts, you can ride this horse many ways. Pete Williams of Deloitte Digital is a great role model on how to become a mega influencer through the power of publishing and teaching. He speaks and writes prolifically on his area of expertise: the digital economy. And remember, everyone started somewhere. Your first piece of writing may not be a polished gem; perhaps it’s only a humble lump of coal. It still puts you ahead of millions of other people

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who don’t even have a chunk of coal. And time and the steady pressure of practice will one day turn that handful of carbon into the diamond it deserves to be. Lead from the front When you reach the peak it’s clear for all to see you’re leading from the front. Lead the thinking in your field, even if you don’t have the formal title of leader. Be visible inside and outside your organisation or sector, partner and work with movers and shakers on successful projects, learn and grow, mentor and be mentored. Think of Madonna, who creates a new version of herself for a new audience every decade. Leaders also embrace constant reinvention. Reinvention keeps you on top of your game and helps you stay current and relevant. The greatest danger at this stage is that hubris can kick in, rendering you complacent. Speak, publish, represent your company and yourself, and don’t hide your light under a bushel. But at all times act with integrity. And practise, practise, practise. If you practise all these tips, you will become a professional rock star. You will reach that sweet spot where positioning and profile meet. You will graduate from being influenced to influencing others to becoming a mega influencer. You will help shape the discourse and opinions of your industry. You will sway audiences and your words will be quoted, repeated and used when business decisions are made. Be aware that with great power comes great responsibility. Those who succeed in the mega influence space over the long term have moved from pure ego and ambition to creating and sharing meaning for others as well as themselves. In their way, they have stopped just influencing people and started to use their influence for a better world and a better future. The world needs mega influencers, just as it needs great and challenging mountains against which mega influencers can 148

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prove themselves and inspire you and me. Are you ready for the climb? You’ll need courage and determination and, perhaps even more (as explored in the following chapter), you’ll need to channel fierce power.

Power play tip to start fast and smart What’s your position? What is the simplest next step for you to take on your journey to becoming a mega influencer? Is it to be heard by speaking up, speaking out and networking? Or is it learning and growing through mentors or mentoring others? Locate where you are on the mega influencer matrix. Colour the next box green — it’s your go signal. Don’t forget that you must complete the foundation row first: do the work, promote the work and engage others. Otherwise, like the first two of the storied three little pigs, you’re building houses of straw and sticks, not bricks.

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Fierce power at a glance ■■

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Fierce power is expressing fearlessly who we are and having the courage to be a positive role model. It is the mother lode of all influence. The foundation of fierce power is our values. Values manifest in behaviour. Behaviour is values in action; it stress-tests values. Words (what we say) are the bridge between values (what we believe) and behaviours (what we do). Fierce power must be based on authenticity and integrity. Values-based influence, demonstrated through our words and behaviour, can make us a powerful role model. Embracing fierce power can cause our worst demons to surface — are we good enough? The dark side of living with and through values is that we can be judgemental of others. Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz embodies fierce power. He is brave enough to champion causes treated as taboo by most corporate CEOs, such as gun control and gay marriage, yet far from spelling corporate suicide, this leadership appears to have only boosted Starbucks’ bottom line. Focus

Attitude

Authentic

Integrity

Impact

Action

Seismic

Role model

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Fierce power … fiercely being you Casablanca ranks on list after list of favourite movies of all time. The story goes that initially the producers had wanted to cast Ronald Reagan, who was contracted to the studio, but due to unforeseen circumstances they ended up casting Humphrey Bogart. The film works because Bogart plays Bogart, and no one does that better than Bogie himself. To be a mega influencer you have to find the courage to be yourself. But not a pale, safe, vanilla version; rather, the brightest, highest megawatt version of yourself you can be. I call this fierce power — fiercely being you — because nothing compares to you and there’s only one of you in the world, even if you are an identical twin! Becoming an influence rock star means wholly owning and being you. Fiercely being you also means being comfortable in your own skin, warts and all. American rapper Kanye West, Time magazine’s most influential person for 2015, nails it like this: ‘Look, I can be married to the most beautiful woman in the world. And I am. I can have the most beautiful daughter in the world. I have that. But I’m nothing if I can’t be me. If I can’t be true to myself then they don’t mean anything’.

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Fierce power, totally being you, is the mother lode of all influence.

Unlock your values The foundation of fierce power is your values. Values are true north for your moral compass. With a strong values foundation you will soar like a bird on thermal waves that take you higher than you can fly under your own power. Chris Darwin, a great-great-grandson of Charles Darwin, is dedicated to preventing global mass extinctions. In the documentary Darwin’s Unfinished Business, he explains, ‘Through life you discover your prerequisites for a job. Mine are PPPV: lack of pressure, nice people, purpose and variety’. These, in a nutshell, are his values, but their realisation came about slowly. Values, behaviour and words together form the bedrock of our ‘fierce power’. As illustrated in figure 12.1, when our values and behaviour align we embody congruence; when our behaviour and words are in synch we are credible; and when our words and values line up we create meaningful connections. And all of this has to be based in authenticity and integrity.

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Figure 12.1: the fierce power model

What are your core values? They’re your life’s principles, the unflagging rules you live by. They’re what you believe in when all else fails. You may be results driven and innovative; you may treasure family and work–life balance or independence and isolation; you may insist on honesty, professionalism, compassion … Is this a values shopping list or a portrait of God? Here are some exercises to unlock your values. Cast yourself back to ancient Rome. You are a gladiator. In minutes you will be sent into the arena where a blood-crazed crowd will roar while you fight for your life. Return to now. You will fight the lions of Mammon, conflict, ambiguity, greed, power and profit. You have two swords and a knife tucked into your warrior’s belt. These three weapons are your values and your only defence. What values would you choose? One of my core work values is results for my clients, a determination to deliver the best outcomes for them. This is a

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deep driver of my behaviour. If I feel I am not a good fit for a client and can think of a consultant who could serve their needs better, I will facilitate an introduction. Here’s another, less gory way of thinking about this. If your partner, best friend or boss, or a colleague who knows you well, were to describe you in two or three words, what words would they use? Your next step is to cast your mind over the panorama of your life to recall experiences where you have consistently demonstrated these values. Note the use of the plural experiences. A single moment of righteousness doesn’t qualify as a value. It may even be an anomaly. Apply some tough love here. Think of two or three qualities you want to be known and remembered for, in parallel with authenticity and integrity, that must accompany the expression of your values. Now repeat the previous exercise by recalling experiences where you have lived these values.

Values manifest in behaviour The beliefs you hold drive what you do. You can spout values endlessly, and many organisations and individuals do. But it is how you behave that is the acid test of your values. What would you do if you found $40 000 on the street? This is what happened to Glen James, a homeless man, who found a backpack containing that sum of cash on a Boston street in September 2014. James flagged down a police car and handed in the backpack and the cash. The police located the distraught owner, a foreign student, and reunited him with his money. For his action James received a citation at Boston police headquarters and was widely praised. But there’s more.

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James’s story inspired Ethan Whittington, a 27-year-old from Virginia, a complete stranger who had never even been to Boston, to launch a fund for James. In four hours the campaign raised $3152, and in a few days the tally soared to almost $100 000. Whittington plans to keep the fund open for as long as people want to give. He said, ‘It’s just inspiring to see somebody do an honourable thing like that. If everybody could have the humanity that he did that day, it’d be a special thing’. James’s deed continues to move people all over America, and the fund keeps growing. Whittington thinks having his own home is now a reasonable goal for James, a soft-spoken man in his mid fifties who has been living on the streets for five years. Glen James changed his life simply by behaving accordingly to his values. Your fierce power can inspire the world, just as Glen James did. This is the most powerful form of influence: influence where our doing (behaviour) manifests who we are (our values). Our behaviour holds up a mirror to our values (whether we like it or not). It’s hard. I know I’ve found myself many times, particularly with my family, insisting, ‘Do as I say, not as I do!’ As an influencer this is your daily challenge. When I shared Glen’s story on my blog, one of my subscribers nailed it with her comment: ‘A truly inspiring story. Thanks for deepening my personal connection to the power and partnership between being, acting with integrity, showing up, deeply caring and getting beyond self-interest, and how these actions and choices by their very nature are the greatest ways we as leaders can influence’.

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Congruence When your values and behaviours align, it creates congruence, for you and your audience. And when what you believe and what you do line up, you become a powerful role model. Research tells us that people, particularly Australians, have fast and sensitive BS detectors. As Australian motivational speaker and author Amanda Gore sees it, it is as though you have an inbuilt antenna that picks up signals and can sense other people’s values. You know people who always chase the cheapest deal even while claiming they value quality, or people who say they love their family yet are complete workaholics. A motivational speaker once said to me, ‘Show me your diary and I will show you your priorities’. Zappos is an online footwear and apparel retailer with a core value to ‘deliver WOW through service’. Zappos lives its core value every day through its interactions with customers, and it encourages its employees to live this value in their personal lives too. With only values and no correlating behaviours, you are an empty shell. Behaviour stress-tests values. Some people score well on their written driver’s test but perform poorly behind the wheel, revealing the yawning chasm between theory and practice. ‘Under stress we say yes,’ writes Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way, meaning under stress we condone behaviours in ourselves and others that we would not normally accept. In a corporate workshop we ran, one of the leaders put up their organisation’s values. It was the usual bag: excellence, honesty, compassion. One of the executives said, ‘Nobody could argue with any of these values per se. It’s when there is a conflict between two values — compassion versus excellence, say — that we hit turbulence’.

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This is so true, but there is no easy answer, because conflict is always contextual and must be dealt with case by case. We did some values work for an aggressive, macho bank that had recently implemented a blueprint for values and behaviours. The CEO was determined to live these, and in doing so to change the organisation. In the first week, he sent a powerful message around the company when he sacked a senior executive — not for poor performance or failure to meet targets, but for behaviour not in line with their new values. Nothing could be clearer: values and behaviour mattered, and any deviation would not be tolerated.

Authenticity Jonathan Fields, a New York stockbroker turned entrepreneur, exemplifies fierce power through values, behaviours and words. One of his ventures is the Good Life Project (GLP). The GLP website describes it as: A movement. A set of shared values. A creed, and a community bundled with a voracious commitment to move beyond words and act … as a manifestation of our collective souls … then as a quest to have the adventure of a lifetime, and to leave the world around us changed …

Every day Jonathan Fields lives his values through his work (behaviour) and words that touch and inspire hundreds of thousands of people around the world. When words and values intersect, you create connections. At the heart of values (what you believe), behaviour (what you do) and words (what you say) are congruence, consistency and connection.

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Global influencers Urban legend has it that while boarding a crowded train Mahatma Gandhi lost a shoe onto the tracks below. Immediately he threw his other shoe out of the window. The other passengers were shocked and asked why he did this. Gandhi replied that the man who found the one shoe should also have the other. Values must be based on authenticity and integrity. Authenticity ensures they are sustainable for you. Nothing is more exhausting than faking it, pretending to be something you’re not. And integrity allows you to live, display and share these values across the board, at work and at home, in business and in your personal life. Fiercely being you makes you a mega influencer. People are drawn to you like a moth to a flame, but with positive results instead of third-degree burns. Global influencers such as Gandhi and Nelson Mandela were fiercely themselves on behalf of others. The words ‘Be the change you want to see in the world’ (attributed to Gandhi) recognise that life begins with us as individuals. Gandhi believed that all people were equal and we should care for everyone as we would our own family. In a world racked by aggression and bloody wars with devastating consequences, Gandhi chose non-violence as his message and method, personally modelling non-violent behaviour, and his example inspired a nation. His policy of non-violent resistance, satyagraha (meaning ‘insistence on truth’) brought an end to centuries of British rule. India was declared independent on 15 August 1947, and Gandhi was honoured as the father of the nation.

Challenges and pitfalls We were travelling in Bali recently and came across a poster that read: ‘Be yourself, unless you can be Batman, then be Batman!’

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Assuming no one reading this is Batman (if you are, please call me, I’m a big fan), what else can you do in the domain of fierce power? What are some of the challenges and pitfalls to be aware of? The dark side of living with and through values is that you can be judgemental of others or appear to speak from the moral high ground, which can discourage your audience. Be careful of preaching versus teaching. Preaching, in its crude sense, means you instruct your audience to follow one way. Teaching means you and your audience learn and share together. Fierce power is like mithril in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. Mithril looks like silver and is stronger than steel, but is lighter than both. ‘Mithril! All folk desired it,’ says Gandalf. ‘Its beauty was like to that of common silver, but the beauty of mithril did not tarnish or grow dim.’ Fierce power too is worn lightly, not in a pompous, ‘Do you know who I am?’ way. Remember Ben Zander’s admonition: don’t take yourself so damned seriously! Nowhere is this truer than when we are channeling and leading from fierce power. We’re only human, and none of us can be fully congruent or wholly true to our values all the time. But this doesn’t give us licence to lead or role model from a place that does not serve our values. Recognise that life is complex; sometimes there are no easy answers and you may have to live with ambiguity. When in doubt seek advice from a trusted mentor. A good mentor, to paraphrase the poet Robert Frost, is not a teacher but an awakener. When you demonstrate values-based influence through your words and behaviour, you establish yourself as a powerful role model. But as we concluded in the previous chapter, with great power comes great responsibility. As a leader and mega influencer you know that your words carry power and authority. Your followers can, and probably will, scrutinise and weigh every word and deed. In the spotlight, 159

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there is less room for error and forgiveness. Don’t allow this to immobilise or paralyse you with fear, but remember to make every word count

Some positive strategies We were to catch an early-morning flight to Brisbane. Severe storms in Sydney meant delays, long queues and grumpy passengers. The crew came around offering coffee and tea. The man next to me asked, with a smile and cheeky glint, ‘Any champagne?’ The flight attendant laughed. ‘It’s a bit early for the “c” word.’ They bantered back and forth and soon everyone around them was smiling. She returned shortly after and pressed a bottle of champagne into his hands. He was delighted. It turned out he was a leading lawyer, but you would never have known it from his humble demeanour. Yes, it does pay to be nice. No one knows this better than Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval, authors of The Power of Nice, whom we met in the previous chapter. Thaler and Koval say that our culture propagates a crude form of social Darwinism, a ‘me versus you’ mentality. Yet they powered to the top in the cut-throat advertising industry, challenging conventional wisdom, by being nice. Over a decade, they’ve built up the Kaplan Thaler Group to US$1 billion in billings using, not pitchforks and spears, but chocolates and flowers. It’s a simple yet powerful philosophy. They know nice has an image problem and earns little respect. Koval and Thaler argue convincingly, however, that nice is the toughest four-letter word you can use in business because it means moving forward with clear-eyed confidence while giving

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other people’s needs the same value as your own. Nice people do finish first. And enjoy the champagne. So you’re at the top, a professional rock star, a mega influencer, but you still want to be fiercely you. What strategies do you use for staying grounded? The first is to spread positive stories, as we have touched on before. Once you’ve decided what you want to be known for, find a handful of stories that demonstrate your values and share them. Again, avoid self-centredness. Share success and credit others for their roles. It’s great karma and sound business practice. Humility and gratitude never fall out of fashion. In The Power of Nice, Jay Leno shares the story that his TV show is called Tonight with Jay Leno, not ‘Tonight starring Jay Leno’, because of his mother. His mother thought ‘starring Jay Leno’ would tell the audience, ‘Look at me, I’m a big shot’. ‘So I asked her: “How is Tonight with Jay Leno?” ’ You know the rest. What else can you do once you’ve achieved the mantle of the mega influencer? How can you continue to make a difference and improve the world? Even when you’re at the top of your game there is still room to evolve and reinvent yourself. Celebrated American business author and social commentator Daniel Pink is a master at this. He started by talking about Big P or big purpose but recently updated his thinking to include Small P — smaller day-to-day purposes. Matt Church, the Australian founder of Thought Leaders Global, argues that thought leadership cannot rest on the laurels of one original idea. As a pioneer or authority, you must continue adding to the body of work in your field.

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Quitting at the top This may come as a surprise, but the final positive strategy is knowing when to quit. The skill of knowing when to bow out, especially when you’re ahead, is rare. The battlefield of public life is littered with the corpses of leaders who stayed on one season too long. Gail Kelly, CEO of Australia’s Westpac bank, and an internationally recognised symbol of financial excellence, created a storm in global banking when she chose to step down in February 2015. In 2008, the 58-year-old, South African–born Australian businesswoman became the first female CEO of a major Australian bank. During her tenure, the value of the company more than doubled, with market capitalisation increasing from just under $50 billion to around $104 billion. Kelly, rated by Forbes as among the 100 most powerful women in the world, chose her moment carefully. She left on a high note, her work done and with a rock-solid succession in place. Her parting comments endeared her to history: I am very proud of how we tackled the stresses and challenges of the Global Financial Crisis, supporting our customers while at the same time materially strengthening our balance sheet … As our recent results show, the Westpac Group is very well positioned with strong momentum and a high-quality team.

When so many CEOs are pushed out for poor performance, or forced to resign or retire on the job, many departing under a cloud without creating a strong legacy, Gail Kelly’s story is inspirational. Australia’s Working Dog Productions, the TV and feature film team responsible for such successes as The Castle, Frontline and The Panel, is another masterful example of judging an exit perfectly.

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Ask yourself (and answer honestly) these key questions: Is my work here done? Can someone else serve the business’s needs better than me? Could I do something differently, and better? Contrast these scenarios and decide which is for you: to be pushed off your perch, to fade away like an aging film star, or to depart as a champion, leaving them wanting more? Fierce power is the mother lode of influence. Are you ready to embrace it? In the following chapter we lift the game again to see how by working together, unlocking the secrets of co-creation, we can create and shape a shared future that is better for people, the planet and profits.

Power play tip to start fast and smart Fiercely being you Invite a trusted colleague, mentor or sponsor for a coffee and tell them you are working on what you want to be known for. Share with them your values and give examples of your behaviour. And listen to their responses. This is a moment of truth for you and, done properly and honestly, will set you up for success. You will probably be pleasantly surprised at what you learn, and you’ll also get some good feedback on where you need to change. It’s vital to ask the right person, and equally important to pay for their coffee!

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co-creation power at a glance ■■

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Co-creation is working with other people to build a shared future, a future that represents a win for everyone. Co-creation starts with a specific purpose that you cannot solve on your own. It operates in the sweet spot between control and chaos and draws on the wisdom of crowds, including multiple stakeholders such as customers or employees. Co-creation recognises a mutuality of interests between business and society. It creates and delivers value for people and the planet, as well as profits. Co-creation is challenging as it requires broadcasting problems outside the organisation — to customers and, potentially, competitors. Companies are using co-creation to solve a multitude of challenges, from delivery of live organs for transplant (FedEx) to environmentally friendly, lowcost ways of extracting oil (GE) to how to make call centres more personal (Microsoft). Focus

Attitude

Possibility

Greatness

Impact

Action

Elevate

Transformation

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Co-creation power … the magic of elevation The idea of business co-creation was first elaborated by C. K. Prahalad and V. Ramaswamy in a Harvard Business Review article, ‘Co-opting customer competence’, published in 2000. They saw organisations co-creating products with their customers at different stages in the product cycle. Threadless, founded by Jake Nickell and Jacob DeHart, manufactures T-shirts but it has never produced a flop, has minimal product returns and sells 100 per cent of its stock. How is that possible? The Threadless community, now 2.4 million strong, submits all the designs. Customers vote for their favourite designs and these are manufactured and sold with a 100 per cent success rate. You’re literally designing and choosing what you want before it’s even made. By co-creating with its consumers, and bringing them into the value chain, Threadless exemplifies this new paradigm. Co-creation ideas are also based not just on the needs of consumers and producers but on those of society. Co-creation can help us all play a bigger game. Creation means constructing something new, meaningful or purposeful, while the co- part means doing so with other people. Co-creation is a win for

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people, prosperity and the planet. It requires the participation of multiple stakeholders, each holding a key to the solution. By 2050 it is estimated that 70 per cent of the world’s population will live in cities. Efficient transport networks will become increasingly critical to the viability of urban centres, especially in relation to accessing health and education services and employment. To address this challenge, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) has launched the Sustainable Mobility Project. The city of Indore (the state capital of Madhya Pradesh in central India, population 2.1 million) has been selected as one of five ‘demonstrator cities’ for sustainable mobility. Demonstrator cities such as Indore, it is hoped, will develop a sustainable mobility roadmap for governments around the world. The WBCSD will work with Indore city officials to implement sustainable mobility solutions. BMW, BP, Bridgestone, Brisa, Daimler, Deutsche Bahn, Ford, Fujitsu, Honda, Michelin, Nissan, Pirelli, Shell, Toyota and Volkswagen are all members of the WBCSD. Here a cross-section of governments, not-for-profits and private corporates (often competitors) are working together to find answers to global problems. Their co-created solutions will address the demands of public, private and commercial transport; and bike and pedestrian pathways that are interconnected, safe, reliable, efficient and affordable. Solutions are also expected to meet environmental goals of lower emissions, resource efficiency and enhanced quality of life. The challenge reaches far beyond the transport ecosystem, Michael Fahy, director of the project, indicates. ‘By working with leading cities such as Indore, this project will help cities move towards improving sustainable mobility for all … By facilitating the movement of people and goods the project has the potential to have a real positive impact on people’s lives, the environment and the economy.’

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Does all this sound familiar? Have we seen co-creation in earlier guises? Is this just teamwork or collaboration dressed up for a new age? Co-creation is a new execution of an idea that has existed in various forms as long as we’ve lived in communities. Huntergatherer societies may not have held team-building days, or staged workshops on how to collaborate, or written co-creation manifestos. But at a fundamental level that is what they did. Every day they worked towards surviving today and laying some sort of foundation for tomorrow, whether it was gathering and foraging for the tribe, or storing food or pelts for the future. It all involved an intricate web of interdependency. If we think of co-creation as a further evolution of every organisational idea that came before it, then the following hierarchy will help us understand it better: team building is influence 1.0.1, collaboration is influence 2.0.1, co-creation is influence 3.0.1. Remember teamwork exercises in the 1990s when you were whisked away to retreats and built rowboats and engaged in paint skirmishes? They were lots of fun, with some learning, but they didn’t often translate into changed workplace behaviour. Collaboration is the next level up from team building. You can collaborate on projects across silos within your organisation, or across organisations such as in public–private partnerships, or even across countries through international infrastructure projects such as building the Channel tunnel. Both teamwork and collaboration define the process (how we work together) and a specific outcome (what result we want). Co-creation is of a higher order. It is the next stage in the evolution of you and us working together in ways that are meaningful and creating a shared future that is good for business and the planet.

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Collaboration is the dominant model in most workplaces today, although coercion is still experienced by far too many. But the quantum shift is to co-creation with all its competitive advantages. One of my favourite magazines, Wired, always features a threepart column that lists ideas or products that are ‘expired’, ‘tired’ or ‘wired’. This is how I would list the dominant work models: ■■

Expired: coercion

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Tired: collaboration

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Wired: co-creation.

If you or your organisation still talk team building, you need to catch up on missed opportunities. It’s never too late to start. If you are talking collaboration, it may still be hard for people to relate to; many will feel they are already collaborative, are good at it or don’t need it. When you adopt co-creation, you position yourself for competitive advantage. Co-creation is fundamentally different because it: ■■

involves many levels of stakeholders

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gives up control to gain control

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is an infinite game, not a finite game

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is organic and long term, yet commercially smart

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can deliver true, sustainable and competitive advantage. 


Through their online program Connect + Develop, Procter & Gamble (P&G) invite customers and entrepreneurs to submit innovation ideas. It could be a tweak or improvement to P&G’s existing products or an entirely new product. When the current chairman and CEO, A. G. Lafley, first took the helm in 2000, the success rate for new products was about 15 to 20 per cent, which was standard across the industry. The success rate is now about 50 to 60 per cent, an ideal level that indicates they are not playing too safe by aiming for a higher success rate.

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Design powerhouse Burberry encourages customers to suggest designs for their next trenchcoat. In a Harvard Business Review article, Francis Goillar describes human co-creation, as demonstrated by Burberry, as ‘the true revolution’.

What are the distinguishing features of co-creation? Here, in a nutshell, are the main ones: ■■

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Co-creation usually starts by defining a specific problem and asking an audacious question, such as how can we improve transportation and quality of life in our cities? The cutting-edge management thinker Mitchell Osak believes leaders will get the most out of cocreation strategies when they target big problems and opportunities that the firm cannot deal with on its own.  Co-creation embraces possibility. The core of co-creation is the embrace of greatness as just the beginning of possibility; it encapsulates the notion that the whole is bigger than the sum of its parts. Co-creation is the sweet spot between control and chaos. You give up control to gain control. This is hard, but as leaders and organisations shift from command and control to co-creation, they’re exposed to new possibilities and opportunities. Co-creation draws on the wisdom of the crowd and embraces an infinite mindset.

Embrace an infinite mindset In the early days of new technology, we attended a facilitated session on social media in a Q&A format. It was like drawing teeth, and despite the best efforts of two seasoned presenters the group discussion floundered.

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The facilitators turned to the audience and asked, ‘How can we structure this to serve you?’ Lots of ideas flowed in and then one person nailed it: ‘What we have here are some newbies to social media and some seasoned practitioners. Why don’t we split the session in two with each of you leading one of these two different groups?’ Bingo! That is how the rest of the very successful evening progressed. The facilitators drew on the wisdom of the crowd to co-create a very different experience for everyone, resuscitating a dying workshop to serve the needs of all participants. Co-creation does require a degree of skilful facilitation, as groups can tend to crave outcomes. Remember, co-creation thrives in that sweet spot between control and chaos, but it requires some skill to move a group forward. People need to feel momentum and progress, but not that they are hurtling towards a pre-fixed destination. Move from a finite to an infinite mindset. Usually with team building and collaboration you have set start and finish points, and the process can feel, or be made to look, linear. For true cocreation, you have to embrace an infinite mindset. Reverse engineer co-creation and start at the individual level. Most initiatives in organisations are top down, despite their best intentions to involve people at the coalface. Co-creation works best from the individual out. Think of it as a ripple in a pond from your thrown pebble. The first ripple creates all the other ripples, starting at individual level. Companies such as Google and 3M have famously encouraged their engineers and researchers to take time off during their working day to work on personal projects. And some of these projects gave birth to remarkable and successful products, such as Gmail, Google Maps and Post-it notes.

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Some considerations Co-creation assumes some mutuality of interests, as illustrated by the sustainable mobility project. But let’s not fall for the Pollyanna syndrome about co-creation. What if our interests are mutually exclusive? Co-creation is easiest when the two circles of desire (what is good for business and what is good for society) intersect. Co-creation can only happen when we foster the production of mutual value with people who matter — your employees, customers, suppliers and stakeholders  —  people who conventional businesses usually exclude from their value chain. By not co-creating, and ignoring these powerful and rich allies, you are like Tolstoy’s beggar, pleading for pennies while unwittingly sitting on a pot of gold. What is the most powerful brand in the world? Is it Apple, Nike, Facebook or the new kid on the block, Twitter? In fact, it is none of the above. Apple is number one in terms of brand value. But according to the 2015 Brand Finance report, the world’s most powerful brand in terms of perception, replacing Ferrari, is Lego. You may think Lego has it easy: what is there not to love about it? It has broad global, cross-generational and cross-gender appeal. The Lego movie, which was both a commercial and a critical success, also massively boosted the brand’s popularity. But there are co-creation lessons we can learn from Lego’s success. Lego allows its customers to create as well, rather than thrusting designs and products onto its market. It uses a system of creating, voting and rewards via its IDEAS website to engage its customers in co-creation. Customers can submit product or project ideas, and any idea that receives more than 10 000 votes is evaluated internally by Lego employees. If the project goes

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ahead, 1 per cent of net sales of that product go to the creator. One of Lego’s most successful products, ‘Lego Friends’, came about through this process of co-creation. A customer insight that bright colours and emotional connectedness appeals to young girls was the springboard for the product. How can you help your customers live your brand experience and co-create with you? Can they submit their videos, as Red Bull fans do, or publish recipes that use your ingredients? Co-creation harnesses your fans, your loyal customers who know and love your product, sometimes even more than you do! Co-creation builds communities of fans. Co-creation is not for the faint-hearted and needs a ‘fly or die’ and iterations mindset. To work, it must thumb its nose at a culture of perfectionism, put out a beta version, and refine the result through feedback and further co-creation. Wikipedia is a perfect example of this process. In Slow School our successful series called ‘Talk on Purpose’ (formerly ‘Is There a TED Talk in You?’) was co-created by four members of the faculty, each with different areas of expertise. The first launch saw a beta product released to the market at a low entry price. The four-week program was a phenomenal success, and based on feedback we ran a second public program at a healthy price point. We now also run the program within large organisations. But it took courage to put it out there and then co-create with our audience.

The quantum leap Co-creation lifts our game beyond being just about us in our organisational teams (teamwork) and us working with one another across silos and organisations (collaboration). Gaurav

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Bhalla, author and co-creation expert believes co-creation solves three fundamental problems: ■■ ■■

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People inside organisations want meaningful work. Consumers outside organisations are better informed and educated than ever before. (Co-creation caters to their intelligence by bringing demand and supply closer.) Anything you do must be right for the planet as well as profitable.

Of course, lots of people see themselves as wage slaves, just a cog in the machine. They meet their aspirations outside work, not within it. But many others (including you if you’re reading this book) look for more from work. We see it as a form of self-expression, or even a path to self-actualisation. As Nicole Bradley, a partner with professional accounting services network Grant Thornton, puts it, ‘Personal life and work are increasingly merging, which creates an even greater need for our work roles to meet higher needs’. Co-creation is an avenue to meet these higher order needs.

What are the challenges for co-creators? The authors of The Co-creation Roadmap: Six steps to tap the wisdom of crowd, G. Sankanarayanan and Gaurav Bhalla, believe co-creation as a movement can suffer because it requires you to broadcast problems, challenges or current developments you may not want to share. Here are some critical issues they highlight: ■■

Successful co-creation requires serious silo busting within organisations. Knowing the players and politics can make this difficult.

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People look to technology as the solution to co-creation, but while technology and social media are enablers, they aren’t necessarily sufficient. Genuine co-creation demands incremental customer input, and ideally shared value creation for a better life for society as a whole.

Co-creation goes beyond immediate self-interest in business; it’s where commerce puts society’s interests first. This may seem altruistic when current reality tells you business and societal interests often diverge. Co-creation at its best finds their common interests, like two intersecting circles. Perfect cocreation finds matching circles and overlays them.

Consumer philanthropists ‘The purpose of business must be redefined as creating shared value, not just profit per se,’ says Michael Porter, an international competition strategist at the Harvard Business School. Cocreation bridges the gap between profit and value, and can generate economic, social and environmental value as we’ve never seen before. But what gets to be co-created? How do we decide? One way is through determining the common good. What represents value for all? Simon Griffiths, an Australian engineer and economist turned philanthropic entrepreneur, has also grappled with this question and has an ingenious solution. Simon knew that the biggest challenge for not-for-profits and charities is fundraising. They must constantly run appeals for donations and, however well-meaning we are, we sometimes develop compassion fatigue, weary of the constant requests for money. You may well already have a stable of causes you support, but you feel guilty or resentful or both when you turn away others who approach you. Shouldn’t altruism make you feel better about yourself and the world?

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Simon thought about this problem differently and came up with the concept of the consumer philanthropist. Instead of asking you for money, he looked at what you might already consume. In doing so he could co-create with you and consumers like you, helping you become philanthropists simply by doing what you already liked doing. He set up Shebeen, a not-for-profit bar in Melbourne. It sells exotic beers and wines from the developing world. The profit from each drink sale supports a development project in the country of origin. A drink for Kenya? Go for it. Today, Shebeen supplies its beer to other venues too. It’s a wonderful example of co-opting your customers for the greater good. Let’s drink to that! But then he hit a hurdle. Not everyone drinks, or drinks beer or wine, and not everyone likes African beer. What other consumer product could he tap into? His next venture, called Who Gives A Crap, produces toilet paper manufactured entirely from recycled materials, and 50 per cent of the profits from sales go to building toilets in the developing world. It’s ingenious, and the wry humour in the name always makes audiences laugh. Simon’s concept could revolutionise consumer behaviour, turning everyday consumers into philanthropists. Business and societal goals do not have to be mutually exclusive. Sitting in a coffee shop one day, Mark Henderson asked the barista what they did with the used coffee grounds. ‘We just put them in the bin,’ was the reply. Mark learned that this shop alone threw out about 10 kilograms of grounds a day. There must be a better way, he thought, and he started to research how coffee grounds could be used productively.

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Anecdotally he knew that some people scattered coffee grounds on their gardens as a soil conditioner or added them to their compost, but no one had thought to take the next step. So Mark and his friend Geoff Howell did. They quit their jobs as IT consultants and set up Espressogrow, which plans to pay coffee shops for their used grounds, and then turn them into organic fertiliser at a central manufacturing plant. The mindset that drives co-creation is usually ‘There must be a better way’ and ‘Together we can find the answer or create the solution’.

Sex: a final word Another way of identifying areas in which to co-create is to list business priorities, then map critical stakeholder groups, engage with them to learn their priorities and identify mutual areas of interest. Elizabeth Broderick did this really well. One of her first moves when she took up her role as Australia’s Sex Discrimination Commissioner was to set out on listening tours around the country, talking to business leaders about their ideas for addressing gender issues. Based on what she learned on these tours she formed the Male Champions of Change movement, identifying 12 male leaders, each of whom took on responsibility for setting and delivering on targets to forward the agenda of women in the workplace. Broderick and these 12 male champions of change are successfully co-creating this new future together. Co-creation is the new future. Are you ready to embrace it? In the final chapter we look at how we can tap into people’s heads and hearts to rally them around a call to action for a cause. This is the power of cause leadership.

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Power play tip to start fast and smart The new world of coFirst, resist the temptation to flaunt the concept as a panacea. It’s a new idea, and it can take time to win people over. Google co-working spaces in your town and spend a day working in one. Co-working spaces are hot spots for co-creation, with diverse stakeholders working together. Most places offer a free daily trial pass. It’s fun, and it gives you an immediate sense of how co-working functions by stimulating energy and creativity. Co-creation works best from the individual out. Think of it as a ripple in a pond when you throw in a pebble. The first individual ripple creates all the others. How can you engage your audiences — customers, prospects, partners, colleagues, associates, employees and suppliers — with co-creation?

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Cause leadership at a glance ■■

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Cause leadership is a call to arms around a cause that will make the world a better place. Cause leadership is personal and people have to know your back story; cause leadership can never be purely a commercial proposition. To be an effective cause leader you have to imbibe your cause with head (why this cause), heart (make people care) and hands (create a call to action). It’s not easy or always necessary to turn everything into an opportunity for cause leadership and cause leaders have to be careful of not being overzealous. But for the right cause, a power player can reach the pinnacle of influence as a cause leader. Bono, music legend and lead singer of U2, voted among the world’s 50 top leaders for 2014 by Fortune magazine, has become a cause leader championing the global fight against AIDS and poverty through his ONE and (RED) campaigns. Focus

Attitude

Purpose

Driven

Impact

Action

Mega

Movement

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Cause leadership  … mega power of movements A beautiful, blond woman in an elegant evening dress was receiving an award in a glitzy ceremony on TV. It could have been any celebrity moment. But to universal surprise, she brought out a blue beanie and pulled it down over her perfectly coiffed hair. It made an incongruous yet moving image. The star was Carrie Bickmore, and she was collecting a Gold Logie for being voted Australia’s most popular TV personality.  She told the audience, ‘I want to use my two minutes up here to talk about something incredibly close to my heart: brain cancer’. Having lost her husband, Greg, to brain cancer in 2010, she urged Australians to wear a beanie in order to get the nation talking about the disease. And Australia responded.  TV hosts across networks sported beanies all through the next day. People around the country showed their support by uploading photos of themselves wearing beanies on social media using the hashtag #beaniesforbraincancer. In that moment Carrie Bickmore became a cause leader in the fight against brain cancer.

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Finding purpose Cause leaders create seismic shifts in influencing people around their cause. Ronald Alexander, author of the widely acclaimed book Wise Mind, Open Mind: Finding purpose and meaning in times of crisis, loss and change, is the executive director of the OpenMind Training Institute in the United States. He thinks of cause as an emanation point. ‘If one was to look back in history, the truly great leaders [who] attempted in some way to improve conditions in their zone of influence [all] share this common quality of causation.’ So what does it take to become a cause leader? Cause leadership is purpose driven. The cause needs to inspire you or your organisation. As Alexander says, ‘The mark of a wise and mindful leader is his or her ability to extend an intention into space and become CAUSE’. Cause leadership is personal and people need to know your back-story: Why this cause? Why you? Carrie Bickmore shared how brain cancer touched her own family; this wasn’t another product or service she was promoting, but a loss she had experienced personally and felt compelled to do something about. A personal experience made her determined to make a difference. Cause leadership can never be a purely commercial proposition. If you work in marketing, you cannot make marketing your cause. You can enlist marketers to help promote your cause, but it cannot be the cause or you risk perceptions of opportunism and cynicism. Cause leadership may be hard for brands and organisations to personalise; your audience will easily distinguish congruence from populism or hitching a ride on the bandwagon. TOMS shoes does this without any hoo-ha. The company’s American founder, Blake Mycoskie, was distressed to see the hardships faced by poor, often bare-footed children he 180

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encountered as he travelled through South America. He decided to set up a for-profit company that would donate one pair of shoes for every pair sold. The TOMS website states simply: ‘With every product you purchase, TOMS will help a person in need. One for One®’. Today TOMS’s cause leadership revolves around improving lives. TOMS believes business is a force for good. It started with the gift of shoes, but it soon realised that one-for-one model provided the foundation for a broader mandate for improving lives. As a result TOMS has branched out into wider philanthropy with the gifts of sight, water, safe birth and even kindness. This is how it explains its cause leadership around the gift of kindness: ‘In the United States, nearly 1 out of every 3 students reports being a victim of bullying. Purchases of the TOMS StandUp Backpack Collection will help provide the training of school staff and crisis counselors to help prevent and respond to instances of bullying’. While it may be hard for your brand or organisation to come up with a cause from scratch, it makes sense to search for and support a cause that is congruent with your values. Australian fashion retail brand Witchery has developed a partnership with the Ovarian Cancer Research Foundation (OCRF) over 14 years. Witchery runs an annual White Shirt Campaign and silver gift collection. The success of the campaign rests in part on its simplicity, with 100 per cent of proceeds from the sale of each white shirt going directly to the OCRF. The funds raised have enabled the OCRF to appoint full-time research scientists and to buy vital medical equipment.

Head, heart and hands In a world crowded with worthy causes, all vying for a share of your heart and your wallet, cause leaders have to give people a reason to care. Carrie Bickmore said, ‘Everyone thinks brain cancer is rare but it’s not. It kills more people under 40 than

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any other cancer. It kills more kids than any other disease’. Most of us would be unaware of this statistic. It’s frightening but, communicated effectively, it spurs us to want to do whatever we can to change it. Japanese art is imbued with tradition, craftsmanship and history. Traditional artisans subscribe to the Japanese i-shokujyu approach, according to which three key elements are necessary to enjoy your personal environment and bring happiness and balance to daily life. These translate as head, heart and hands. This is a wonderful metaphor for thinking about cause leadership, where your heart engages with both the cause and your audience’s emotions, encouraging them to care. Opportunities for cause leaders to connect with and make their audiences care can emerge from the most unexpected quarters. In March 2015 the social media community was split into two vociferous factions — all over  the colour of a dress. Not since Monica Lewinsky’s infamous 1998 sex scandal dress has a garment generated such controversy. The online debate about the correct colours of a Scottish wedding dress went viral globally. About 70 per cent of people declared emphatically that the dress was white and gold. They took comfort in two arguments: it looked and felt right, and they had the numbers — how could so many people be wrong? But an equally vocal 30 per cent of people were emphatic that the dress was black and blue.  Even scientists weighed in on the debate, which began trending under #thedress, and received the kind of mainstream and social media coverage that would be the envy of any PR company. For anyone seeking nirvana under a banyan tree in a non-wifi zone who missed the headlines all over the world, the dress turned out to be black and blue. What happened next in ‘dressgate’ was sheer genius. The Salvation Army in South Africa commissioned an advertisement featuring the dress and asked on Twitter: ‘Why is it so hard to

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see black and blue?’ The image showed a beautiful woman in the same dress, her face and body covered in black and blue bruises. The charity took a fun, frivolous issue and made a profound, succinct statement about an important social issue: domestic violence against women. It’s a great example of brave, responsive cause leadership that shines new light on a pervasive problem. As Lauren Tuck, news editor at Yahoo Style, noted, ‘Domestic violence is a serious issue that deserves the same kind of fevered attention that was paid to #thedress’. 

Call to action — the ask Once people are on board, with their heads and hearts engaged, you have to give them an opportunity to act, to do something. It could be as simple as clicking Like on a Facebook post, forwarding and sharing a link, signing a petition or using only fair trade products. It may be to think differently about an issue or to support the cause in some concrete way, sometimes through financial donation. The call to action or ‘ask’ does not always have to involve money, and often it doesn’t. Carrie Bickmore requested a simple, symbolic response — that we don a beanie in recognition of the cause — and Australians did so while rallying behind the #beaniesforbraincancer hashtag. Cause leaders often find the ask difficult, especially when it is vague or complex. On the other hand, you’ll know people are ready for the ask when they besiege you with questions on how they can help. And the ask doesn’t always have to be big. As a cause leader, you can also sometimes achieve results by yourself demonstrating the behaviour you would like to see your followers adopt.

Leading by their actions What if you look out of your window and see acres of unmown parkland? It’s overgrown because the city has run out of funds and can no longer afford the upkeep of its public spaces. 183

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If you are Tom Nardone the answer is obvious. You jump on your lawnmower and start mowing the public parks yourself. Before you know it, an army of volunteers has joined you and you soon form the  Detroit Mower Gang, with members volunteering their time to mow Detroit’s public parks so the kids have a decent place to play. For Nardone, ‘Doing something is way more than doing nothing’. In an era where leadership can sometimes seem like a hollow promise — we’ve witnessed leadership failures across many significant public institutions — the rise of cause leaders such as Nardone offers a beacon of hope. Glen’s Espresso  in Brisbane, Australia, is another example of this kind of leadership. Glen runs a coffee cart  where conventionally you would expect to see a barista making the coffee and someone looking after the till. Glen decided to base his coffee leadership on trust. Customers write their coffee order on the take-away cup, put their money in the open cash-box and take their own change. A simple instruction sheet tells you how. It’s about old-fashioned honesty, and it works. Neither Nardone nor Glen has a formal leadership title or mandate, but each has chosen to make a difference through their actions. Cause leadership can be a lifetime’s work, or it can arise from a set of circumstances that demand a leader stand up. In 1944, when the Nazis in Eastern Europe were deporting Jews to the death camps, Raoul Wallenberg, a young Swedish diplomat, would climb on top of the human cattle trains and move along the cars handing out documents. They were fake, but looked real enough to convince the Nazis that the holders were under Swedish protection. Wallenberg would then leave the train and demand that these people be released to him.

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On one occasion, according to an account in Wikipedia, German soldiers were instructed to shoot Wallenberg on sight, but impressed by his courage they fired over his head instead.  How  Wallenberg, a young man from one of Sweden’s most prominent families, ended up risking his life to save tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews is a story of ingenuity, courage and chutzpah. Sadly, his own fate remains uncertain. He disappeared during the Red Army’s siege of Budapest and is presumed dead. Every day on my way to work I pass a small park called Raoul Wallenberg Reserve. I’d never thought much about it until I heard his story when the Australian government feted him as Australia’s first honorary citizen in 2013. Wallenberg would never have known or used the words ‘cause leader’; he just did what he thought was right, thereby saving many people from certain death. He made it his purpose, and in the end paid the highest price himself. Closer to home, in 2002 Sydney-based marketer Carolyn Tate had come to feel her profession was meaningless. She closed down her business, sold or gave away most of her possessions and went to live in Aix-en-Provence, France, with her 12-yearold son. After much soul searching, and writing two books, she returned to Australia and became involved in the Conscious Capitalism movement. In May 2012 she heard Raj Sisodia, co-founder of the movement, make a declaration that brought her to tears. He said marketing could be a force for good that could heal the world. His words re-inspired her towards her profession. She discovered her purpose and her brand of cause leadership. Carolyn went on to found the Slow School of Business (Slow School) in Melbourne. It teaches business owners and aspiring entrepreneurs how to build purpose-driven, profitable businesses that make a difference on and for the planet. Cause leadership helped Carolyn find her true calling.

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Watch for the pitfalls Cause leadership, like any other vocation, can have its pitfalls. When you initiate or take up a cause you face the risk of becoming a zealot or fanatic, and you can be driven to anger when people display ignorance or apathy. As a cause leader, you should avoid the kind of passion or evangelism that disconnects you from your audience. This is a hard truth. As a cause leader you may often have to fundraise, and you need to recognise that your audience may have compassion fatigue — there are so many demands on our charity dollars and so many worthy causes to support. Ask, because if you don’t ask people don’t know what you want, but please don’t badger. Also never use guilt to sell or promote your cause. Of course guilt can work — marketers and charities have always known this. But guilt in a transaction makes us feel resentful and sullied. Instead of making us feel good about ourselves, giving because of guilt can make us feel worse. Guilt giving creates a one-off transaction instead of a lifelong transformation. Cause leaders have to think about and plan for a persuasive present and an enduring future, even when they’re gone. Most of all, cause leadership has to rest firmly on authenticity and your truth, so it lights up both you and the world. Beanies optional.

Power play tip to start fast and smart Find a cause to support Search for and support a cause that is congruent with your values. What are you passionate about? Is it rehoming lost dogs, promoting literacy or prevention of disease? The best way to make a start is to volunteer with an organisation that ties in with your values and work out how you can become a mini cause leader for them, without driving your friends, colleagues and family mad of course!

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What next? Congratulations on having got this far. You probably know quite a lot about me through my book, but I also now know something about you. Don’t panic, I am not using Jedi mind tricks but can infer a couple of things about you just because you have got this far (even if you jumped straight here from the start). You are a reader, you are probably already a high achiever (yes, blatant flattery) and you are hungry to know how to make this work, what you can do differently. How can you translate your knowledge into action to become a power player? Where do you begin?

The story of the hermit crab The hermit crab lives in a salvaged empty seashell. As it slowly outgrows its shell the shell starts to pinch. The crab knows if it stays in the same shell it will die: the price of not changing is as high as it could get. So the crab leaves its shell, and for some time it is naked and vulnerable, an easy target for predators … until it finds a new, bigger shell. What bliss when it does! It will live in its new home and enjoy the change it has made. The hermit crab is a good analogy when thinking about the difficulties around change — how you yourself can sabotage

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it, and how you can make it work for you. As a professional influencer, your shell pinches every time you think, ‘What can I do better, and what should I be doing that I am not doing right now?’ So what holds us back?

The many faces of fear Let’s use the dreaded ‘f ’ word here. Fear is a wily opponent and wears many clever disguises. Do you recognise it? I often hear leaders complain, ‘This wouldn’t work in my organisation / my culture / the work I do’. Fear can make you shut down before you even start. It can make you dismissive before you even try. You blame your context and think, ‘If only I was somewhere else’. But wherever we go, and even if our context changes, fear is our constant companion. Fear also manifests through procrastination: ‘I’ll start that next week / when I’m back from holidays / on my next project.’ Here fear wears a deceptive action disguise — it’s going to happen, but not now, and not now soon turns into never. All the research shows that if you don’t put a new skill into action in 24 to 48 hours, 70 to 80 per cent of what you have learned vanishes. The longer you leave it, the more your knowledge disappears, until it is gone entirely. What a tragic waste of your time and energy! Fear also propagates self-doubt: ‘Who am I to think I can become a professional rock star influencer?’ It makes us risk averse: ‘I grew up with hard power. It worked for me, so why change now?’ And it makes you resistant to change and a victim of self-sabotage: ‘If it ain’t broke, why fix it?’ Fear’s most dangerous disguise is perfectionism. You’ll start when you’ve mastered the technique, or when all your bills are paid, or when the sun comes out … an ever longer list of excuses. Perfectionism is the enemy of execution, the smiling, cherubic poster child of procrastination.

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Every time I write a deeply personal blog, for example, I am racked by self-doubt. On a scale ranging from a smidgen to paralysing, mine leans well towards the latter. If this happens to you, you’ll always question whether your efforts will be valuable for your readers. Are you too personal? (It’s a blog, not group therapy.) You feel vulnerable, and are afraid of being judged. This suite of symptoms has a name, and a cure. I call it ‘My baby is ugly syndrome’: the fear that people may find your precious output unsightly. Inhabiting this shadowy world, even briefly, stops you from challenging yourself. It’s as though you are battling 50 shades of fear. What strategies will help you? The first one is simple. American author, educator and motivational speaker Zig Ziglar said, ‘You don’t have to be great to start but you have to start to be great’.

Start small One success strategy is, ‘Think big, start small, and go fast’. Starting small means defining the immediate, manageable first (and next) step in a change strategy that may otherwise threaten to overwhelm. No matter how large the task at hand, identifying and executing that first small step will break the logjam. In Tolkien’s Fellowship of the Ring, a beleaguered Bilbo Baggins says, ‘I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread’. Don’t spread yourself too thin. You’re sure to know someone who, having decided on a fresh start, joins a gym, cuts out junk food, runs 10 kilometres a day, goes great guns for a month … and then drops off the wagon spectacularly. To make a start with personal and professional change, spend some time online reviewing change strategies. You’ll find many good and smart strategies that professionals all over the world have used successfully. Pick one or two that you think are likely to suit your temperament, context and personality and work best for you, and give some of the ideas in this book a red hot go too.

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Do the work Jerry Seinfeld summed up the secret behind his success in just three words: ‘Do the work’. And he practises this tip daily. He writes every single day and then marks a cross on the date on his calendar. His crosses form a chain, he once advised a young would-be comedian. ‘Your job is not to break the chain.’ What will help you do the work? One strategy I have learned over the years is to tell myself, ‘I’ll only do 10 minutes, then I’ll stop’. This tricks me into starting, which is often the hardest part, and of course after 10 minutes I’ve gained momentum and generally keep going. Another strategy I have learned is to buddy up with someone. Whether going for a run or starting a new work project, collaboration helps keep you accountable. We used this exact strategy to write and complete our first book in record time. My mentor Peter Cook, a thought leader on implementation of projects that matter, says you should identify where you are weakest — whether it’s starting, continuing or completing the work — and find and implement strategies that help you through that weakness. Woody Allen famously said, ‘Eighty per cent of success is showing up’, and nothing is more important than turning up and doing the work. In The War of Art, in which author Steve Pressfield talks about strategies to overcome your resistance to achieving your creative goals, his number one principle is showing up to do the work. For a writer it means writing every day, even if it’s just 100 words. But showing up and doing the work don’t in themselves mean we have conquered our fears. Fear is devious and multifaceted; lose one fear and it can quickly be replaced by another. I learned the most liberating strategy from Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, in which she advises us to go for quantity and trust the universe to give us quality.

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I often ask my friend Kath Walters, a veteran journalist and content guru, for her opinion. Kath always shoots from the hip, which is exactly what I need when plagued by self-doubt. Life is full of naysayers; for balance you need truth-sayers too — people who have the courage to call it as it is. They’ll tell you if your baby is ugly, and let you know when your fear is distorting reality.

Gradually, then suddenly In Ernest Hemingway’s novel The Sun Also Rises, two characters who have just met are sizing each other up. One of them cuts to the chase, asking, ‘How did you go bankrupt?’ The other responds, ‘Two ways. Gradually, and then suddenly’. So often this change of tempo or the tempo of change —  gradually and then suddenly — can frustrate and derail our best efforts. We all love instant results, whether we’re aiming for personal or organisational change. So how can you accelerate results in this two-speed change system? Make momentum your best friend. Throw everything into the change for the first 30, 60 or 90 days. Research on personal change suggests it takes 21 continuous days to create a new habit. Building momentum early allows you to reach that tipping point into speed. Going too slowly, like keeping a car in first gear, can kill momentum; you simply lose interest in the project. A friend encourages me to write according to the advice of the famous American cartoonist, author and journalist James Thurber: ‘Don’t get it right, get it written’. (But be sure to use a good editor afterwards.)

Stay motivated If you have made the change and become the mega influencer you want to be, how do you now keep yourself motivated, and prevent complacency and hubris from setting in? I’ll answer that laterally by asking another question. 191

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Have you ever wondered why you spend so much time going through your email when there are so many more pressing demands on your time? This question intrigued Dr Jason Fox, a leading international motivation strategy and design expert on a quest to liberate the world from poorly designed work. I never expected his answer would lie in a longitudinal study on motivation conducted by the Harvard Business School. In this study, the researchers asked leaders what they thought motivated people. The response was the usual mix of incentives ranging from money to feedback. But when the researchers asked employees what motivated them, the answers they received were more surprising. The number one motivator for employees was a sense of progress. This is known as the progress principle, or the power of small wins. Dr Fox recommends making progress visible, whatever that looks like for you, for example through scoreboards, work-inprogress meetings or status updates. This research also answers the vexed question of why, when we have an important or pressing deadline, we work through our emails first. Because it gives us a sense of progress. Isn’t it so satisfying to knock your emails down from 110 to a more manageable 25 — at least temporarily? So think about how you are going to make progress visible for yourself. You will be surprised how this will keep you steady and unwavering on your journey. You’ll find that by making a start, you become better and better at influence, until you become a mega influencer and a power player.

The die is cast In the 2004 TV series The Rebel Billionaire: Branson’s quest for the best, Virgin Worldwide’s billionaire founder, Richard Branson, offered the winner, Shawn Nelson, a cheque for one million dollars. But he also gave Shawn an unexpected choice.

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Shawn could take the money and walk away a wealthy man. Or he could toss a coin for an even bigger but undisclosed prize. If he lost the toss he would lose everything. Branson held out the cheque, then put it away and held out a silver coin. What would it be? The coin toss for the chance of an even bigger prize and the risk of losing it all. Or the million dollars now? Shawn Nelson was shaken. He pondered momentarily. Tossing the coin was tempting. But his entrepreneurial dream depended on loyal staff, many of whom had not been paid for months. He opted for the money. Branson smiled, and admitted that had Nelson opted for the toss of the coin he would have lost all respect for the young winner. In his book Screw It, Let’s Do It, Branson writes that Shawn Nelson made the right choice because he didn’t gamble on something he couldn’t control. As a reward he got the cheque and the mystery prize of the newly created position of President of Virgin Worldwide, a huge learning opportunity. Shawn Nelson needed courage to stare down a massive temptation. This book asks you to have the courage to say no, or not good enough, to some old habits. Do a Shawn: say no to the past, and yes to a bright new future where you can win the cheque and the toss. Your two biggest enemies are not your biggest competitors. They’re inertia and the status quo. It would be so easy to close this book and say that’s great … and go back to the same life. You could also happily defend the status quo, which, surprisingly, takes more energy but saves you from the pain, risk and uncertainty of attempting change — the ‘If it ain’t broke, why fix it?’ approach. Or you could tell yourself that next time you have a problem, you’ll simply read this book again.

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I’m reminded of a line from the movie of the US/Canadian boxer Rubin ‘Hurricane’ Carter: ‘Sometimes we don’t pick the books we read, they pick us’. It rings true for me. So why did this book pick you? Is action the next step in your professional and personal success? Fortune favours the brave. When Julius Caesar and his army crossed the Rubicon river in Rome to seize the city from his enemies, he famously declared ‘alea iacta est’ (the die is cast). He knew he had made a fateful, irrevocable decision that would transform both his own fortunes and Rome’s. Caesar was a professional soldier who achieved many of his victories by taking bold but informed risks. These moves often exposed him and his troops to great danger, but they also resulted in memorable victories. I invite you to embrace the spirit of action, knowing that action brings rewards that hubris cannot. And, even in the midst of the most daunting, unimaginable change, remember Plato’s timeless words: ‘The beginning is the most important part of the work’. I would love to partner you on this journey. Please connect with me via: My website: yamininaidu.com.au Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/yamininaidu Twitter: @yamininaidu_ I wish you all possible courage and good fortune on your journey to becoming a power player. Now stop reading and get to it! Yamini

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Index Air New Zealand 1 Airbnb 31 Alexander, Ronald 179–180 American Society for Deaf Children 16–17 Apple 22–23 Arconasti, Bill 48–49 Argus, Don 33 Armstrong, Neil 137 The Artist’s Way 140, 156, 190 Atlassian 48, 102–103 Audible 143 Banksy 57 Barsade, Sigal 102 Beard, Alison 113 Bell, Joshua 58 Bhalla, Gaurav 172–173 Bhatt, Ela 23 Bickmore, Carrie 179, 181, 183 Blinkist 143 Borgman, Jim 74 Botsman, Rachel 31 Bradley, Nicole 173 Branson, Richard 121, 192–193 Brave New World 28 Broderick, Elizabeth 176 Brown, Brené 54 Buffett, Warren 8 bumper stickers — as tool for crafting messages 93

— as tool for storytelling 46–47 Burberry 169 Caesar, Julius 194 Cameron, Julia 140, 156, 190 Camper 69 Carnegie, Dale 8, 137 Carrick, Graham 17 Carter, Rubin ‘Hurricane’ 194 cause leadership 22–23, 178 — calls to action in 183 — examples of 183–185 — finding a cause for 179–181 — opportunities for 182 — pitfalls of 185–186 — tips for 186 Chaplin, Charlie 28 Church, Matt 20, 117, 128, 161 Cialdini, Robert 8, 64 Clark, General Wesley 39 Clark, Graeme 18 Clements, Rick 38–39 co-creation, power of 21–22, 164, 165–168, 171–172 — benefits of 172–173 — challenges of 173–174 — features of 169 — infinite mindset and 169–170 — philanthropy and 174–176 — tips for 177

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The Co-creation Roadmap: Six Steps to Tap the Wisdom of Crowd 173 Colahan, Colin 59 collaboration see co-creation Collins, Jim 105 Conscious Capitalism 185 context power 14–15, 56 — adapting to new contexts 67–68 — anatomy of 60–64 — co-curation and 68–69 — context is king model and 65–70 — experiments proving 57–58 — how to use 71 — social proof and 64–65 — vs content 58–59 Cook, Peter 20, 128, 190 Cook, Tim 84 courage, empathy and 78–79 Covey, Dr Stephen 74 credit, giving where due 105 Cuddy, Amy J. C. 77 Dalai Lama 73–74 Daring Greatly 54 The Dark Knight 62 Darwin, Chris 152 Darwin’s Unfinished Business 152 de Botton, Alain 30 DeHar, Jacob 165 Denning, Steve 13, 50 DineSmart 59 discourse, private vs. public 72, 79–82 discretionary effort, hard power and 31–32 Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us 30 Dubner, Stephen 29

Eat That Frog 127 emotional culture 102 empathy power 15–16, 72, 73–74 — bottom line and 82 — connecting with your audience and 76 — courage and 78–79 — improving your 83 — projection bias and 74–75 — public vs. private discourse and 79–82 — three components of 74 — trust and 76–77 — value exchange and 78 — vs. sympathy 15, 74 Enchantment: The Art of Changing Minds, Hearts, and Actions 133 engaging others 135–138 Espressogrow 176 Fahy, Michael 166 Fascinate: Your 7 triggers to persuasion and captivation 16, 121 fear 188–189 feedback, love and 105–107 Fernando, Shanaka 22, 42 Fields, Jonathan 20, 157 fierce power 20–21, 150, 151 — authenticity and 157–158 — congruence and 156–157 — humility and 158–159, 161 — model 153 — positivity and 160 — quitting at the top and 161–163 — tips for 163 — values and 150, 152–155 Fitzpatrick, Lisa 32 Flanagan, Kieran 91 196

Index

Ford, Henry 28, 75 Frankl, Viktor 6 Freakonomics 29–30 Fried, Jason 95 Gaiman, Neil 53–54 Gandhi, Mahatma 120, 158 Gare, Anna 77 getAbstract 143 Gibson, Belle 5 Gilding, Michael 76 Glen’s Espresso 184 Godin, Seth 20, 94 Good Life Project 157 Google 137–138 Gregory, Dan 91 Griffiths, Simon 174–175 Guidotti, Christina 127 hard power 11–12, 26, 27 — appropriate contexts for 34 — history of 28 — incentives and 29–30 — knowledge economy and 30–31 — leaders and 31–32 — limitations of 32–34 — limiting your use of 35 Heart-Centered Leadership: lead well, live well 107 Heinemeier, David 95 Hemingway, Ernest 93, 191 Henderson, Mark 175–176 Hogshead, Sally 16, 121 Höller, Carsten 69 Hooked: How leaders connect, engage and inspire using storytelling 49, 106 How to Have It All 127 How to Win Friends and Influence People 8, 137

Howell, Geoff 176 Huggies Pull-Ups 82 Hughes, Phillip 96 humour power 19, 110–115 — benefits of 113 — formula for 115–116 — humour matrix 117–122 — tips for 123 The Humour Code 115 Huxley, Aldous 28 Ice Bucket Challenge 126 incentives 29–30 influence — Six Principles of 8 — soft power and 41 — tools see tools, influence Influence: The psychology of persuasion 8 influencers, mega 20, 124, 128 — becoming 129–149 — fierce authenticity and 158 — matrix of 130 Jackson, Michael 47 James, Glen 154–155 Jubilee Project 16–17 Junior MasterChef Australia 77 Kahneman, Daniel 86, 90 Kaplan Thaler, Linda 143, 160 Kelly, Gail 162 Kilkenomics 114 Kimberly Clark 82 King Jr, Martin Luther 40 King, Erica 119 Kohut, Matthew 77 Kotenko, Jam 96 Koval, Robin 143, 160 Krznaric, Roman 83 197

Power Play

Lafley, A. G. 168 Lego 171–172 Leno, Jay 161 Lentil as Anything 22 Level 5 leadership 105 Levitt, Stephen 29–30–30 Lindsay, James 45–46 love frames 105–107 love ladder 107–108 love power 17–18, 98 — coworkers and 102 — feedback and 105–107 — in the business context 100 — love bombs and 103–105 — love ladder and 107–108 — passion and 100–101 — tips for 109 Machiavelli, Niccolò 4, 17, 26 Man’s Search for Meaning 6 Mandela, Nelson 23, 36 manipulation 4, 7 manipulators 7 Martin, Adrian 25 Mayer, Marissa 138 McGraw, Peter 115 McWilliams, David 114 mega influencers 20, 124, 128 — becoming 129–149 — fierce authenticity and 158 — matrix of 130 memes, messages as 95 — how to create 96–97 meritocracy bias 132 message power 16–17, 84 — clarity and 88–90 — craft stage of message mastery 90–94 — memes and 95, 96–97 — shift stage of message mastery 86–90

— test/do stage of message mastery 94–97 — tips for 97 messages — crafting 90–94 — getting yours heard 138–141 Messina 92 Milton, John 7 Mirren, Helen 120–121 Modern Times 28 Mother Teresa 39 motivation 187–194 Mumbai 39 Mycoskie, Blake 180–181 Nagy, Paul 87 Nakajima, Sadahiko 3 National Gallery of Victoria 59, 62 National Rugby League 62–63 Neffinger, John 77 Nelson, Shawn 192–193 Nickell, Jake 165 Nye, Joseph 37 O’Neill, Olivia 102 Obama, Barack 144 Obama, Michelle 120, 144 Ovarian Cancer Research Foundation 181 over-talkers 140–141 Paradise Lost 7 partnering with others 144–146 passion 100–101 Pet Rescue Australia 3–4 Pin, Renske 76 Pink, Dan 30, 161 pinkie campaign 86–87 Player, Gary 48 198

Index

Polson, John 76 Porter, Michael 174 positioning power 19–20, 124, 125 — becoming a mega influencer and 129–149 — connecting with influencers and 127 — mapping the influencers and 126 — mega influencers and 128–129 — tips for 149 power — co-creation 21–22, 164, 165–177 — context 14–15, 56, 57–70 — empathy 15–16, 72, 73–83 — fierce 20–21, 150, 151–163 — hard 11–12, 26, 27–35 — humour 19, 110, 111–123 — love 17–18, 98, 99–109 — message 16–17, 84, 85–97 — positioning 19–20, 124, 125–149 — prestige 12 — soft 12–13, 36, 37–43 — story 13, 44, 45–55 — strategies 14 powerlessness 6 The Power of Nice 143, 160, 161 Prahalad, C. K. 165 Pressfield, Steve 190 prestige power 12 The Prince 4 Procter & Gamble 168 projection bias 72, 74–75 promoting achievements 133–135 public speaking as way of building profile 146–147

Ramaswamy, V. 165 Reed, John 56 Rework 95 Robbins, Anthony 146–147 Rosling, Hans 116 Rowse, Darren 48 Russell, James 50–52 Salt, Bernard 129 Sankanarayanan, G, 173 Schultz, Howard 150 scientific management 28 Scorsese, Martin 11 Scott, Jerry 74 Screw It, Let’s Do It 193 Seinfeld, Jerry 116, 119, 131, 190 Selfish, Scared and Stupid 91 Sell Your Thoughts 20, 128 The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People 74 Shark Tank 101 Shebeen 175 Silverman, Lori L. 114 Sinclair, David 33 Sinek, Simon 38 Singapore Airlines 38 Sisodia, Raj 185 Six Principles of Influence 8 social media, storytelling and 49–52 social proof 63–64, 64–65 soft power 12–13, 36 — building skills for using 43 — influence and 41 — slowness of 41–42 — value of 37–39 Start with Why 38 Stein, Scott 20, 128 Steinbrecher, Susan 107 Stephenson, Mark 77

199

Power Play

story power 13, 44 — building skills for 52–54, 55 — business storytelling 45–46 — creating stories 46–48 — personal stories and 48–49 — social media and 49–52 storytelling 13, 45–46 — creating stories for 46–48 — gaining skills for 52–53 — social media and 49–52 — vulnerability and 53–54 — see also story power StreetSmart Australia 59 stress, consequences of 19 The Sun Also Rises 191 Swift, Taylor 22–23 Swinburne University of Technology 76 Taj Mahal 40 Tate, Carolyn 185 Taylor, Frederick 28 Taylorism 28 Tendulkar, Sachin 105 Thinking, Fast and Slow 86, 90 This Is It 47 Threadless 165 Time magazine 33, 151 TOMS 180 Tracey, Brian 127 Tropfest 76 trust, importance of in communication 76–77 Tustin, Kyla 19 Undercover Boss 131–132

value exchange, connection and 78 values, fierce power and 150, 152–155 Veatch, Thomas 115 vulnerability, storytelling and 53–54 Wallenberg, Raoul 184–185 Walters, Kath 59, 191 Warner, Joel 115 The War of Art 190 Washington Post 58 Weingarten, Gene 58 West, Kanye 151 What’s Mine Is Yours 31 Whittington, Ethan 155 Who Gives A Crap 175 Wilde, Oscar 95, 120 Williams, Robin 21 Williamson, Marianne 133 Wise Mind, Open Mind 179 Witchery 181 The Wolf of Wall Street 11 World Business Council for Sustainable Development 166 writing as way of building profile 147–148 Xero 125 Zander, Benjamin 100, 111, 159 Zappos 156 Ziglar, Zig 189 Zits 74–75

200

Learn more with practical advice from our experts

Hooked Gabrielle Dolan and Yamini Naidu

Future Brain Dr Jenny Brockis

Fixing Feedback Georgia Murch

Brave Margie Warrell

How to Lead a Quest Dr Jason Fox

Doing Good by Doing Good Peter Baines

Conscious Marketing Carolyn Tate

Humanise Anthony Howard

Selfish, Scared & Stupid Kieran Flanagan and Dan Gregory

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